Great Monsters of the Movies (1973) covers much the same ground as Monsters from the Movies, but is organized a bit differently. Edward Edelson starts out with a whole chapter dedicated to the various monster legends, then devotes himself entirely to film history, going through the notable films of the silent and early talkie era, then tackling the big three horror actors — Karloff, Lugosi and Chaney — in a chapter appropriately titled “Three Frightening Men.” The next chapter tackles the major monsters that haven’t already been discussed, and then the final chapter, the longest, attempts to square away everything that hasn’t yet been covered.

The tone is light and not obviously aimed at kids, but it’s also not not aimed at kids. I got it randomly in a lot of other monster books and didn’t much care about it until it got here. Only then did I realize that this was the movie monster book I obsessed over from the library. I copied out the title of every movie in this thing and used that list to work through all the movies my local video rental shop — Video Tonite — had on the shelves. Surely, that was exactly what this book was written for, right?

This era of covers really appeals to me because it anticipates the high contrast DIY aesthetic of punk rock, later in the decade, and I think really works, generally, for monster movie imagery. Dial up the contrast, throw a single color on there and a horror font and you’re good to go. What more do you need?