Vintage Spirits and Cold Biers – Niels Erickson & Margali

Margali Morwentari was a character created in the very late 1970s by Niels Erickson, a local fan who was an early attendee and sat on the Board of Directors of CoastCon, the MS coast SF & F convention. Niels Erickson was also heavily involved in gaming and worked for Gamescience Corp. off an on for years as an illustrator and editor in the 80s and 90s. He also operated a game shop until a hurricane closed him down.


Margali hosted a Jackson, MS based late night host horror show called Thriller Theater from 1990 to 1993 and eventually it covered five southern states at its peak. Thriller Theater was clever low-budget entertainment on a shoestring holding together B movies foreshadowing the good-humored repartee of such shows like MST3K. Drawing on childhood memories of a famous New Orleans show, Morgus, Niels Erickson and his confederate, Tim Hess, who had the character, Hans the hand servant, who was …. well … a detached hand. O.K. so now you see were this is going, created a retro late night horror host show. Niels was also the voice of the ever-unseen werewolf announcer, Weldel.

Along with being a late night TV show host, Niels Erickson also co-authored a fantasy RPG called Wizard’s Realm, published in 1981, but now out of print. Lately, Niels Erickson has authored three film-related books and has two others that he is presently working. The premise of these works is to link famous films with their often forgotten original stories that were their inspiration. The stories are gathered and edited from original sources, which are now out of copyright. The books make fascinating reading and background for any movie buff.


Vintage Spirits and Cold Biers
Nightmares That Left a Film
London After Midnight
The Undying Monster
    upcoming works
The Prints of Darkness
Celluloid Spooks and Reel Monsters

Niels and will be attending this year’s CoastCon at the Mississippi Gulf Coast Coliseum, March 11 – 13 2011. Margali will be hosting the annual costume contest. Hopefully you’ll be at CoastCon this week also!