CHILLING MONSTER TALES ONE-SHOT (PART 1)

CHILLING MONSTER TALES
Vol. 1 No. 1
1966 (No month given)
M.M. Publications Ltd.
Editor: ?
Cover: ?
Pages: 68
Cover price: 50 cents

We fans know that our beloved monster magazines can run from the sublime to the ridiculous. Well, a one-shot 'zine that went by the name of CHILLING MONSTER TALES can be firmly placed -- if not pinned -- to the latter, but only because of one thing.

I have had this scan festering in the Mysterious Mansion for quite a few years and for some reason, have had an inexplicable resistance to posting it. . . until now. Yesterday's entry on the Hubbard House novelty inflatable "Space Monsters" prompted me to pry it off the bottom of the deliquescent stack of  "so-so's" and share it. It's made the rounds on a number of sites, but for the sake of completeness, I'm including it hear at MMW.

I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say the CMT wouldn't be a half-bad 'zine if it weren't for the ridiculous addition of fumetti that's sprinkled around the issue. And it's not just typeset fumetti like we got in say, MONSTERS TO LAUGH WITH; the word balloons are drawn and lettered by hand! Whoever thought of doing this should have been locked out on the street. It's so unbelievable that at first I thought it was a result of a prank by the scanner. After all, I've never seen a physical copy, but after reading similar comments it looks like the unbelievable is true. The problem, is you can't unsee it so it taints the rest of the magazine, which after reading the articles, aren't any worse than any other second-shelf monster 'zine from the era.

The article on the "lost chapter" of Bram Stoker's "Dracula" written by eminent editor and anthologist Sam Moskowitz is nicely done, as are most of the other articles, that are primarily just plot summaries. The choice of content: DAY OF THE TRIFFIDS, THEM, THE ISLAND OF LOST SOULS, and so on, is not bad at all and the mini-filmbooks that accompany them seem a little tiresome now, but back then this was an editorial mainstay to use in the absence of any production background or other information.

Also included is an illustrated gallery of monster "pin-ups", most probably drawn by Dick Ayers or Chic Stone. The design and titles of this feature, along with a couple other page formats are right out of the cheapie one-shot magazine, 3-D MONSTERS, published by Fair Publishing Ltd. in 1964, which makes it most likely to have been produced by the same company.

But that fumetti! Ughhh!

 

[Continued tomorrow.]