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I was thinking and wondering where and when...Just trying to figure out recently where my initial interest in sci-fi, fantasy, horror, movie monsters truly began.

Suspect some major early influences from childhood that led to this interest was comic books (loved Spider-Man, The Incredible Hulk, The Fantastic Four, The Mighty Thor, The Justice League of America, and  The Legion of Super-Heroes titles as a kid), but then there were also cartoons (I grew up watching He-Man, Scooby-Doo, The Smurfs, The Jetsons, The Flintstones, Teddy Ruxpin, Inspector Gadget, The Real Ghostbusters, The Mighty Hercules, Marvel Animation like Captain America, Iron Man, Spider-Man, Hulk and Namor too) and there was also kids' show like The Muppet Show, Sesame Street which now that I really think about featured monsters and aliens and critters of all kinds.

Also there was a kids variety show in Canada called "Switchback" on which I recall them airing episodes of the 60s Batman series and The Munsters. Plus there was the Wonderful World of Disney which led me to check out Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, Peter Pan, Snow White, Pete's Dragon, The Jungle Book, Bedknobs and Broomsticks, The Witch Mountain films, the Herbie films. They sparked my interest in Sci-fi with Tron and The Black Hole. Growing up in the 70s and 80s too I recall the popularity of stuff like Ghostbusters, Indiana Jones, Teen Wolf, Back to the Future, Superman movies. In the 70s TV series such as The Incredible Hulk, The Six Million Dollar Man, Wonder Woman, and The Bionic Woman were all quite popular as I recall watching them too as a kid..

for me it started with The Incredible Hulk 1978 TV series  :thumbup:

(https://64.media.tumblr.com/8f53005fcddd32dd9c01605bf06b4cdc/tumblr_pd9lm3DicR1wzvt9qo1_400.gifv)

When I was a very young child growing up in Texas, there was a Sunday afternoon movie feature on Channel 11 called "Family Theater," but what it really showed was classic horror films. DRACULA, THE WOLF MAN, FRANKENSTEIN, THE MUMMY - even one of the most boring horror movies of all time, THE MONOLITH MONSTERS.  I loved those old movies and they inspired a lifelong love of horror films.

I lived in a suburb where everybody had cable in the early eighties...
I seem to recall my mom & my sister complaining about the production values of Mister Roger's Neighborhood of all things.... Apparently, in this one episode, he failed to completely pull a handpuppet down over his shirt sleeve...

In the summer of '86, my parents split up, my mom was going through the psycho divorced mom and the born again christian thing at the same time, so I was hiding out in my room 24/7 with a cheep black & white, & we lived on a block where cable wasn't available.....
That's when I started to figure out that the really fun movies were on in the wee hours of the morning...

I think it may have been seeing YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN at the drive-in in 1976 or 1977 that drove me to my "monster kid" phase. Soon after I know I picked up "Dracula" and an H.P. Lovecraft anthology from the library.

For sci-fi, I probably just liked some of the covers of the books my mom was reading at about the same time I became interested in monsters. I remember I got a subscription to Isaac Asimov's magazine, and later "Omni." And of course STAR WARS hit around the same time, when I was the perfect age for it (9).

Soon after those I discovered "The Hobbit" and "Lord of the Rings." I'm not sure how I came across them but I know it was in 5th or 6th grade.

When I saw FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE WOLF MAN in 1967.
I discovered Famous Monsters of Filmland the next year in a foster home.

Actually also recall watching Star Trek on TV as a kid...and seeing film versions of the Canadian series The Starlost.

Also remember kids passing around a Star Wars magazine on the school bus which was before I ever saw those films...

Recall the debut of the 1970s King Kong on TV and my Grandmother wanting to watch it...

King Kong 1976 is my favorite King Kong movie!

The soundtrack is amazing and the island scenery was beautiful  :thumbup:

Might've been The Legend Of Boggy Creek when I was 16, or it might have been Blood Freak a few years later...

When I was growing up, every Friday and Saturday night you had old horror movies shown from around 10 until 1 or 2 am. In those days the channels didn't run 24 hours and I'd sit up and watch the films until they shut down.

Mine started with watching things like Star Trek, Space 1999, The Incredible Bulk, etc on TV when I was a kid.

Jaws (1975) in the movie theater drive-in a few years after its initial release, when I was maybe 4 years old. Star Wars (1977) in the movie theater right around that same time. A couple years later in 1979/1980 it was one of my uncles' Jonah Hex comic books. After that, my mom and dad would leave their Stephen King books lying around the house and I would pick them up and read them when I was about 8 years old. My mom and dad initially objected to my reading Stephen King's work, claiming that it would warp my brain, but when they saw me tackling the 1000+ pages of The Stand, they were happy that I was at least reading something at that age.  :cheers:

I saw that when I was 14 with my little sister Wendy.  1976 at the Strand Theater in Paw Paw.
She cried like a baby at the end. She was 5.

(https://i.imgur.com/nIIMN1B.jpg) (https://lunapic.com)

no idea really.

my earliest tv memories are of KNIGHT RIDER, FRAGGLE ROCK and THE A TEAM. and also knowing that when TJ HOOKER started it was time to go to bed. nothing's really changed since then, although now I sometimes stay up past 8:30pm

I was always a fan of fantasy in all its forms, having read Lord of the Rings at 13 or so and hooking me instantly. A movie that definitely marked me was ARMY OF DARKNESS, because not only was cool fantasy with a medieval setting, but also tought me that horror could be scary and funny too. After that I started to watch pretty much any crappy fantasy or horror movie I happened to come across.

With the passing of time I learned to enjoy movies as a whole and started to watch a lot of different stuff, particularly action, sci-fi, and mystery.

I started reading Famous Monsters with issue 81. In December 1970.


(https://i.imgur.com/zTtFc1R.jpg) (https://lunapic.com)

Me on my birthday in 1973.

(https://i.imgur.com/HJFx0Sa.jpg) (https://lunapic.com)

Me on Christmas 1970.

(https://i.imgur.com/ca9N9wP.jpg) (https://lunapic.com)

I'm holding this book.

(https://i.imgur.com/11wdxFn.jpg) (https://lunapic.com)
The artist was Tony Tallarico. One of the worst comic book artists I've ever seen.
I can draw better with my eyes closed. That guy is lazy.

(https://i.imgur.com/ROc1Nrp.jpg) (https://lunapic.com)

And I thought you meant for the world ! 

(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/5e/Grand_Guignol_poster_%28crop%29.png) 

In your own life, ya know? First horror movie?

I get it. 

ISADORA DUNCAN, THE BIGGEST DANCER IN THE WORLD (1966) is possibly the earliest film from my youth that I remember scaring me.  A BBC production (KEN RUSSELL - not a Horror film) it was shown in USA TV broadcast sometime around 1969.  My oldest brother often had the 4 younger of us watch all sorts of strange broadcasts decades ago.  That is also how I saw CARNIVAL OF SOULS both of which started a deeper interest in "genre films".  A few years later, I also started buying EERIE or CREEPY magazines, and Famous Monsters.  I also always loved monster movies like the Universal monster cycle.  
This is the first CREEPY I remember seeing :  

(http://www.coverbrowser.com/image/creepy/46-1.jpg)

In the '70s I was the only one watching late night broadcasts of movies like NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD and GRAVE OF THE VAMPIRE or DON'T LOOK IN THE BASEMENT or DEAD OF NIGHT ...

I also watched reruns in the '70s of TV shows like The Twilight Zone, One Step Beyond, Outer Limits, and even the dopey Lost In Space (I watch one episode now each week in late night broadcast on ME-TV every Saturday.  

Though, I am a true 2nd wave "Monster Kid" and would run home after school with my sisters and brother to watch Dark Shadows in its original afternoon run, so that could be how my interest in "genre" films began. 

your drawings are awesome!  :thumbup:

looks like 70s horror comics mixed with rat fink dragster art, freaking sweet.

^ If anyone wants copies of my art- I have a printer/ scanner now! It's free!

I was really turned off of horror films as a kid I because I saw the really bad and nonsensical Jason Takes Manhattan on tv

that changed when in 2004 my dad took me to see Saw with him in the theater

hell yea  :thumbup: do you have them on a website so I can see more?

I think you posted 1 back in the day, I thought was cool...
(Frankenstein by an ashtray) or something like that lol

I do!

https://ronaldcmerchant.tumblr.com/search/I+drew+this/page/1

https://ronaldcmerchant.tumblr.com/search/I+drew+this/page/2

https://ronaldcmerchant.tumblr.com/search/I+drew+this/page/3

(https://i.imgur.com/qPCKxHI.jpg) (https://lunapic.com)

haha! that's it... damn its been a while...

You want some? It's free. I just like to have people have it. I'm not a famous artist. I will give the s**t away just so people can look at it. As an artist-that's all I want.
I almost got a job at Heavy Metal, but Mattie Simmons thought I was too weird. It was Jean. Matties wife. She was a real b***h. They were scared of me. I don't know why. I'm a good artist.

(https://i.imgur.com/iE6GhaU.jpg) (https://lunapic.com)

(https://i.imgur.com/rC3nBbD.jpg) (https://lunapic.com)

That was in 1983. A long time ago I was an artist. I can still do it-I just don't.Nobody want's  it. I can do it with my eyes shut. National Lampoon thought I was too f**ked up. Bulls**t. I'm a good artist.

(https://i.imgur.com/RXjqPyK.gif) (https://lunapic.com)

(https://i.imgur.com/vhI5yw5.jpg) (https://lunapic.com)

I always had a strange fascination for horror movies since I was a small kid. My mother loved anything horror. She would read horror books, and I would look at the book art for hours with my imagination going wild. One day I was browsing the book store and they had the fold out poster of Jaws for sale. I thought the poster was disturbingly frightening yet somewhat cool. It was my very first movie poster I hung on my wall.

It was my mom who made me a real fan of horror movies. We would go to the theater once or twice a week always watching some horror movie. I eventually bought Famous Monsters on a regular basis, and then Fangoria. Once we went to a newly opened video rental store there was no holding back. I pretty much spend my teen years browsing and renting horror movies throughout most of the 1980s and 1990s.

Ronnie, your art is fantastic.  :thumbup:

Maybe it was MetalStorm: The destruction of Jerod Syn, with the converted mail truck & all those dune buggies with corrugated tin strapped to them.....

Thank you!