Michael D Hamersky On Comics Mentions The History of...   Monsters To Laugh With... And Monsters Unlimited!   Back In 1964 - 1966 From Humorama Magazines A Division of the Martin Goodman Publishing Empire!    The first three issues were titled... 'Monsters To Laugh With'!     The final four issues were titled... 'Monsters Unlimited'!

TODAY'S BLOG IS #3753 -  I was busy working on my Facebook Fan Page, and catching up from this weekend's events today, when I came across a few pics of these magazines, that I thought I would post in the special photo album at my Facebook Fan Page.

However, the issues didn't exactly fit right in with the rest of the album, so I thought I would post these separately in a blog, and then in another photo album.

The issues were all edited by Stan (the Man) Lee, who mentioned them at least a couple of times in the Marvel Comics of the same time period.

The first three issues were titled:  'Monsters To Laugh With'.  The first issue was in 1964, and so was the second.  The third issue was published in 1965.

Then issue #4 came out with a different title:  'Monsters Unlimited'.  Which lasted until the final issue, #7 in 1966.

This three year period of time was during the re-introduction of the Great Monster Craze of the 1960s.

You see, one of the many ways that was used to market 'product' at that time was through the use of humor.

My first remembrances of this monster 'zine' was that Stan Lee mentioned it in one or two of his Bullpen Bulletins in his Marvel Comics.  

Which must have been after #1 was issued?  As it wasn't until issue #2 that Stan's name was plastered on the cover.

As for myself, after reading one of the issues with the pale / lame jokes that were set in the type set speech balloons, I didn't exactly 'get' what the heck was going on.  

That, plus the fact that distribution of these magazines were not great in my areas, (Kodiak Island, Alaska, and San Diego, California), I just didn't collect all seven of the magazines, or actually even see them all at the publication times!

Today these magazines are not that well known, although they can usually be found in the collections of monsters collectors.

BTW... The many gags used in this series are a continuation of Stan's YOU DON'T SAY! magazine series. It was after John F Kennedy's death, plus the big success of Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine, that Stan had the great idea to apply his humorous word balloons to movie stills from monster films.  Plus, you can also see him applying humorous captions to trading cards and gum stickers in the later in  the1960s.

You see.. Stan Lee did not actually write these magazines for adults. His real target market was pre-teen and young teenage boys.  These were the same people who were building the Aurora monster models, which was also part of the Monsters Craze of the 1960s! 

~ Michael

NOTE FROM Michael D Hamersky On Comics:  My thanks again to all of YOU reading this blog and our archived blog posts, now at 3,753 total posts in number!   I do appreciate your continued reading and support of this Blog!

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