James Warren was the visionary publisher of Famous Monsters of Filmland, the magazine that fuelled the movie monster craze of the 1960s, and inspired such future filmmakers as Steve Spielberg, George Lucas, and Joe Dante. He went on to produce numerous other influential publications working with Harvey Kurtzman, Gloria Steinem, Terry Gilliam, Robert Crumb, and Diane Arbus, among others. His most famous creation (co-created with Forrest J. Ackerman) was the sensual Vampirella who debuted in her own magazine in 1969, and who continues to be published today. Bill Schelly's Empire of Monsters features numerous eye-opening, often outrageous anecdotes about Warren, a colourful, larger-than-life figure whose ability as a publisher, promoter, and provocateur makes him a fascinating character study. For this heavily researched biography, Schelly offers insight from new interviews with Warren's colleagues, editors, and friends, augmented by unpublished interviews gathered in past years with Frank Frazetta, Archie Goodwin, Al Williamson, Bill DuBay, Tom Sutton, Bernie Wrightson, Richard Corben, and Warren himself. The author digs beneath the hype and myth-making and tells the true story of one of the 20th century's most influential and independent publishers: his childhood in the slums of south Philadelphia, a traumatic military injury during the Korean War, the hard scrabble origins of Warren Publishing, its great success and ignominious end - as well as his reemergence on the public scene in the 1990s, and the lawsuit to regain ownership of his literary properties. Originally published in 2019, Empire of Monsters quickly sold out. Fantagraphics is pleased to make this groundbreaking biography of one of comics' central historical figures available again in an affordable paperback edition.
