What was it the horror magazines of the 1970's were trying to achieve? This may seem like an odd question. After all, the goal of the magazines was to cash in on the huge audience of film nerds who loved horror films. Horror films had long since been a Saturday morning/evening tradition although by the 1970's the fad that exploded in the 1950's through the 1960's was diminishing. Oh, horror films were still quite popular and monster memorabilia in toy, puzzles, games, books, etc were still a cottage industry. They were, however, shrinking into a cottage industry and most kids were moving on to Mego superhero dolls, Star Trek items and Six Million Dollar Man and Evel Knievel play sets.

One of the myths of the horror magazines was the fact that they attempted to revive the horror comics of the 1950's. They may have been inspired by EC Comics to a degree, but the magazines and the old comic books had significantly different inspirations. The EC Comics were inspired by the pulp mags of the 1920's and 1930'. The horror magazines were inspired by the Universal Horror movies of the 1930's and 1940's. While most of h horror mags were general entertaining and well written they had a tendency to rely on a "monster of the issue" formula. That is, throw in a werewolf, a mummy, a vampire, a walking dead tale and we have an issue. Sometimes, these issues were quite entertaining…but the material was still throwaway. EC Comics produced many memorable stories. The horror mags really never produced any classics much less the multitude of classics that EC Comics produced.

Again, this is not to knock any of Marvel, Atlas or Warren's horror magazines. Many of the stories hold up quite well today. But they are mostly "three star" stories as opposed to "four or five star" efforts. The mags do get a few extra points for added prose non-fiction articles on the classic films. There was no internet in 1973 and there were VERY few publications that provided a serious study of the history of horror films. FAMOUS MONSTERS was mostly for kids. laceType w:st="on">CASTLElaceType> OF laceName w:st="on">FRANKENTSEINlaceName> was tough to find on magazine shelves. THE MONSTER TIMES was next to impossible to find. PHOTON was even harder to find then that. So, any material on the history of the films was greatly appreciated in at the time.

More on the horror mags in future installments…