Yeah - that's Joe Orlando's signature up there.
At the height of the Groovy Age, the folks at DC decided they should expand from comics and try their hand at the teen magazine game. But, not glossy print magazines. The idea was to use the existing set-up to create a cheaper comic book style printed magazine and offer it for only 12¢.
It was an experiment, down to the title - half of the run was called Teen Beat, half was labelled Teen Beam though the basic logo design remained constant:
You might have noticed that it changed from Beat to Beam on issue #2. So, yeah - that was the complete run of the series. The Monkees were featured on the cover of both. (As the blurbs indicate, the insides were packed with a ton of groups and stars of the day.)
The first issue featured a big article on fears that the boys would follow those other guys and break up with lots of photos. Unfortunately, comic book presses weren't really the best thing for photographs - that's probably one of the things that kept the book from catching on. The second issue featured a spread of tour photos, and a most odd little feature on The Monkees drawn by Joe Orlando! (from which the (slightly modified) image at the top of the page originated as well)
To show you what i meant about the photograph quality, here's the spread that followed the Family Album:
And, just because, here's that article from the first issue:
Gonna Buy Me A Dog is playing now. You know what's coming up, of course - Listen To The Band.
(And it's not even LJ)
art by Joe Orlando, articles from Teen Beat #1 and Teen Beam #2 (1967, 1968)
Monkee fan here! I was the perfect age to imbibe their glorious nonsense and aspired at one mote in time to have a room as much like their weird abode as I could. The music still gets me, takes me back to happy days indeed.
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Damn, Rip. I keep forgetting that you teach ninja arts over at the dojo. That's how you slip invisibly in and out all the time, right?
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Glorious Nonsense is a good term for the pure fun that was the essence of the Monkees. And the music, both the early Boyce & Hart stuff or the later songs created by the boys, has held up remarkably well. Much of it far more wide-ranging and creative than most folks realize, not to mention sometimes subtly subversive. How many realized that Last Train To Clarksville is about a draftee on his way to boot camp, trying to hook up with his girl one last time before he ships out?
And lyrics like "Why don't you hate who I hate, kill who I kill to be free?" (Randy Souse git) cut right to the heart of the times while somehow still managing to sound light and bouncy.
The Monkees get underrated due to their unique nature.