This Month in My Magazine Collection, or "How I Got Most of the Warren Mags in a Month" 2 2

[OtherEric]

On 1/29/2023 at 9:31 AM, Jayman said:

Yes that’s correct. Must be a separate legal process, one for comics and one for mags I guess. 

I only know the mags are public domain because of that company Gwandanoland (sp)? That publishes the Nightmare, Psycho and Scream books. It mentions that Skywald never secured the rights to these titles on the back cover.

They're at CB+ as well, although a lot of the scans are pretty low grade.

https://comicbookplus.com/?cid=3515

[Axe Elf]

On 1/29/2023 at 10:56 AM, The Lions Den said:

But after reading extensively about Jim Warren, it sounds like he wasn't always fair with people, including the artists and writers that made his magazines so great.

Yeah, I certainly don't idolize the man.  As a Christian, I believe everyone is inherently selfish (evil) and our task in life is overcoming our human nature to take on God's nature of love.  People have various degrees of success in that task, but looking out for #1 is necessarily in the heart of every human.

Witness this week's EERIE #15 in the Warren Magazine Reading Club.  The notes from the Warren Magazines Index stated that Jeff Jones apologized for the quality of his artwork in the issue, because he had not been paid for his past three jobs for Warren.  So the well-being of his contributors obviously wasn't Warren's first concern.

Honestly, the morality of men involved with a collectible doesn't really bother me.  It makes for some interesting backstories, but if I only bought things produced and handled by virtuous men, I'd never buy another item in my life.

Edited January 29, 2023 by Axe Elf

[Jayman]

On 1/29/2023 at 1:34 PM, Axe Elf said:

Honestly, the morality of men involved with a collectible doesn't really bother me.  It makes for some interesting backstories, but if I only bought things produced and handled by virtuous men, I'd never buy another item in my life.

And look at the interesting topics it stirred up! 

[Jayman]

Also @Axe Elf, 

It reminded me of these 2 Warren books. Still affordable and stand outside of the FMoF run…

[Axe Elf]

On 1/29/2023 at 1:36 PM, Jayman said:

Also @Axe Elf, 

It reminded me of these 2 Warren books. Still affordable and stand outside of the FMoF run…

I would include those with the Famous Monsters of Filmland title, if I were ever to go for them.  They're on my spreadsheet as such, but I'm curious why you see them as "outside" the run.

[Axe Elf]

On 1/28/2023 at 5:27 PM, OtherEric said:

I personally consider the House of Horror the least interesting of the three, and the After Hours the most interesting.

On 1/28/2023 at 5:55 PM, Jayman said:

I agree with @OtherEric that the After Hours is the most interesting.

Ok, so you guys who find the After Hours title the most interesting, can you tell me why my After Hours #4 is like a half-inch narrower than #1-3, which all pretty much took up the entire functional width of my scanner, while #4 has significant margins.

Is this common of all #4s, that it has different dimensions than the other 3--or could mine have been trimmed or something?  Does anyone else have all four who could compare them for me?

[Axe Elf]

In looking at them all together like that, it does seem like there is a little margin to the right of the "s" at the end of "after hours" on each of #1-3, but pretty much no margin to the right of the "s" on #4.

I pulled it out to look at the interior margins, and they also seem narrower on the #4.  If it was trimmed, though, it was trimmed a long time ago, because the slight nicks and ticks of edge wear appear to be pretty consistent all the way around the the three edges--the front edge doesn't appear any crisper or cleaner than the others.

On the plus side, the #4 on daBay right now listed for $2500 looks at least as trimmed as mine does--maybe even less of a margin after the "s".

So I don't know; maybe they just tried to save money by making #4 1/4" narrower than the first three.  They all appear to be the same height.

Weird in any case.

 

[Jayman]

On 1/29/2023 at 3:53 PM, Axe Elf said:

I would include those with the Famous Monsters of Filmland title, if I were ever to go for them.  They're on my spreadsheet as such, but I'm curious why you see them as "outside" the run.

I consider them outside the run because they are what they are: stand alone one-off convention books/programs. They are not numbered in any way as part of the regular FMoF magazine run.

[OtherEric]

On 1/29/2023 at 4:29 PM, Jayman said:

I consider them outside the run because they are what they are: stand alone one-off convention books/programs. They are not numbered in any way as part of the regular FMoF magazine run.

They’re clearly issues 1974 and 1975.

[Jayman]

On 1/29/2023 at 5:30 PM, Axe Elf said:

Ok, so you guys who find the After Hours title the most interesting,

Nothing more than what I learned here when you first posted it. Lion’s Den said: The most important issue of After Hours for sure, with what amounts to a Famous Monsters preview by FJA. 
That’s pretty huge! I mean it even has a gal with a monster on the back cover too! 

Edited January 30, 2023 by Jayman

[Axe Elf]

On 1/29/2023 at 6:29 PM, Jayman said:

I consider them outside the run because they are what they are: stand alone one-off convention books/programs. They are not numbered in any way as part of the regular FMoF magazine run.

Fair enough.

For the purposes of my collection, I'm considering any books associated with a title as part of that run, so I would collect the Famous Monsters of Filmland Yearbooks and Annuals, the Famous Monsters of Filmland Make-Up Handbook, the Famous Monsters of Filmland Do It Yourself Monster, the Famous Monsters of Filmland Convention Programs, and the Famous Monsters Game Book as part of that title, just as I collected the CREEPY, EERIE, and VAMPIRELLA Yearbooks and Annuals (and the tacked-on final Harris issues for CREEPY and VAMPIRELLA) as parts of those runs.

It was hard enough to get myself to include the "Warren Presents Famous Monsters of Filmland 1981-1983 Film Fantasy Yearbooks" as part of the "Warren Presents & Special Editions" run, rather than as part of the "Famous Monsters of Filmland" run.

[Jayman]

On 1/29/2023 at 8:07 PM, Axe Elf said:

It was hard enough to get myself to include the "Warren Presents Famous Monsters of Filmland 1981-1983 Film Fantasy Yearbooks" as part of the "Warren Presents & Special Editions" run, rather than as part of the "Famous Monsters of Filmland" run.

It’s a slippery slope for sure! Was just mentioning them to your attention but you were aware already. 

[The Lions Den]

On 1/29/2023 at 7:40 PM, Jayman said:

Nothing more than what I learned here when you first posted it. Lion’s Den said: The most important issue of After Hours for sure, with what amounts to a Famous Monsters preview by FJA. 
That’s pretty huge! I mean it even has a gal with a monster on the back cover too! 

The first time I saw this issue and came across that FJA article, I realized this was the point where Warren changed his direction and began moving into completely different territory. A very significant development in the history of Warren Publishing...  

[Makmorn]

On 1/29/2023 at 8:49 PM, The Lions Den said:

The first time I saw this issue and came across that FJA article, I realized this was the point where Warren changed his direction and began moving into completely different territory. A very significant development in the history of Warren Publishing...  

Well that's because they shut his girlie magazine down.

CBA: What happened with After Hours?

Jim: Again, I learned a lot. I learned the hard way about Teamsters, truckers, loading docks, slowdowns at printing plants, and bankers who welsh on you.

But with the fourth issue, something good happened: A guy named Forrey Ackerman came into my life. Forrey was a Hollywood literary agent. Forrey, who was reading every men's magazine in existence as part of his agency work, saw a new one called After Hours and he contacted me through the mail. He wrote that he had some stories to offer me for my magazine. I liked what he submitted and ran it. We were featuring "Girls of Amsterdam," "Girls of Las Vegas," "Girls of Singapore," etc., and he came up with the idea, "Girls from Science-Fiction Movies." He sent 8"x10" stills with it and wrote it himself. I saw his writing and thought it had an interesting, offbeat style. The more I read it, the better it became because nobody can write fantasy movie features like Forrey Ackerman. Nobody. He is the best specialty writer on the face of the Earth, bar none—a writer who is so head and shoulders above all other writers for our genre, that nobody will compare with him 100 years from now.

However, after four issues, After Hours folded.

CBA: Weren't you prosecuted for the magazine?

Jim: [laughs] Oh, you found out about that?

CBA: Was Philadelphia a puritanical city?

Jim: Philadelphia wasn't puritanical; it was political. At the time, we had a District Attorney who was running for office. The story goes that he had heard about another District Attorney (also running for office) who was behind in the polls and had no chance of winning, but went out and made an arrest of a guy who was publishing a Playboy imitation. The local newspapers came out with a big headline: "Pornographer Arrested by Crusading D.A.!" And he won that election with the help of all that publicity. Our man in Philadelphia decided to do the same thing. "How can I get my name in the papers for a full month, every day? I'm going to arrest and indict all the publishers from Playboy on down—anything that was distributed in Philadelphia." Hefner was indicted and guess who the D.A. really zeroed in on because he didn't have to go out of state to extradite? There was only one guy publishing a Playboy imitation in Philadelphia. Guess who that was? "We're going to rid the city of pornography! We'll start by arresting the publisher of After Hours."

Gloria: Wasn't there one woman who was bare-breasted in that issue?

Jim: I asked the police, "On what basis am I under arrest?" One of the cops pointed to Bettie Page, bare-breasted in the centerfold. I said, "But that's not obscene! The Venus de Milo is bare-breasted and she's on display in an art museum!" He said, "I know obscenity when I see it." And I was indicted for pornography. The next morning the Philadelphia Inquirer, in giant headline type, announced the arrest of the editor/publisher of After Hours magazine. My name was up there.

CBA: It said "pornographer"?

Jim: "Porn Merchant Arrested with Million-Dollar Business." At the time I think I had $45 in our bank account—but it did exactly what the D.A. wanted it to do: It got him headlines in the paper for two weeks. Everyone was indicted! Even Reader's Digest because they had printed an article on sex education, or some such. He became known as the crusading D.A. who is going to rid the newsstands of this filth and slime which is corrupting our children! Shades of Dr. Wertham.

The D.A. knew it was all a sham but he didn't care. He got his headlines. My father came to me and said, "I'm going with you to City Hall when they book you. I'm going to stand right next to you. Don't worry." I wasn't scared as much as I was ashamed. Nothing like this had ever happened to me before. I was afraid people would think that I was publishing the worst X-rated stuff in the world, when all I had shown was Bettie Page with bare breasts—and she wasn't even on the cover; it was just the centerfold; and the stories had no pornography in them—they were mildly tittilating (I should use a different word here). The official police charge was, "bare-breasted women depicted in lascivious fashion."

While I was being booked, the press photographers had a field day. Flashbulbs were going off everywhere.

CBA: Wow. The humiliation...!

Jim: Yes. I was ashamed for my family. I was ashamed the cops would come to the house and search it. I knew what cops could do.

News about our crusading District Attorney appeared in the paper and stayed there long enough for him to be re-elected. What hurt more than anything else was that people who I thought were my friends wouldn't take my calls. "We don't want anything to do with him. Porn merchant. Yuk. I don't want to be seen talking to this guy." It hurt.

A month or so later I appeared in front of a judge on the first day of the proceedings. The judge looks at the magazines (there must have been 25 different ones on the table). All the lawyers were there with their clients. "What's this?" the judge asks. "This is the pornography." The judge sees Bettie Page with the bare breasts and said, "Case dismissed!" But it was too late; the D.A. had already won the election. Every single case was thrown out; it was all over. It appeared in the newspaper the next day on the bottom of page 27 and nobody saw it—but I learned about the power of the press and the power of the police state and the power of unscrupulous men.

Gloria: And politics.

Jim: And politics. It was one of the low points of my life. I was dead broke, I had no job, I had no magazine. I didn't want to go back to Caloric. I was only 27 years old. The kids I had grown up with were all out of medical school and starting to practice; most were established, married, and had children—they were living a normal, healthy life and there I was, 27 and no money and no job, labeled a pornographer. A failure.

CBA: When did you see the French magazine, Cinema 57?

Jim: Late in 1957 I arranged to meet Forrey in New York City. We had spoken on the phone many times, but had never met. At that first meeting, we looked at each other and it was instant good chemistry. He showed me a French magazine, Cinema 57, and this issue had been devoted to horror films. I looked through the magazine and it brought me immediately back to my Saturday afternoons; here was something I loved—the Frankenstein monster, director James Whale, Karloff, Lugosi, Lon Chaney. (They can make any bloody horror movie they want in Technicolor with all that sophisticated computer imaging, but nothing touches those great b-&-w horror movies made in the '30s.) As I'm looking at these pictures, I'm thinking, "My God! I'm at the movies, it's Saturday afternoon, and my mother's coming to get me at 5 p.m. to drag me out!

CBA: [laughs] "Jimmy!"

Jim: Right! So there I was, in a small hotel room in New York, with a man who looks like Vincent Price's twin brother, studying movie stills of old monster and horror movies.

Let's interrupt this part to bring you some digression: Something was taking place on late-night television. I had been watching it for months. Universal Pictures had collected all their classic horror films, packaged them for TV syndication, and was selling this "Shock Theatre" package to TV stations throughout this great land of ours. These old movies (Frankenstein, Dracula, The Mummy, The Wolfman, etc.) were being shown usually late on Friday nights. Each TV station had its own "ghoul-like" host or hostess who generally spoofed the film being shown and provided some live, low-budget comedy relief. Kids were watching these shows, not adults; and these kids were rooting for the monster—not for the townspeople with the pitchforks and crude torches. A switch had taken place. When these films had been shown in movie theaters during the '30s and '40s, the monster was the bad guy. Now it was reversed. These 10-year-old kids saw the monster on their TV sets and embraced him as the protagonist. The townspeople chasing the monster had become the antagonist (authority figure). The kids were cheering for the monster—the anti-hero—to win. This was something different; something new. A magazine version of the TV show, carefully crafted to spoof the monsters and yet treat them as "heroes" made sense to me. The adults wouldn't buy it, but the kids—those millions of Baby Boomers—would. A few weeks later I was in Forrey Ackerman's living room in California, choosing the photos and article content for a one-shot magazine called Famous Monsters of Filmland.

It was a tongue-in-cheek pictorial history of past and present horror-monster movies, printed in b-&-w on newsprint. The cover was in color—showing me wearing a Frankenstein monster mask. We went on sale in February during a snowstorm that covered the Eastern seaboard. The magazine sold out within days—and the rest, as they say, is publishing history.

[The Lions Den]

On 1/31/2023 at 9:12 AM, Makmorn said:

Well that's because they shut his girlie magazine down.

CBA: What happened with After Hours?

Jim: Again, I learned a lot. I learned the hard way about Teamsters, truckers, loading docks, slowdowns at printing plants, and bankers who welsh on you.

But with the fourth issue, something good happened: A guy named Forrey Ackerman came into my life. Forrey was a Hollywood literary agent. Forrey, who was reading every men's magazine in existence as part of his agency work, saw a new one called After Hours and he contacted me through the mail. He wrote that he had some stories to offer me for my magazine. I liked what he submitted and ran it. We were featuring "Girls of Amsterdam," "Girls of Las Vegas," "Girls of Singapore," etc., and he came up with the idea, "Girls from Science-Fiction Movies." He sent 8"x10" stills with it and wrote it himself. I saw his writing and thought it had an interesting, offbeat style. The more I read it, the better it became because nobody can write fantasy movie features like Forrey Ackerman. Nobody. He is the best specialty writer on the face of the Earth, bar none—a writer who is so head and shoulders above all other writers for our genre, that nobody will compare with him 100 years from now.

However, after four issues, After Hours folded.

CBA: Weren't you prosecuted for the magazine?

Jim: [laughs] Oh, you found out about that?

CBA: Was Philadelphia a puritanical city?

Jim: Philadelphia wasn't puritanical; it was political. At the time, we had a District Attorney who was running for office. The story goes that he had heard about another District Attorney (also running for office) who was behind in the polls and had no chance of winning, but went out and made an arrest of a guy who was publishing a Playboy imitation. The local newspapers came out with a big headline: "Pornographer Arrested by Crusading D.A.!" And he won that election with the help of all that publicity. Our man in Philadelphia decided to do the same thing. "How can I get my name in the papers for a full month, every day? I'm going to arrest and indict all the publishers from Playboy on down—anything that was distributed in Philadelphia." Hefner was indicted and guess who the D.A. really zeroed in on because he didn't have to go out of state to extradite? There was only one guy publishing a Playboy imitation in Philadelphia. Guess who that was? "We're going to rid the city of pornography! We'll start by arresting the publisher of After Hours."

Gloria: Wasn't there one woman who was bare-breasted in that issue?

Jim: I asked the police, "On what basis am I under arrest?" One of the cops pointed to Bettie Page, bare-breasted in the centerfold. I said, "But that's not obscene! The Venus de Milo is bare-breasted and she's on display in an art museum!" He said, "I know obscenity when I see it." And I was indicted for pornography. The next morning the Philadelphia Inquirer, in giant headline type, announced the arrest of the editor/publisher of After Hours magazine. My name was up there.

CBA: It said "pornographer"?

Jim: "Porn Merchant Arrested with Million-Dollar Business." At the time I think I had $45 in our bank account—but it did exactly what the D.A. wanted it to do: It got him headlines in the paper for two weeks. Everyone was indicted! Even Reader's Digest because they had printed an article on sex education, or some such. He became known as the crusading D.A. who is going to rid the newsstands of this filth and slime which is corrupting our children! Shades of Dr. Wertham.

The D.A. knew it was all a sham but he didn't care. He got his headlines. My father came to me and said, "I'm going with you to City Hall when they book you. I'm going to stand right next to you. Don't worry." I wasn't scared as much as I was ashamed. Nothing like this had ever happened to me before. I was afraid people would think that I was publishing the worst X-rated stuff in the world, when all I had shown was Bettie Page with bare breasts—and she wasn't even on the cover; it was just the centerfold; and the stories had no pornography in them—they were mildly tittilating (I should use a different word here). The official police charge was, "bare-breasted women depicted in lascivious fashion."

While I was being booked, the press photographers had a field day. Flashbulbs were going off everywhere.

CBA: Wow. The humiliation...!

Jim: Yes. I was ashamed for my family. I was ashamed the cops would come to the house and search it. I knew what cops could do.

News about our crusading District Attorney appeared in the paper and stayed there long enough for him to be re-elected. What hurt more than anything else was that people who I thought were my friends wouldn't take my calls. "We don't want anything to do with him. Porn merchant. Yuk. I don't want to be seen talking to this guy." It hurt.

A month or so later I appeared in front of a judge on the first day of the proceedings. The judge looks at the magazines (there must have been 25 different ones on the table). All the lawyers were there with their clients. "What's this?" the judge asks. "This is the pornography." The judge sees Bettie Page with the bare breasts and said, "Case dismissed!" But it was too late; the D.A. had already won the election. Every single case was thrown out; it was all over. It appeared in the newspaper the next day on the bottom of page 27 and nobody saw it—but I learned about the power of the press and the power of the police state and the power of unscrupulous men.

Gloria: And politics.

Jim: And politics. It was one of the low points of my life. I was dead broke, I had no job, I had no magazine. I didn't want to go back to Caloric. I was only 27 years old. The kids I had grown up with were all out of medical school and starting to practice; most were established, married, and had children—they were living a normal, healthy life and there I was, 27 and no money and no job, labeled a pornographer. A failure.

CBA: When did you see the French magazine, Cinema 57?

Jim: Late in 1957 I arranged to meet Forrey in New York City. We had spoken on the phone many times, but had never met. At that first meeting, we looked at each other and it was instant good chemistry. He showed me a French magazine, Cinema 57, and this issue had been devoted to horror films. I looked through the magazine and it brought me immediately back to my Saturday afternoons; here was something I loved—the Frankenstein monster, director James Whale, Karloff, Lugosi, Lon Chaney. (They can make any bloody horror movie they want in Technicolor with all that sophisticated computer imaging, but nothing touches those great b-&-w horror movies made in the '30s.) As I'm looking at these pictures, I'm thinking, "My God! I'm at the movies, it's Saturday afternoon, and my mother's coming to get me at 5 p.m. to drag me out!

CBA: [laughs] "Jimmy!"

Jim: Right! So there I was, in a small hotel room in New York, with a man who looks like Vincent Price's twin brother, studying movie stills of old monster and horror movies.

Let's interrupt this part to bring you some digression: Something was taking place on late-night television. I had been watching it for months. Universal Pictures had collected all their classic horror films, packaged them for TV syndication, and was selling this "Shock Theatre" package to TV stations throughout this great land of ours. These old movies (Frankenstein, Dracula, The Mummy, The Wolfman, etc.) were being shown usually late on Friday nights. Each TV station had its own "ghoul-like" host or hostess who generally spoofed the film being shown and provided some live, low-budget comedy relief. Kids were watching these shows, not adults; and these kids were rooting for the monster—not for the townspeople with the pitchforks and crude torches. A switch had taken place. When these films had been shown in movie theaters during the '30s and '40s, the monster was the bad guy. Now it was reversed. These 10-year-old kids saw the monster on their TV sets and embraced him as the protagonist. The townspeople chasing the monster had become the antagonist (authority figure). The kids were cheering for the monster—the anti-hero—to win. This was something different; something new. A magazine version of the TV show, carefully crafted to spoof the monsters and yet treat them as "heroes" made sense to me. The adults wouldn't buy it, but the kids—those millions of Baby Boomers—would. A few weeks later I was in Forrey Ackerman's living room in California, choosing the photos and article content for a one-shot magazine called Famous Monsters of Filmland.

It was a tongue-in-cheek pictorial history of past and present horror-monster movies, printed in b-&-w on newsprint. The cover was in color—showing me wearing a Frankenstein monster mask. We went on sale in February during a snowstorm that covered the Eastern seaboard. The magazine sold out within days—and the rest, as they say, is publishing history.

Yet another example of the fickle finger of fate...  

[Makmorn]

If Warren had started his publishing in New York rather than Philadelphia, After Hours would have probably run for more than 4 issues, and maybe even into the 80's like most of the other titles.

Would he have still started Famous Monsters? Hard to say, he was forced out of the girlie mags and thereby HAD to find another form of publishing. If anything it would have likely been a few years later.

The Cinema 57 issue had a lot to do with it, not just After Hours #4. If you want to get technical, the After Hours #1 with the Bettie Page centerfold that got him shut down might have been the key to it all.

So many factors, hard to point at just one.

Edited January 31, 2023 by Makmorn

[The Lions Den]

On 1/31/2023 at 10:51 AM, Makmorn said:

If Warren had started his publishing in New York rather than Philadelphia, After Hours would have probably run for more than 4 issues, and maybe even into the 80's like most of the other titles.

Would he have still started Famous Monsters? Hard to say, he was forced out of the girlie mags and thereby HAD to find another form of publishing. If anything it would have likely been a few years later.

The Cinema 57 issue had a lot to do with it, not just After Hours #4. If you want to get technical, the After Hours #1 with the Bettie Page centerfold that got him shut down might have been the key to it all.

So many factors, hard to point at just one.

Well, one thing's for sure---he wasn't afraid to try new things...  

[Axe Elf]

I'd read the backstory before, but I still don't know why After Hours #4 is narrower than After Hours #1-3!

[Makmorn]

On 1/31/2023 at 12:17 PM, Axe Elf said:

I'd read the backstory before, but I still don't know why After Hours #4 is narrower than After Hours #1-3!

Was it? or were 1, 2, & 3 oversized and the printer changed the specs? Without an After Hours #5 it's hard to say.

If you are concerned about trimming, I don't think that's an issue. Pretty sure this one measures the same as yours.

Edited January 31, 2023 by Makmorn

[Axe Elf]

On 1/31/2023 at 12:39 PM, Makmorn said:

Was it? or were 1, 2, & 3 oversized and the printer changed the specs? Without an After Hours #5 it's hard to say.

If you are concerned about trimming, I don't think that's an issue. Pretty sure this one measures the same as yours.

Yeah, the other one on daBay (the one listed at $2,500 because it's "Famous Monsters #0") also didn't have much margin to the right of the "s".  So I'm not TOO concerned about it being trimmed, but I am curious as to why it is narrower than the others.  Maybe it's just as innocuous as you suggested--the printer changed their specs--but than again a couple other mags (like the Heidi Saha book) also take up the full effective width of my scanner, while most of the other Warrens printed around the same time do not.

So it's just got me curious as to what goes into the "width" decision.