19. The classic monsters became brands before the term was used
Shock Theater was an immediate success, and stations airing the films saw an immediate, and in most cases large increase in advertising revenues. The new success of the classic monsters led to them appearing in another form of media entirely. Print magazines dedicated to the Universal Monsters and characters began to appear in 1958. One of the first was Famous Monsters of Filmland. It was originally intended to be a single-issue publication to take advantage of the surge in the popularity of the films. Instead, it continued to publish until 1983. It became known among fans as FM. It was revived and survives today online.
FM promoted the films with original articles aimed at teenagers and what in a later day would be known as tweens. It used stills from the films, promotional artwork, and new original artwork to illustrate its pages lavishly, and added to the legends and works from which the monsters had sprung. The magazine’s circulation grew until the late 1960s, when the older films began to appear with decreasing frequency on television and fan interest declined with them. Nonetheless, throughout the 1960s, newsstands were crowded with competing magazines dedicated to the classic monsters and the films in which they appeared.