Giant Monsters vs. Alien Invaders

This is the June 1978 issue of Space Wars, the first science fiction magazine I ever laid eyes on. I can remember my mother -- knowing what a huge "Star Wars" fan I was -- bringing it home from the store to surprise me when I was nine. Though I'd seen a handful of Godzilla movies by then, an article by Tom Rogers, "Giant Monsters vs. Alien Invaders," was my introduction to most of the monsters in the Toho pantheon, not to mention those outside it, like the giant turtle Gamera.

As this was back in the days before we had cable TV, much less VCRs, DVD players, or Netflix, I did not have the luxury of watching whatever I wanted whenever I wanted it. No, back in the dark ages we had to watch what was on, while it was on, or miss it altogether. As a result, I recall spending countless hours studying the pictures and rereading the text of the article to get my monster fix, imagining movies that I have only recently managed to see (and many I still haven't).

Although the article sometimes reads like a 6th grade English assignment, is filled with lame attempts at '70s-era snark, and takes a derisive view of Japanese cinema in general, with the writer wishing more than once that the movies would just go away and never return, it was nevertheless a goldmine of information for 9-year-old me (despite containing dubious spellings of a number of monsters' names). And my elementary school friends were equally enthusiastic about it, because when I brought the magazine to school to show it to them, it was passed around the playground at recess like porn. (Which is in no way meant to imply that we were sharing porn in elementary school.)

The hallowed pages are posted below. Click to enlarge...