Ackerman gave FM its voice. He was the ultimate collector and the Uber Fan who shared his passion for monster movies. His contribution was essential, indispensable, it cannot be underestimated, but now that we are all grown up and a tiny bit wiser, it’s time we gave Jim Warren his deserved, equal share of the credit for “The Worlds First Film Monster Magazine”.

Warren picked the covers we admired and hired the artists to paint them, he chose the article subjects and their length, he picked every picture we drooled over and he personally laid out every page of every issue of Famous Monsters of Filmland. Then, everything was shipped cross-country to FJA who filled in the words. It made the package complete.

And by the way, since we are waxing nostalgic for the cool ads in FM, lets not forget that it was Warren who created and ran the mail order business out of his office (first in Philadelphia, then in New York). He chose every mask, paperback, 8MM movie and rubber bat that was ever offered for sale, and he wrote the ad copy himself.

Warren was perfectly content letting Ackerman be the star of Famous Monsters, he admired how FJA connected with the readers, but the magazine was really the work of these two men. It was a collaborative effort. It was Forry Ackerman AND Jim Warren, together, who made us all Monster Kids.

I use a lot of the FM stuff on my other blog, http://www.MonsterMemories.blogspot.com. Visit me sometime!

Oh, and The Time Machine is my favorite sci-fi film by far. I’ll be blogging on the Morlocks soon myself.

Keep up the great work!

The proprietors of Dowe’s Card and Gift Shop (which had a magazine stand) used to urge me out of the “adults only” section – why? We had all these magazines at home – on the coffee table!) on Main Street in Danielson, CT, but monsters were fair game. Either that or the store keepers just didn’t know they had a monster section.

Thanks for stirring up these old memories.

Frank :o{-