Wednesday, November 24, 2010

King Kong Covered

I love pictures. And I love to compare things. And I love King Kong. Hence, we have:

A COMPARISON OF PICTURES OF KING KONG

Or, more precisely, magazine covers featuring King Kong. Most of these, by the way, come from Mike Scott's excellent site: Monster Magazines. I also grabbed a few covers from a Google image search. Anyway, Mr. Scott's site is well worth checking out.

We begin with, of course, the granddaddy of all monster magazines--Famous Monsters of Filmland.

FMOF No 6 - RKO's 1933 original and still the King--notice the wee magazine mascot hiding between Kong's teeth.

FMOF No 25 - note Mighty Joe Young peering out from that center bottom pic.

FMOF No 32 - the old Aurora model kit depicting one of the best scenes from the film.

FMOF No 44 - great scene from the 1933 film and - hello - an additional photo feature on Tarantula inside? Does it GET any better?

Ah yes. The legendary FMOF No 108. Possibly only legendary to me--it was a prized possession when I was a kid, lost then and reacquired now thanks to the miracle of eBay. Basil Gogos did the cover painting - w00t!

FMNo 125 - Most kids my age were being introduced to Kong through the 1976 remake of the RKO 1933 original. Not I. I'd been a fan of the original for half of my then 9 year lifetime.

FMOF No 132 - Another gorgeous cover painted by Basil Gogos.

FMOF was the first and I think the best of the movie monster mags, but there were a lot of others around for awhile. Check out a few of their covers.

The Monster Times was a newspaper format mag published between 1972 and 1976, and graced their very first cover with Kong. GRAAHHHGG!

A one-shot from 1976. Maybe in anticipation of the upcoming Kong remake....

A similar one-shot from 1977.

Monster Bash No 4 - a newer mag that is still publishing. Man, this wide-eyed gaping maw look was popular with the monster mag circuit....

Another one-shot - this one from the UK - 1977.

This mag was actually published by Marvel Comics. Featured Kong on their 1974 first issue. I don't know about the whole blood dripping jaws thing....

Um. Some Japanese magazine with Kong fighting Mechani-Kong. No idea on this one but it's pretty cool, huh?

What? This isn't a magazine cover. But it IS a monster size comparison chart that came up in my search and it's interesting. Sadly, Kong is that wee white silhouette fourth from the left, with only a T Rex, the Wicked Witch of the West and Chucky the killer doll smaller in size. I think if you click through, this is big enough to actually see and read stuff....

THE END