Thumb-Thru Thursday: FM 32 (Mar 1965), peak clubhouse era. Its cover is no painting but a photo of reader Lance Herpeck's prize-winning King Kong model, pure Aurora-kit-craze monster kid culture. Watch the full thumb-through: https://t.co/fBtrxq2Bf7 #ThumbThruThursday
FM 130, Dec 1976: a Basil Gogos cover portrait of Peter Cushing, the most vivid colorist in monster magazines meeting horror's most dignified gentleman. Deep into the later Warren run. https://t.co/1Q1hu7sWxy #BasilGogos
A vintage still of Gort and Patricia Neal from The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951). Gort was Lock Martin, the 7'7" Grauman's Chinese doorman, so weighed down by the suit the crew had to prop him up between takes. Klaatu barada nikto. #1950sSciFi
The Wolf Man, 1941: Jack Pierce glued yak hair to Lon Chaney Jr. layer by layer (5-6 hours), and the lap-dissolve change used a plaster head-mold and glass-pane marks so he could hold still. Seconds on screen, nearly 10 hours in the chair. #WerewolfWednesday
Today, Taking a Bite Of....comes in for a big slice of Devil's Food Cake with Famous Monsters of Filmland No. 118 from August 1975.
The issue's "You Axed For It" section contains this peek into true terror. I remember 10-year-old me being freaked out by this insane still from "The Exorcist." What can I say? It still kinda freaks me out! I really appreciate the horror masters from back in the day scaring the crap out of us without the help of CGI.
I also love the contrast of the satirical, punny attitude of Famous Monsters of Filmland while still delivering real deal horror...in their pictures, interviews, and articles.
Want more? Then twist your head back to its natural orientation and get the hell over to Famous Monsters Forryever. Link in bio! Where we are always "dying to keep the memory of Famous Monsters of Filmland alive!"
Thanks for looking!
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#vintagehorrorcomic #horrorcollections #horrormagazines #horrormoviescene
#1990shorror #1980shorror #1970shorror #1960shorror #1950shorror #1940shorror
#1930shorror #1920shorror #classichorrorfilms #classichorrormovie #classichorrormonsters
#comiccollector #horrorcollector #famousmonsters #horrorgeek #tabo #fmftabo
Grin and bear it with this chilling still of Conrad Veidt as the disfigured Gwynplaine in Universal's 1928 silent masterpiece "The Man Who Laughs," directed by Paul Leni and adapted from Victor Hugo's novel—a tale of tragic romance and political intrigue set in 17th-century England.
Veidt's grotesque, perpetual smile, masterfully crafted by makeup legend Jack Pierce (who later designed Frankenstein's Monster), was achieved with uncomfortable prosthetics and a dental device that forced his lips into that haunting rictus, allowing Veidt to convey profound emotion through his eyes alone despite fleeing Nazi Germany just years later for his anti-fascist stance.
This German Expressionist-influenced film, originally intended as a prestige picture but embraced by horror fans for its macabre visuals, directly inspired Bob Kane's creation of the Joker in Batman comics—Kane saw it as a kid and never forgot that grin.
Featured in Famous Monsters of Filmland 220 (1998 revival issue) with an article celebrating Veidt's spellbinding performance amid coverage of other horror icons like The Wolf Man, it highlights how silent era terrors fueled the monster magazine's legacy.
Dying to Keep the Memory of Famous Monsters of Filmland Alive!
Which silent horror still gives you that timeless chill?
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#FamousMonsters #TheManWhoLaughs #ConradVeidt #SilentHorror #JokerInspiration
🌒 Dive into the shadows of vintage horror with this spine-tingling reel of classic vampires ready to sink their fangs in! 🧛♂️🩸
Featuring iconic bite scenes from:
- Klaus Kinski's eerie Count Orlok in Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979)
- Christopher Lee's chilling Dracula in Horror of Dracula (1958)
- The gothic terror from Castle of Blood (1964)
- Bela Lugosi's legendary Dracula (1931)
- The vengeful vampires in El Mundo de los Vampiros (1961, Mexico)
Dying to Keep the Memory of Famous Monsters of Filmland Alive!
Which fang-tastic moment gives you the chills? Follow @famous_monsters_forryever for more monstrous memories! 👻
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#ClassicHorror #VintageHorror #FamousMonsters #HorrorCollector #UniversalMonsters
Unleash the spirits with this animated rendition of the Famous Monsters of Filmland 8 cover (September 1960), brought to life by Grok Imagine! Painted by Albert Nuetzell—his final contribution before Basil Gogos took over starting with issue 9—this eerie artwork depicts the Flaming Skeleton, one of the spectral apparitions from William Castle's gimmick-filled horror flick '13 Ghosts' (1960), set against a fiery red-to-orange backdrop that evokes its blazing essence.
Inside, explore a complete Lon Chaney Sr. filmography honoring the "Man of a Thousand Faces," a playful profile on makeup artist Chris Robinson ("The Robinson Gru-so Story"), Forry's punny editorial "The Fourth of Ghoul Eye," and an exclusive photo preview of '13 Ghosts,' teasing the Illusion-O viewer that let audiences "see" or "hide" the ghosts—a rare early tie-in that thrilled young monster fans amid the horror revival wave.
Dying to Keep the Memory of Famous Monsters of Filmland Alive!
Which William Castle gimmick is your favorite? Share below and check out our past posts for more monstrous magic!
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#FamousMonstersOfFilmland #FM8 #AlbertNuetzell #13Ghosts #FlamingSkeleton #WilliamCastle #LonChaney #PhantomOfTheOpera #SilentHorror #ClassicHorror #VintageHorror #HorrorMagazine #MonsterArt #HorrorIcons #RetroMonsters #WarrenPublishing #HorrorCollectors #MonsterFans #ForryAckerman
Welcome to Movie Poster Monday from Famous Monsters Forryever! A look at one of the absolute holy grails of horror movie poster collecting, the original 1931 Frankenstein one sheet promising audiences a glimpse of "The Man Who Made A Monster."
The artwork was created by Karoly Grosz, the Hungarian born advertising art director at Universal Studios during the studio's golden age of horror. Grosz designed nearly every iconic Universal Monsters poster you can name, including Dracula, The Mummy, The Invisible Man, and Bride of Frankenstein. His work has set multiple world records at auction over the decades, and original Frankenstein posters in particular are unicorns. Only a tiny handful are known to exist today.
In 1993 a one sheet sold for a then record breaking $198,000, and in 2015 a rare three sheet version, discovered in an abandoned Long Island theater back in the 1970s, went under the hammer at Heritage Auctions for the staggering price of $358,500. For perspective, the film itself only cost Universal roughly $291,000 to make in 1931.
A small fun detail. Karloff is featured prominently in the cameo portrait at the bottom, but on the original release prints his name was famously left off the opening credits and replaced with a simple question mark, just to deepen the mystery of who or what was playing the Monster.
Dying to Keep the Memory of Famous Monsters of Filmland Alive!
What classic horror poster would you hang on your wall first if money was no object?
Be sure to check out my entire graded Famous Monsters of Filmland collection and Cover Library via the link in my bio.
Thanks for Looking!
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#frankenstein1931 #boriskarloff #vintagemovieposters #universalmonsters #monsterkid
A haunting purple-tinted close-up frame of Lon Chaney Sr. as the tormented Quasimodo in Universal's groundbreaking 1923 silent masterpiece THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME!
Chaney's entirely self-created makeup – using cotton and collodion for the cheeks, a custom bulging eye effect, jagged false teeth, and a massive hump covered in animal hair – transformed him into one of cinema's most tragic figures.
Rare tidbit: To prepare, Chaney studied Victor Hugo's original illustrations and interviewed people with physical deformities, ensuring his portrayal evoked deep sympathy amid the horror.
Dying to Keep the Memory of Famous Monsters of Filmland Alive!
Which Lon Chaney transformation remains unmatched in your eyes?
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#FamousMonstersOfFilmland #LonChaney #HunchbackOfNotreDame #Quasimodo #ClassicHorror
Dive into the ghoulish charm of Zacherley, the Cool Ghoul, with this reel of rare Famous Monsters of Filmland covers!
Issue 7 (June 1960) variants by Albert Nuetzell: The standard teases "First Pictures - Tomorrow's Monsters" from Hollywood's mad labs; the Roland promo asks "Remember Roland? He's Back Again on Page 34," nodding to Zacherley's TV alter ego; and the Zacherley variant plugs his WOR-TV Channel 9 slots for Friday 9 PM, Sunday 10:30 AM, and Saturday noon. Did you know these three variants were tailored to promote Zacherley's horror hosting gigs, making them hot collector items?
Issue 15 (January 1962): Basil Gogos' eerie portrait of Zacherley, with spotlights on mad robots and Invasion of the Body Snatchers photos—one of Gogos' standout early works capturing the host's maniacal grin.
These gems spotlight Zacherley's monster TV legacy!
Dying to Keep the Memory of Famous Monsters of Filmland Alive!
Which Zacherley cover variant is your favorite?
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#FamousMonstersOfFilmland #Zacherley #CoolGhoul #BasilGogos #HorrorHost
Hear the howl of horror in this spine-chilling production still from 1964's "The Mutant" on The Outer Limits—Warren Oates as botanist Reese Fowler, mid-yell after Annex-1's mutating rain strips his hair and balloons his eyes into unblinking orbs of telepathic terror. Exposed during a dust storm, Reese gains mind-reading prowess and a deadly touch that disintegrates foes in a phaser-like flash (predating Star Trek's beams by months), but perpetual sunlight demands tinted goggles—until his cave exile, where shadows become his kryptonite. Oates, in one of his earliest TV leads at 35, delivers raw menace through that cumbersome foam-latex mask by makeup wizard Harry Thomas, whose protruding ping-pong-ball eyes restricted vision so severely that Oates navigated sets by sound alone, bumping props for "authentic" rage.
Rare nugget: Producer Joseph Stefano deemed it the series' weakest hour ("Just terrible"), yet Guillermo del Toro credits those bulging stares with fueling his childhood nightmares—echoing in his creature designs. And that skittering cave beast? A cheeky reuse of the Zanti Misfit ant from earlier in the season, proving even BEMs (Bug-Eyed Monsters) multitasked on a shoestring budget.
Dying to Keep the Memory of Famous Monsters of Filmland Alive!
Does Reese's unhinged scream echo in your sci-fi dreams, or is it the silent mind-probe that truly unnerves?
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#TheOuterLimits #ScifiHorror #WarrenOates #BugEyedMonster #VintageScifi
The iconic cover of Famous Monsters of Filmland issue 93 (October 1972) – the Special Fearbook Issue – in vivid psychedelic color!
Luis Dominguez's original painted cover is a chilling homage to the poster for Amicus' 1972 anthology TALES FROM THE CRYPT, featuring a hypnotic skull entangled in cobwebs that draws the viewer into endless dread.
This 80-page annual compiles classic reprints and features on werewolves, robots, King Kong, man-eating plants, Pit and the Pendulum, and more – a true treasure trove for monster kids.
Rare tidbit: Dominguez's original cover painting fetched $26,400 at Heritage Auctions in 2024, cementing its status among the most coveted FM artworks.
Dying to Keep the Memory of Famous Monsters of Filmland Alive!
Which 1970s FM cover art haunts you the most?
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#FamousMonstersOfFilmland #LuisDominguez #TalesFromTheCrypt #ClassicHorror #Fearbook
The very first Famous Monsters of Filmland Yearbook, summer 1962, and a true landmark in the Warren run.
Warren and Forry built this 100 page special by reprinting standout articles, photo features, and one-shots pulled from the earliest sold-out issues, the holy grail run that monster kids of 1962 were already chasing on the secondary market. The cover is a four-up collage reproducing the original cover art of issues 1, 3, 5, and 6, so you get Karloff's Frankenstein, King Kong, the Creature from the Black Lagoon, and the Mummy all sharing the newsstand at once. For kids who had missed those early issues the first time around, this was a lifeline.
Presenting my CGC 9.0 Off-White Pages copy with serious provenance, originally from the collection of Bob Price, the Warren staff writer best known for his work on Screen Thrills Illustrated, and later part of the holdings of noted Warren mega-collector Mark Sielski. That is a chain of custody you do not often see on a sixty-plus year old magazine.
Inside you will find the Welcome Monster Lovers editorial, Kongfidentially Yours, the Revenge of the Creature trilogy, the Scream Test, Mummy's the Word, plus the Monsterama Quiz and a classic You Axed For It column.
Dying to Keep the Memory of Famous Monsters of Filmland Alive!
Fellow Monster Kids, which of the four cover monsters on this Yearbook calls to you the loudest?
Be sure to check out my entire graded Famous Monsters of Filmland collection and Cover Library via the link in my bio.
Thanks for Looking!
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#FamousMonstersOfFilmland
#FamousMonstersYearbook
#ForrestJAckerman
#UniversalMonsters
#MonsterKid
A tense showdown with the iconic Venusian monster in Roger Corman's 1956 AIP cult classic IT CONQUERED THE WORLD!
This unforgettable creature was designed and fabricated by the brilliant Paul Blaisdell on a shoestring budget. Its conical shape, glowing eyes, and menacing pincers made it one of the most memorable (and memorably mocked) aliens of the 1950s drive-in era.
Rare tidbit: Beverly Garland, upon seeing the completed suit for the first time, famously laughed and gave it a kick, declaring, “That thing is going to conquer the world?” Corman had to remind her to treat it as a genuine threat on camera!
Dying to Keep the Memory of Famous Monsters of Filmland Alive!
What’s your favorite Paul Blaisdell monster design?
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#FamousMonstersOfFilmland #ItConqueredTheWorld #RogerCorman #PaulBlaisdell #ClassicSciFi
Presented here is Famous Monsters of Filmland 23 from June 1963. The cover is another #basilgogos masterpiece...this time of the Giant (Roger Pace) from 'WAR OF THE COLOSSAL BEAST!' What an amazing piece of artwork!!
This issue includes a bunch of preview in 'NOW FEAR THIS', "Frankenstein 1910", Forry interviews #boriskarloff in 'THE KING and I', an essay on Dracula and vampires in film titled 'DRACULA', and much much more!
I purchased this book graded at 9.2 NEAR MINT- by CGC Comics. The average grade for this issue is 7.38 across 42 examples. There are only 4 books graded higher than this one!
Want more? Then catch a ride on the Colossal Beast and then it's only a couple steps to Famous Monsters Forryever (link in bio). Where we are always "dying to keep the memory of Famous Monsters of Filmland alive!" You are invited to browse my entire graded collection, choose from a nice selection of graded books to purchase, or just chat in the forum!
Thanks for looking!
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#cgccomics
#cgc
#vintagehorrorcomic #horrorcollections #horrormagazines #horrormoviescene
#1990shorror #1980shorror #1970shorror #1960shorror #1950shorror #1940shorror
#1930shorror #1920shorror #classichorrorfilms #classichorrormovie #classichorrormonsters
#comiccollector #horrorcollector #famousmonsters #horrorgeek
Happy Frankenstein Friday from Famous Monsters Forryever, with a CGC 9.6 graded copy of Famous Monsters of Filmland 42, January 1967. Ron Cobb in full action-painting mode, the Monster and the Wolf Man locked in mid-combat with the kind of kinetic violence Cobb did better than almost anyone painting for Warren.
This is the same Ron Cobb who would go on to design the Nostromo for Alien, the cantina aliens for Star Wars, the time-circuit guts of the DeLorean for Back to the Future, and a chunk of the visual DNA of late twentieth century science fiction cinema. He cut his teeth as a Los Angeles Free Press editorial cartoonist and a Warren cover painter, and you can see the future production designer already at work here in the way he stages the brawl. Real anatomy, real impact, no static monster portraits.
Inside, the issue more than earns the cover. A rare interview with Christopher Lee titled The Monster Speaks, catching Hammer's reigning Dracula at the height of his powers. A photo spread on the 1943 Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man itself. King Kong Returns, featuring Marcel Delgado, the legendary armature builder who hand-crafted the original 1933 Kong puppets alongside Willis O'Brien, posing with a giant Don Post Kong model. And The Men Behind The Monster by Verne Langdon spotlighting John Chambers and his Sixth Finger makeup for The Outer Limits, years before Chambers's Oscar-winning Planet of the Apes work and his unbilled CIA contribution to the Argo operation.
Delgado, Chambers, Cobb, and Christopher Lee in one issue. That is monster kid gold of the highest grade, even before you turn to the cover.
Dying to Keep the Memory of Famous Monsters of Filmland Alive!
Which Universal monster mash gets your vote, Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man or House of Dracula?
Be sure to check out my entire graded Famous Monsters of Filmland collection and Cover Library via the link in my bio.
Thanks for Looking!
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#FamousMonstersOfFilmland
#FrankensteinMeetsTheWolfMan
#RonCobb
#ChristopherLee
#UniversalMonsters
A sinister rare publicity portrait from Universal's Son of Frankenstein (1939, directed by Rowland V. Lee): Bela Lugosi as the deceptively cunning Ygor—the broken-necked blacksmith and grave robber whose feral grin and wild-eyed menace made him an instant horror icon.
This striking close-up (often reproduced with vibrant tinted backgrounds in vintage magazines and modern prints) perfectly embodies Lugosi's triumphant return to major horror roles after years of struggles.
Rare detail: Ygor was originally scripted as a minor character, with Lugosi contracted for just one week at $500—but director Lee, impressed by his chilling audition and on-set improvisation (including that unforgettable cackle), expanded the role dramatically, creating what many consider Lugosi's greatest performance and a scene-stealing triumph over Karloff's Monster.
Dying to Keep the Memory of Famous Monsters of Filmland Alive!
Which Bela Lugosi horror role reigns supreme for you—Dracula, Ygor, or something else?
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#BelaLugosi #SonOfFrankenstein #UniversalHorror #ClassicHorror #UniversalMonsters
Behold the haunting cover of Famous Monsters of Filmland 144 (June 1978): a sepia-toned photograph straight from Universal's immortal 1932 classic **The Mummy**, starring Boris Karloff as the resurrected high priest Imhotep.
This evocative still – depicting ancient Egyptian acolytes solemnly bearing a sarcophagus – perfectly captures the eerie atmosphere of forbidden resurrection and eternal curses. Inside, the issue delves into the "Mysterious Mr. Mummy" with classic Universal lore, alongside a detailed Close Encounters of the Third Kind special effects feature, previews of Damien: Omen II and The Boys from Brazil, continued Star Wars coverage, and a profile on a remarkably versatile fan.
In an era dominated by new sci-fi wonders, FM remained steadfast in celebrating the timeless shadows of golden-age horror.
Dying to Keep the Memory of Famous Monsters of Filmland Alive!
Which version of the Mummy chills you most – Karloff's articulate, tragic Imhotep from 1932, or the relentless, bandaged Kharis of the 1940s sequels?
Thanks for Looking!
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#FamousMonsters #TheMummy #BorisKarloff #UniversalMonsters #ClassicHorror