We have something a little different today, a bit of modern pulp from Central Europe. These are Hungarian posters for George Lucas’s Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi, which incidentally were going for the equivalent of $350.00. Yes, seriously. Premiere dates on these are a little obscure, but the Hungarian re-releases took place in 1997, so we’ll go with that. Of course, it’s worth pointing out again that the main reason wonderful posters like these make it to the foreign marketplace is that the designers are freed from the anti-artistic influence of Hollywood marketing departments, which tend to be hands off when promoting big re-releases overseas (new films, of course, have the same promo art as in America, i.e. incredibly bad, which in turn leads to the sad sight of your humble authors trying to slink unnoticed past displays for Saw 3D and Zookeeper, but that’s another post entirely). See a great Star Wars poster from Poland here. 

Various movie posters from Russia, Poland, Hungary, Turkey, and the former West Germany, circa ’50s, ’60s and ’70s.     

Forrest J. Ackerman, who was instrumental in the spread of science fiction and coined the term “sci-fi”, died yesterday at his home in Los Feliz, California. Ackerman is best remembered as the editor/writer of Famous Monsters of Filmland, a magazine that helped establish the literary value of science fiction, and has been cited as an inspiration by some of Hollywood’s most famous actors and directors, including George Lucas. Ackerman was also instrumental in the discovery of Ray Bradbury, who borrowed money to launch his magazine Literary Fantasia.

Ackerman published fifty stories, either alone or in collaboration with other sci-fi writers, penned pulp lesbian novels under the name Laurajean Ermayne, and wrote the origin story of Vampirella and gave the character her unforgettable name. He helped found the Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society, and the National Fantasy Fan Federation, and generally assumed the role of No. 1 Booster for sci-fi/horror/fantasy. But of all his accomplishments, perhaps nothing symbolized his love of—and value to—science fiction more than his 18-room home the “Ackermansion”, a veritable museum that contained more than 300,000 books and pieces of sci-fi memorabilia. Ackerman had been in failing health, which prompted several premature reports of his death. Sadly, this time the news is true.