Where my monster love comes from
Growing up in my neck of the woods, we didn’t have a horror host and getting a copy of Famous Monsters wasn’t easy but we did have the Monsters Series of Books from Crestwood House. My local library had all of the ones pictured (and I swear a Creature one) and they fed my mad thirst for monster knowledge. From about 1980-82, one of these was constantly lent out by me, especially the Godzilla book. That’s why I was so excited to find this at a toy show a few years ago:
The crestwood book on my favourite monster of all, Frankenstein. This book goes from the Edison version lingering on Universal to Hammer and ending with Michael Sarrazin (this was published in 1977). One of these days I’m going to have to track down the others.
a friend of mine just got the whole series at a used book sale and has been doling them out to his 5-yr old monster-loving son every so often.
we were there just last night, and he used the Dracula book as the pre-bedtime reading selection!!
btw, somewhere buried in a box somewhere i have the ones for Black Lagoon and the Blob; be glad to send some scans of ’em if you’d like!
There was a Creature book. I have the same Frankenstein book, but I think from a later publication date as the back lists a lot more of the books…
http://www.flickr.com/photos/smurfwreck/1508041191/in/set-72157601968951361/
I used to get these from the library all the time too! What a blast from the past.
Oh, wow. The top book reminds me of a monster movie book my dad owned. Growing up I DEVOURED that thing. The photos were fabulous and, as I remember, the range was great including lots of lesser known films (I remember a ‘The Fly’ sequel shot where I guy was half guinea pig or some such).
I have no idea what happened to it (though I still have his “Tolkein Bestiary”, Science Fiction A to Z and my “Spacecraft: 2000-2100”.
totally had the same experience, never saw them in a book store……..checked them out constantly from the local library. fun old memory for sure! dusty abell