A LETTER FROM THE EDITOR: NOVEMBER 2009
"MONSTERS NEVER LEAVE"
by
SID TERROR
Editor-In-Chief
TheHorrorDrunx.com Online Magazine
I was looking through a long forgotten drawer in the bottom of one of my filing cabinets the other day and came across something that I hadn't thought of in many years. It was an issue of the first Horror magazine I was ever Editor-in-Chief of. Nope, working for THE HORROR DRUNX Online magazine is not my first time at a Martian rodeo.
The magazine was called "FRIGHT FLIX". It's a name I would never-ever consider using now, because I find the word "FLIX" or "FLICKS" to be entirely not respectful enough of the genre. In fact, you'll notice I now also chronically capitalize the word "Horror" to legitimize and show respect to the genre today.
Anyway, in those much simpler times when I was in the 7th or 8th grade, my best friend in the world and school chum Chris Loob (the only other Horror fanatic my age that I knew locally at that time) got the hair-brained idea to put out our own Horror movie magazine.
I did my own cover artwork back then too. Issue #1 had Boris Karloff from THE MUMMY, issue #2 was Lon Chaney Jr. as THE WOLF MAN, and the cover of issue #3 was Boris Karloff again as FRANKENSTEIN'S MONSTER. We never made it past issue #3 for reasons I'll demonstrate now.
Chris and I were both FAMOUS MONSTERS OF FILMLAND maniacs. In fact, FM could very well be the reason we stopped printing FRIGHT FLIX. You see, there was a FAMOUS MONSTERS convention coming up in New York City and we needed every available spare moment to try and earn every dime we could earn to go to that convention. Time to put out another issue of FRIGHT FLIX just wasn't in the plan. After weeks of begging, threatening, and begging some more, we finally got our parents to promise that if we earned enough money, we could attend the convention.
I mowed endless lawns that year at two bucks a pop. I towed that push mower behind my bike all over town. I knocked on countless doors asking to run errands, do odd jobs, paint garages, and anything else I could think of to earn that money. I even did a stint with the San Jose Mercury News, going door to door getting new subscribers. I was a machine with but one purpose in life. ...To go to a Monster movie convention.
My buddy Chris was also doing the same. It was a long hot summer that year and we worked every single day of it at the most back breaking and menial labors imaginable. By the end of the summer I had socked away quite a hunk of change in my old marble bag.
Then as the convention grew closer, my parents began to sweat a little bit. Not outwardly where I could see them, but behind closed doors where I had not inkling what was going on or that it was even taking place. Finally the day came when they called me into the kitchen for a talk. I never even saw it coming.
At first they played dumb as if they didn't have a clue about the reason I had been busting my ass saving money all year. Then it came out...
"Are you crazy? You are only 12 years old! We aren't going to let you fly to a dangerous place like New York City all by yourself to go to a Monster movie convention!"
"But I won't be by myself. Chris is going too!"
"He's the same age that you are! Do you think his mother is going to let him go?! No way!"
Little had I dreamed that they had been in contact with Chris' mother and at his house he was getting the same exact speech at this very moment. They'd even timed our little talks to be at the same exact moment, because they knew that if one or the other of us found out first, they would immediately call the other.
If there was anyone who deserved to go to that Famous Monsters convention, it was me. No adult had worked harder or with as much singular purpose, I was sure of it. In retrospect, I'm sure our parents only initially agreed we could go because they were positive there was no way in hell that two kids that weren't even old enough to drive and relied on Schwinn Sting-Ray bicycles for transportation, could ever learn that kind of dough.
But end of story, I didn't go. Though I had even concocted a plan to run away from home and go to the convention anyway, in the end fear of my parents possible repercussions and the fact that in my center I was a good kid who minded his parents, won out. And that is the story of how I didn't go to the Monster convention.
You have to love Horror movies and monsters a hell of a lot to go through what I did that year.
Looking at those issues of "FRIGHT FLIX" brought it all back to me. And you know, for a kid that was only 12 or 13 years old at the time, browsing through those articles today, they weren't a half bad read.
It reminded me of the very reason I loved Horror movies and monsters so much back then. It was honest. We didn't do it to make a buck. We didn't do it for the bragging rights of saying we published our own magazine, or to be bigshots in the Horror community, or because we were crazed greedy collectors. We did it because we had to. We were so spilling over with enthusiasm and love for the Horror genre, it was the only way we could show it all. The next step.
And those are the reasons that I still continue to do it today. Maybe it took me awhile, but I'm the Editor-in-Chief of a Horror magazine again. It ain't about the money, stature, attaboys, or wanting to be some kind of bigshot in the Horror community. It is about my love affair with the Horror genre, which has been the most important and lasting and trusting and honest and deepest relationship I've had in my lifetime.
Everyone else might come and go, but the Monsters never leave me. I can count on them.
I wonder what Chris Loob is doing? I haven't talked to him in a few years. Maybe I should give him a call.
"My name is Sid Terror and I am a Horror Drunx"
SID TERROR
Editor-In-Chief
TheHorrorDrunx.com Online Magazine
Hollywoodland, California
November 2009
POSTSCRIPT: What happened to all the money that I earned that year to go to the convention, you ask? My rebellion against my parents was to spend every penny of it buying Horror movie one-sheet posters, inserts, lobby cards, and back issues of Famous Monsters Of Filmland magazine. Back when you could get one-sheets from even 1950s and 60s movies often for two bucks a pop, I was able to build quite an impressive collection. A collection that I still get a lot of enjoyment out of today. Sometimes revenge is really super cool. Isn't it? Never give up the good fight.
"MONSTERS NEVER LEAVE"
by
SID TERROR
Editor-In-Chief
TheHorrorDrunx.com Online Magazine
I was looking through a long forgotten drawer in the bottom of one of my filing cabinets the other day and came across something that I hadn't thought of in many years. It was an issue of the first Horror magazine I was ever Editor-in-Chief of. Nope, working for THE HORROR DRUNX Online magazine is not my first time at a Martian rodeo.
The magazine was called "FRIGHT FLIX". It's a name I would never-ever consider using now, because I find the word "FLIX" or "FLICKS" to be entirely not respectful enough of the genre. In fact, you'll notice I now also chronically capitalize the word "Horror" to legitimize and show respect to the genre today.
Anyway, in those much simpler times when I was in the 7th or 8th grade, my best friend in the world and school chum Chris Loob (the only other Horror fanatic my age that I knew locally at that time) got the hair-brained idea to put out our own Horror movie magazine.
I did my own cover artwork back then too. Issue #1 had Boris Karloff from THE MUMMY, issue #2 was Lon Chaney Jr. as THE WOLF MAN, and the cover of issue #3 was Boris Karloff again as FRANKENSTEIN'S MONSTER. We never made it past issue #3 for reasons I'll demonstrate now.
Chris and I were both FAMOUS MONSTERS OF FILMLAND maniacs. In fact, FM could very well be the reason we stopped printing FRIGHT FLIX. You see, there was a FAMOUS MONSTERS convention coming up in New York City and we needed every available spare moment to try and earn every dime we could earn to go to that convention. Time to put out another issue of FRIGHT FLIX just wasn't in the plan. After weeks of begging, threatening, and begging some more, we finally got our parents to promise that if we earned enough money, we could attend the convention.
I mowed endless lawns that year at two bucks a pop. I towed that push mower behind my bike all over town. I knocked on countless doors asking to run errands, do odd jobs, paint garages, and anything else I could think of to earn that money. I even did a stint with the San Jose Mercury News, going door to door getting new subscribers. I was a machine with but one purpose in life. ...To go to a Monster movie convention.
My buddy Chris was also doing the same. It was a long hot summer that year and we worked every single day of it at the most back breaking and menial labors imaginable. By the end of the summer I had socked away quite a hunk of change in my old marble bag.
Then as the convention grew closer, my parents began to sweat a little bit. Not outwardly where I could see them, but behind closed doors where I had not inkling what was going on or that it was even taking place. Finally the day came when they called me into the kitchen for a talk. I never even saw it coming.
At first they played dumb as if they didn't have a clue about the reason I had been busting my ass saving money all year. Then it came out...
"Are you crazy? You are only 12 years old! We aren't going to let you fly to a dangerous place like New York City all by yourself to go to a Monster movie convention!"
"But I won't be by myself. Chris is going too!"
"He's the same age that you are! Do you think his mother is going to let him go?! No way!"
Little had I dreamed that they had been in contact with Chris' mother and at his house he was getting the same exact speech at this very moment. They'd even timed our little talks to be at the same exact moment, because they knew that if one or the other of us found out first, they would immediately call the other.
If there was anyone who deserved to go to that Famous Monsters convention, it was me. No adult had worked harder or with as much singular purpose, I was sure of it. In retrospect, I'm sure our parents only initially agreed we could go because they were positive there was no way in hell that two kids that weren't even old enough to drive and relied on Schwinn Sting-Ray bicycles for transportation, could ever learn that kind of dough.
But end of story, I didn't go. Though I had even concocted a plan to run away from home and go to the convention anyway, in the end fear of my parents possible repercussions and the fact that in my center I was a good kid who minded his parents, won out. And that is the story of how I didn't go to the Monster convention.
You have to love Horror movies and monsters a hell of a lot to go through what I did that year.
Looking at those issues of "FRIGHT FLIX" brought it all back to me. And you know, for a kid that was only 12 or 13 years old at the time, browsing through those articles today, they weren't a half bad read.
It reminded me of the very reason I loved Horror movies and monsters so much back then. It was honest. We didn't do it to make a buck. We didn't do it for the bragging rights of saying we published our own magazine, or to be bigshots in the Horror community, or because we were crazed greedy collectors. We did it because we had to. We were so spilling over with enthusiasm and love for the Horror genre, it was the only way we could show it all. The next step.
And those are the reasons that I still continue to do it today. Maybe it took me awhile, but I'm the Editor-in-Chief of a Horror magazine again. It ain't about the money, stature, attaboys, or wanting to be some kind of bigshot in the Horror community. It is about my love affair with the Horror genre, which has been the most important and lasting and trusting and honest and deepest relationship I've had in my lifetime.
Everyone else might come and go, but the Monsters never leave me. I can count on them.
I wonder what Chris Loob is doing? I haven't talked to him in a few years. Maybe I should give him a call.
"My name is Sid Terror and I am a Horror Drunx"
SID TERROR
Editor-In-Chief
TheHorrorDrunx.com Online Magazine
Hollywoodland, California
November 2009
POSTSCRIPT: What happened to all the money that I earned that year to go to the convention, you ask? My rebellion against my parents was to spend every penny of it buying Horror movie one-sheet posters, inserts, lobby cards, and back issues of Famous Monsters Of Filmland magazine. Back when you could get one-sheets from even 1950s and 60s movies often for two bucks a pop, I was able to build quite an impressive collection. A collection that I still get a lot of enjoyment out of today. Sometimes revenge is really super cool. Isn't it? Never give up the good fight.
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