CHOICE CUTS: FAMOUS MONSTERS NO. 2 (PART 1)

Hey, everybody, let's hop in the wayback machine and take a ride to a time almost 70 years ago when the second issue of FAMOUS MONSTERS OF FILMLAND was published in 1958!

That's James Warren himself wearing the werewolf mask on the cover. Legend has it that it was made with paper-mâché by an artist by the name of Violet Clark for a stage play and Warren bought it from a local costume shop. And in case you're wondering, the Frankenstein monster mask he wore on the cover of issue #1 was a Don Post mask.

In the first "Dear Monster" letters column, Forry says he received over 700 letters of Kongratulations on the first issue. One of them didn't quite agree: future author and ERB enthusiast Richard Lupoff dissed it, calling it "Ackerman's Folly" (boy, did he get that wrong!). Other notable letters were from Robert Bloch, Bob Scherl (who opened a collector's store on Hollywood Blvd. with Ron Borst where I visited and bought many film stills back in the day) and Nick Megliola, John Putnam and Jerry De Fuccio, staffers from MAD.

Other firsts in the letters pages were the first photo of Forry in the magazine and the beginning of Warren's girlfriend, Phyllis Farkas' ongoing story of how she influenced the making of FM. Her name would appear on the magazine's masthead in issue #3.

Yet another first is the first appearance of Monster Mail Order, the forerunner of Captain Company. And guess what? It runs for only two pages! The Famous Monsters Club begins soliciting for members in this issue, too.

Lots more monster goodness in this, the second issue of The Monster Magazine That Refused To Die!

MR. AND MRS. J. EVIL SCIENTIST FIRST APPEARANCE!

The comic trio of Mr. and Mrs. J. Evil Scientist and son Junior were obviously inspired by Charles Addams' cartoons of The Addams Family that appeared regularly in THE NEW YORKER. Their first appearance in a comic book was in this issue of Gold Key's HANNA-BARBERA BANDWAGON #2 (January 1963). Art is by Kay Wright, who began her comic book career in the early 1940s drawing mostly funny animal stories for ACG, Dell, DC and Pines.

BONUS!

Just for fun, the front, back and inside covers of HANNA-BARBERA BANDWAGON #2:

Art by Harry Eisenberg.