Wow. Love the cover of this little gem as it reminds me SO much of the FM #7 that I used to own as a kid. Which was a part of a collection of back issues that my uncle Lance gave to me before he went off to college in the late '60s. I kept those issues right up to the mid-'80s when I got the insane idea to sell off my entire collection of monster magazines. Which included not only that beloved #7 & all the early issues that my uncle gave me, but also all those that my Mom bought for me 7 later, that I bought on my own from the '60s right up through to the demise of warren. Like a fool, I sold them all when I was hard up for cash at some point in the mid-'80s when I was in my early twenties or so. Sheer stupidity it was. But, after thinking about it for a few years, in 2008 I finally decided to begin collecting those vintage FMs again, along with Calvin Beck's original run of CASTLE OF FRANKENSTEIN as well as Marvel's MONSTERS OF THE MOVIES. And now, three years later, I have a nice collection of all three of them. With my CoF collection almost complete other than issue #3. And, while i have plenty of nice FMs & key issues ( to me anyhow ), I still don't have #7. I'll get it for the right price one of these days though, I'm sure.
[Image]Today's post is a genuine MONSTER MAGAZINE WORLD exclusive! Mr. David Horne, author of GATHERING HORROR, the massive grimoire of Warren monster magazine magic, has revealed to MONSTER MAGAZINE WORLD a recent acquisition to his very special cabinet of curiosa.
And what a gem it is! OBRAS MAESTRAS DEL TERROR -- or as close as I can figure with my knowledge of Spanish, "Masterworks of Terror" -- is a paperback of classic horror stories.
Here, I'll let David explain further:
"You can see that the front cover combines elements of both FM 3 and FM 7, while the back cover uses the layout of the back cover of FM 4. But the language is in Spanish! ... This is is collection of short horror stories by the likes of John Collier (and) Wilkie Collins ... Interestingly, although the interior therefore is mostly text (all in Spanish, of course), it is illustrated with numerous black and white photos from monster movies that were taken from the pages of early issues of Famous Monsters!
The book is roughly paperback sized. It was published in Argentina in 1960, only two years after FM first came out. In my own book [GATHERING HORROR - ed.], I mention that the earliest foreign reprint of Warren material that I had discovered was the Swedish version of HELP! in 1962, but this beats it by two years."If you ask me, that makes this quite a find, and a most worthy addition as yet another historical artifact in the legacy of movie monster magazines.
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OBRAS MAESTRAS DEL TERROR front cover.
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FAMOUS MONSTERS #3 front cover.
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FAMOUS MONSTERS #7 front cover.
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OBRAS MAESTRAS DEL TERROR back cover.
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FAMOUS MONSTERS #3 back cover.
Thanks once again, David, for your generosity. I greatly appreciate it and I know the readers of MONSTER MAGAZINE WORLD do, too.
I'll close this post with a final thought: since the subtitle of OBRAS MAESTRAS DEL TERROR is "First Series" or "Volume One", it begs the question if there were ever any subsequent editions published?
2 Comments
Close this window Jump to comment formWow. Love the cover of this little gem as it reminds me SO much of the FM #7 that I used to own as a kid. Which was a part of a collection of back issues that my uncle Lance gave to me before he went off to college in the late '60s.
I kept those issues right up to the mid-'80s when I got the insane idea to sell off my entire collection of monster magazines. Which included not only that beloved #7 & all the early issues that my uncle gave me, but also all those that my Mom bought for me 7 later, that I bought on my own from the '60s right up through to the demise of warren.
Like a fool, I sold them all when I was hard up for cash at some point in the mid-'80s when I was in my early twenties or so. Sheer stupidity it was.
But, after thinking about it for a few years, in 2008 I finally decided to begin collecting those vintage FMs again, along with Calvin Beck's original run of CASTLE OF FRANKENSTEIN as well as Marvel's MONSTERS OF THE MOVIES. And now, three years later, I have a nice collection of all three of them. With my CoF collection almost complete other than issue #3. And, while i have plenty of nice FMs & key issues ( to me anyhow ), I still don't have #7. I'll get it for the right price one of these days though, I'm sure.
Jim
June 9, 2011 at 12:14 PM
Great post John. The Phantom cover is amazing!
June 9, 2011 at 2:50 PM