LIBROS CON MONSTRUOS!

Mr. David Horne, author of the seven-pound book of Warren Publishing history, GATHERING HORROR, has offered MONSTER MAGAZINE WORLD information where he concludes his investigation with a solution of solving a hitherto ongoing question as to whether or not there was a Mexican version of FAMOUS MONSTERS OF FILMLAND. Students of Monsterology may know (especially if they've read Horne's book) that there were international versions of Warren's FM, such as the Spanish FAMOSOS MONSTERS DEL CINE. There was knowledge of a Mexican monster 'zine (MONSTRUOS DEL CINE) with a presumably swiped cover image from FM #119 (September, 1975). The Ken Kelly-painted monster montage was also used as the cover for the 2nd Annual Famous Monsters Convention official program. The Mexican magazine had a subtitle that proclaimed "Photos and Interviews" within its pages.

Could MONSTRUOS DEL CINE have indeed been the south of the border version of FM?

Mr. Horne goes on to explain:

"I hadn't actually seen the magazine, just the image, but as you can see from the text [page 447 of GATHERING HORROR], it sparked my imagination, making me wonder whether there had been perhaps a Mexican version of Famous Monsters (to go along with the British and Spanish ones, the only foreign versions of FM that I'm aware of). I showed the cover image to Jim Warren, but he wasn't familiar with it, so if there WAS a Mexican version, it would have been unauthorized.

Well, I recently was lucky enough to find a couple of these rare things, and once I was able to see them in person, it became immediately evident that this series was in fact a reprint of Curtis's Monsters of the Movies magazine from the mid-1970s, not Famous Monsters (Curtis was an imprint/distributor of Marvel). The publisher was Macc Ediciones, and they produced a series called "Ciencia Ficcion" that included these plus other Marvel/Curtis reprints such as Planet of the Apes and Unknown Worlds of Science Fiction. I think the numbering on the issues was for the entire Ciencia Ficcion series, which is why you see the numbers 10 and 14 on these issues, although there were only eight or nine of the Monstruos Del Cine issues (to match the nine produced by Curtis). Most of these reused the Curtis cover art, but for some unknown reason they substituted Warren art on these two issues (note that one of them even has some Warren comic art on it, along with the Gogos image that first appeared on FM 16). But there's no Warren material in the interiors.

So, if anyone out there is dreaming about some lost Mexican version of Famous Monsters, like I was, they can give it up. If they're just interested in any monster magazines from any country, though, this is one to look out for to add to the collection."

As you can see, this conclusion appears to exhaust the research into this obscure corner of FM's history, and the history of monster magazines in general. Many thanks to David Horne, who continues to periodically supply MONSTER MAGAZINE WORLD with these gems.