This pretty thing is the cover of a 1964 digest-sized fanzine -- HORRORS OF THE SCREEN -- published out of Brooklyn, New York by one Alexander Soma. I've been in love with this impressionistic cover drawing of Steven Ritch (as he appeared in THE WEREWOLF, 1956) since I first saw it reproduced in the pages of, I think, a survey of fan press ventures in FAMOUS MONSTERS OF FILMLAND, probably 40 years ago. Today I finally succeeded in laying hands on a copy of this long-coveted relic and learned that the name of the artist responsible was Charles Johnson.
1964 was a long time ago, of course, and HORRORS OF THE SCREEN (or HOTS for short, as it called itself) has since faded into obscurity from an only slightly more prominent level of obscurity. I don't know how many copies were published, but the scarcity of HOTS has been an unfortunate obstacle in terms of Alexander Soma and company being properly remembered and acknowledged for what they brought to the field of horror movie fan publishing. In brief, HOTS appears to have been the earliest fanzine to insist on the need for more serious writing and reportage about the genre -- something attempted previously only by Calvin T.
Beck's one-shot enterprise of 1959 , THE JOURNAL OF FRANKENSTEIN.
In "The Monster Philosophy," the editorial of HOTS #3, the genesis of Soma's brainchild is explained: "In 1961, FAMOUS MONSTERS OF FILMLAND was for the most part a 'phun-filled' monsterzine aimed at the younger set, with little regard for the serious horror-phantasy addict. This was also true of the few 'fanzines' [note the quotes!
it was an uncommon term!] available then! Alex Soma gathered several friends in the New York area and discussed the idea of publishing a completely serious fanzine.
Thus the first 'crude' issue of HOTS was born."
I have also obtained the first "Collector's Edition" issue of HOTS (pictured here), published in the Spring of 1962, which describes itself as an "experimental" issue and welcomes fine-tuning suggestions from its readers. Though ambitious, it is a bit of a mess, with a cut-and-paste interior look and lots of typographic errors.
"Please excuse the price of HORRORS," the publisher/editor pleads on the first page, "due to printing costs, mailing, and limited circulation we are forced to charge fifty cents." A sentence like this brings the artifact into sharper perspective. HOTS #1 was truly a homemade venture, literally typed onto paper and pasted onto boards with photographs from a variety of sources.
In those days, when mimeography and ditto-press ruled, for a fanzine to include photographs at all was a big deal. HOTS was actually lithographed, and the first issue had a laminated cover.
In the Spring of 1962, the debut issue of Beck's CASTLE OF FRANKENSTEIN had only just appeared (in February), and the first issue of the influential French digest MIDI-MINUIT FANTASTIQUE was just around the corner, coming out in May/June 1962.
So a journal devoted to the serious discussion of horror cinema was extremely novel at the time, in any language. That said, the first issue of HOTS is hardly for intellectuals only; it's pretty basic from a contemporary viewpoint. The contents cover four articles: an overview of silent horror films 1885 - 1927, a biographical sketch of Vincent Price, a short and superficial survey of recent "macabre fiction" (illustrated with the same portrait of Christopher Lee -- in black-and-white, sans overlays -- that soonafter graced the cover of CASTLE OF FRANKENSTEIN's second issue in full color), and an 18-page illustrated story synopsis of Hammer's THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN.
As is noted in HOTS #3, this synopsis article appears to have inspired FAMOUS MONSTERS to follow their example by undertaking their own long-running series of "filmbooks" (which began in earnest circa 1963, around the time of their popular BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN filmbook), making this otherwise unexceptional piece rather a seminal moment in this particular sphere of publishing. Nearly all the photos reproduced inside the debut issue are familiar to us today, though Soma's editorial describes some as "never before published." There is one signed photo of Lon Chaney (Sr.
) that I don't remember seeing before.
I don't have the second issue, which sported a not-very-accomplished drawing of Christopher Lee as Dracula on the cover, but compared to the first, the third issue represents something of a quantum leap. Here Alexander Soma is listed only as publisher, with John Eyman recruited as editor.
The first issue's typos are a thing of the past, and the interior features a number of different typefaces or fonts, with some articles even presented via the miracle of reverse type (white on black). Very attractive. The unsigned articles (likely by Soma) in #1 here advance to a number of different contributors, including articles on Bela Lugosi and Peter Cushing written by their then-fan club presidents William C.
Obbaggy and Annette Florance. (The Cushing Filmography ends with 1962's NIGHT CREATURES!) Short reviews or looks at such films as THE FLY, THE MAN WHO COULD CHEAT DEATH, THE BIRDS and THE INNOCENTS fill out the issue, but most interesting of all is Edwin Schallert's surprisingly detailed study of how John Fulton created the special effects in James Whale's THE INVISIBLE MAN, probably explained in print for the first time and presented with fascinating procedural illustrations.
It's a piece that many fanzines would be proud to publish (or reprint) today.
One of the biggest surprises of HOTS #3 is its letters page, which starts off with a letter from Christopher Lee himself (the likes of which I never saw in the pages of FM or CoF!) and a very sharply observed and thoughtful communiqué about adaptations of Edgar Allan Poe in the cinema from none other than Joe Dante, Jr.
, of 68 Crestview Drive in Parsippany, NJ!
Abrams, Inc. Not knowing the nature or the extent of the revisions and expansions, I was hesitant to just go out and buy the new edition, so I did the next best thing. I put it on my Christmas list.
And you know what? I got it!
Yesterday I decided to warm up to the new edition by sitting down with both versions and doing a cover-to-cover, side-by-side comparison.
Before I get to my findings, I should tell you what the publisher's press release had to say about the new edition. It reports that the new edition is 272 pages, which adds 48 pages to the previous one. Other points of attraction include:
• Never-before published pages from McCay’s private animation production notebook revealing the filmmaker’s ideas for timing and visualizations in "Gertie the Dinosaur" (1914), "Lusitania," and "Flip’s Circus" (c.
1921).
• Rare concept art by McCay for a second film starring Gertie the Dinosaur.
• New documentation of McCay’s early career, including the Wonderland and Eden Musée in Detroit, where he sold his first cartoons.
• McCay’s professional relationship and longtime personal friendship with cartoonist Apthorp "Ap" Adams, one of his two assistants on the monumental animated epic "The Sinking of the Lusitania" (1918).
• Full-page reproduction of a 1907 New York Herald showcasing eight top comic strip cartoonists and illustrators including McCay, and their art.
• A complete Winsor McCay Chronology, and extensive additions to the Notes and Bibliography sections.
• Many rarely seen photos and drawings from private collections.
• A new cover, book design and page layout.
What I discovered myself is not always flattering to the new edition, but to go through the two editions simultaneously told me much more than an ordinary sit-down perusal of the new book would have done.
One thing that is immediately evident is that, despite the added page count, the new edition is thinner and slighter in stature than the Abbeville incarnation. Upon opening the book, I noticed that the Abrams book is printed on much thinner paper with a slight degree of "see-through" not found in the Abbeville, which subsequently has the richer and more durable feel. The Abrams also opens wider to expose its sewn signatures, while the Abbeville is more sturdily bound.
I frankly prefer the cover of the Abbeville edition, which highlights the artist and his creations rather than Abrams' wallpapery detail of one of the "Little Nemo" strips.
The illustrations are comparable in the two editions, but with some interesting distinctions. More than once, a single vintage photo in the Abbeville appears in the Abrams with another similar photo taken during the same session, giving these rare glimpses of McCay's documentary past the fleeting illusion of cinematic reality.
Whereas the Abbeville edition was unable to offer color on every page, the Abrams edition does; even when it presents art in black-and-white, it uses color to offer variety of tones, lending enhancing sepia tones to B W photos and creamier background shades to line art. I was also fascinated to see that almost all of the photos and source art is presented by Abrams with its outer borders intact; both were cropped to present only the art in the Abbeville edition. Therefore, we can now see the tattered outer edges of a gorgeous "Gertie the Dinosaur" poster, and the handwritten notations and surrounding pictures of those photos which reside in McCay family albums.
I find this additional textural information fascinating; it demonstrates that our perception of what is important in such documentation has become more exacting since 1987. Context is now regarded as potentially revelatory as content; looking at the same illustration rendered both ways, I found that it really is preferable to see the whole object, warts and all. These "warts" may harbor hidden truths.
For example, there is a surviving film cel from McCay's "The Sinking of the Lusitania" that is printed in the two books two different ways. It's flipped the wrong way around in the Abbeville, but presented correctly in the Abrams, as is proved by the newly exposed notation "End" written below the picture line on the uncropped document!
The Abrams book does add quite a bit of newly discovered illustration -- such as the aforementioned Gertie sketches, showing her attempting to cross the Brooklyn Bridge with disastrous results under the sweet heading "She Meant No Harm" -- but sometimes the shared illustrations are larger or more favorably rendered in the earlier edition.
Some "Little Nemo in Slumberland" Sunday strips, in particular, are wrecked in the Abrams version by being presented in the book sideways...
what fun to turn a large book sideways!..
. ostensibly to permit a larger rendering, but it also causes the panel midway down to get creased and sunken in the depths of the spine. Of the two books, I must say that the Abrams edition, despite its many other advantages, is not as well designed or laid-out as the Abbeville.
I noticed in the revised edition several instances of additional and amended text, bringing Canemaker's research fully up-to-date. The instances range from newly uncovered information (like correspondence relating to the ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA's acknowledgement of McCay as the father of film animation) to the fine-tuning of nuance. The 1987 John Canemaker pondered whether McCay might have been divining his own imminent death when he placed a death's head in his final editorial drawing, completed three days before his fatal aneurysm, as a personification of the narcotics threat.
"Probably not consciously," he hedged, not really knowing but liking the conceit. But the 2005 John Canemaker, perhaps more of a realist or simply more cautious about making such pronouncements, weighs the same evidence and decides, "Probably not."
I love this book, and after comparing the two versions, I've decided that I have to keep them both.
If you can only afford one, the Abrams edition -- despite some presentational lapses in judgment -- is clearly the one that represents the subject and its author most accurately. And this offers the book at significant savings off the cover price.
Copyright by Tim Lucas.
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