Category: The Monster Times issue 3

COMES THE GREY DAWN!

Someday bugs really may evolve past us, and devour us, and dance merrily on our half-eaten carcasses and surely they will keep evolving. Perhaps they will take on more humanoid characteristics, as well as keep their insect-like attributes. Author Marvin Wolfman and illustrator Rich Buckler speculated on this theory and came up with this special comic strip, which shows what life will be among insect people.

Marv and Rich experimented in this strip, trying a new direction in storytelling, showing the dying thoughts of one insect-man who mourns for his insect-humanoid wife, for she has just been slain by marauding pillagers of another phylum. The last hope and thought of the dying insect-creature is that the insect-child he and his wife created, which is about to hatch from its cocoon, will be safe in a world of hostile warring petty tribal groups of humanoid insects.

I think THE MONSTER TIMES is just what I’ve been looking for! Enclosed is $ …..

Make check or money order payable to:

THE MONSTER TIMES,
P.O. Box 595, Old Chelsea Station,
New York City, N.Y. 10011

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PS: I pledge by the light fo the next full moon to bother my local newsdealer until he (a) shakes in his boots at the sight of me, and (b) regularly and prominently displays THE MONSTER TIMES.

Please allow a few weeks for your subscription to be processed.

In our next precedent-breaking issue, we break one of our own precedents, and present no special theme … just lots of special stuff. It’s called our Grab-Bag Issue for that reason.

First, we’ve got our special in-depth story/fact treatment of THE BRIDE FRANKENSTEIN, complete with info and in-fotos which few people ever saw before or even heard of. In fact, we’re even innovating a NEW form of picture captioning with this article… the captions will be actual dialogue from the original script which was spoken as the photos were taken. This way, THE MONSTER TIMES can make the film all that much more immediate. Drop us a card and let us know how that goes over with you.

Joe Kame of Mushroom Monsters is unleashing upon us ANOTHER SERIES — and film survey, at that!-called EDGAR ALLEN POE MEETS ROGER CORMAN! It’s to go into detail about ALL the Edgar Allen Poe story-based films … and the blood-curdling things which film producer Roger Corman did to Poe’s writings when Poe wasn’t around to defend himself. Naturally, we have photographic evidence of all this.

And to go nicely with Joe’s article, we’ve got a special cinematic comic strip by leading sf & fantasy paperback painter-illustrator, Jef Jones. Jeff wrote and illustrated this comic about a man who, in more than one way, is crazy over the writings of E.A. Poe.

But then, THE MONSTER TIMES is a newspaper. A newspaper should have news, and so we have a bit of reporter-sleuthing done by Jim Wnoroski (pronounced Wo-nor-ski), who’s dug up some interesting facts about the greatest DRACULA film of all time (made in Europe and Starring Chris Lee!) – and why it’s not come into this country – read DRACULA GOES TO COURT

We’ll also have another spiffy MONSTER TIMES PHOTO-COMIX page, for you who like photo-comix!

And we’ve got product tests and book and record reviews. And more. Believe US, if you trust no one else! – this is an issue you don’t want to miss … and it’s certainly worth subscribing to, to make sure you’ll get it!

**** EXTRA MONSTER BONUS! – Also with every subscription of one year or longer, you get a FREE 25-word classified ad to be run in our Fan-Fair classified page. You can advertise comics or stills or pulps, etc. for trade, or for anything else – provided it’s in good taste!

THE MONSTER TIMES FAN FAIR is another reader service of MT. Care to buy, sell or trade movie stills, old comics or tapes of old radio programs? Or maybe buy or advertise a fan-produced magazine? An ad costs only 10 cents per word (minimum, 25 words).

Make all checks and money orders payable to THE MONSTER TIMES, and mail your clearly printed or typewritten ad (or fill out coupon on back cover) to: THE MONSTER TIMES, Box 595, Old Chelsea Station, New York, N.Y. 10011. We reserve the right to refuse ads which would not be deemed appropriate to our publication.

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WRITERS, ARTISTS, CARTOONISTS!

THE MONSTER TIMES are worth your time and talent. We’re always peeling our eyes for new contributors. Send us a letter, specifying your creative bent, a resume of your writing, a few samples of your art (include stamped, addressed envelope) to THE MONSTER TIMES, P.O.Box 595 Old Chelsea Station, New York City, N.Y. 10011

Notice to “GP” who drew Frog Gordon at DTFF, Aug. 70 – Please contact me c/o Wias P.O. Box 1461 Bloomington, Ind. 47401 – R. Stern

Wanted: Infinity No. 1; Doc Savage Paperbacks No. 1, 6, 7, 9, 10. If you have these, contact: Evan Katten, 719 Kenmare Rd., Cynwyd, Pennsylvania, 19004

Xanadu-Art Portfolio with work by Morrow, Jones, Foster, Fritz, Packett, etc. 42 copies left! $1.00 – Steve Fritz, 1133 Hancock Dr. NE, Atlanta, Ga. 30306

Glutton for pun-ishment? Try Melting Pot, a science-fiction, animation and comics fanzine. 35 cents from Larry A. Mitchell, 3908 26St., Vernon, B.C., Canada

Wanted: Mad No. 5; all Spiderman issues. Mint or excellent condition. Will trade or pay top price. Nile Southern, 19 Henderron PI., N.Y.C., N.Y. 10028

FOR SALE: Limited Edition portfolios of EC artwork. N. 1 is $10., nearly sold out. No. 2 due soon. Details from Russ Cochran, Route One, Adel, Iowa 50003

WE’LL THANK YOU IN PRINT! – for allowing us to run some of your rare stills in THE MONSTER TIMES. COLLECTORS, we are on the lookout for rare monster, horror, sci-fi and fantasy stills, press books, lobby cards, posters, and other visual goodies with which to exotically embellish our articles. We’ll credit your photos and you’ll BECOME FAMOUS! Send checklists of your collections to us, P.O. Box 595 Old Chelsea Station, New York City, N.Y. 10011 Include your Address and Phone Number … Thanx.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY PHIL SEULING!

L’INCROYABLE CINEMA,s Britain’s finest fantasy film magazine is now available to American Subscribers at $.80 per copy, and $2.50 for three issues. Order now from Steve and Erwin Vertlieb, 1517 Benner Street, Philadelphia, Pa: 19149.

Selling Comic Books, Pulps, Big Little Books, Playboys, Magazines, Movie Merchandise, Radio Premiums, Toys, Etc. 1900-1972. Catalogue 35 cents: Rogofsky, Box 1102, Flushing, N.Y. 11354.

“COLLAGE”, fandom’s only bi-weekly zine. Published for film and comic fans, by fandom’s oldest fanzine publisher. 5 issue subscription $2.50. COLLAGE, 9875, sw 212 St., Miami, Fla. 33157

Over three years of monthly publication, WDXC Journal: Don Alpert, 6636 Davis St., Morton Grove, Ill. 60053. Only 30¢ for over 30 pages. Mention “Monster Times”

Incredible art and fantasy fiction-see pro Kenneth Smith’s luxurious Phantasmagoria – No. 1, lizards SF; No. 2, SF horror. $3@. Box 20020-A, L.S.U./Baton Rouge, La. 70803.

Horror and Terror Tales, “Classics” of radio. Karloff, Lorre, Price. Never on record. Tape or cassette, write: “Radio Memories”, 71 McKinley Ave., Dumont, N.J. 07628

E.C. Comics – Frazetta material – List ready soon – send 8¢ stamp. Bailey, Box 2195, Yale Station, New Haven, Conn. 06520

Wanted: All Star Trek items and undamaged “Ideal” Captain Action Items Jack Bannow RR No. 2, Cassopolis, Michigan 49031″

“Hi. Remember the super-heroes of yesteryear? And how about the old E.C. science fiction & horror stories? * Well, I got um’all on tape! If you’d like to trade your 25 year old comics for them, write to “Adventure Unlimited”, c/o Jimmy Thornton, Apt. 11-E, 225 East 99th St., N.Y., N.Y. 10029

Lugosi, Karloff, over 5,000 different rare horror stills for sale. Also complete soundtracks. S.A.E. for list to R. Scherl, 8809 Oakwilde Lane, Los Angeles, Calif. 90046

PHOTON is the filmzine that fans find fabulous! Devoted to the serious study of the fantasy film, each issue contains an 8×10 glossy still. All offset. One dollar to Mark Frank, 801 Avenue “C”, Brooklyn, N.Y. 11218

Wanted EC SF books will pay $11.00 ea, for WF 17(53), 18, 19, W5, 20, 21, 22, Steve Leaf, Box 771 University of Georgia Athens, Ga. 30601

Wanted: Doc Savage – No. 1, 7, 9, 19, 21 – Do Not Send Books!! Send offers to: David Donovan, 1704 Terrace Dr., Carroll, Iowa 51401

CANAZINE, 50 cents, 60 offset pages. Nostalgia! Canadian comics! Art: Romita, Spiegle, Metzger, Fritz, Costanza etc. Text: Fagan, Isabella, etc. 5252 Borden, Montreal 265, Quebec, Canada.

COMICS: Marvels (1964-1971) at Decent Prices! Most 20 cents or 40 cents. Send S.A.S.E. for price list. Dan DePrez, 11015 N.E. Flanders, Portland, Ore.

We Buy Marvel Comics and Monster Magazines (photo type). Send your selling list, Please state condition, to Anthony Capialbi, 8702, 3rd Avenue, Brooklyn, New York, N.Y. 11209

Comic books, fanzines, stills, posters, Big-Little books, dealers, collectors: and The Monster Times folk! Every “SECOND SUNDAY!” at the Statler-Hilton, 33rd St. & 7th Ave. N.Y.C. 10AM to 4PM. Admission, $1.00

THE OLD ABANDONED WAREHOUSE is here! Now you can order rare and hard-to-get books about monsters, comics, pulps, fantasy and assorted betwitching black sundries. Some of the items are for older fan enthusiasts, and some ask you to state age when purchasing. Don’t be put off by the formality, the pulsating Post Office isn’t.

POSTERS BY FRANK FRAZETTA.

For mood and tone and anatomy and stark portraits of wonder, Frazetta is the master! Each poster awakens your sense of awe and fascination. The colors and details are reproduced magnificently. Breathtaking to see and own!

A. WEREWOLF (cover painting for CREEPY 4).

Silhouetted against an orange moon is the ravening beast of our nightmares, about to pounce on the victim who has unfortunately discovered him! ….. $2.50

B. SKIN DIVER (cover painting for EERIE 3).

There is the treasure chest, spilling its riches into the ocean depth in which the awed skin-diver has discovered it. But what is that fearful, monstrous thing rearing up behind it? ….. $2.50

C. BREAK THE BARBARIAN VS. THE SORCERESS (cover painting for Paperback Library paperback).

Brak, with sword and on horseback, looks up into murky skies to see is it a vision of a woman? Is that evil she seems to convey? Or menace $2.50

D. CONAN OF CIMMERIA (cover painting for Lancer paperback)

Toe to toe, Conan fights with brute savagery, death in every axe stroke, against two frost giants. The scene is a blazingly white mountain top under an ice-blue sky! Thorough drama! ….. $2.50

E. CONAN THE CONQUEROR (cover painting for Lancer paperback)

Bursting like a firestorm into the midst of a hellish battle, Conan comes, astride his maddened charger, cleaving his bloody way! The background is fire and death and savagery ….. $2.50

ALL FIVE FRAZETTA POSTERS ….. $10.00

(POSTERS ARE MAILED IN STRONG CARDBOARD TUBES)

HERO PULP INDEX.

Bob Weinberg, Robert McKinstry & Lohr McKinstry, ed. ….. $3.50

Where did the Black Hood appear before comic books? When did the long and incredibly successful Shadow series begin? How long did Doc Savage run? The pulp magazines with continued adventure hero features are listed in this compact and efficient reference book. Note: This book is mainly a listing of old pulp mag. characters and titles, of interest to completists and zealous fans, but not of much value to a person looking for samples of the actual surprises. We say this, hoping to avoid confusion or ill feelings.

LUGOSI.

Alan Barbour, ed. $4.00

The world’s favorite Dracula is seen in a bookful of photos of Bela Lugosi in his weirdest roles. Softcover twin volume to the Karloff book. Excellent stills from the great Lugosi horror films, and plenty of them. 52-pages.

VIRGIL FINLAY.

Donald M. Grant ….. $12.00

Beautiful hardcover book, limited memorial edition, including a magnificent sampling of the art of this great science-fiction illustrator. Mostly black-and-white and some outstanding color plates. Also contains a full listing of Finlay’s work and where to find it, and his bio.

Proves again and again, page after page that Finlay did for horror & sci-fi what Norman Rockwell did for The Saturday Evening Post.

THE GREAT COMIC BOOK HEROES.

Jules Feiffer ….. $5.00

A frank and nostalgic backward look at a childhood of comic book reading. And then adventure after (original) comic book adventure showing us the complete origin of stories of Batman, Superman, and Green Lantern, and episodes in the careers of the Spirit, Flash, Hawkman, and more! All in beautiful color! Dynamite!

FANTASTIC.

Alan Barbour, ed. $4.00

Boris Karloff was the magnificent master of disguise and menace. You can see dozens and dozens of photographs of his various roles in this 52page all-photograph softcover book. Each photo is full-page size (81/2 x 11) and is clear and vivid. A horror-film fan’s prize.

ABYSS 1.

Jones et al., ed. $2.00

This deadly magazine comic book was the cooperative effort of Jeff Jones, Mike Kaluta, Bruce Jones, and Bernie Wrightson. They experiment with stories of the odd and the macabre, in spidery, Gothic style! Moody and dramatic and high quality.

A JOB FOR SUPERMAN.

Kirk Alyn ….. $5.00

The first actor ever to play the part of Superman has written this memoir. It is filled with film-making stories (how he caught fire while flying), good humor, and many, many photographs. Fun reading, even for non-film fans.

LITTLE NEMO IN SLUMBERLAND.

Winsor McCay ….. $3.00

This softcover, thin book is an amazing look at the art nouveau “psychedelic” comic strip artwork of Winsor McCay. Nemo appeared in the early 1900s, and is still the best visual fantasy ever to appear on a comic page:

DARK DOMAIN.

Gray Morrow ….. $4.00

A sketchbook of a comic art master featuring fantasy, science-fiction illustrations and visual delights such as girls, monsters, swordsmen, and girls! This volume is recommended for serious students of art, illustration, science fiction, fantasy, swordsmen monsters and of girls–but over age 18.

TARZAN AND THE VIKINGS.

Hal Foster ….. $7.00

Here is one of the greatest adventure strips ever drawn, by the finest artist the comic art world has ever produced! Even before beginning his 33. year Prince Valiant career, Hal Foster did the Sunday pages of Tarzan, and this book (softcover, Life Magazine-sized) reprints 55 pages of Tarzan’s story. Where else can this “lost” work be seen?

HISTORY OF THE COMICS.

Jim Steranko ….. $3.00

There is a series involved here, and this is volume one. You can find few better descriptions of how comic books evolved (from newspaper strips and pulp adventure magazines), and there are hundreds of photos and illustrations. Nifty reading, great art – poster-sized full-color cover by the author.

FRAZETTA.

Vern Coriell, ed. ….. $2.50

It’s Frazetta-need we say more?

A slim sketchbook which covers some of the finest black and white linework by this super-artist, Frank Frazetta. Each figure shows detail, mass, strength, and drama. For collectors of the best. … You must be 18 to buy this volume. State age when placing order.

TARZAN ILLUSTRATED BOOK ONE.

Hal Foster ….. $5.00

The first Tarzan ever to appear in comics form was a daily strip drawn by Hal Foster with the text of the book printed beneath each panel. Designed to run for a few weeks, Tarzan has now been going for forty years. But this book contains the first strips ever drawn, reprinted in clear lines in a wrap-around softcover book. Good value.

THE OLD ABANDONED WAREHOUSE

P.O. Box 595, Old Chelsea Station, New York, N.Y. 10011

The proverbial Old Abandoned Warehouse which you’ve heard about in so many comics, movies and pulp adventure and detective novels is open for business. Abandoned Warehouse Enterprises presents the most AWEful, AWE-inspiring AWEsome AWEtifacts AWEvailable at AWE-striking AWE-right prices! Indicate which items you want

NOTE: Add 20¢ postage and handling per item for orders totaling less than $20.00. Make checks and money orders payable to: ABANDONED WAREHOUSE

A MARVEL-LOUS EVENING WITH STAN LEE

BY DEAN LATIMER

Last January, Marvel Comics editor, Stan Lee, and several of his staff “put on” a program at Carnegie Hall. “Put on” is the correct term, if we are to take the words of Dean Latimer seriously. Dean has written a review which anyone who intends to attend any other such program should definitely read.

As a warning, no less

It was nothing less than mystifying.

That was the reaction that was written on each face of the poor schliemiels who paid upwards from $4.50 at the door to see Stan Lee at Carnegie Hall last month: pure mystification.

Why here?

Why Now?

What did it all mean?

Who’s taking in all the money? The Marvellous Evening With Stan Lee, as it was billed, revealed nothing. The audience left in stunned silence, after often yawning louder than the fabulously fraught festivities.

It wasn’t merely that the evening was boring. Many kids were there – threequarters of the audience was high-school age, with college punks constituting the rest – and many kids there would have settled for boredom, just on the off chance of learning something new about Stan Lee or Marvel Comics, which to them must surely be, Paris in the ’90’s, or worse.

nothing new under Stan’s Ego

But surely they anticipated something new, or special. An announcement of yet another New Trend in Marvel Comics, perhaps. A resurrection of all those dead old Marvel heroes who have fallen into the abyss in the last few years, maybe.

Or old startlin’ Stan might simply come out in his underwear and recite “Shakespeare!” Anything you hear, anything NEW! Anything!

So when all they got was lame sentimental drivel, the same kind of junk you can read every month in Stan’s Soapbox, and the Bullpen notes, you can understand why they were mystified. And bored. So bored, that they sent armadas of paper airplanes winging from the balcony.

Why Carnegie Hall, for the luvva Mike? In Carnegie Hall one expects a certain degree of magnificence, right?

Imagine then our astonishment at seeing the stage decked out like some high school auditorium for Our Town. Stage right, an assortment of plywood tiers upon which sat Chico Hamilton and his rock players, with their instruments; stage center, a little podium for the speaker; and stage left, a big baffle screen that seemed there simply to fill up empty space. The whole thing bathed in muted light, seeking evidently a “spooky” effect.

Well, at first you could’ve been deluded into thinking maybe something snazzy was about to occur. Because first of all, Geoffrey Crozier, the Master Illusionist of all Australia, swept out in his Druid robes, to an accompaniment of hard-rock Space Music by the Hamilton combo, and dashed around like a maniac.

the 3rd time’s the charm!

By and by, after conjuring up flames out of his wrists and stuff like that, Crozier hauled out a huge wardrobe-type box on stage, and opened the door. Nothing inside, right? Ha! We say Ha!, because after closing the door, he opened it again, to draw forth a beautiful girl in a harem outfit. Far out!

Once again, he closes it, to open and draw forth yet another cutie.

And then (third time’s the charm!) he opens it; to haul out Stan Lee! Tough staging, right? Think it’s gonna be a heavy night, hof times in Carnegie Hall, don’t cha?

Well, it was Pretty Disappointing.

Stan maunders on for a spell, standing in front of the little podium all tall and bearded and wise-looking, and then he introduces some other guy; who is it? Why! – It’s Herb Trimpe, who does The Hulk!!! And Trimpe sits down at a little drawing table with a rear-projection gimmick, and sets into drawing the Green Golem himself. And while Humpin’ Herb sketches, some other swain, who was nameless to begin with, reads off the Virtues and Hangups of The Hulk.

It was like nothing we had ever seen before! even in Carnegie Hall! You would think, now, what with comic sales dropping like a stunned falcon for lo these half-dozen years agone, they’d come up with something new, some new riff with which to shill their superheroes.

But no, they’re still trying to tell us how “engaging’ their various freaks are, because they have “human hangups,” which “those DC Superheroes” never had: how the Hulk deep down in his Paleolithic psyche loves all things, but is forever being brutalized by those about him; how Peter Parker is a sensitive kid, and much too good for the foul world in which his alter-ego, Spider-Man, toils; how Captain America isn’t really a flag-waving fascist, but … But I confess | ceased listening by the time they got to Captain America. The whole audience did (some snored).

For one thing, who gives a heck about Marvel Comics anymore? Who really does? When they went “relevant” with their “New Trend,” they hung themselves on their own aimless alliterations. Since they started to preach they lost whatever elements of fantasy they ever had to commend them to us. Besides, ever notice how Marvel lumps together 8 or 15 “Good Guy” superheroes to beat up one “Bad Guy”? – real American sense of fair-play there! That 8 against ONE stuff! The Merry Marvel Mobsters!

put CONAN in Carnegie Hall, by Crom!

Lives there a man with soul so dead these days that he reads any Marvel Comic other than Conan? That’s of a ir”relavent” world they know more about than I do of this real one and it’s just Conan against someone else; no goons from the Marvel-Mafioso Superheroe Clearing-House.

Actually, I shouldn’t have mentioned Conan in a positive context. If the accountants at Marvel ever hear that “bright people” read Conan. they’ll cleave ol’ Conan to the breastbone. And probably take Conan’s budget to re-rent Carnegie Hall.

So it was a drag, and a gyp and a Royal Rip-off, the Marvellous Evening With Stan Lee. The only element of it that was anywhere near new was Lee’s introduction of Alain Resnais, the famous French culture-groupie, and film-maker and advertising chairman for the Marienbad Wall-paper Company, and who, according to Lee, is making a flick which will incorporate elements of Marvel cartoons.

“It’s a weird, lovely, funny, sad flick,” equivocated Stan, “about life and death and love and hate, and – well – everything!”

Chances are, this pencil-pusher speculates, old Stan is letting his editor Roy Thomas or perhaps some far lesser talents ghost who knows the Way-of-the Con-by-book-licking, write the script for that one too, and that Smilin Stan doesn’t really know a heck of a lot about the film at all. I mean; Stan’s latest ish of Creatures On The Prowl Where Boogeymen Stumble was “weird, lovely, funny and sad” – and I can say that, and I didn’t even read it! And I’ll even bet that Where Ghosts Romp or whatever their “horror” comic of reprints from the 1960’s is called, was “about life and death and love and hate and well. everything!”

There was one element of the evening, though – besides Crozier’s sporadic appearances, during which he performed such illusions as skewering girls with cutlasses and setting their heads afire that was pretty nice, and that was the advertised slide show. Joshua Lights, of the old Fillmore East, put it together, and it was Pretty Swell kids: micro-second flashes of Marvel heroes and heroines, hitting you so fast and furious they actually seemed, after a while, to be in some kind of sequence. This is an art form that could bear some more use.

Lord knows there had better be found some new use for comix in the years to come. Leave these loudmouth losers to their own devices and they’ll kill the field once and for all, that’s clear. If the Marvellous Evening With Stan Lee indicated anything, it showed that the reason contemporary “aboveground” comic art is devoid of interest, lies in the deficiencies of its creators. They are a marvel-lously boring bunch, that’s all.

VIRGIL FINLAY. (Donald M. Grant, Rhode Island, 1971) 153 pp. Introduction by Donald M. Grant, Checklist by Gerry de la Ree, Biography by Sam Moskowitz. $11.95

Virgil Finlay’s illustrations covered three decades of science-fiction. Perhaps other artists have worked as long in the field, but what surprises about Finlay’s work is that it is as appropriate to the moody fantasies of A.E.Merritt as to the space opera of Cordwainer Smith or to the modern-day abstractions of Philip Jose Farmer. Or even more surprising is the unmistakable individual character of each of his illustrations, allowing each to stand apart from the text it was made to accompany, a whole upon itself. Finlay was a unique phenomenon, not easy to emulate or imitate. He was almost without peer, though such minds and talents as those of Ed Emshwiller and Kelly Freas are contemporary to Finlay’s

Virgil Finlay died in January of 1971 and now a book of his work has been printed. Entitled simply Virgil Finlay, the book reaches us as we are in the midst of regret at his passing. We might suspect that so quick an anthology would be slap-dash and superficial. We would be very very wrong.

The book is a labor love, obviously (or loves, plural, since three minds concentrated their fine efforts to produce it). Physically it is lovely and graceful, green in a white dust jacket. Esthetically, it is well selected and representative of Finlay’s varied approaches. There is an extensive and easy-to-absorb checklist compiled by Gerry de la Ree. So well prepared is this volume that there is even an index to the checklist for easy reference. There is a biography and appreciation of Virgil Finlay by the dedicated Sam Moskowitz, thirty pages of factual analysis of Finlay’s progress within (and outside) the science-fiction world. It is a thorough and decidedly worthwhile research tool for anyone interested in Finlay’s work.

However, the book’s great strengths are also its chief weakness. The checklist is fifty-five pages long, and that gives us fifty pages of Virgil Finlay art. I was tempted to say “a mere fifty pages” but to be just, there are handsome well-reproduced pages which comprise some brilliant concepts, examples of his multi-textured techniques, a good cross-section of his efforts and a few luscious color plates. There is nothing “mere” about the pages. But a taste of Finlay whets the appetite, and I could have wished the book to be 150 pages of his work, or even 500. On the 50 pages are 37 illustrations, some of which spread across two pages.

A few artists who are friends of mine have seen the book in my presence. Their comments were similar and very positive. It is a beautiful book containing some of Finlay’s finest work, they decided, and. they could only have been happier with more, more and more.

Count on this book for some pyrotechnics of style. The linework of Virgil Finlay is astonishing. Looking at a piece such as the illustration for “A Fog Was Blowing,” I’m awe-struck at the patience of a man who could assemble those thousands of thick and thin lines. into not only a whole, finished picture, but one with flair and style and imagination! And there are dozens of illustrations included here which strike the same chord.

The book is $11.95, a considerable price. But consider it well: your library could use this volume. Hard-cover, of course.

Phil Seuling

memorable mini-reviews of forgettable films

For any of our readers who might want to catch some of the films mentioned in this article, consider the following first:

THE CREEPING UNKNOWN – Spacemen turns into space beast and demonstrates his resentment by trying to destroy London.

MOST DANGEROUS MAN ALIVE – Escaped con is exposed to radiation and turns into iron man. Impressed by his new powers, he returns to lean on the Italian gangsters who framed him. Tense scene transpires when Debra Paget attempts to seduce him even though he has no feelings.

THE AMAZING COLOSSAL MAN – Army officer Turns into deranged giant and demonstrates his resentment by trying to destroy Las Vegas. Unsuccessfully, alas.

CREATURE WITH THE ATOM BRAIN – Deadmen are turned into violence-crazed robots who demonstrate their resentment by trying to destroy Richard Denning… also unsuccessfully.

FIRST MAN INTO SPACE – Test pilot is exposed to radiation and tries 10 destroy everybody.

HAND OF DEATH – John Agar exposes himself 10 radiation and becomes bloated, ugly, and anti-social. This takes place before the popularization of computer dating so the monster grows despondent and dies.

BEAST OF YUCCA FLATS – Tor Johnson is exposed to radiation and loses what’s left of his mind, much to the dismay of everyone around him.

a list of mutation “Turn-To” films to turn-to

THE AMAZING COLOSSAL MAN – AIP – 1957. Director: Bert 1. Gordon. Screenplay: Mark Hanna, Bert 1. Gordon. With: Glenn Langan, Cathy Downs, William Hudson.

THE AMAZING TRANSPARENT MAN – AIP – 1960. Director: Edgar G. Ulmer. Screenplay: Jack Lewis. With: Douglas Kennedy, Marguerite Chap. man, James Griffith, Ivan Triesault, Red Morgan.

THE ATOMIC BRAIN (MONSTROSITY) – Emerson – 1964. Director: Joseph Mascelli. With: Frank Gerstle, Erica Peters, Judy Bamber, Frank Fowler.

THE ATOMIC KID – 1954. Director: Leslie H. Martinson. With: Mickey Rooney, Robert Strauss, Elaine Davis, Bill Goodwin.

THE ATOMIC MAN – 1956. Director: Kenneth Hughes. With: Gene Nelson, Faith Domergue, Peter Arne.

BEAST OF YUCCA FLATS – 1961. Director: Coleman Francis. Screenplay: Coleman Francis. With: Douglas Mellor, Tor Johnson, Larry Aten, Barbara Francis.

CREATURE WITH THE ATOM BRAIN — 1955. Director: Edward L. Cahn. With: Richard Denning, Angela Stevens, Gregory Gaye. Tristram Coffin.

THE CREEPING UNKNOWN (in Britain THE QUATERMASS EXPERIMENT) – 1956. Director: Val Guest. With: Brian Donlevy, Margia Dean, Jack Warner.

CYCLOPS – Allied Artists – 1957. Director: Bertl. Gordon. With: James Craig, Gloria Talbot.

FIRST MAN INTO SPACE – 1959. Director: Robert Day. Screenplay: John C. Cooper, Lance Z. Har. greaves. With: Marshall Tompson, Marla Landi, Bill Edwards.

4D MAN – Universal – 1959. Director: Irwin Yea. worth. Screenplay: Theodore Simonson, Cy Chermak. With: Robert Lansing, Lee Meriwether, James Congdon, Robert Strauss.

HAND OF DEATH – Fox – 1962. Director: Gene Nelson. Screenplay: Eugene Ling. With: John Agar Paul Raymond, Steve Dunne, Roy Gordon.

THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING MAN – Universal – 1957. Director: Jack Arnold. Screenplay: Richard Matheson. With: Grant Williams, Randy Stuart, April Kent, Paul Langton.

MOST DANGEROUS MAN ALIVE – Columbia 1961. Director: Allen Dwan, Screenplay: James Leicester, Phillip Rock. With: Ron Randell, Debra Paget, Elaine Stewart, Anthony Caruso, Gregg Pal.

WAR OF THE COLOSSAL BEAST – AIP – 1958. Director: Bert l. Gordon, Screenplay: George W. Yates. With: Dean Parkin, Sally Fraser, Roger Pace, Russ Bender.

by JOE KANE

If you liked the way the world ended and ended and ended issue before last, you’ll love the way it ends and ends and ends yet ever again, this one, as Joe Kane gleefully examines the freaks and misshapen human-critters who resulted from man’s toying with elements beyond his control, elements Like U-235, nuclear warheads, and alcoholic Hollywood screenwriters.

SEE! Joe Kane chuckle as he tears apart rotten movie scripts!

SEE! Joe Kane laugh uproariously as he tramples dumb Hollywood monster-movie-making cliches!

SEE! Joe Kane cackle with glee as he describes human mutations who resembled walking-dead pizza-pies!

SEE! Joe Kane himself in our special MT photo-comix (page 9) try to do better in a low-budget cheapie mini-movie produced and directed by the great team of Brill & Waldstein!

The subject, I believe, was the end of the world. A pleasant enough topic, that, and an event that, if Hollywood had its way, would have happened years ago. In fact, it did happen … and not once, but many times. But never fear, the set directors have always managed to scotch tape Earth together again in time for the next film and that old stock footage of the atomic explosion. It’s even worse in Tokyo, that miniature city that had been blown up, destroyed, disintegrated, and scattered to the atomic winds in film after film. You wouldn’t want to open an insurance office there.

some mushrooms, most toadstools

Last time out I discussed a few examples of the various ways filmmakers dealt with the new and terrifying presence of nuclear energy. While most of the films dealing with the destructive aspects of nuclear energy could, by their very subject chilling matter, be classed as horror films, a few overlapped into other genres.

THE ATOMIC KID, a 1954 fiasco about a pair of (oy!) bumbling uranium-hunters (played by Mickey Rooney and Robert Strauss), was a so-called “comedy” that had Rooney transform from a jittery loser into a Las Vegas gambling shark through the effects of radioactivity – I don’t remember the exact details, let it suffice to say that that’s what happens in the film. If you’ve been fortunate enough to miss this flick so far, your luck (if you’re an inveterate TV-watcher) might very well run out, since THE ATOMIC KID is a television staple, frequently dug out of Metromedia’s scaly stockpile on Saturday afternoons. Be forewarned!

Other nuclear films that crossed over from the strict horror genre include Peter Watkins’ frightening simulated documentary, THE WAR GAME, a harrowing look at chaotic conditions in Britain after the hard rain has finally fallen; SPLIT-SECOND, a hydrogen-hyped 1953 remake of the PETRIFIED FOREST, with gangsters and hostages frantically fleeing through the desert when they discover that their hide-out is situated smack in the center of a nuclear testing ground!; the paranoid FAIL-SAFE and SEVEN DAYS IN MAY; and the satirical DR. STRANGELOVE, OR HOW I LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND LOVE THE BOMB.

References to the Bomb are heard in a great number of other post-war films in which it is not dealt with directly but felt instead as an ominous presence, as it was throughout the 50’s in both reel and real life.

Issue before last we took a brief look at Arch Oboler’s Five. If Five represented the first honest screen attempt to successfully exploit a vision of self-induced global massacre, DR. STRANGELOVE carried the machinations behind that drastic move of worldwide suicide to their logical, and therefore most absurd, extensions. More than any other single work in this genre, Kubrick’s film exposes the kind of competitive paranoia that accompanied the potentially deadly discovery of the Bomb and the self-destructive appetites it whets. The world of the deranged Dr. Strangelove is inhabited by powerful paranoids (Gen. Jack D. Ripper), pompous patriots (Gen. Buck Turgidson), inept aimless administrators (Pres. Merkin Muffley), hawks hellbent on war at any cost (Maj. Bat Guano), and high-level lunatics of all stripes, and it was Kubrick’s special skills that made this film both funny and unsettling at the same time. DR. STRANGELOVE emerged (so far, at least) as the ultimate statement on the Bomb and its destructive effects on the mind and body of Man. Within several months of Strangelove’s release, two other major studio productions, FAILSAFE (dealing with the possibility and penalties of accidental nuclear attack) and SEVEN DAYS IN MAY (about an attempted military coup in Washington) hit the screen, but after that the status of the atomic bomb as 20th Century ogre began to diminish as the threat of world obliteration gradually became accepted as just another part of life. Nuclear films of the 50’s and early 60’s not only fed the hysteria of a frightened movie-going public, but eventually starved it out as well through formula repetition. When you keep getting the same stale, ghastly, unsatisfactory answer, you tend to lose interest in the question.

the monster that turned into Brooklyn

One of my favorite harmless past times is making up categories to put things in, a hobby that isn’t unique unto me. Having established that, I’d like to talk a little bit about the most frequently re-occurring theme in nuclear films, the Human-Mutation theme. Last time I cited briefly AIP’s THE AMAZING COLOSSAL MAN as an example of this type of film. Like that one, most of the Human-Mutation films were concerned with computing the possible effects that wayward radioactivity might have on an isolated man. Stretching the imagination half-heartedly in certain limited and all too often patently predictable directions, and spawning after each successful film a litter of imitations, THE TYPICAL HUMAN-MUTATION FILM.

Oh boy! We soon saw features of atomic pioneers (THE CREEPING UNKNOWN) or escaped convicts (THE MOST DANGEROUS MAN ALIVE – director Allen Dwan’s unfortunate screen farewell) or some other wandering worthy who accidentally absorbs radioactive particles and subsequently grows tall (THE AMAZING COLOSSAL MAN) or small (THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING MAN) or zombielike (CREATURE WITH THE ATOM BRAIN) or scaly (FIRST MAN INTO SPACE) or metallic (THE MOST DANGEROUS MAN ALIVE) or bloated & disfigured (HAND OF DEATH) or beast-like and unruly (BEAST OF YUCCA FLATS). All these heroes share two things in common – all are stripped of their original identities and all exhibit a marked tendency towards freaking out after the transformation.

Following the usual ironic and ambiguous (to allow for a possible sequel) destruction of the civilization-stripped mutant, the formula film usually coughs to an end with a ‘heavy’ message along the order of: When will “We” or “Mankind” or “Russia” learn to stop messing with the forces of “Nature” or “God” or the “United States?” – the culprits subject to change according to the “philosophical” bent of the filmmaker. The answer to this thought-provoking query is a rueful shake of some survivor’s head, a final, distanced shot of the fallen monster – a victim of forces beyond his control and understanding – not to mention God and Nature’s and America’s and Russia’s! And we see a slowing title … a ponderous THE END??? across the darkening screen. It looks like a winner, C.B.!

quaint, quaking equation:

Just about all the films dealing with nuclear energy are based roughly on the same monsterisfic equation: advanced technology + primitive emotions = disaster. While most of the Human-Mutation films served primarily as a chance to turn a quick buck by springing a make-up man’s monster on an undemanding audience, one film that towered above the rest was Jack Arnold’s THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING MAN …a 50’s classic of horror and mind-boggling special effects.

Here the mutated character is not a lumbering movie monster stumbling dumbly through the dark. Instead, he is a man, a man who manages, after wrestling with the terrifying changes he is undergoing, to hold on to his sanity, Richard Matheson’s script allows for a legitimate exploration of how a radical reduction in both size and identity might affect a human mind. Scott Carey’s (Grant Williams) gradual diminution seems to parallel the individual’s decreasing influence over his world and over the future of an increasingly pushbutton, media-dominated, urbanized world-on-the-edge, and the film ably follows Carey’s forced retreat through his ever-diminishing worlds — through a normal, well-adjusted Middle-American domestic life, through hospitals and treatments, an affair with a female midget (“I felt puny and absurd,” the 36″ Scott understates while glancing up at his now foreign and gargantuan spouse), battles with giant cats and monstrous spiders before he simultaneously dissolves and evolves into a microscopic kernel of pure, disembodied consciousness – a metaphor for the wholesale devaluation of human flesh in an automated atomic age. The film’s special effects, aside from an occasionally lame back-projection shot, succeeds in making Carey’s terrifying trip seem very real indeed at times.

I think that the best explanation of the success of THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING MAN was turned by Carlos Clarens in his book, AN ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF THE HORROR FILM. According to Clarens, the film is terrifying “because it introduced a very different type of fear into the dark solitude of movie houses, not instant annihilation but a gradual inexorable descent into nothingness.” THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING MAN relied far less on cheap gimmicks to achieve its effects than most other films in this genre. Instead, its development hinges on Carey’s narration, his own description of his existential evolution as he emerges from the ashes of anger, frustration, and despair to a feeling of religious union with the cosmos, a feeling of being a naked, infinitesimal, but still invaluable link in the great circle of being. For some folks, that’s worth being short for.