Jim Warren recently gave a talk about the origins of Famous Monsters of Filmland, which he launched in 1958.
His initial inspiration for Famous Monsters of Filmland was noticing that kids were staying up late to watch old Universal horror movies on TV. In his youth, kids went and saw monster movies at neighborhood theaters. But with the coming of TV, older theaters were being dismantled, leaving the movie studios with a lot of black and white movies which they sold quickly in package deals to TV stations.
He described the first issue of Famous Monsters of Filmland as having been laid-out on a living room table and financed with money loaned by his father. When the first run of 200,000 issues finally hit the stands, he was left with a mere $36.00 in his pocket. This initial run sold out in a manner of days and he realized the initial hunch he had to do it was a good one. The second run sold out just as quickly and the magazine continued to be published for the next 20 plus years.
