Author Description

Once again, we mix things up a little...actually, a LOT! Some may well be wondering about that cute li'l red dragon/dino on the cover to this ish. To those "in the know" (including MONSTER! founder Tim Paxton), cartoonist Vernon Grant's slim 1972 softcover comics volume A MONSTER IS LOOSE!-IN TOKYO marked a key point in the understanding and acceptance of Japanese "kaiju eiga" (basically, giant monster movies) here in the West. For this issue, dedicated pop-cultural paleontologist Stephen R. Bissette gives us Part 1 of his two-part personal testimonial to Grant, "the man who introduced 'kaiju' to America", alighting on other aspects of monster/popular culture along the way. Elsewhere, the academically-studious-to-a-fault John L. Vellutini contributes a sequel to his epic article on Indonesian horror cinema, "The Ties That Bind" (which we ran in M! #21); this month John ties-up whatever loose ends of errata/addenda he has unearthed since last month. In addition, the mighty Eric Messina enthusiastically champions the cause of usual puppet master Gerry Anderson's mid-'90s live-action sci-fi/crime hybrid SPACE PRECINCT, a critter-filled series which is generally - and in Eric's considered opinion, unfairly - held in low esteem even by the staunchest adherents of Anderson's canon. With similar enthusiasm, the ever-knowledgeable John Harrison covers a bunch of the more monsterific episodes of the cult '60s pulp SF show, LOST IN SPACE. For the sake of something "different", the seemingly tireless and super-prolific Troy Howarth conducts an entertaining interview with up'n'coming young indie/underground moviemaker Joshua Kennedy, whose latest SOV ventures are DRACULA A.D. 2015 and THE VESUVIUS XPERIMENT. Then there's "How To Make a Monster", the first instalment of fellow indie filmmaker Mike T. Lyddon's on-set coverage of his upcoming D.I.Y. creature feature, FIRST MAN ON MARS. Also in this super-stuffed issue, freelance author Stephen D. Sullivan covers a number of the be