Monster! #3 Paperback – March 20, 2014

I just got this book and its great so far. I was a little nervous about buying it unseen at first not knowing how it was put together; But after getting it and looking through it I was amazed by how awesome it is. It has a good amount of pictures through out and the articles are really good. I thought it was going to be a flimsy newspaper quality paper and folded and stapled together; But it is on great paper bound together with glue and a great and sturdy cover. I was happy that there is a good amount of pictures through out because I really want to see the Monster!s and this doesn't disappoint. The one thing I really liked and thought was funny is there's an advertisement inside for the Mag and it says100% monsters no slashers allowed. I thought that was great even though I'm a fan of Slashers as well.

Issue #3 is jam-packed with articles of Canadian Monster films, Bigfoot monster films and reviews of monster films around the world, many you never heard of. Both Tim Paxton and Steve Fenton should be proud of rising this zine from the ashes and start printing it again. One of my top five zines of 2014. This is not amateur hour stuff, people. It is professionally typset and bound and a joy to read from beginning to end. You won't be disappointed.

Monster! Is a fun little zine. I've picked up about 6 of these over the years. For $5 you cant wrong.

One of the best publications out there! If you are a fan of everything monster, from the well known to the obscure and/or foreign, this is for you.

The highlight of the third issue of Monster! is Stephen Bissette’s in-depth look at Bigfoot (1970). Cheap drive-in monster movies don’t generally lend themselves to deep critical analysis, and Bigfoot is no exception. (I’m guessing. I haven’t actually seen it.) But Bissette doesn’t let that stop him from enumerating its ground-breaking contributions to the Sasquatch genre and beyond, and providing us with the necessary background information to appreciate it within its full cryptozoological context.Most of the magazine’s reviews are based more on plot descriptions than critical assessment, though reviewers will always let us know how entertaining they found them. We get a chance to learn about obscure monster flicks from various parts of the world - Canada and India get special coverage in this issue. Well, India seems to get special coverage in every issue given editor Timothy Paxton’s love for Hindi Horrors. The appeal is of the exotic and, for some of us, the nostalgic, when it comes to older movies reviewed.Brian Harris’s review of Pacific Rim (2013), which is a welcome addition to the variety, never-the-less highlights the advantages of exoticism and nostalgia. Pacific Rim is a film we all know about (though I’ve never seen it) and Harris’s review essentially says that he knows the film is loud and flashy and dumb and that’s why he likes it. His review is more of a bitch about people who make you feel uncool for liking a movie like Pacific Rim, and that’s what I liked about it. Rants can be fun. But I doubt if he’s telling us much more about the film than we could get from watching the trailer. It’s a bit like travel writing from Disneyland compared to travel writing from the depths of the Amazon rainforest.Monster! is a very entertaining and informative magazine and beautifully laid-out. The one area where there is room for improvement (which may well have occurred as I’ve so far only sampled the early issues) is in the editing of the text. Maybe I’m unusually finicky but I find some of the mistakes distracting. In Paxton’s Monster Maker!, he says : “To my way of thinking, such improbable entities are essential in keeping this wafer-thin grasp on what I consider sanity in check.” If he has a “wafer-thin grasp” on sanity, I would suggest that he not try to keep that grasp “in check”. In Karl Kaefer’s review of Basketcase (1982) : “Both are so endearingly odd that you care for both of them…” You don’t need both boths. Also, the intro for his Freak Show Box Set review says that he has “an affinity for ‘so good they’re bad’ movies…” This makes it sound like he’s talking about worthy Oscar winners which bore us silly. I’m sure he meant “so bad they’re good”. And, in Louis Paul’s Creature Feature column, he describes the movie Nine Demons (1983) as being a “combination of Shaw Bros.-influenced martial arts and horror.” This right next to a photograph of the film’s DVD cover advertising that it is in “Shawscope”. It was a Shaw Brothers movie. Now, to be fair, Shaw Brothers movies are bound to be influence by other Shaw Brothers movies, but it generally goes without saying. We wouldn’t call a Hitchcock film Hitchcockian.But this is a minor criticism. We wouldn’t be monster fans if we couldn’t love something which is a little rough-around-the-edges, especially if it appears once a month, with the regularity of a lycanthrope.

My wife bought me this zine so I'm reviewing it on her account. This early issue of MONSTER! shows it has its analytical heart in exactly the right place--especially when one encounters Stephen R. Bissette's amazingly thorough research on Bigfoot in all media. I was very pleasantly surprised that Bissette gives Robert Crumb's WHITEMAN MEETS BIGFOOT its due as being one of the most influential sources helping to spread Bigfoot's notoriety. That was unexpected and refreshingly open-minded in my opinion, especially considering the stigma underground comics (and Crumb himself) have had imposed on them by many mainstream writers. It frankly hadn't occurred to me how much impact Crumb's epic comic might've had on the field of "real world" Bigfoot lore, but I think Bissette is absolutely correct--it's had ENORMOUS influence, and I'm pretty sure Bissette is the first (and perhaps only) writer to point this out. Well done, sir! My hat's off to you--and to all the other talented contributors who make this issue a delightful, informative read. SUPER-HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!