Nerds, punks, goths, gorehounds, freaks, fangorians, fantasists, and also futurists are all this week mourning the passing of Forrest J. Ackerman, the original sci-fi nerd and monster-movie journalist. Forry held an especially unique place in the Los Angeles landscape by dint of turning his house into a museum which he opened to the public once a week. Several years back me and a buddy of mine stopped by the Ackermansion to tour the grounds and pay our respects to the soon to be late Uncle Forry…
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The second Ackermansion. Click the picture to read Forry's vanity plate.Forrest Ackerman is best known as the editor of Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine, although this is only one facet of his enormous influence on the emergence of science fiction as a respectable literary, art, and film genre. He was friends with Ray Bradbury since they were kids, and has the dubious distinction of being the first person to publish the writings of wizardrous Scientology Founder and former sci-fi author L. Ron Hubbard. Ackerman also started America's first sci-fi fan club and pretty much invented the idea of fandom as we know it today, spreading the gospel of horror and sci-fi through a series of self-published fanzines that eventually developed into Famous Monsters. Famous Monsters capitalized on the horror movie boom of the 50s and 60s and found its way into the clutches of young Stephen King, Steven Spielberg, and countless other horror geeks who would grow up to lord over the pop culture we all grew up with. The Misfits copped their signature typeface from the title of Famous Monsters, and pretty much every punk who published a zine between the years 1977 and 199something copped its grimey B&W newsprint aesthetic.A few years ago, on account of his being very, very old, Ackerman was forced to move from his sprawling Ackermansion in the Hollywood Hills to the smaller Son-Of-Ackermansion bungalow he occupies a few blocks off of Vermont Avenue in Hollywood. When we got there, we weren’t sure it was the right place, until Forry himself stepped out onto the porch and waved at us. We went inside, leaving coffee on the porch for fear of besmirching any of the priceless treasures inside. Once in the living room, Ackerman smiled at us wide-eyed for what seemed like several minutes. Was he going to tell us a story? Suck our blood? His teeth were fanglike and golden, and it seemed extremely likely that he might suck our blood. Finally I asked Ackerman how he was, but it was evidently too quiet to register. "That’s Dracula’s cape over there," he said, pointing to a corner of the room that, sure enough, contained Dracula’s cape as well as a large coffin. "Whose coffin is that?" I asked him and he replied, "It was given to me by a gentleman named Oghr from a rock band called Skinny Puppy."
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