From The Editor

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From The Editor

Monster Kid Magazine #2

Welcome to the long-awaited second issue of Monster Kid online magazine. A lot has happened in the world since our first issue that might make you wonder if there is still room for the innocent fun of old monster movies. Although we may now be living in a different, less secure world, life goes on. And for most of us, life still includes a love for the classic horror films. It still includes Bela Lugosi, Boris Karloff and the Chaneys. It still includes the Universal Monsters, '50s sci-fi movies and the magic of Ray Harryhausen. So, dispite the recent happenings in the all-too real world, let's take a short detour through the village of Vasaria and get started with this issue of MONSTER KID!

First of all I want to thank everyone for the enthusiastic response to our first Icky issue. All the great scree-mails are very much appreciated. One of the coolest haunted happenings resulting from MONSTER KID! #1 was the selection of the Charles Gemora article by Tom Weaver and Bob Burns to be included in the book The Best American Movie Writing 2001. This year's edition was edited by John Landis and includes outstanding articles of the year on movies and movie-makers. Other authors in the book include Lawrence Kasdan and Stanley Kubric. Kong-size congrats to Tom and Bob for being included.

This time out we have more fantastic features to bring out the Monster Kid that lurks within. Bill Warren recalls watching Boris Karloff film his final movies and Peggy Moran tells her real feelings about meeting the moldy one in THE MUMMY'S HAND. We take a "what if" look at some of the monsters that almost were, and our new creepy critic Pop Ghoul gives you a messy piece of his mind about some of the newest DVDs.

The feature that I'm the most excited about, however, is the story of one of the horror heroes of my childhood. Until recently the local SHOCK THEATER show that transformed me into a monster kid lo those many years ago was just a cherished memory. The show was called NIGHTMARE and was hosted by a spooky fellow named Gorgon. Now, thanks to the Son of Gorgon, otherwise known as my new friend Paul Camfield, I've been able to relive some of those seminal monster kid moments through the only surviving video tape of the show and through personal photos from his father's scrapbook. Although most of you won't be familiar with Gorgon unless you grew up in Ft. Worth or Dallas and are well over 40, I hope the article on our Texas terror will stir some memories of whatever local show you grew up with. And if you were not fortunate enough to have such a show in your childhood, I hope it will give you a taste of how much fun it was.

Speaking of horror hosts, let me add a special plug for the new book SHOCK THEATER- AN ILLUSTRATED HISTORY from the publishes of MONSTERS FROM THE VAULT magazine. It's a fascinating look at how the original SHOCK package was marketed and features a complete reproduction of the promotional book that accompanied the film package in 1957. Many great photos are included as well as personal Shock Theater memories from several well-known writers and fans. No self-respecting Monster kid should be without this book. Check the Texas TV Terror section for details on ordering your copy.

Okay, fellow fiend fans. Enough with the blab. It's time to grab... your mouse (or rat if you prefer) and start clicking. As Professor Lampini used to say before he refused to go to Riegelberg,... on with the Monster Show!

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WHO ARE THE MONSTER KIDS?

America Online's Classic Horror Film Board is a special place for fans of vintage horror, sci-fi and fantasy films. It is a forum that lets AOL members share information, opinions, memories and experiences concerning classic horror movies and practically everything else. It evolved from an AOL bulletin board folder created by David Colton called UNIVERSAL HORRORS to discuss the classic Universal horror movies like the Frankenstein, Dracula and Wolf Man films of the 30s and 40s. As more horror fans on AOL discovered it, the area grew to include folders devoted to other subjects like 50s sci-fi, horror directors, horror stars, giant monsters and much more. The discussion was always lively and intelligent and participants included a surprising list of writers, publishers and film professionals. Even though there have been disagreements and arguments among those who post in the CHFB, there has always been the bond of our common love for the films, characters and actors that so affected us during our formative years. The following is the essay by David Colton from which this website gets its name. It was originally posted in the AOL Universal Horrors folder a few years ago and captures nicely the spirit that binds all of us together as Monster Kids

The Monster Kids

by David Colton

Read it in black-and-white, please.

These fragile remembrances of monsters past evoke a feeling that all of us here are somehow refugees from different corners of the same theater. How many of us in the last few years have shared similar tales of discovering our first childhood chillers -- the neighborhoods or names changed, but the evocative messages of autumn and late summer nights so much the same. We share in purest essence a collective and sweet memory of something very special. Whether it's Chiller Theater or a younger brother refusing to turn the channel to watch KING KONG, a stationery store with only one remaining copy of Famous Monsters, or the sheer excitement of the MYSTERIANS ads on Channel 9 when Godzilla was still only a movie old -- or especially the laugh of Zacherley interrupting Atwill's crazed one-armed lecture -- somehow we were all at the same place at the same time, with the same ability to call it all up like THAT! As if yesterday really was the day before today, not tens and twenties of years now gone. Baseball fans at the same game or cheering for the same hero can all recall the same home run. The smells and the colors of the 60s and 70s run through many of us still. I imagine the grim urgency of big bands and World War II hold the same power over our parents, and that MTV, the Muppets and Nintendo will rustle the same collective tugs in our children. But the monster kids -- that's us, the monster kids, young and old -- seem somehow special. Take a walk through these boards and hear what we've all said about why we're here and why we stay and why, decades now later, the sight of John Carradine still means something incredibly special, something that makes people wonder what we're talking about when, on AMC during a showing of STAGECOACH, we point and say knowingly, "That's John Carradine." We understand somehow because we are all parts of the same shared visual. We all hail from the same place, sitting cross-legged on the same sofa with the same Sylvania or Emerson or RCA black-and-white TV flickering with the Universal Globe or the RKO Radio tower or even the Twilight Zone signposts there up ahead. Somehow we're all from the same family, all rushing home from the same school down the same cracked sidewalks, kicking the same leaves on the same November afternoon to catch the same Shock Theater movie on the same night. And with Bela Lugosi, too! It's always chiller night for us -- for us the monster kids. The older the films get, the more distant the players and the more obscure the sources, somehow the younger we become. Edward van Sloan is old. Not us. Not the monster kids. Lon Chaney is gone. Not us. Not the monster kids. Even decades gone by, we're still kicking leaves in a swirl, waiting for the commercial to end, the parents to go to sleep and the castle to loom through the fog. The same fog we've been trying to see through for all these years, before digital magic made everything too easy to believe. Because the best horror movies are the hardest to see, after all. It's what keeps the monster kids squinting through the mist, somehow in this world of death and awkward and weird, sharing together what it was like to be...young. When we were the monster kids.

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