Post Subtitle: Wanted - More Editors like Forrest Ackerman!
Much will be written in the next few days about Forrest J Ackerman, known as Forry to friends and readers. The editor of Famous Monsters magazine died December 4th at the age of 92. I'll let others detail his life gory to you. As for me, I'll make it short and sweet. You see, Forry taught me two things:
1. Movie fans can discuss film and still have fun. Especially when it concerns King Kong or Frankenstein.
2. Puns rule!
From page 29 of issue 100: "... but that joke by JIM WARREN certainly took the stake (as DRACULA once said to me while I was pounding home a point)." Yeah, pretty much every issue was like that. If you've ever read this blog with any regularity, you'll know why those two things are all I need to say about Forry. For the full story, check out the links on Greencine Daily. It's a story worth reading. In closing here are two pics I scanned out of that #100 issue just now. Rest in Peace Forry.
6 comments:
There are some interesting discussions on the Internet now about the passing of 4SJ, with the acolyte camp mourning (not unreasonably) and the apostates shrugging and saying (effectively) "I never saw what the big deal was." And I find myself between these two camps. While I never made Forrest J. Ackerman a tin god, I also appreciate what he (and Jim Warren) did way back then and how they sculpted a generation of horror fans. I guess the thing that rankles me about the guys who don't get Famous Monsters of Filmland is that they're treating an appreciation of horror as a straight line, and because they maybe read Ivan Butler or Carlos Clarens or William K. Everson or Robin Wood before they ever stumbled across FM, they consider theirs to be the right path. Well, fuck those nay-sayers and the high horse they rode in on.
As long as we all wind up in the same place, who cares how we all get there?
I haven't checked out any discussions yet but I don't doubt it's happening like that. I never bought every issue or anything but I liked the fact that there was a magazine for everyone who grew up loving sci-fi and horror of the thirties through the sixties. And it was so non high and mighty in its presentation. To me it effectively communicated a love of the genres without saying "to love them you must be in awe of them and speak only in hushed reverential tones."
And he was into stupid puns, from the wet go.
Correction, please: Forry Ackerman was FM's editor. Publisher was James Warren.
Oops, thanks Pierre, I have corrected it. And by the way, I'm the publisher and editor of Cinema Styles but my wife is the CEO.
Back when I was in school, there were a lot of stuff from Warren being published in Spain (mostly comics, but also FM). I recall green, horrid faces staring at me from their covers at the newstand halfway between the school and my home.
They sure gave me nightmares.
Gloria, go here to see pics like that. Particularly the one a few down, from FMOF, which in fact has the green face you're talking about. This is one of Pierre Fournier's sites.
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