I've been mulling this over for some time now and have decided to offer my Warren Index here, for those of you who may be interested in such things. I feel this is the proper place for it. It's the only place for it. It's a place I've been coming to since those early AOL message board days before this one was born. It's the most reliable, informative, interesting, frustrating, and gloriously wonderful website when it comes to the movies I love. My kudos to Dave, Kerry and Gary, and all the members for the job they do here.
Indexing was not as easy as I thought it would be the first time I picked up a book and jumped in. And just to clarify matters here, this is not a concordance. Entries may have been sorted by a computer, but other than that, it's 100 per cent human made. And it took a little over 3 of those 100 per cent human made years to complete. It is a written, copyrighted work. I used two books as a matter of reference for the index: the Chicago Manual Of Style, and Indexing Books, by Nancy Mulvany. And a lot of practice (I recommend all 3 to anyone interested).
This index is all because of someone coming up to me at a show, inquiring if I had any magazines that had anything regarding The Mask (1961) way back in 1989. We both looked and found a couple. The idea ate at me the rest of the day. I told myself on countless occasions, "yer nuts!" And that made me think about it just that much harder, and before I knew it, the show was over and I was sitting at the dining room table in my house with 26 pieces of paper spread out in front of me and a stack of FM's at my side. Well, that method didn't last very long. My brother loaned me his computer. It had an 8088 processor, monochrome screen, and a port that took 5 1/4 inch floppy discs. Man . . . I was in heaven. . .
It took about 20 issues before I hit the groove. First, I scanned through an issue, entering the Table Of Contents. I then went through the issue, searching for any entries strictly people related and entered them. I repeated the same for all movie/movie related info. Then came any letters/editorials that may tie back to any earlier entry. And finally, a quick run-through to see if the entries were correct. I didn't have all the issues of Famous Monsters, Monster World, and Spacemen (hereby abbreviated as FM, MW, and SM), and some wonderful people let me borrow the ones I needed. Michael Pierce loaned me the Spacemen issues I didn't have. He was kind enough to mail them to me. I borrowed FM1 from a friend of mine. I think, in all, I was missing somewhere around 30-40 issues. When the index was all finished, I did random checks, entries to magazine and magazine to entry and made any final corrections.
What you'll find here is a back-of-a-book type index. It's broken down into People, Movies/Movie related info, & Letters/Editorials (Table of Contents aren't included). You'll find that all reprints are noted, as well as if the reprints contain different stills. On occasion, FM would reprint an article but use different stills. This is noted. You might also find a few entries left over from my Castle of Frankenstein index, but I think I've cleared all of those out.
One thing I would like for you to keep in mind while looking through the index: I'm leaving comments made in the Letters/Editorial section as originally written with the express purpose of showing you what happens to your brain when you've spent many hours going through these magazines. I take no responsibility for what was said at this late date.
I decided to index the Warren magazines first because of the challenge. 191 FM's. 10 FM Yearbooks. 3 paperbacks. And 9 Spacemen issues. Plus I did it because Forrest J Ackerman was my friend. A very kind and caring friend during the time I knew him.
Here's a little bit of trivia regarding the index:
FM142 is a good quick reference guide to previous issues. It's not as complete as this index. It's also the largest FM printed, coming in at 134 pages.
FM69 had the first anti-Vietnam war ad.
Without a doubt, the best two-page ad for the Aurora monster models, FM 24, pgs. 86 & 87.
FM31 had a full, two-page Big Frankie ad on pages 64-65.
The big announcement in FM57? It went monthly.
FM103 was a sad but interesting issue. Other than the interview with William Marshall, it was all obituaries.
FM130, the letter from Ron Leeds.
There are no articles that cover the movie Halloween in FM.
The difference between the offerings here and what I offer on disc are: the disc includes the complete Table of Contents for all issues ( which I won't bother to list here); 63 full page, jpeg images of the best of the Captain Company ads (all prior to FM33); jpeg images of all magazine covers; and 11 horror related LP's recorded from my personal collection and converted to mp3's. Many of the LP's were advertised in the Captain Company ads.
This is what Marty Baumann had to say about it when I started selling it on EBAY in 2001:
…THIS MAN HAS ISSUES…
Depending on your point of view, David Sechrest is either tirelessly devoted or totally insane. If you've an abiding affection for the monster mags of the 1950's and 1960's, you've gotta admire this collector's dedication. If you're a hardcore fright-film fanatic with a mania for nailing down dates and places, you should thank your lucky stars for his compulsion. Sechrest has compiled the exhaustive "Index To Imagi-
Movie Magazines, Volume I: The Warren Years." The title may mislead: It isn't just one index. He's cataloged EVERY issue of "Famous Monsters," "Monster World," "Spacemen," The FM Yearbooks and
Warren paperbacks. That means you can search EVERY issue by film title, subject -- even most of the letters to the editor! (And before you even ask, yes, scads of the original Captain Company ads are part of the package.) For instance, are you looking for info on "The Amazing Colossal Man?" Here's what you'll find: Amazing Colossal Man, The (1957) - FM1, p.42. FM18, pgs.28-33. FM107, pgs. 30, 32, 35. FM182, p. 24. 1964 YRBK, p. 46 (reprint from FM1). 1969 YRBK, pgs. 58-65 (reprint from FM18). The Best From Famous Monsters Of Filmland, pgs. 138, 140 (reprint from FM1). Famous Monsters Of Filmland Strike Back, pgs. 44-57 (reprint from FM18)
This zealous chronicler set about his work with the collector in mind, and every title and subject to appear in the pages of the aforementioned 'zines gets the same treatment as the "Colossal" listing above. "The index was a major undertaking," says Sechrest. "The concept behind the
index is to enable the collector, or researcher to locate specific information quickly, as well as protecting those highly collectible issues. Want to read an article in FM5, but worry about handling it? Simply look
up the article here, see if it was reprinted in a later issue, and grab that one, leaving your original bagged. Not sure what the title of the article was? Do a "Find" or "Find again" with your Acrobat reader and locate it that way." The information is available on disk, in PDF format, compiled using Windows 98. Sechrest points out that, "If you are using a MAC, I believe these files will open, since they are written in PDF format."
Marty Baumann (http://www.bmonster.com) September, 2001
Thank you, Marty, for the review (also thanks to Tom Weaver for putting me in touch with Marty). Also thanks to Tim Lucas and Mark Miller.
