A TROVE OF HIGH-GRADE COPIES OF THE MAGAZINE THAT INFLUENCED A GENERATION OF SCI-FI AND HORROR CREATORS CREEPS TO THE AUCTION BLOCK
By Robert Wilonsky | October 21, 2025
In his 2000 autobiography On Writing, Stephen King recounted his first rejection, a short story whose title he couldn’t even remember. All he could conjure was that it was something science-fiction flavored, an echo of the first thing he’d ever seen on TV around 1958 – a movie called Robot Monster about a gorilla with a bowl on his head called Ro-Man trying to kill every last survivor of a nuclear war that had decimated the planet. That story, penned when King was 13 and a faint memory by the time of On Writing’s publication 25 years ago, “owed a great deal to the killer ape with a goldfish bowl on his head.”
King recalled having sent the brief manuscript to Forrest J Ackerman, the literary agent and “compulsive science fiction memorabilia collector” who, in February 1958, began publishing Famous Monsters of Filmland with James Warren as his publisher and backer. The magazine was intended as a one-off, an English-language translation of the French publication Cinema 57, which had devoted a 1957 issue to “Le Fantastique” films of American cinema – movies populated by scary monsters, bug-eyed aliens, and killer robots.
This copy of ‘Famous Monsters of Filmland’ No. 10, published in 1961 and featuring a cover by Basil Gogos, is the earliest ‘Famous Monsters’ issue to receive a 9.8 grade from CGC. The copy is one of many high-grade examples of the magazine available in Heritage’s November 1 Famous Monsters and Related Magazines Showcase Auction.
‘The Curse of the Werewolf’ was the focus of 1961’s ‘Famous Monsters of Filmland’ No. 12. This copy of the issue is the only one graded 9.8 by CGC, with none graded higher.
By the late 1950s, Ackerman had long pined for a magazine devoted to such subjects. As he said (while dressed as Dracula) in a long-forgotten documentary about Famous Monsters, Bela Lugosi was dead, and Lon Chaney hadn’t been seen on screen in decades. “And I feared that young generations of boys and girls would have forgotten them altogether, so I determined that Bela Lugosi should live eternal, that Lon Chaney should never die.”
Except the translation of Cinema 57 proved too difficult – and too boring. And Ackerman couldn’t figure out where the photos used in the French magazine had come from. So he had a better idea: Forry, as he was known, would use photos from the stack of 35,000 film stills stacked in his own collection and write the issue himself, as he had even more puns in his arsenal than photos. Whenever he got stuck, Ackerman would later say in that documentary, his publisher would remind him: “I am 11½ years old, and I am your reader. Forrest Ackerman, make me laugh.”
‘Famous Monsters of Filmland’ No. 18, from 1962, is notable for including a list of the 50 worst horror films in an article written by a teenage Joe Dante, who went on to direct ‘Gremlins,’ ‘The ’Burbs,’ and other popular movies. This 9.8-graded copy of the issue is available in Heritage’s November 1 Famous Monsters and Related Magazines Showcase Auction.
1963’s ‘Famous Monsters of Filmland’ No. 23 features a Basil Gogos cover and a Boris Karloff interview by Forrest J Ackerman. This copy of the issue is the only 9.8-graded example in CGC’s population report.
The first issue was an instant hit – a sell-out. And it wasn’t just because of what was inside, either: Many of its covers were done by Basil Gogos, whose renderings of cinema’s scariest creations would become iconic and coveted by filmmakers, rock stars, and lovers of the spooky stuff. Upon Gogos’ death in 2017, The New York Times hailed him as the man “who painted monsters with love.” Just last year, his covers for Famous Monsters of Filmland No. 9 and No. 83 each sold at Heritage Auctions for $90,000, setting auction records for the artist.
The paintings outside and the behind-the-scenes photos and stories inside proved required reading for generations of kids raised on color but still spooked by black-and-white. Eventually, too, he would feature Star Trek and Star Wars on the covers – Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock, Darth Vader, R2-D2 – candy for kids. And as a result, Ackerman said, “For 190 issues I brought Halloween to the kids of the country every month for nearly 25 terror-filled years.”
Stephen King, of course, was among those impressionable kids: “Ask anyone who has been associated with the fantasy-horror-science fiction genres in the last thirty years about this magazine,” he wrote, “and you’ll get a laugh, a flash of the eyes, and a stream of bright memories – I practically guarantee it.” Freddy Krueger was, too. As actor Robert Englund said in that documentary, he kept surfing posters and Famous Monsters foldouts pinned to the walls of his childhood bedroom.
Published a few months after the release of the original ‘Star Wars’ movie in 1977, ‘Famous Monsters of Filmland’ No. 138 featured an R2-D2 cover by Don Maitz. This copy of the issue, graded 9.8 by CGC, is available in Heritage’s November 1 Famous Monsters and Related Magazines Showcase Auction.
1973’s ‘Famous Monsters of Filmland’ No. 100 is exceedingly hard to find in high grade due to the black border that would expose any flaw. This copy of the issue, which features a history of the magazine’s first 15 years, is the only example graded 9.8 by CGC, with none graded higher.
Parents loathed the magazine, filled with horrific black-and-white scenes lifted from scary movies populated by the dying and the undead. But in that documentary, science-fiction titan Ray Bradbury explained the appeal of Famous Monsters: Where parents insisted “kids shouldn’t be fantasizing, I’ve always said the opposite. The ability to fantasize is the ability to survive.”
Famous Monsters ran from 1958 until 1983, having published 191 issues – most of which are available in Heritage’s November 1 Famous Monsters and Related Magazines Showcase Auction, the first event devoted solely to Ackerman’s monster. Every issue comes from a single-owner collection, and almost each one is the best copy Heritage has ever seen, with more than 40 ranking as the sole highest-graded copy in CGC’s population report. An additional 54 are tied for the highest grade.
“George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, Peter Jackson, and, of course, Stephen King have all cited Famous Monsters of Filmland as an influence, so imagine how thrilled we are to offer what’s easily the best collection of the magazine ever to come to market,” says Heritage Auctions Vice President Barry Sandoval. “This auction includes many 9.8 copies of the early 1960s issues, which are so hard to find in top condition. And we had never had a 9.8 before Issue No. 50 in our history.”
In addition to ‘Famous Monsters of Filmland,’ Heritage’s November 1 auction includes spinoff titles like this 1961 debut issue of ‘Spacemen.’
This example of 1964’s ‘Spacemen’ No. 8 is the only copy of any ‘Spacemen’ issue to be graded 9.8 by CGC.
Here, too, are issues of Famous Monsters’ short-lived sci-fi spinoff Spacemen, including the first issue, published in 1961. That was the magazine to which King sent that first short story, which was eventually published by Famous Monsters in the 1990s during one of its myriad resurrections, because, apparently, you can’t keep a good monster – or monster mag – down.
In On Writing, King noted that sometime in the 1980s, Ackerman brought that story – “single-spaced and typed with the long-vanished Royal typewriter my mom gave me for Christmas the year I was eleven” – to a bookstore where King was signing copies of his novels. Ackerman wanted King to sign it.
“And I guess I did, although the whole encounter was so surreal I can’t be completely sure,” King wrote. “Talk about your ghosts. Man oh man.”
Forest J Ackerman died in 2008. Forest J Ackerman will never die.
