Don’t give up yet. The sequel to this article will deal with a 12-step program for Sci-Fi as, after all, we’re all brothers and sisters of the great unknown.

I was nine when I was bitten by the bug. The year was 1973.

My dad was driving my mom, two brothers and me to a cousin’s house. It was nearly midnight in Denver, and braving the weather back to nearby Aurora was a tremulous consideration at best. The snow was too thick and piling quickly. The streets were icy, the drive white-knuckle. Thankfully, my cousin was still awake.

“What the hell are you all doing here at this hour?” Joan asked. “Not that I’m complaining.”

“I think you’re gonna have some company for the night,” my father said. “Sorry but I can’t take ‘no’ for an answer. The snow is impossible.” (The nature of my family was such that if one member was in trouble, another would never say “no.” We remain fortunate that way, some 45 years later.)

“Don’t worry,” Joan said. “Spare room’s open. Put the other two to bed.” She turned to me, the only brother still conscious. “Hubby’s stuck at work but David’s still up. He’s gonna watch Creature Features. Joel, go join him.”

David was Joan’s son, my age, and an obsessive monster fan. I was, to then, far too timid to watch what I considered a “nightmare” movie.

My mom and dad carried my two sleeping brothers, Mike and Neil, to the bedroom.

“We’ll be out in the morning as soon as the snow lightens up.”

“If you’re not I won’t hold it against you.”

I remember that conversation verbatim, as ten minutes later, at the stroke of 12, my life changed forever.

HOW TO MAKE A MONSTER WAS THE FILM THAT GAVE ME THE FEVER

Remember the films “I Was a Teenage Werewolf” and its followup, “I Was a Teenage Frankenstein?” They were released in 1957 and by then played on television for many years. Produced by American International Pictures, the two films, released five months apart, spawned a follow-up of their own, “How to Make a Monster.”

The film was meta before meta was cool. Its current IMDB synopsis? When a master monster make-up artist is sacked by the new bosses of American International studios, he uses his creations to exact revenge.

The film was nothing more, nothing less. I couldn’t sleep for a week, but when that week was over … I couldn’t wait until it aired again. I was haunted, and forever infected. Though it would be nearly a year until that anticipated rerun, “Creature Features” became a Saturday night habit.

THE NEXT WINTER

I had built up my physical conditioning by shoveling snow for neighbors at $5 a driveway. Sometimes I would go it alone, sometimes I would shovel with friends. Four driveways a day was a goal to shoot for.

And that’s when I found Marvel. Not the superhero comics, mind you, but “Tomb of Dracula” and “Werewolf by Night” first, followed by those amazing Marvel mags with those insanely delicious covers.

NEW YORK BECKONS AND “MONSTER MADNESS” ROCKS MY WORLD

I was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. My family moved to Colorado so I could lose my asthma in the Mile High City. I did. We moved back to Brooklyn when I was 11 and by then I was obsessed.

At that time, you couldn’t kick a football in Brooklyn without hitting a newsstand. The above magazine, “Monster Madness,” veritably screamed at me to let go of a hard-earned 60 cents and forever cherish what was between it’s two glorious covers.

Though “Monster Madness” was a spoof mag, filled to the brim with comedic word balloons from the mouths of some very serious creatures, the Universal Studios-heavy photos predictably made me seek out those particular films. WOR-TV back then, Channel 9, aired “Fright Night” at 1AM every Sunday morning, just after what was then the WWWF’s (now WWE) flagship, “Championship Wrestling.” Boris Karloff’s “Frankenstein” films, Bela Lugosi’s “Dracula,” Lon Chaney, Jr.’s “Wolfman” movies … I was hooked for life.

And then … I found yet another magazine. This one was funny too, and loaded with puns … but in the midst of the jokes these films were taken seriously. Further, for the first time, I felt that I was part of a community.

James Warren and Forrest J. Ackerman’s “Famous Monsters of Filmland” would inspire generations of horror icons, from Stephen King to Guillermo del Toro. Ackerman, the mag’s editor-in-chief, was our Uncle. No, not literally, but as he considered his readers a de facto family, we were all his nephews and nieces.

See one of my related articles here:

Uncle Forry had it all — one of the world’s largest collections of all things fantastique and the magazine itself. Perhaps next to Hugh Hefner, for many fans who came of age during FM’s heyday, no other periodical was so identified with a single personality.

I found other favorite monster mags during that period — “The Monster Times” and “Castle of Frankenstein” were particular favorites and I loved them both— but they didn’t compare to my Uncle Forry’s effort.