We Love Monsters

We Love Monsters, created by Jim Ordolis and Joe Kilmartin, premiers this month. It's a hands-on, fan-directed, community publication, reminiscent of classic horror mags such as Famous Monsters of Filmland.

At just under 50 pages, We Love Monsters packs a lot of punch. Featuring some great artwork and nonfiction articles, with a healthy dose of monster humour, there's a lot to enjoy in the pages of this first issue.



The magazine opens with the feature article "Zombies: Why They Get Into Our Brains," written by actor/filmmaker/horror-host (and prolific zombie-extra) John Migliore. This is followed by "Monsters in Fur" by Greg Dunford (with illustrations by George Leon), in which he explores how the once-feared furry monster has been domesticated by society.

Where Creatures Roam #2

Other interesting articles follow, including "Banshee" by Roger Keel, which explores the Banshee folklore of Ireland and Scotland, and "True Monster" by Scott Sawyer, where he talks about living next door to a stretch of forest as a child, which was a lush playground by day that turned into a hunting ground for monsters at night.

Yet the most interesting of the lot is "I Survived a Night with the Creature on Bald Mountain, " where Joe Kilmartin tells a tale of growing up being scared of practically everything. But after he was introduced to horror comics in the 1970s, he started to no longer fear monsters--and eventually identified with them!

Wacky Packages, 1970s

The "Monsterpolitan Museum of Art & Nastiness" section features several pages of artwork from a handful of contemporary artists. As with any artwork, opinions are subjective, but overall it's a nice sampling of horror art.

This is followed by an article by Mark Innes, where he explores his life-long love affair with collecting monster cards that kicked off after he purchased a set of Wacky Packages in 1973. The magazine closes with a short commentary by T.E. Grau on Gods and monsters, using H.P. Lovecraft's Dagon as the central example.


The team behind We Love Monsters is looking for submissions: "We are open for submissions and want to hear from anyone who loves monsters in movies, animation, literature, comics, manga, action figures, toys, RPGs, video games, board games, cards, model kits, music or fashion to submit articles or artwork. Any kind of fictional and/or pop culture monsters are acceptable."

They plan several themed issues over the course of a year; next up is issue #2 that will focus on comics. You can find them on Facebook, and their website is http://www.we-love-monsters.com/



31 Days of Horror (2014 edition) continues tomorrow...