I found this fun ad in a 1966 issue of Eerie, promoting Warren's more superhero-centric version of Famous Monsters of Filmland, Screen Thrills Illustrated.
Unfortunately, when Warren put STI out, there was a real dearth of superhero stuff in movies and TV at the time. It focused mostly on movie serials, which at the time--1964--were considered ancient, so the magazine closed up shop in just ten issues. Even Jim Warren admitted in The Warren Companion that it really didn't have the necessary built-in fanbase that FMOF did. He must have had lots of issues lying around the warehouse, and was trying burn them off two years later.
It's funny to think that if someone wanted to put together a TV/movie superhero magazine today, each issue would be stuffed to the gills with content since there's so much of it nowadays(I mean, I just watched a Man-Thing movie the other day, for Pete's sake, though I wish I hadn't). Of course, no magazine like that could survive in the age of the internets.
I've never read an actual issue of STI, but some of those covers make me want to!
1 comment:
Dear Rob & gang-
I've read a few...
They're o.k.; but from what I could glean, the actual guys putting the mag together were really shooting more at the Old Movie crowd, than the Superhero one.
Lots of interviews with Silent Cowboy stars; profiles of guys like Cagney and Alan Ladd; and tons of p.d. 8mm ads.
(The famous Comics Hero one-shot - with the mis-colored costumes! - was mainly a reprint collection, tied in with Batmania.)
Best,
-Craig W.
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