My First Issue
Posted by Earl Roesel in A Walk Through the Forrest with Earl Roesel, Books, Latest News on November 21st, 2009
Having acquainted myself with just who this Forrest J Ackerman was via The Horror Hall of Fame and Horray for Horrorwood!, the next step was inevitably a brush with Famous Monsters itself. Though James Warren’s version of FM had faded away when I was three years old, nixing any chance I had to grow up with this mightiest of monster magazines, fate conspired with chance (in the words of Brother Theodore) to save me.
When I was about 13-years old my mother brought home a number of science fiction digests from a local drug store. These were not quite in my line but I still perused them with interest, particularly the ads. Before Ebay, Amazon and Ioffer, this was the only way to locate unusual items otherwise unavailable in one’s area. I remember pouring over the full-page spreads hawking Hildebrandt-style fantasy art and bejeweled daggers – somehow those stark, simple images transported me to another world much more vividly than the purple prose that surrounded them.
I sent away for a number of the catalogs offered by various companies in the classified section. One was for something called Bud Plant. I almost forgot about it until one day something the size of a telephone book came in the mail for me. Bud Plant was a comics/collectibles dealer and their catalog was truly a Bible on the subject. I lost myself in page after page of illustration and description in black and white newsprint. Superhero comics, underground comics, reprints of those EC comics I’d heard about on The Horror Hall of Fame, Disney, Dark Horse and Dr. Octopus. Everything was there. I was, and am, not a comic book fan per se but the thrill of discovering this material for the first time was nevertheless exhilarating.
One listing was especially enticing. It was for Famous Monsters of Filmland # 201; the cover, as best I could make out given the blotchy printing, depicted the then-just-deceased Vincent Price in Masque of the Red Death. So somebody decided to re-launch this thing, eh? The description noted the issue’s contents and the fact that Forry Ackerman was at the helm. I decided to order immediately; at last I’d have a look at what I’d heard the likes of John Landis, Joe Dante and Rick Baker tout so enthusiastically.
Famous Monsters # 201, which I still retain after 16 years. It has since been signed by Forry and Jim Warren.
I’m fairly certain there was such a thing as First Class, if not Priority, mail in 1993 but neither I nor my mother were apparently adept enough to choose that option. It was, as I recall, two agonizing months until I finally received the package containing FM # 201, a copy of Stephen Jones’ excellent The Illustrated Vampire Movie Guide (a book I‘d get much use out of for years to come), and an issue of Cult Movies that no 13-year old should’ve been reading.
It was an extremely fortuitous issue of FM to begin with. There was much coverage of Forry and his interests that further filled in the gaps in my knowledge of him. Also included was an extensive look at an FM convention held in Virginia to celebrate the re-launch of the mag. Many genre celebrities that I recognized took part and, from the photos, the dealer tables were stacked high with monster-related bric-a-brac. It would’ve been nirvana for me, if only I’d known such a thing was taking place – but then, it wouldn’t have made much difference anyway. I was in Kentucky to stay and my mother always made it plain that we were in no economic condition to go on trips.
I received the Bud Plant catalogs regularly thereafter. The next FM I got through them was 202, with a painting of Boris Karloff’s Frankenstein Monster on the cover. This was done by an artist named Osman Askin. Little did I know then that one day I’d be working in the name of the Forrest J Ackerman estate, cataloging examples of this artist’s work for one of the world’s major auction houses.
