June 4, 2024

I just got the brand new FAMOUS MONSTERS magazine, issue #1 in the mail today, read it from cover to cover, and for the first time in a long time, I felt welcomed again.

Horror, to me, has always been a safe haven for the outsider, the nerd, the monster kid. In high school, I was one of the ONLY kids that loved horror and I felt pretty alone in the world. It wasn’t until much later, with the advent of the internet – with message boards and AOL messenger chats, and eventually websites that I realized there were so many fellow outsiders out there, just like me. One of them was Mike C. And as fellow monster kids, it led us to creating Icons of Fright and from there, trying to connect & foster friendships with other fellow monster kids; making them feel included. Part of the conversation. Less alone.

From 2020 and on, I pretty much completely lost all my love for the genre and its “community” after they pretty much told me I wasn’t allowed to like it anymore, and they didn’t like ME anymore either. So, ya know, high school, all over again. Suddenly, the genre that was supposed to be for the outsiders became elitist, including the one long lasting horror magazine that I had contributed to back in its proper hay day leading that charge. And it seemed that that elitist attitude had permeated all of pop culture.

I remember several months back walking out of an early screening of MADAME WEB, and thinking, “Movies used to make me feel less alone in the world. Modern movies have never made me feel more alone.” Granted, if you search, you will find the exceptions. (GODZILLA MINUS ONE, PAST LIVES, etc)

I wanted to feel that way about horror again, and during that recent Universal Monster double feature at the New Bev, Scott had told me about the new FAMOUS MONSTERS magazine. It’s fun, it captures the old-school vibe of the original mag, and the writers within the pages made me feel welcome again. They were writing to the 12 year old movie fan in me, and not the Twitter audience of today. So I’m pretty darned happy that FAMOUS MONSTERS is back, and I finally have a horror mag that makes me feel like myself again. Fellow monster kids, we’re not alone!

UPDATE on 6/12/2024: Over the weekend, I popped by Bookstar and the newsstand there on Laurel Canyon and picked up a stack of magazines. I just missed that old school feeling of finding random things to read. Lately, I’ve mostly been into old school monster mags, an issue of SHUDDER (which is a horror comic strip ala CREEPY), an Archie comic (Halfway to Halloween!), and some random magazines about Nirvana (gone 30 years and there are STILL new magazines hitting stands), and a general one about Superman. Maybe print media is considered “dead” by most, but nothing beats the experience of picking them up and reading through them at your leisure!