I’m very sad to say that Forrest Ackerman died at his home in LA this past Thursday, December 4th, of heart failure. Sci-Fi may never be the same. If you grew up in the sixties or seventies you knew Forry as the founder and editor of Famous Monsters of Filmland, the seminal monster movie magazine that was our lifeline to info on the genre we loved so much. Believe it or not, there was a time when the internet, chat rooms, and message boards didn’t exist and it was magazines like Forry’s that kept us informed. And it went beyond just the titular Monsters. The very first Star Wars mag I got my hands on was a special edition (all in B&W newsprint mind you) published by Famous Monsters. Of course he did much more than publish a magazine, but that’s largely what i remember him for. He was an ambassador for science fiction in a world where adults weren’t supposed to endorse such trash.
I had the great pleasure of seeing Forry along with his friends Ray Bradbury and Ray Harryhausen, three of the powerhouses of the sci fi genre (a name coined by Forry BTW), at a panel discussion at Comic Con a couple of years ago. These men were a joy to behold as they still held onto the basic love of science fiction and fantasy that brought them together in the first place. I don’t know of any time before (or since for that matter) when I grinned throughout an entire panel discussion, but I did that day. The shot above is a pic from that day (Forry’s the one in the blue jacket on the right) but it holds little of the magic that was in that room. I only hope that when I’m 92 I go out with just a little of the sparkle that Forry had in his eyes right up ’til the end.
