Since the scans of horror comics/magazines "Creepy", "Eerie" and "Tales From The Crypt" proved to be much more popular than I ever anticipated that they would be, and many of you have been requested for me to share more, I thought I would share another popular horror magazine that made its debut in the 1950s. Several years before the first issues of "Creepy" and "Eerie" hit the stand, Warren Publishing found a hit on its hands in the form of "Famous Monsters of Filmland", which made it's debut in 1958. It was the first magazine to cater to the fans of horror films. The following scans come courtesy of the scanning duo of "Teachbug & Sprout." As with the previous scans of horror comics and magazines from the 1950s, some of these are reprints, while others original issues. I didn't go through and label each file to distinguish between the originals and the reprints, but it is easy to differentiate between the two based on the condition of the pages. I plan to post the first 30 issues of FM before the Nightmare Before Christmas event ends. I will make 3 posts, with each one containing 10 issues. Below you will find an excerpt from Wikipedia's very informative article on Famous Monsters of Filmland:
"Famous Monsters of Filmland is a genre-specific film magazine started in 1958 by publisher James Warren and editor Forrest J Ackerman. Famous Monsters of Filmland (which quickly became known to fans as simply FM was originally conceived as a one-shot publication by James Warren and editor Forrest J Ackerman (1916-2008), with no discernible future, published in the wake of the widespread success of the package of old horror movies syndicated to American television in 1957. But the first issue, published in February 1958, was so successful that it required a second printing to fulfill public demand. Its future as part of American culture was immediately obvious to both men. The success prompted spinoff magazines such as Spacemen, Famous Westerns of Filmland, Screen Thrills Illustrated, Creepy, Eerie, and Vampirella.
FM offered brief articles, well-illustrated with publicity stills and graphic artwork, on horror movies from the silent era to the current date of publication, their stars and filmmakers. Warren and Ackerman decided to aim the text at late pre-adolescents and young teenagers.
In the pages of FM, Forrest J Ackerman promoted the memory of Lon Chaney, Sr., whose silent works were mostly beyond the accessibility of fans for most of the magazine's life, but were a great influence on his own childhood. He also introduced film fans to science fiction fandom through direct references, first-person experiences, and adoption of fandom terms and customs. The magazine regularly published photos from King Kong (1933), including one from the film's infamous "spider pit sequence", featured in Issue #108 (1974) which, until Ackerman discovered a photo of a spider in the cavern setting, had never been proven definitively to have actually been filmed.
FM's peak years were from its first issues through the late 1960s, when the disappearance of the older films from television and the decline of talent in the imaginative film industry left it with a dearth of subject matter acceptable to both editor and fan. Warren and Ackerman created a jump in issue numbering from issue 69, which was printed in September of 1970, to issue 80 in October of 1970. They did this (according to the editorial in issue 80) because it brought them closer to issue 100, justifying the numerical jump because of the publishing of ten issues of the short-lived companion magazine 'Monster World' as issues that 'would have been' Famous Monsters issues. During the '70s, the magazine came to rely heavily on reprints of articles from the '60s. In the early 1980s, the magazine folded after Warren became ill and unable to carry on as publisher, and Ackerman resigned as editor in the face of the increasing disorganization within the captainless Warren Publishing Company. The magazine stopped publication in 1983 after a run of 191 issues.
The magazine directly inspired the creation of many other similar publications in the ensuing years, including Castle of Frankenstein, Cinefantastique, Fangoria, The Monster Times, and Video Watchdog. In addition, hundreds, if not thousands, of FM-influenced horror, fantasy and science fiction movie-related fanzines have been produced, some of which have continued to publish for decades, such as Midnight Marquee and Little Shoppe of Horrors. - Wikipedia"
Download: Famous Monsters of Filmland - Issues 1-5 (1958-1959)
Download Size: 176MB
Download: Famous Monsters of Filmland - Issues 6-10 (1960-1961)
Download Size: 192.6MB
"Famous Monsters of Filmland is a genre-specific film magazine started in 1958 by publisher James Warren and editor Forrest J Ackerman. Famous Monsters of Filmland (which quickly became known to fans as simply FM was originally conceived as a one-shot publication by James Warren and editor Forrest J Ackerman (1916-2008), with no discernible future, published in the wake of the widespread success of the package of old horror movies syndicated to American television in 1957. But the first issue, published in February 1958, was so successful that it required a second printing to fulfill public demand. Its future as part of American culture was immediately obvious to both men. The success prompted spinoff magazines such as Spacemen, Famous Westerns of Filmland, Screen Thrills Illustrated, Creepy, Eerie, and Vampirella.
FM offered brief articles, well-illustrated with publicity stills and graphic artwork, on horror movies from the silent era to the current date of publication, their stars and filmmakers. Warren and Ackerman decided to aim the text at late pre-adolescents and young teenagers.
In the pages of FM, Forrest J Ackerman promoted the memory of Lon Chaney, Sr., whose silent works were mostly beyond the accessibility of fans for most of the magazine's life, but were a great influence on his own childhood. He also introduced film fans to science fiction fandom through direct references, first-person experiences, and adoption of fandom terms and customs. The magazine regularly published photos from King Kong (1933), including one from the film's infamous "spider pit sequence", featured in Issue #108 (1974) which, until Ackerman discovered a photo of a spider in the cavern setting, had never been proven definitively to have actually been filmed.
FM's peak years were from its first issues through the late 1960s, when the disappearance of the older films from television and the decline of talent in the imaginative film industry left it with a dearth of subject matter acceptable to both editor and fan. Warren and Ackerman created a jump in issue numbering from issue 69, which was printed in September of 1970, to issue 80 in October of 1970. They did this (according to the editorial in issue 80) because it brought them closer to issue 100, justifying the numerical jump because of the publishing of ten issues of the short-lived companion magazine 'Monster World' as issues that 'would have been' Famous Monsters issues. During the '70s, the magazine came to rely heavily on reprints of articles from the '60s. In the early 1980s, the magazine folded after Warren became ill and unable to carry on as publisher, and Ackerman resigned as editor in the face of the increasing disorganization within the captainless Warren Publishing Company. The magazine stopped publication in 1983 after a run of 191 issues.
The magazine directly inspired the creation of many other similar publications in the ensuing years, including Castle of Frankenstein, Cinefantastique, Fangoria, The Monster Times, and Video Watchdog. In addition, hundreds, if not thousands, of FM-influenced horror, fantasy and science fiction movie-related fanzines have been produced, some of which have continued to publish for decades, such as Midnight Marquee and Little Shoppe of Horrors. - Wikipedia"
Publisher: Warren Publishing
Schedule: Monthly
Publication Date: 1958-1983
Number of Issues: 191
E-book Format: .cbr & .cbz
Schedule: Monthly
Publication Date: 1958-1983
Number of Issues: 191
E-book Format: .cbr & .cbz
Download: Famous Monsters of Filmland - Issues 1-5 (1958-1959)
Download Size: 176MB
Download: Famous Monsters of Filmland - Issues 6-10 (1960-1961)
Download Size: 192.6MB
Great!
ReplyDelete#5 is not there though. #6 is repeated.
Thank you!
@Anon: Ahh... finally a comment. I was beginning to wonder why the issues of Creepy and Eerie had been so well received, yet no one had commented on these. Although I suppose the issues of Creepy and Eerie have probably held up better over the years and would be more appealing to a broader range of people these days. Thank you for informing me of the problem with issue #5. I will reupload this tomorrow, and I will include a separate download link for issue #5 so that those who already downloaded the current file won't have to download all of the other issues again just to get issue #5.
ReplyDelete@Anonymous: I took a lok at my files. It turns out that I had issue 5 labeled as issue 6, and issue 6 labeled as issue 5. Could someone who downloaded these takea look at your files and verify that this is the case for me, and then report back here? Nevertheless, I decided to go ahead and upload issue #5 for you just in case. You can find it here:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.mediafire.com/?7a7gmfxdlp4x9s6
I am in the process of reuploading both files, with the issues properly labeled this time. I should have those posted tomorrow morning.
thank you for posting these! very much appreciated.
ReplyDeleteI almost forgot to mention that I replaced the original download links. Now issues #5 and #6 are labeled correctly. I'll be posting issues 11-20 either today or tomorrow for those interested.
ReplyDeleteThis is bringing my childhood back in a kind of Proustian rush. Thanks for these!
ReplyDeleteissue #13 did not work properly
ReplyDelete@Anon: I'm a little confused as to why you didn't mention the problem in the comments section of the other post, but I suppose I'll address the issue in both posts just in case others have trouble with issue #13. Did you try re-downloading the file and extracting it once again? Often times that works. Sometimes .rar files become corrupt simply from the download process. I uploaded issue #13 as a standalone file for you regardless, but if you could let me know if my suggestion works I would greatly appreciate it. If you're not able to re-download it and extract issue #13 as a working file, I will go ahead and replace the entire .rar archive with one that doesn't have any issues. Here is the download link to issue #13:
ReplyDeleteFamousMonsters of Filmland - Issue #13 (1961 - Warren)
Thank you so much for uploading these awesome issues. I noticed that issue 12 has an error. When downloaded it errors out and then shows you a couple of pages from issue 13. Any help with getting issue tweleve would be greatly appreiated. Thanks.
ReplyDeletei just saw this section first. i re-upped that issue afterward, but it looks like one of the issues (#13, as i recall) is duplicated and labeled as 12?
ReplyDelete