Forrest J. Ackerman (1916-2008)

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Forry Ackerman died late Thursday night.

I wrote about what this man and his magazine, Famous Monsters of Filmland, meant to me when I was growing up a couple of years ago, on the occasion of a Blog-a-Thon celebrating his 90th birthday, HERE.

There are already many tributes online already, and here are some of the better ones I've seen:

L.A. Times obituary.

Science Fiction Writers of American obituary.

Various salutes at Ain't It Cool News.

The farewell thread from the Monster Kid Classic Horror Forum.

I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing today, and be who I am, without Forry and FM. He had a hard time the past two decades, and had been preparing to leave after a very long and full life for a couple of months now, and quite publicly, but it still hits hard tonight. I'll miss a world that had 4SJ in it.

Comments

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Yup, Evanier has one up now. As do Kim Morgan and Arbogast and Glenn Kenny and Tom Sutpen and . . . well, you get the picture.

I just got more and more moved this morning as it seemed that EVERY film-related writer I like online felt the need to pass on a bit of what FJA had meant to them. And the stories are all much the same. Stephen King may have said it best, "He was an appreciator, a collector, not a creator. Well, he was a creator in the sense that with the magazine he gave us a window into a world we really wanted to see. He was our Hubble telescope.”

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Yes -- it's really amazing... the good thing is, I'm betting most if not all these people told Forry what he meant to thim when he was alive, too.

BTW -- if you haven't seen it already, Evanier's got a cool video interview with Al Jaffee on the top of today's page. It's pretty amazing how YOUNG Al looks too. LIke, if I didn't know anything about him, I'd probably peg him for being late 60s early 70s. not 87.