Hey, Monster Kids! The celebration of King Kong’s 90th anniversary this year continues with the return of our Kong-related feature Hail to the King (Kong), a series of occasional posts in which we spotlight images related to the god-emperor of Skull Island—some you might recognize; some might be completely new to you.
Our latest entry is from comic-art legend Gray Morrow (Creepy, Zatanna, Chilling Adventures in Sorcery), who provided this spectacular front-page illustration for The Monster Times #1, cover dated January 26, 1972. TMT was a horror-magazine competitor of the more well-known Famous Monsters of Filmland, originally published on a biweekly schedule, and always printed in the format of a tabloid newspaper like The New York Times—the front cover was “above the fold,” the back cover “below the fold.” Plus every issue had a foldout centerfold poster! (In all honesty, TMT was the first monster mag I became aware of as a horror fan, not encountering Famous Monsters until I was in the middle of my Star Wars fandom in the late 1970s, when they put R2D2 on the cover of an issue.)
The Monster Times ran for 48 issues (plus three specials, two of them devoted to Star Trek), ending its run in July 1976, but it was never far from the memories of its Monster Kid readership. And its spirit lived on a bit in a magazine that followed in the 1990s, The Phantom of the Movies’ Videoscope, from former TMT editor Joe Kane (aka the Phantom).
But it was Kong who got the ball rolling, with that striking Gray Morrow illustration for the first issue (not to mention a Bernie Wrightson Frankenstein poster as the centerfold). Kong: the King of Monster Mags!
And while we’re on the subject of the big ape, in case you’re unfamiliar with the story of Kong and his obsession with struggling Depression-era actress Anne Darrow, the Beauty to his Beast, it just so happens that your friendly fiends here at ’Warp Central have the perfect book for you…
King Kong is a digital-exclusive republication of the 1932 novelization of the original movie classic. Written by Delos W. Lovelace, based on the story by Edgar Wallace and Merian C. Cooper and the screenplay by James A. Creelman and Ruth Rose, it includes scenes that didn’t appear in the final cut of the film—including the notorious “spider pit” sequence in which Kong’s human pursuers are attacked by horrific arachnids and insects. Our version features six original black-and-white illustrations by comics artist Paul Tuma, whose work has appeared in the pages of The Twilight Zone, Paul Kupperberg’s Secret Romances, and Bloke’s Terrible Tomb of Terror.
King Kong is available for download right now, so visit its product page for ordering information.
