The Masks of Famous Monsters - Issues # 15-26

Welcome to the ninth installment in The Masks of Famous Monsters Series. Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine was an absolute treasure trove of early mask history. By combing through the 191 issues published between 1958-1983, it's possible to gain a good understanding of the decades of evolution and history of Don Post Studios and Topstone monster masks. The eventual goal of this series is to catalog and archive each monster mask appearance in the pages Famous Monsters.

By issue #15 the classic early Topstone ads have all debuted and there is little in the way of "new" material other than the occasional mask related photo for the next eleven issues which span a time frame beginning in January 1962, and ending exactly two years later in January 1964 . All that will change by issue #27 when Don Post Studios masks find their way into the pages Famous Monsters of Filmland for the very first time. This post bridges that gap and documents each minor mask related appearance along the way...

The following photo of some early 1960's vacuform masks was the lone monster mask photo to be found in issue #15...

Issue #16 offers up a single selection of monster mask fun with this great shot of a Topstone Shock Monster and Teenage Werewolf...

Issue #17 again offered up only a single new nugget for fans of monster masks...

We have to skip forward to issue # 19 for mask related material. Fortunately, the wait was worth it as readers were greeted by a whooping ten pages of monster mask fun! For the ease of archiving, I'll be posting these pages in a separate post here tomorrow.

Issue #21 contains a small photo taken over twenty years prior to the release of the issue of Forry wearing a mask created for him by a young Ray Harryhausen!

Quasimoto Mask by Ray Harryhausen

Again we skip forward, this time to issue #23 for a nice shot of a Topstone Horrible Melting Man mask.

The only new mask related ad that would appear in this 11 issue span would be the "Shadow" Type mask and "Mystery Man" mask. Hardly monster masks, but certainly worth looking at as the Mystery Man mask would go on to appear in numerous Warren publications for over a decade to come.

The "Shadow Type" mask would appear just once, in issue 24...

This ad would not be found in issue #24, but would reappear in issue #25 in an altered "Mystery Man" from. It's a reasonable assumption to say that either Meridian Pictures or Columbia Pictures was none to happy about James Warren's unlicensed use of an Shadow "type" mask along with a photo of the Shadow in action. And so, the "Mystery Man" ad was born...

Well Creeps, that's a wrap on the pre-Don Post Studios days of Famous Monsters of Filmland Magazine. See you all here again next month for another installment of The Masks of Famous Monsters!