Classic Monsters of the Movies

It's not often there's a new horror magazine to go all gooey over ... but Nige Burton has just released the first issue of a new mag called Classic Monsters of the Movies and it's lovely!

I met Nige at a convention in Rotherham called HorrorCon earlier this year, and he had a stand promoting the magazine, and selling copies of two other magazine-format publications, all dealing with similar subjects: classic Horror Movies ...  I snapped the two he had available there up!

First off is Dracula 1931 and as you might predict, it's looking at that classic Universal horror film starring Bela Lugosi.  While this is a magazine, the production quality is simply superb! Printed on quality paper stock, with a nice sturdy cover, and spot UV varnish, it is just superb. Inside is a comprehensive history and overview of the film, punctuated with facts and figures and biographies of the main players.  It's superbly illustrated in black and white for the most part (though the printing is actually full colour throughout) and even takes in Castle 8mm films, the Aurora model kit and the stage play ... there are stills from the film, of the cast and crew, and of course posters galore. It's a magnificent publication!  And what's good is that there are further editions planned, each looking at different classic films!

The second publication was The Monsters' Almanac and this has the same super-high quality production standards of the first.  This is a neat idea. Taking a year as it's timeline, it chronicles, day by day, the key Classic Monsters happenings as they occurred. So to pick the day I am writing this for example, September 1, I can see that Sandor Eles died on this day in 2002, and that Isle of the Dead was released in 1945 ... just endlessly fascinating to dip into and to find out random facts and information about the golden age of horror film ...  As with the Dracula magazine, the photographic content is superb, with lots and lots of excellent images in black and white and colour, many of which seem new to me.  It's a brilliant and unusual gift for the horror lover!

Finally to the new magazine, and it's perfect bound, and up to the same quality printing and paper stock as the other magazines.  In look, it's probably closest to the classic Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine from the sixties, and I suspect this is deliberate. Inside there are interesting articles on Frankenstein Meets The Wolfman, where Nige Burton argues the validity of this entry into Universal's 'Monster Mash Up' series, there's material on Hammer too, and all their Dracula films go under the spotlight; there's an overview of Zombies in cinema, and a piece looking at the life of Boris Karloff.  All are superbly illustrated again, and the whole magazine is beautiful.

I admire what Nige Burton is trying to do here, and I really hope he gets the support he needs to keep these publications going. I've really not seen anything as quality as them for many years.

If I've piqued your interest, then head here to find out more and to buy copies, and even to subscribe if you can afford to: http://www.classic-monsters.com/shop/