Famous MonstersForryeverDying to keep the memory of Famous Monsters of Filmland alive!
Famous MonstersForryeverDying to keep the memory of Famous Monsters of Filmland alive!
Variant Issue
Ghoul's Eye Variant · Philadelphia, PA Market
FM #4 Ghoul's Eye Variant
Philadelphia, PA Market · Aug-59A Philadelphia-market exclusive featuring a promotional "Ride the Ghoul's Eye" sticker on the cover, tied to local horror-hosting promotions in the City of Brotherly Love. This sticker-on-cover variant is the second-rarest early FM issue in collector circles, with high-grade examples fetching significant premiums. It captures Warren's grassroots marketing perfectly — leveraging regional TV personalities and theater tie-ins to boost newsstand sales in key East Coast markets before national distribution fully kicked in. The interior content is unchanged, but that sticker transforms an otherwise common issue into a holy grail for completists.
Inside This Issue
An Albert Nuetzel cover fronts one of FM’s most prized early science-fiction issues. #4 carries a letter and photo from Ray Bradbury himself, an early Christopher Lee piece, and a Zacherley profile — the magazine reaching out to the genre’s living legends barely a year into its run.
Cover Spotlight
A vivid painting of the Martian invader from George Pal's WAR OF THE WORLDS — tentacled, malevolent, the kind of alien that kept monster kids sleeping with the lights on. The Ghoul's Eye variant surfaced in vanishingly small numbers, making it among the rarest covers in the entire FM run.
Roll The Film
The Ghoul's Eye Edition (Nuetzell's War of the Worlds Martian under a Willow Grove Amusement Park sticker)
Graded Book Flyover 0:31
CGC 7.0 flyover of the Ghoul's Eye Edition; the variant is a yellow Willow Grove Amusement Park promo sticker pasted over Nuetzell's Martian on Philadelphia-area copies; the CGC label records a 1964 note in pen attributed to Forrest J Ackerman calling it "a very rare issue + the publisher's pet cover out of the first 28 numbers"; Charles Gemora built and wore the Martian uncredited
☠ Collector's Notes
Provenance is the draw: Ray Bradbury’s own letter and photo make Issue #4 a crossover piece for science-fiction collectors, not just monster kids — one of the earliest points where the two hobbies meet in a single book.
☠ Don’t just lurk in the crypt
Join the Monster Kids
Talk covers, show off your slabs, and swap finds with fellow fiends. Free to join — the crypt’s always taking new members.
