Hi Jon,
I posted my email again after your electro-mechanical brain went down with shell shock but I'm absurdly busy at the mo, having an overdue novel to hand in plus a buzz on Powerlines http://www.amazon.co.uk/Powerlines-New-Writing-Waters-Edge/dp/1906120404 and an offer of an angling column in an upmarket mag. However...
I'm thoroughly enjoying Alan's macabre series of articles. I too remember those wonderfully unpleasant badges and Creepy and Eerie magazines. The corner newsagent of the terrace row I grew up in was a remarkable library for an impressionable youngster, selling not only a comprehensive selection of specialist pornography but more importantly, an encyclopaedic array of US import teen magazines. These included the ones mentioned plus the original 60s Monster, most superhero comics, Archie, Scooter and cult Hot-Rodding publications.
Alan may work his way round to them but I wonder if he recalls any of the banned trading/bubble gum cards such as The American Civil War series with its gruesome depiction of being 'tied to a cannon' and horse cavalry impaled on a spiked booby trap? There was also the Aurora construction kits of the Universal horror grotesques - The Mummy (had that one), Frankenstein, Dracula, the Wolfman, etc., which also included a working guillotine with lurid box illustrations and a re-glue-able head.
Then there were the creepy polystyrene push-fit gliders and a grimoire of horror/hot rod model cars with skeletal drivers. Happy days and more, please, Alan.
Best,
Colin
I remember those Civil War cards.More gruesome were the eventually banned "Outer limits" cards from the TV show of the same name and the Mars Attack series which inspired the film of the same name years later.
ReplyDeletescans of some comics and Famous Monsters of Filmland can be found online by the way.