The Two Best Horror Film Magazine Covers Ever?

While enjoying the latest installment of Don Guarisco's Fango Files over at Schlockmania, I got to thinking about how the two most recent issues of Fangoria that he chronicles – issues #8 and 9 – were true boundary-breakers back in 1980s when they appeared.

I've written about them before, but I am inspired by Don's memories of the issues to nominate these two gross/fascinating/fun covers as best horror film magazine covers ever. Any other contenders you'd like to nominate?

Unearthing the History of Fangoria: Schlockmania on Issue #7

If you've been enjoying the Starlog Project here on this blog, but you like your genre magazines a little more ... wet, then you should check out Don Guarisco's ongoing exploration of the early issues of Fangoria, Starlog's unruly younger brother.

Don's just posted his writeup for Fango issue #7, which was something of a turning point for the horror film magazine. As then-editor "Uncle Bob" Martin notes in a comment he posted to the article, it was the first issue of the magazine to actually make money. It was also the issue (if you ask me) where Fango's horror specialization started to gel.

Read Don's description of the issue, and Uncle Bob's additional background info, for more.

From WEIMAR WORLD SERVICE

Fangoria Fans Finally Find an Online Project of Their Own

As my Starlog Project (in this blog and on its permanent site has grown (currently at issue #83), I've seen the enthusiasm people have for this classic science-fiction magazine they read as a child, as a teen, and well into their adult lives. It has also been enjoyable for me to go through these 30-year-old magazines and chronicle their content, design, the big movies and TV shows they covered, and more.

In an earlier post on this blog, I noted that I probably wouldn't have time to do a similar project for Starlog's sister magazine Fangoria, but I knew there were many -- dare I say rabid? -- fans of Fangoria, and surely one of them would do that magazine proud by chronicling its many issues. Now it looks like Don Guarisco is doing just that over at Schlockmania. Guarisco writes a comprehensive and entertaining profile of each issue, putting it in perspective for its time and describing the articles; he's not afraid to call the magazine on the carpet when he thinks they underperformed (or just weirdly performed -- anyone really want Disney's The Black Hole covered in Fango?). He's on issue #4 at the time of this writing, so it's still early days. If you're a reader of Fangoria or were in the past, now's a great time to climb aboard this nostalgia train.

I'm glad to see someone's taken on the Fangoria project.

So that's one thing I can cross off my to-do list ...

From WEIMAR WORLD SERVICE