✖ DEKKER ✖

Forrest J Ackerman

This posting is a little on the late side. I don’t think I was able to really sum up what I had in my mind until now. It breaks my heart. I hope Forrest is in a better place where he’s free from a lot of the bad times that plagued him and he can focus on nothing but his boyish love for science fiction.

Forrest helped me with Illusion when I was starting it by allowing us to use illustrations from the late great Frank R. Paul, one of the most iconic science fiction illustrators of his generation. He also lent us encouraging words and he was only an email away when times looked too hard to keep moving ahead.

He founded Famous Monsters of Filmland and it’s some amusing insult to injury that with all the trouble Forrest had with the publisher they were promoting my projects as late as two months before he passed away. On the one hand it reminded me of his troubles, but on the other it did warm my heart knowing that I was in Forrest’s publication (even if it was a false impression).

The same year, 2008, another friend of mine passed away. Ben Chapman. He played the Gill-Man in Creature from the Black Lagoon. He lived in Hawaii and had a lust for life that men half his age didn’t. I love hearing his stories. A copy of his sag contract for that movie hangs on my wall.

In a few weeks I’ll be in London poking around the Arthur C. Clarke awards… the first since he passed away. I’m sure it’s going to be difficult for many of the people there.

They’re gone, but not forgotten and I just felt like I needed to let everyone know that.