A Tale of Two Mags

My blogging mind has been a bit exhausted since that entry on "Japanese Sci-Fi A to Z". I have something potentially exciting in mind for it, but just haven't gotten to it yet. That's why the last week or so worth of posts have been pretty brief.

I also have a possible long-term project ahead and have been happily putting effort into that. If you pay attention to the entry tags, you may have a hint as far as where this is going. However, I don't want to talk about it just yet.

Meanwhile, I want to call your attention to something hilarious. During the course of researching both that Japanese Sci-Fi entry and another thing we'll get around to discussing when the time is right, I read about many Myron Fass publications. This included Eerie Publications, the imprint responsible for any number of gross-out B&W horror mags. I noticed the trend of recycling cover art in those magazines, which sometimes extended to three separate versions. As I observed to a friend, Fass' company was known for being thrifty.

Just how thrifty, I didn't realize. Later, I spotted something on the Bad Mags Myron Fass page (a source I somehow failed to link already) and couldn't contain my laughter.

That's the cover to Official UFO Vol. 3, No. 5 (June 1978). Why am I posting this? Let me refresh your memory. Here's the cover to Star Warp Vol. 1, No. 2 (June 1978)

Your eyes are not deceiving you. THEY HAVE THE EXACT SAME COVER. Well, the blurbs are different, but the artwork is exactly the same. And yes, that's right, they both are dated June 1978. So theoretically, they were on the stands simultaneously. With the same cover.

Boys and girls, this is one of the many reasons I love Myron Fass' publications.