The Forbidden Planet International Blog Log

I was saddened to read in Dave Langord’s monthly Ansible digest that Forrest J Ackerman, one of the best known names in SF fandom, is dying. Early reports said the 91 year old author, producer and lifelong fan of all things fantastic had suffered a heart attack or stroke, but other sources are saying that isn’t the case and it is simply that his elderly body is reaching its end. Ain’t It Cool’s Harry Knowles writes that he managed to to speak to Forry briefly and that he is basically trying to hang on long enough to make his goodbyes, terribly sad.

(cover to Warren Comics’ Vampirella #1 from 1969, art by Frank Frazetta, borrowed from the Wiki entry)

Forry has been a fixture in the worlds of the fantastical for most of the 20th century, falling for the SF genre way back in the mid 20s, both reading then contributing material, including articles to Science Fiction Magazine in the early 30s, a mag edited by the future Superman creators Siegel and Shuster. Forry went on to deal with a Who’s Who of the fantastic genres, including giants of the field such as Ray Bradbury (who is reported to have visited the ailing Forrest recently), Robert Heinlein and Marion Zimmer Bradley, as well as maintaining a vast collection of books, comics, memorablia and props from films in his ‘Ackermansion’, naming the comic character Vampirella and giving her an origin story.

(Forrest J Ackerman, photo borrowed from the Sci-Fi Channel’s SciFipedia)

Among many other contributions to the genre, from encouraging new writers to helping fan groups to appearing in films, editing publications and writing stories, Forry is also well known to anyone who loves fantastical movies for his Famous Monsters of Filmland, which, unusually for the time, explored the behind the scenes world of creating those films and the effects and creatures in them; many of today’s top directors such as Spielberg have claimed this as one of their earliest inspirations. I’m sure there are a lot of creative folks, readers and film fans out there who probably owe a debt to Forry’s work over the years.

(Famous Monsters of Filmland #16 featuring the ‘man of a 1000 faces’, the great Lon Chaney in his Phantom of the Opera make-up)