UMA member Tom Triman

[Monsterscud]

I know that I am really late with showing my condolences to Tom Triman, but to be honest I only heard about it quite recently here on this board. I was really shocked when I read about Tom's passing, just couldn't believe it. I was one of Tom's penpals and I think his only penpal from here in the UK. I had sent a letter to Scary Monsters Magazine [which was published in issue #7] requesting for Penpals. Tom was the first person to write to me and we became long distance friends for many years, writing many letters, cards and sending gifts to each other. Some how we lost contact, probably due to me moving a couple of times and I think Tom moved one time during our correspondence. I never did get round to re-contacting with him again, which I really regret. He was such a wonderful and knowledgeable monster fan, we had some interesting correspondence with each other talking about classic horror movies, the stars and monster memorabilia. Tom told me of a stop-motion Frankenstein short he made called 'A Spark of Being', he sent me a copy on VHS, he sure was a talented guy. Also the wonderful articles he did for Scary Monsters Magazine showing his knowledge and love for the classic Monsters.  I have missed so much being his Penpal and will always remember him with fondness.

I missed quite a few issues of Scary Monsters at some points in time, my local comic shop couldn't seem to get them regularly like they used to, I bought it regularly from issue 1 up until about issue 47. I am now starting to fill in my gaps gradually. I only just came upon issue 75 with the Fantastic tribute article by Jeff Kuta, if you are reading this Jeff, thank you so much for being a good friend to Tom and for writing a interesting, warm and moving tribute.

R.I.P. Tom

[Hepcat]

Tom was a longtime UMA member; I think dating back to the Yahoo group days.

I did not know him, but I knew when I saw a post by him at the UMA, or at the Classic Horror Film Board that it was worth reading.

I have enjoyed reading his post for a long time.

One of our former UMA members, the late Tom Triman....

Did Tom Triman actually post here on UMA? Under what name?

[Monsterscud]

That's what I was wondering. Don't remember seeing his actual name to a post or maybe I just missed it some how.

[Hepcat]

I can't find any posts on this forum by a member with a name anything similar to Tom Triman.

[BijouBob8mm]

I thought Tom posted here under his own name, but won't swear to that...it's been so long ago.  On some sites he did, on others he used a nickname I gave him, Trimonster.

[Universal Steve]

As far as I remember he did post his name. I believe it may have been back in the Yahoo group days.

[BijouBob8mm]

I remember Tom getting hold of me one day, very excited.   Filmmaker Bert I. Gordon had read Tom's article on his career in the pages of Scary Monsters Magazine, and wanted to quote something from it in his own book about his work.  (Curiously, Gordon mentioned the magazine in his book, but not Tom.)  Sadly, Tom passed away just before the book came out.

[Monsterscud]

That's Fantastic, but strange Tom not getting his name mentioned in the book. Well at least Tom's article was good enough to have a quote used by Bert I.Gordon. Shame He didn't get to see the book, he would of been so pleased.

[Hepcat]

I thought Tom posted here under his own name, but won't swear to that...it's been so long ago.  On some sites he did, on others he used a nickname I gave him, Trimonster.

As far as I remember he did post his name. I believe it may have been back in the Yahoo group days.

I still can't find any record of Tom Triman posting here under Trimonster or any obvious variant of his name.

[Mike Scott]

I still can't find any record of Tom Triman posting here under Trimonster or any obvious variant of his name.

That's because he was a member of the UMA Yahoo group and there are no existing records of that group.

[BijouBob8mm]

After he passed and I posted about it on the CHFB, his niece contacted someone here at the UMA, saying she wanted to get hold of me about him.  (And I apologize to the UMA member in question, but I'm coming up blank on which one of my Army amigos it was.)  She left her e-mail with him, which he passed along to me.  I dropped her a line, but never received a reply.

A few years later, a member of Duke University contacted me via Scary Monsters Magazine (since Tom and I both wrote for it on a regular basis), telling me they had been given a bunch of Tom's Super 8 films.  These were a lot of the movies he had made as a teen and on into his adult years, and may have even included some of the films he had collected as well (the packaged films that were digests of classic horror films from Castle and other such companies that released titles for the home movie market in the pre-home video era).  I don't think he had many of those left, as he'd sent a number of them my way over the years.  At any rate, though, a lot of that footage would have been Tom's stop-motion experiments and tests, before he got into animation as a profession.  Not sure what all was included, as some projects Tom openly shared, while others he kept very quiet about.  The university staff member had some questions about some of the reels, and I was able to share some info with him.  He said one reel of film was about a "butterfly man," and wondered if that was from Tom's "Maker of Wings" project.  "Wings" was a feature-length script Tom had written (and registered with the Writers Guild of America) that had a very George Pal vibe to it...not unlike Pal's Atlantis, The Lost Continent.  Tom had the initial idea for it as a teen, and did some 8mm tests back then, but there was no "butterfly man" in either version.  (I have at least three different drafts of Tom's script that he did in the years prior to his death, as he'd use me as a sounding board on it as it developed.)  I suspect the "butterfly man" reel was Tom's test footage for a proposed project based on the Moth Man sightings.  I mentioned that to the university contact, but apparently he overlooked or ignored the info, as I think they cataloged the piece of film with the butterfly man label.

I've always been curious, since Tom's wife passed within days of him, how that material ended up at Duke.  (His niece, perhaps?)  He had a lot of vintage (and valuable) monster memorabilia from the Fifties and Sixties, which I hope didn't just get simply tossed into the trash. Not sure what all the university collection includes, or how accessible it is, but here is a link to the university's website for it:

https://archives.lib.duke.edu/catalog/trimantom

[BijouBob8mm]

Before I ever knew Tom, I first encountered him via a stop-motion short he did called A SPARK OF BEING.  Inspired by the creation sequence of Mary Shelley's novel, Frankenstein, it was made for a filmmaking contest sponsored by CineMagic Magazine in the mid-1980s.  The film won First Prize, and Tom wrote a "making of" article on it for what sadly turned out to be the final issue of CineMagic.  At the awards ceremony, Tom got to meet and chat with George Pal and a couple of other "childhood heroes," and I think that meant as much to him as the award.  Tom would go on to do professional stop-motion work for commercials, as well as for a music video.  After he and I became friends, he surprised me one year at Christmas with one of his Super 8 prints of A SPARK OF BEING, which I still treat some of my pals to every so often.

A while back, on the CHFB, one of the members there posted a link to a YouTube copy of A SPARK OF BEING, since -- like many of us -- Tom had been a member of that site as well.  For the benefit of those who may have never seen this, take the next 6 minutes to see an inspiring little film.  It's not quite the same as seeing it projected up on the big screen (where you can see how detailed the miniature sets were), but I think it will still find an appreciative audience here:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrB2el_GDEk#

[Mike Scott]

That was a lot of fun!    Thanks, Bob and to Tom for making it!