he mastermind behind Eerie Publications was Myron Fass.
When I began the Eerie Pubs Online Archive project, so long ago, I had no information about any of the twisted geniuses behind the stories, but slowly some of the facts have come crawling up into the light...and most of the revelations have had to do with the man credited with creating the Eerie Pubs empire, Myron Fass.
What follows are all of the references to Mr. Fass that have come to Your Emperor's attention, mostly from the late, lamented The Claw's Tomb of Obeisance.
If you have a story about Myron Fass or other Eerie Pubs alumni, tell the horrifying tale on
The Claw's Archive of Sedition!
"Myron was a well known comic book artist in the 1950's and his byline
appears many times in many auctions.""There is an article mentioning Myron Fass here: http://dixonverse.com/article4.html
This guy is an a**hole, but some of his facts are correct, many are not."
"This is Myron Fass, the real owner of Eerie Publications. He was one of the biggest pulp pubishers in the 1970's, on 257 Park Ave South. He was partner of Stan Harris, who now owns Harris Publications in NYC. He published hundreds of magazines. Harris and Fass has a fight, Fass beat up Harris, and Harris left. Harris's father made a fortune by inventing the Harris Press, a huge printing machine which is used to this day by printers.
Mel Lenny was a middle aged advertising manager, who was befuddled by why anyone would buy any of these magazines. He died in the 1990's of a blood clot.
Carl Burgos was a competent hack editor and headline writer.
Irving Fass wore a wig, was always jealous of his smarter brother, and killed himself in 1989.
Ezra Jackson is a fictitious name.
I was editor of many of these magazines, the company was called "Countrywide Publications" before going out of business.
Myron now runs a gun store in Florida.
Jeff"The Claw did some research at the US Copyright Office web site. Here is what a search for "Countrywide Publications" revealed (There was no record of "Eerie Publications", insofar as Your Emperor could determine.):
- Search For: COUNTRYWIDE PUBLICATIONS, INC
Item 1 of 1
Title: Official U F O Additional Information: . Note: Monthly. Description based on: Vol. 1, no. 12, Nov. 1976. Claimant: * acCountrywide Publications, Inc. v. 1, no. TX 2-462-807 10Dec86; 12, Nov76. (C.O. corres.) DCR 1976; PUB 1Nov76; That certainly sounds like Myron!
The following entries are culled from various on-line sources.
Under the auspices of Countrywide Publications, Myron Fass published a dazzling array of magazines, some of which were devoted to topics that schmeg-loving mutants adore: UFOs, the Occult, etc. This tale accounts for how adept he was at recruiting new talent:
From "CONFESSIONS OF A TESLA NERD", located on the site
"WIZARD; The Life and Times of Nikola Tesla":"Although we had managed to produce four issues [of the Journal of Occult Studies, definitely not published by Myron Fass], with articles on pyramid power, synchronicity, Uri Geller, (who was now world famous, because of Puharich's biography), and the physics of consciousness, Howard was not content. One day he returned from New York as editor-in- chief of two separate national magazines, Ancient Astronauts and ESP. He had simply walked into Countrywide Publications and pitched the publisher, Myron Fass, on both topics. "How'd you do it?" I said completely amazed at his most recent coup. "I figured that if the guy could have magazines on remote controlled airplanes and show dogs, they could have one on ESP or extraterrestrials. I pitched each topic, and to my amazement, Myron gave me both! As long as I can keep the circulation above 20,000, he doesn't care what it's on," he said. "You could do one on toilet seats."
Did Myron Fass indirectly cause the creation of Harris Publication's Eerie magazine? Russ Jones thinks so:
From a Russ Jones site - "Creepy and Eerie":
"Vietnam was was blistering sore on the soul of America, and the last thing readers wanted was a war-mag. But we did know this at the time. Jim phoned me one day and said that we had a major problem. Another publisher he'd heard, was planning on coming out with a 'knock-off'' of Creepy, with our title, Eerie.
I believe that publisher was Myron Fass, who had published a comic book with that title before the Code came in. What could we do to protect our new title yet to be released?
Warren had an "ash-can" edition of Eerie printed overnight This was a small, digest was to go to my neighborhood and place this cheap-looking first issue on the stands. Jim said this would protect the title and the way things turned out I guess he was right."(By the way, for you over-18 schmeg horror fans, Your Emperor recommends a visit to the rest of Russ Jones' site: Russ Jones Monstermania 2002)
A very scholarly site has this mention of a conspiracy-minded Myron sounding off in the Countrywide Pubs magazine, "Official UFO":
From An Examination Into Close Encounters Involving Death, Injury, or Healing of the Witness:
"Another medium for the idea of violent aliens threatening the Earth is the print media. Attacking aliens has been a staple of the tabloid newspaper since the early days. Not to be outdone, many UFO related publications have willingly stretched the truth and in some cases told outright fabrications in an attempt to sell more of their publication. A good case in point was the razing of Chester, Illinois, back in July of 1977. The town of 5,000 was, according to "Official UFO", completely destroyed by alien spaceships. Easy enough to verify, reporters visited the war-torn town. Finding only a small but completely alive town, the media wrote articles poking fun at the story. For his part, the editor of the magazine Myron Fass insisted that "the aliens had returned, rebuilt the town, and given the townspeople selective amnesia." (Kurland, p.177)."
(Your Emperor suspects that Myron knew this because the aliens had also knocked out one of everybody's eyeballs.)
Evidently Myron Fass was also an artist (!)...he's mentioned several times in reference to western comics (along with Dick Ayers!), and this site, "KBAC Vol. 1 #4 Annotations", which annotates Kurt Busiek's superlative comic series "Astro City", features this line:
[Page 4, panel 1] "Fass Gardens" refers to artist Myron Fass..."
(Well, if Kurt Busiek says Myron was an artist, that's good enough for Your Emperor! Are there any minions out there with pointers to some of Myron's work? Could it be that he did some stories for Eerie Publications himself??!)
