Famous Monsters on Maple Street

THE IMAGINARIUM program has been posted. Some readers will appreciate the Famous Monsters of Filmland pastiche. FM is right up there with Cornerstone (and Wonder) in being an inspiration and influence for the Cornerstone Festival Imaginarium. The program this year is an eclectic mix (surprise) of several things, not least 50s sci-fi movies, and a consideration of the "Monsters on Maple Street" — to reference a famous Twilight Zone episode, in which the "monsters" turn out to be close to home indeed. Paul Leggett bought the first FM off the newstand, he will tell you with little provocation, in New Jersey, in a snow storm, in the actual 50s, and so brings that sort of Maple street-cred to his seminar this year. He'll be examining the censorship and demagoguery and paranoia often associated with the McCarthy Era, especially in connection with the EC comic books controversy. Classic stuff, and unfortunately still highly relevant. Imaginarium regular John Morehead recently interviewed Paul Leggett at his Theofantastique blog, a terrific conversation that will give you a little taste of the conversation at the Imaginarium, a place about which people already brag they were there, on magical hot summer nights, when the June bugs flew into the projector gate, back in the day.

YOU AXED FOR IT! We’ve updated the Imaginarium site with the design we’d originally planned on using. Jason Seiler is already well-known in The Industry as one of the most promising young caricaturists around. And since he works in the office next door, we thought it’d be great to invite him do a Basil Gogos –style cover for our Famous Monsters spoof. He was eager to participate, but what with all those pesky and proliferating New York (paying) clients, we had to wait our turn to finally replace our temp cover with the real deal. Jason’s cover turned out to be such a knockout we re-did the rest of the site, too. And yes, there will be a t-shirt. Thanks, Jason! And keep up the great work! (4-23-07)