GRAVEYARD EXAMINER - THE EARLY YEARS

THE GRAVEYARD EXMINER, "The Official Newspaper of the Famous Monsters Club" had it's first appearance in FAMOUS MONSTERS #13. Nineteen Sixties Rock n' Roll star and later cult figure Ron Haydock was selected as the editor of the two-page-spread newsletter. He is pictured here in the second installment as it was seen in FAMOUS MONSTERS #14 (Vol. 3 No. 5, October 1961), wearing a monster mask and holding a guitar. Could it get any cooler than that?

Note: Apoligies, but this is the largest I can get the image. Blogger has decided once again to use their unwelcomed picture browser that will not enlarge an image. I suggest saving the pic to your drive and view it in a program such as Windows Photo Gallery or the Quck Time Photo Viewer. Sorry about that.

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GRAVEYARD EXAMINER -- THE EARLY YEARS

We saw this past week that the newest incarnation of FAMOUS MONSTERS OF FILMLAND has relaunched THE GRAVEYARD EXAMINER as a regular newsletter to supplement its print publication. Monsterologists and regular readers of MONSTER MAGAZINE WORLD will know that the original run of this feature appeared during the Warren/Ackerman FAMOUS MONSTERS years.

THE GRAVEYARD EXAMINER made its first appearance in FAMOUS MONSTERS #13 (Vol. 3, No. 4, August 1961). GE was the logical progression of a feature that began as early as FM #3, which focused on the acitivities of the FAMOUS MONSTERS CLUB. It was content like this that by reaching out interactively to fans, gave FM its legendary sense of community that few, if any, competitors ever achieved.

GE was edited by Ron Haydock, who was also credited on the masthead on the FM contents page as editor of "Special Materials". Haydock was a multi-talented individual. He is best known to the world as the lead singer in the rock n' roll band Ron Haydock & The Boppers, and, when he cruised the streets of Hollywood with his guitar as "Lonnie Lord", was sometimes compared to Elvis Presley! He also acted and wrote novels (under another one of his pseudonyms, Vin Saxon). He also happened to be a big fan of horror and monster movies. He worked for Warren for a time, then went on to edit his own monster 'zine, FANTASTIC MONSTERS OF THE FILMS, with Paul Blaisdell, Bob Burns, and Jim Harmon.

And that will be another story to tell here at MONSTER MAGAZINE WORLD. In the meantime, here is the first "Dead Letter Edition" of THE GRAVEYARD EXAMINER.

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