More Than Monster Times

Though a lot of the early work i've shown from The Monster Times was dated 1971, the cover date of the premiere issue wasn't until 26 January 1972. While we generally presume that comic books were published 2-3 months before the cover date, that's likely not the case with a purported newspaper. I'm inclined to think that it did ship to the stands on that date, or at least the week of that date.

A Note: Due to the larger size of The Monster Times, typical image size has been increased by 50% in width (125% in area) to help keep text readable.
Continuing on...

Let's bring back that first issue cover from our previous post:

King Kong and Frankenstein (yes, that's his name. He's Adam, not Victor, but he's the created son of Victor Frankenstein, so he shares the name) was not a radically new combo, but it was always cool to geeks back in those days. Didn't know yet who this Gray Morrow guy was drawing the cover, but could definitely dig it.
Mushroom Monsters? Sure - we knew that one!
End of the World? Pick One!
But Frankenstein a "fake"? What was that about?
Monster-Sized Color Poster Inside? Well, this thing is folded in half... what's it look like if we check the interior of the fold...?

Okay - decision made. Gimme! Gimme!
Again - no clue at the time who this Wrightson guy was, but gimme more!

And that's before we even opened up to the table of contents.

Let's pause and take a closer look at that credits box bottoming the Almighty Editorial (which i trust you read?) -

That's a pretty damned impressive line-up, and only the first issue. The list of contributors would grow only more distinguished over time, and it wasn't uncommon to see early work from future stars in multiple industries.

It was immediately clear that The Monster Times was going to be about more than just monsters. The editorial promise a slew of science fiction features and the comics influence was very evident, with both old comic coverage and comic stylings sprinkled throughout the issue. As we proceed, i'm going to run the first page of several articles to give a better feel of the overall publication.

First up was Nosferatu... What Ever Happened To The Vampyr?

That's a question fans often ask almost a half century later, eh?
Even from the first article, they had a comic sidebar:

The Nosferatu comic from Izzo & Wrightson that ran yesterday was also from this issue.

Der Golem told of Rabbi Loew's* Golem and the influence on Victor Frankenstein's flesh golem -

The Men Who Saved King Kong spoke of how King Kong was almost never made -

The Mushroom Monsters on the cover blurb turned out to not be Matango (AKA Attack Of The Mushroom People) as we were thinking, but a generic term to refer to creatures created by the mushroom cloud of the Atomic bomb. This inaugurated an ongoing series, as was the book review section sharing the spread -

Back in those days before home video, The Shape Of Things To Come was a movie that existed mostly in legend. This was one of the first looks i go of the film -

Again, the comic sensibilities arise with a photo-comic from the movie -

We skipped past the biggest comic highlight from the first issue. It dovetails nicely with The Shape Of Things To Come, being science fiction from the first half of the 20th Century - the classic Buck Rogers comics. Here's the full article -

That first issue was enough to hook young me. The second issue only increased the allure of The Monster Times - an all Star Trek special, including an interview with William Shatner -

Inside was a variety of features on the show...

...Trek parody photo-comics...

...and a bit on the cool UK Star Trek comics we've seen here before -

The first half dozen issues did a fine job of feeding a young comic junkie's addictions, making sure i'd be back for more. Issue 3 brought us an article on insect themed characters in the comics -

The 4th issue gave us an article on the new "relevant" comics -

For an ERBophile, issue 5's piece on Joe Kubert & Tarzan was pure delight -

Zombies were all the rage back then, too, and issue 6 looked at zombies in the comics -

Yeah, it was The Monster Times - but that wasn't all it was.

Sadly, the bi-weekly publication schedule didn't last. After a little over half a year, it switched to monthly and then eventually to bi-monthly. The last few issues were published on an erratic schedule and distribution seemed poor on them. Issue 44 was the last i had, though another 4-5 issues were released.

Not quite 50 issues, but a whole lot of geeky goodness packed into them.

pages from The Monster Times #s 1-6 (1972)

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*(Yes, i know they spell Loew as Leow in the article. 2 + 2 ≠ 5.)

TMT Un-Comics Revisited

Every now and again The Monster Times would run a comic longer than their usual 2-pagers.

The first time was quite early on, but they actually broke it into two 2-page parts in issues 4 & 5. Jeff Jones' classic styled art was given the centerfold spot usually reserved for the poster in the fourth issue, providing a bit of colour for part one, with the usual black & white for part two -

UPDATE: Steven Thompson posits in the comments that Jones may likely have been using Berni Wrightson as a model for the artwork in the story above. I'm inclined to agree with him. Here's a photo of Wrightson from back about that time so that you might draw your own conclusions:

Tom Sutton's Rat! the longest single tale i can recall; from Issue 23 - a whole 7 pages. Actually quite extravagant for a 40 page newspaper.

Curiously, though the strip is signed Sutton & Flynn, no one named Flynn is ever mentioned nor listed among the contributing artists.
UPDATE: D.D.Degg informs us that the inker was later identified as Peter A. Flynn. (See comments on this post for further details) Thanks for the info, DDD!

TMT lasted fewer than 50 issues, but they produced a lot of comics during that time.

pages by Jeff Jones and Tom Sutton for The Monster Times #s 4, 5, & 23 (1972, 1973)

Forget Rolling Stone & The Music City News...

...I want my face on the cover of The Monster Times!

Why? Here's the first 3 dozen covers so you can see what a geek paradise it was...

Yeah, we'll be going inside. But if you can't wait, you could pop on over to Frederick's My Star Trek Scrapbook for a look inside their second Star Trek special. (Thanks again for reminding me of TMT's existence!)

covers from The Monster Times #s 1-36 (1971-1974)