Castle of Frankenstein
Encyclopedia
Castle of Frankenstein was an American horror
Horror fiction
Horror fiction also Horror fantasy is a philosophy of literature, which is intended to, or has the capacity to frighten its readers, inducing feelings of horror and terror. It creates an eerie atmosphere. Horror can be either supernatural or non-supernatural...

, science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...

 and fantasy
Fantasy
Fantasy is a genre of fiction that commonly uses magic and other supernatural phenomena as a primary element of plot, theme, or setting. Many works within the genre take place in imaginary worlds where magic is common...

 film
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...

 magazine, distributed by Kable News and published in New Jersey from 1962 to 1975 by Calvin Thomas Beck's Gothic Castle Publishing Company. The first three issues were edited by Larry Ivie and Ken Beale. From 1963 and into the early 1970s, the magazine was edited by writer-artist Bhob Stewart
Bhob Stewart
Bhob Stewart is an American writer, editor, artist and film maker who has written for a variety of publications over a span of five decades. His articles and reviews have appeared in TV Guide, Publishers Weekly and other publications, along with online contributions to Allmovie, the Collecting...

. Although promoted and sold as a "monster magazine," the readers were aware that Castle of Frankenstein, at the time, was the only nationally distributed magazine devoted to a legitimate and serious coverage of B movies.

Following employment as an editor for publisher Joe Weider
Joe Weider
Josef E. "Joe" Weider is co-founder of the International Federation of BodyBuilders along with brother Ben Weider and creator of the Mr. Olympia, the Ms. Olympia, and the now-defunct Masters Olympia bodybuilding contests...

, Calvin Beck (1929–1989) entered the monster magazine arena in 1959 with his one-shot Journal of Frankenstein, which had only a small circulation. As an experiment, Beck printed part of the run on slick paper. After a hiatus and a title change, Beck returned with the debut issue of Castle of Frankenstein in 1962.

Beck claimed that since his magazine carried no outside advertising, there was no need for any standardized schedule, so issues were published whenever they were completed, leading to an erratic, irregular schedule. Distribution of issues also varied; while many well-stocked periodical outlets did not carry the magazine, some less-likely outlets (such as grocery stores) had copies available. In addition to its central focus on classic and current horror films, Castle of Frankenstein also devoted pages to amateur filmmakers and a coverage of fanzines. Its advertising pages sold full-length silent feature films such as The Lost World and The Golem.

Contributors

In addition to book reviews by Charles Collins and Lin Carter
Lin Carter
Linwood Vrooman Carter was an American author of science fiction and fantasy, as well as an editor and critic. He usually wrote as Lin Carter; known pseudonyms include H. P. Lowcraft and Grail Undwin.-Life:Carter was born in St. Petersburg, Florida...

, the list of contributors included Barry Brown, Richard A. Lupoff
Richard A. Lupoff
Richard Allen Lupoff is an American science fiction and mystery author, who has also written humor, satire, non-fiction and reviews. In addition to his two dozen novels and more than 40 short stories, he has also edited science-fantasy anthologies. He is an expert on the writing of Edgar Rice...

 and William K. Everson
William K. Everson
William Keith "Bill" Everson was an English-American archivist, author, critic, educator, collector and film historian. He often discovered lost films.-Early life and career:...

.

Inspired by the ratings and reviews of films in Cahiers du Cinéma
Cahiers du cinéma
Cahiers du Cinéma is an influential French film magazine founded in 1951 by André Bazin, Jacques Doniol-Valcroze and Joseph-Marie Lo Duca. It developed from the earlier magazine Revue du Cinéma involving members of two Paris film clubs — Objectif 49 and...

, Stewart introduced a similar rating system with the "Comic Book Council," the first critical coverage of comic books to appear in a national magazine. Commentary and ratings of underground comics were juxtaposed with reviews of mainstream comics. Another key feature was the "Frankenstein Movieguide," an attempt to document all fantastic films seen on television with short "mini-reviews" written by Joe Dante
Joe Dante
Joseph "Joe" Dante, Jr. is an American film director and producer of films generally with humorous and science fiction content....

 and Stewart. Unlike some genre commentators, these reviewers were not limited only to the monster-style films. Instead, the many brief and tightly-written fantasy film reviews per issue also covered experimental films and foreign art films. The capsule review format enforced a brevity and economy to each review that served as an inspiration to many younger writers.

With new art and reprints of vintage fantasy art, the magazine published such artists as Aubrey Beardsley
Aubrey Beardsley
Aubrey Vincent Beardsley was an English illustrator and author. His drawings, done in black ink and influenced by the style of Japanese woodcuts, emphasized the grotesque, the decadent, and the erotic. He was a leading figure in the Aesthetic movement which also included Oscar Wilde and James A....

, Hannes Bok
Hannes Bok
Hannes Bok, pseudonym for Wayne Francis Woodard , was an American artist and illustrator, as well as an amateur astrologer and writer of fantasy fiction and poetry. He painted nearly 150 covers for various science fiction, fantasy, and detective fiction magazines, as well as contributing hundreds...

, Harry Clarke
Harry Clarke
Harry Clarke was an Irish stained glass artist and book illustrator. Born in Dublin, he was a leading figure in the Irish Arts and Crafts Movement.- History :...

, Virgil Finlay
Virgil Finlay
Virgil Finlay was an American pulp fantasy, science fiction and horror illustrator. While he worked in a range of media, from gouache to oils, Finlay specialized in, and became famous for, detailed pen-and-ink drawings accomplished with abundant stippling, cross-hatching, and scratchboard techniques...

, Jim Steranko
Jim Steranko
James F. Steranko is an American graphic artist, comic book writer-artist-historian, magician, publisher and film production illustrator....

, Wally Wood
Wally Wood
Wallace Allan Wood was an American comic book writer, artist and independent publisher, best known for his work in EC Comics and Mad. He was one of Mads founding cartoonists in 1952. Although much of his early professional artwork is signed Wallace Wood, he became known as Wally Wood, a name he...

 and Weird Tales
Weird Tales
Weird Tales is an American fantasy and horror fiction pulp magazine first published in March 1923. It ceased its original run in September 1954, after 279 issues, but has since been revived. The magazine was set up in Chicago by J. C. Henneberger, an ex-journalist with a taste for the macabre....

illustrator Matt Fox. To cut costs, color photos rather than paintings were used on the covers of issues six through 14. With issue 11's cover photo of Leonard Nimoy
Leonard Nimoy
Leonard Simon Nimoy is an American actor, film director, poet, musician and photographer. Nimoy's most famous role is that of Spock in the original Star Trek series , multiple films, television and video game sequels....

, Castle of Frankenstein was the first magazine to feature Star Trek
Star Trek
Star Trek is an American science fiction entertainment franchise created by Gene Roddenberry. The core of Star Trek is its six television series: The Original Series, The Animated Series, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise...

as a major cover story. Other issues displayed cover paintings by Robert Adragna, Marcus Boas, Bok, Frank Brunner
Frank Brunner
Frank Brunner is an American comic book artist and illustrator best known for his work at Marvel Comics in the 1970s.-Comics:...

, Maelo Cintron, Larry Ivie, Russ Jones
Russ Jones
Russ Jones is a Canadian novelist, illustrator, and magazine editor, active in the publishing and entertainment industries over a half-century, best known as the creator of the magazine Creepy for Warren Publishing...

, Ken Kelly, Los Angeles painter Tom Maher and Lee Wanagiel. Interior art included graphic stories by Ivie, Brunner, Bernie Wrightson
Bernie Wrightson
Bernie "Berni" Wrightson is an American artist known for his horror illustrations and comic books.-Biography:...

 and the team of Marv Wolfman
Marv Wolfman
Marvin A. "Marv" Wolfman is an award-winning American comic book writer. He is best known for lengthy runs on The Tomb of Dracula, creating Blade for Marvel Comics, and The New Teen Titans for DC Comics.-1960s:...

 and Len Wein
Len Wein
Len Wein is an American comic book writer and editor best known for co-creating DC Comics' Swamp Thing and Marvel Comics' Wolverine, and for helping revive the Marvel superhero team the X-Men...

, plus the first published comics page by Marvel artist-writer-editor Larry Hama
Larry Hama
Larry Hama is an American comic book writer, artist, actor and musician who has worked in the fields of entertainment and publishing since the 1960s....

.

Castle of Frankenstein also carried an unusual original comic strip, Baron von Bungle, by Richard Bojarski, who gave a humorous twist to the world depicted in Universal horror films. The magazine had a run of 25 issues, plus one annual (the 1967 "Fearbook"), and the final issue was published in 1975. The title was revived in 1999 by publisher Dennis Druktenis. Beck cancelled his magazine not because of poor sales but because he wanted to devote his energy to writing books. During its primary run of publication, Castle of Frankenstein outlasted the vast majority of monster magazines that filled the market for two decades, with the notable exception of Famous Monsters of Filmland
Famous Monsters of Filmland
Famous Monsters of Filmland is a genre-specific film magazine started in 1958 by publisher James Warren and editor Forrest J Ackerman.-Magazine history :...

.

Books

Beck's paperback anthology, The Frankenstein Reader (Ballantine Books, 1962), was
assembled with an editorial assist by fantasy fiction scholar Haywood P. Norton. The two brought together a roster of vintage horror-fantasy tales by E.F. Benson
Edward Frederic Benson
Edward Frederic Benson was an English novelist, biographer, memoirist and short story writer, known professionally as E.F. Benson. His friends called him Fred.-Life:E.F...

, Ambrose Bierce
Ambrose Bierce
Ambrose Gwinnett Bierce was an American editorialist, journalist, short story writer, fabulist and satirist...

, Robert W. Chambers, Ralph Adams Cram
Ralph Adams Cram
Ralph Adams Cram FAIA, , was a prolific and influential American architect of collegiate and ecclesiastical buildings, often in the Gothic style. Cram & Ferguson and Cram, Goodhue & Ferguson are partnerships in which he worked.-Early life:Cram was born on December 16, 1863 at Hampton Falls, New...

, Charles Dickens
Charles Dickens
Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English novelist, generally considered the greatest of the Victorian period. Dickens enjoyed a wider popularity and fame than had any previous author during his lifetime, and he remains popular, having been responsible for some of English literature's most iconic...

, Amelia B. Edwards, Katharine Fullerton Gerould
Katharine Fullerton Gerould
Katharine Fullerton Gerould was an American writer, born in Brockton, Massachusetts, and educated at Radcliffe College.She was a reader in English at Bryn Mawr, 1901-10. Mrs. Gerould was criticized as weighing down a distinct literary talent with an unbending conservatism, which though it did not...

, Richard Middleton, Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch
Arthur Quiller-Couch
Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch was a Cornish writer, who published under the pen name of Q. He is primarily remembered for the monumental Oxford Book Of English Verse 1250–1900 , and for his literary criticism...

, Robert Louis Stevenson
Robert Louis Stevenson
Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson was a Scottish novelist, poet, essayist and travel writer. His best-known books include Treasure Island, Kidnapped, and Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde....

 and H.G. Wells.

In 1975, Beck wrote Heroes of the Horrors (Macmillan), illustrated biographies of the six leading horror film stars (Lon Chaney, Sr.
Lon Chaney, Sr.
Lon Chaney , nicknamed "The Man of a Thousand Faces," was an American actor during the age of silent films. He was one of the most versatile and powerful actors of early cinema...

, Lon Chaney, Jr.
Lon Chaney, Jr.
Lon Chaney, Jr. , born Creighton Tull Chaney, was an American character actor. He was best known for his roles in monster movies and as the son of famous silent film actor, Lon Chaney...

, Boris Karloff
Boris Karloff
William Henry Pratt , better known by his stage name Boris Karloff, was an English actor.Karloff is best remembered for his roles in horror films and his portrayal of Frankenstein's monster in Frankenstein , Bride of Frankenstein , and Son of Frankenstein...

, Peter Lorre
Peter Lorre
Peter Lorre was an Austrian-American actor frequently typecast as a sinister foreigner.He caused an international sensation in 1931 with his portrayal of a serial killer who preys on little girls in the German film M...

, Bela Lugosi
Béla Lugosi
Béla Ferenc Dezső Blaskó , commonly known as Bela Lugosi, was a Hungarian actor of stage and screen. He was best known for having played Count Dracula in the Broadway play and subsequent film version, as well as having starred in several of Ed Wood's low budget films in the last years of his...

, Vincent Price
Vincent Price
Vincent Leonard Price, Jr. was an American actor, well known for his distinctive voice and serio-comic attitude in a series of horror films made in the latter part of his career.-Early life and career:Price was born in St...

) and writers such as Robert Bloch
Robert Bloch
Robert Albert Bloch was a prolific American writer, primarily of crime, horror and science fiction. He is best known as the writer of Psycho, the basis for the film of the same name by Alfred Hitchcock...

 and Richard Matheson
Richard Matheson
Richard Burton Matheson is an American author and screenwriter, primarily in the fantasy, horror, and science fiction genres. He is perhaps best known as the author of What Dreams May Come, Bid Time Return, A Stir of Echoes, The Incredible Shrinking Man, and I Am Legend, all of which have been...

. The book reworked much information previously unearthed for Castle of Frankenstein articles. Bhob Stewart
Bhob Stewart
Bhob Stewart is an American writer, editor, artist and film maker who has written for a variety of publications over a span of five decades. His articles and reviews have appeared in TV Guide, Publishers Weekly and other publications, along with online contributions to Allmovie, the Collecting...

 and Beck then collaborated on a companion volume, Scream Queens: Heroines of the Horrors (Macmillan, 1978), illustrated biographical profiles of 29 fantasy film actresses and directors. The book included one article by the actor Barry Brown, plus research by Drew Simels, author of the TV movie entries in early editions of Leonard Maltin
Leonard Maltin
Leonard Maltin is an American film and animated film critic and historian, author of several mainstream books on cinema, focusing on nostalgic, celebratory narratives.-Personal life:...

's Movie Guide series. With articles on Alice Guy-Blaché
Alice Guy-Blaché
Alice Guy-Blaché was a French pioneer filmmaker who was the first female director in the motion picture industry and is considered to be one of the first directors of a fiction film.-Early years:...

, Joan Crawford
Joan Crawford
Joan Crawford , born Lucille Fay LeSueur, was an American actress in film, television and theatre....

, Bette Davis
Bette Davis
Ruth Elizabeth "Bette" Davis was an American actress of film, television and theater. Noted for her willingness to play unsympathetic characters, she was highly regarded for her performances in a range of film genres, from contemporary crime melodramas to historical and period films and occasional...

, Veronica Lake
Veronica Lake
Veronica Lake was an American film actress and pin-up model. She received both popular and critical acclaim, most notably for her role in Sullivan's Travels and her femme fatale roles in film noir with Alan Ladd during the 1940s, and was well-known for her peek-a-boo hairstyle...

, Elsa Lanchester
Elsa Lanchester
Elsa Sullivan Lanchester was an English-American character actress with a long career in theatre, film and television....

, Agnes Moorehead
Agnes Moorehead
Agnes Robertson Moorehead was an American actress. Although she began with the Mercury Theatre, appeared in more than seventy films beginning with Citizen Kane and on dozens of television shows during a career that spanned more than thirty years, Moorehead is most widely known to modern audiences...

, Mary Philbin
Mary Philbin
Mary Philbin was a notable film actress of the silent film era. Philbin is probably best remembered for playing the roles of Christine Daaé in the 1925 film The Phantom of the Opera opposite screen legend Lon Chaney and Dea in The Man Who Laughs...

, Barbara Steele
Barbara Steele
Barbara Steele is an English film actress. She is best known for starring in Italian gothic horror films of the 1960s. Her breakthrough role came in Italian director Mario Bava's Black Sunday , now hailed as a classic.Steele starred in a string of horror films, including The Horrible Dr...

, Vampira
Maila Nurmi
Maila Nurmi was a Finnish-American actress who created the campy 1950s characterVampira. She portrayed Vampira as TV's first horror host and in the Ed Wood cult film Plan 9 from Outer Space...

, Fay Wray
Fay Wray
Fay Wray was a Canadian-American actress most noted for playing the female lead in King Kong...

 and others, Scream Queens: Heroines of the Horrors also incorporated much material from the Castle of Frankenstein files of manuscripts and still photographs. Beck's fourth book, Sense of Wonder, about fantasy films of the 1940s, was never published.

See also

  • Science fiction magazine
    Science fiction magazine
    A science fiction magazine is a publication that offers primarily science fiction, either in a hard copy periodical format or on the Internet....

  • Fantasy fiction magazine
  • Horror fiction magazine
    Horror fiction magazine
    A horror fiction magazine is a magazine that publishes primarily horror fiction with the main purpose of scaring or frightening the reader. Horror magazines can be in print, on the internet, or both.-Defunct magazines:*The Arkham Collector...

  • Magazine
    Magazine
    Magazines, periodicals, glossies or serials are publications, generally published on a regular schedule, containing a variety of articles. They are generally financed by advertising, by a purchase price, by pre-paid magazine subscriptions, or all three...


External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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