Why I turned out like this

The three magazines I devoured during my formative years

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I don’t really know how I afforded them. I was only eight-ish, nine-ish when I started reading them regularly. I never subscribed. I got them at newsstands. My folks did have me doing little chores for money, but I was also starting my record collection about then.*

But these three monthly publications did much to form my notions about art and culture.

The editors / publishers of each were eccentric and visionary. The story of each magazine has to begin with those founding figures.

MAD Magazine, in its magazine form (it began as a comic book in the 1950s) was guided by William M. Gaines, who was a second-generation comic-book-biz player. (His father Max had a publishing company.) It was through MAD that I came to understand the concept of departments, of which MAD had some excellent ones: Berg’s Eye View, written and drawn by Dave Berg, Spy vs. Spy by Sergio Aragones, the instantly recognizable characters of Don Martin’s department. And let’s not forget Alfred E. Newman, who has been on the cover of nearly every issue since 1954.

Gaines had a unique way of relating to his staff:

To celebrate a circulation milestone of 1 million magazines, Gaines took his staff to Haiti. In Haiti the magazine had a single subscriber. Gaines personally delivered his subscription renewal card.^[10]

Despite his largesse, Gaines had a penny-pinching side. He would frequently stop meetings to find out who had called a particular long-distance phone number. Longtime Mad editor Nick Meglin called Gaines a "living contradiction" in 2011, saying, "He was singularly the cheapest man in the world, and the most generous." Meglin described his experience of asking Gaines for a raise of $3 a week; after rejecting the request, the publisher then treated Meglin to an expensive dinner at one of New York's best restaurants. Recalled Meglin: "The check came, and I said, 'That's the whole raise!' "And Bill said, 'I like good conversation and good food. I don't enjoy giving raises.'"^[11]

(According to veteran Golden Age comics artist Sheldon Moldoff, Gaines was not too fond of paying percentages, either.) In his memoir Good Days and Mad (1994), Mad writer Dick DeBartolo recalls several anecdotes that characterize Gaines as a generous gourmand who liked practical jokes, and who enjoyed good-natured verbal abuse from his staffers.

MAD came into my life about the same time as the satire of Tom Lehrer and the folk singer / protest song bag. The sum total made me realize there were ways of viewing the world I hadn’t come across so far.

I got my first issue of 16 at the Walesboro IGA in the summer of 1964. I wanted it because it had The Beatles on the cover, as well as several other British Invasion acts.

Sure, there was a lot of stuff I wasn’t interested in - the contests and the stuff about some performer’s favorite color and foods. But I knew how to read it for what I wanted to learn. It was in 16 the summer of 1966 that I was made aware of Lenny Bruce - on the occasion of his death. 16 editor Gloria Stavers wrote a eulogy to this comic. No mention was made of how he died. I didn’t learn that part until later.

But as the 1960s unfolded, the magazine did cover acts that have had durable hipness cred: Bob Dylan, The Rolling Stones, The Byrds, The Buffalo Springfield, The Doors, Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels.

Gloria Stavers, who was editor and publisher from 1958 to 1975, came to New York from North Carolina to be a fashion model. But she was felled by an illness, so she took a job in the mailroom at 16. Within a year, she was running the place.

She had an interesting romantic life. Her paramours included Mickey Mantle, Lenny Bruce and Jim Morrison.

But she was laser-focused on putting out a product that reflected her vision:

Stavers was known for being singleminded regarding the image of "her" magazine. Her main priority was giving her teenage female reader base what it wanted, and what they wanted, according to Stavers, was the feeling of being "close" to their favorite stars. Stavers would receive more than 300 letters per day addressed to her from teenagers. She read every letter and took their words to heart, and then tried to use the magazine to address the concerns that were often written off as "silly" by adults.^[1]

As an editor, she eschewed serious or controversial subject matter for 16 Magazine interviews. Rather than asking a celebrity about social issues, she preferred to discuss more personal and lightly intimate topics such a celebrity's favorite color or meal or to ask him who his idea of a "dream date" would be. Her style of interviewing was referred to as the "Forty Intimate Questions." Her first interview using that format was with the Canadian pop singer Paul Anka.^[1]

Stavers, in her writings, attempted to make the celebrity appear approachable and "attainable" for her young readers. In short, the celebrity was a "surrogate boyfriend" for the reader. If the artist was married, in a long-term relationship or was not heterosexual in orientation, that fact was never mentioned in the magazine.^{[citation needed]}

In her editorial content, Stavers seldom if ever wrote critical or unflattering prose regarding any celebrity. She preferred to focus on the positive qualities of the "faves".^[1] She ignored those celebrities and musical acts who she felt would not capture her readers' interest, or those who failed to capture her personal interest. If the "fave" appeared to have fallen out of favor, then Stavers merely stopped covering that celebrity in the magazine, and would find someone else to feature.

Despite frequently using a teenzine shorthand for some words such as "fave" for favorite, and "cuz" for the word because, Stavers was a stickler for correct spelling and grammar.

16 was monthly reading during the time Shindig! was airing on ABC (late 1964 - early 1966), and like that show, was a much hipper operation than the public perceived. The show and the magazine steered me in a good direction regarding my relationship with music.

I first came across Famous Monsters of Filmland at a friend’s house also in that summer of 1964.

There was the obvious appeal of gruesome visages to an eight-year-old boy whose mind was ripe for warping.

But, at least for the two years or so I read it regularly, the emphasis was on the classic stuff: the Universal fare from 1924 through 1954, with a sprinkling, to be sure, of more contemporary cinema such as the Roger Corman movies for American International. But there was respectful and insightful coverage of the great figures - not just actors like Karloff, Lugosi, the Chaneys, Peter Lorre, Vincent Price, but people like makeup artist Jack Pierce and directors like James Whale.

So I did some absorbing. That was my launch into a lifelong love of classic cinema.

And I read Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein, or, The Modern Prometheus for the first of several times in the fifth grade.

Editor and publisher Forrest J. Ackerman had traveled in some highfalutin science-fiction circles prior to starting the magazine:

He knew many of the writers of science fiction in the first half of the twentieth century. As a literary agent, he represented some 200 writers, and he served as agent of record for many long-lost authors, thereby allowing their work to be reprinted in anthologies. He was Ed Wood's "illiterary" agent.^[28] Ackerman was credited with nurturing and even inspiring the careers of several early contemporaries^[29] like Ray Bradbury, Ray Harryhausen, Charles Beaumont, Marion Zimmer Bradley, and L. Ron Hubbard.^[17] He kept all of the stories submitted to his magazine, even the ones he rejected; Stephen King has stated that Ackerman showed up to a King book signing with a copy of a story King had submitted for publication when he was 11

So this was the pop-culture fare that consumed much of my spare time, as well as time that wasn’t spare.

No wonder all the authority figures in my life found me to be a handful.

*Can’t resist telling the story of buying my first LP. It was spring of 1964. My sister, who was eight years older, had already bought Meet The Beatles and the second Capitol album, the one with “Roll Over Beethoven, “She Loves You,” “You Can’t Do That” and “Thank You, Girl.” Well, I’d been seeing this album in stores for a whole. It was called Beetle Beat, and it was by The Buggs. The cover had a Meet The Beatles kind of vibe. The Buggs were attired in black turtlenecks against a dark background. The song titles listed on the back cover had British themes to them. “Teddy Boy Stomp” and “Swinging’ Thames,”for instance. But once you put the record on the turn table, it was cheesy versions of recent American pop tunes. Brill Building and such. The band was really bad.

My sister said, “Little brother, you didn’t spend $2.98 on that, did you?”

So I put it away and bought myself some Beatle albums. The Hard Day’s Night soundtrack was big that summer.

But years later - I mean fairly recently - I got curious about what the Buggs thing had been all about. The story was readily available on the Internet. It was about what you’d imagine. Some quick-and-dirty record producer took a Jersey bar band into a studio and cut Beetle Beat.

One of the Buggs was Gary Wright, who a few years later would have the band Spooky Tooth and then have a successful solo career (“Dream Weaver,” “My Love Is Alive”).