11/13/2022
Hello, Don,
Just received Castle of Frankenstein #36. So glad I pre-ordered -- it was worth the wait! I imagine this volume, much like the SM #120 CoF Tribute, will soon be a sell-out in the print version.
Before I storm the castle, a little background information:
As you know, I have a decent collection of monster mag titles; complete runs of FM (and every other Warren magazine), as well as CoF. (Not to mention Scary Monsters, of course!) Then, there are the comic books, primarily horror-themed; The Unexpected, House of Secrets, Tomb of Dracula, Werewolf by Night, etc. More or less complete at this point, I only collect a small handful of newer comics these days, i.e. the few I find interesting. That said, FM and Calvin Beck's CoF remain the only two titles which I regularly buy duplicate issues of when ever I run across them. Condition doesn't matter in these cases as they are 'beyond' the formal collection of high-grade issues -- but it is in these duplicates that I'm truly able to conjure that past magic; I can spread the issues over the floor, read them over and over to my heart's content, with no worries about "keeping them in perfect condition" -- I've introduced my kids, my granddaughter, nieces and nephews to their particular magic in this way. So, much like a favorite movie one can quote almost by reflex, I'm familiar through-and-through with the many nuances of each magazine, their comparisons and more importantly, their contrasts.
That said, I'm lighting the torch to find my way to the castle!
Dennis did a good job keeping CoF alive after the "final" 25th issue. A couple of those 'new' issues were fairly hard to track down, in fact. Quite different than his format for Scary Monsters, he tried to approximate Beck's CoF, in both format and feel, but those 'continuation' issues conformed to a more strict format than Beck's issues. While not necessarily a bad thing, I found the covers in particular, to be practically indistinguishable from one to the next despite the different images depicted. One thing about those original 25 issues of CoF -- the covers varied wildly for that entire run, including those final issues with strictly illustrated covers. Third issue...illustrated Mummy, Issues 9, 10, 11, photo-covers of Joker, Green Hornet, Spock. Final issue 25 - Illustrated scene from The Time Machine. I could go down the list, but you get the idea. These were very distinct covers. If asked to describe any of the covers from #26 to #35, I would be forced to claim ignorance. I'm not disparaging Dennis' CoF in any way, you understand. As far as I'm concerned, his is the third name on the list deserving to be credited for keeping monster magazines alive. Ackerman, Beck and Druktenis. A recipe started in 1958 passed down to this night, where a 59 year-old Monster Kid sits in his office typing these words. To the fourth person who has not only kept the recipe, but improved it. I never met Forrest Ackerman or Calvin Beck or Dennis. But I consider myself lucky and grateful to be sharing this, and so many other past exchanges with you and Vicki.
Excited to see the pre-order announcement of Castle of Frankenstein #36, I had no expectations beyond previous issues released by Dennis. Those issues are valued additions to the original magazine.
A recurring theme in my many letters to you always seems to echo variations of "Keeps getting better and better" or "I have no idea how you and Vicki manage to raise the bar with each issue"....
When I opened the envelope holding the copy of CoF #36, I gasped. Literally, full-blown and audible, a sharp exhalation of surprise.
First off, the cover is a masterpiece. Simply a masterpiece. The CoF logo was true to the nostalgia of the original issues, the colors were nothing short of alive. The rear of the wraparound cover art was a marvel; the renditions of Beverly Washburn and Jill Banner from SPIDER BABY and especially, the perfectly realized image of Gregory Peck's Captain Ahab from MOBY DICK. I perused the cover, front and back, for ten minutes before ever opening the magazine. At this point, I thought, it doesn't matter what's inside. This one is a beauty. The articles won't matter, won't compare. How wrong I was.
The format, the layout of the articles and the articles themselves drew me in at once. For the next two hours, the cover was but a footnote. I was a most happy explorer in a land both strange and familiar.
Baron Von Neck's Mad Movie Reviews by Anthony Baranek -- wow, Don. Can't say enough about this opening article. Was nice to see coverage of movies most have never heard of; those Z-grade guilty pleasures which are actually most entertaining minor classics -- The Vampire -- a forgotten horror classic in a Leave It To Beaver setting with the always-entertaining Dabbs Greer in his usual secondary character roles and the more modern fare, the seldom-seen House of Horror, one of the very first "slasher films" with no less than Frankie Avalon in a surprisingly dark and disturbing tale, complete with a surprise twist ending.
John Navroth's articles The 100-Year Heresy of Haxan and In the Land of Fantoms: A Century of Nosferatu, are commendable studies of the respective films. In-depth and scholarly, befitting similar articles in early issues of CoF. Navroth delivers the goods in both pieces, clearly illustrating why Monster Kids moved from Famous Monsters to Castle of Frankenstein in their later teen years. Plus, the study of HAXAN, controversial to this day, was an article that could have appeared in an early issue of CoF as a counter to the innocent puns of Famous Monsters.
Finally, Frank J. Dello Stritto's The Hunt For Moby Dick . A veteran movie scholar and familiar name whose work appears across the board in many monster mags, Frank always hits the mark. Again, in the spirit of CoF, his study of the film incarnations of MOBY DICK invite the reader to think beyond the limited tropes of what constitutes "horror". Indeed, Moby Dick, in both novel version and the many filmed versions, is nothing if not a tale of terror via obsession: Ahab is the Hannibal Lecter, the Freddy Krueger, the malevolent ghost in the attic or basement to the crew of his ship -- Moby Dick is but a simple creature driven by instinct while Ahab is shown to be the true monster and much more frightening. Dello Stritto teases this out in his masterful study, providing readers with little known facts of film production and key players along the way.
Then, there is the nod to Jordan Peele's film NOPE, which I was pleased to see - again, in the spirit of the original magazine. Castle of Frankenstein embraced the new with the old, the controversial alongside the non-threatening classics. There was nothing in CoF #36 that I would ever expect to see in an issue of Scary Monsters. And that is exactly how it should be.
In closing, I was happy to see a limited number of ad pages at the end. Producing such an issue much come at great expense and ad revenue is a necessary evil, but the limited ads succeeded at attention-grabbing more than would pages upon pages of ads. (I'm still wringing my hands and going "Hmm...hmm..." after seeing the ad for the $350 Larry Talbot Wolfman replica prop cane!)
I'll leave you with this, my friend:
"I'll never know how Don and Vicki manage to surpass themselves with each new publication. But they do it, again and again, consistently and against all odds."
Hope you and Vicki are well. And thanks very much for CoF #36.
Steven Beai
horror,horror films,horror movies, monster movies,Frankenstein,Dracula,monster magazines,horror comics
