Frankie
Stein was a big star of SHIVER section. His strip was the first that the young
reader would find on opening a copy of the paper. Frankie happens to be one of
my favourite characters in British comics and half-way through writing this piece
I realised it may become too long, so I decided to split it and do two posts
instead.
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Frankie Stein by Ken Reid |
The editors
introduced Frankie in the first issue of SHIVER AND SHAKE without bothering to
explain his origins, and few readers recalled that the character had made his
debut nearly a decade ago in the 4th issue of Wham!
dated 11th July, 1964, alongside with his maker Professor Cube who hoped to
create a little pal and a real live playmate to his son Micky but the
scientific exercise went radically wrong. Crazy and occasionally violent
adventures of Frankie Stein the friendly monster, Professor Cube and his son
Micky continued in Wham! for more
than three years totalling up to 142 weekly episodes, the vast majority
illustrated by Ken Reid. Towards the end of the run of WHAM! the appearances of
Frankie Stein became less frequent and finally ceased altogether after Wham! issue No. 166 dated 19th August,
1967. Thus, Frankie Stein’s new debut in the pages of SHIVER AND SHAKE was
after a five-and-a-half year break. Below is a representative example of the
old version of the strip from WHAM! No. 109 (17th March, 1967) in which Frankie
reunites with Dad and Micky after a long stay away from home:
Although Mr.
Reid was around and working for IPC at the time, the illustrator’s duties were assigned
to Bob Nixon. Maybe it was because Mr. Reid was too busy drawing other
features, or perhaps the editors believed readers would find Bob Nixon’s cuddly
new Frankie more appealing than Mr. Reid’s old-school diabolical version – we’ll
never know for sure. Whatever the reasons, Mr. Nixon did an excellent job as
the illustrator and I have no doubt that his version of Frankie Stein is deeply
ingrained in the memories of many fans who followed Frankie’s adventures in the
70s and beyond. Here is the first
episode of the new series from SHIVER AND SHAKE issue No. 1:
New artist
wasn’t the only change: character lineup of the revamped feature was
‘optimised’ by dropping Prof. Cube’s son Micky who used to be a regular in
WHAM! series. For truth’s sake it has to be noted that Micky was a secondary
character anyway and didn’t have a real role to play in the plot because the
conflict was usually between Frankie and Prof. Cube. It wasn’t uncommon for
Micky to be absent from weekly WHAM! episodes; as a matter of fact, in the last
16 episodes in WHAM! Micky is seen only once!
Frankie
Stein and his Dad Professor Cuthbert Cube lived at Mildew Manor in the village
of Puddleditch. They were a pair of truly weird characters: Frankie was a dumb
but lovable creature with a tiny brain and a huge muscular body who didn’t know
his own strength; Professor Cube was forever sorry for inventing Frankie and employed
his imagination and scientific talents devising wicked schemes to get rid of
his son. Below is an example from issue 23 (August 11th, 1973). I may be imagining things, but to me it looks as
if Mr. Nixon got some outside help on some of the panels in the top half of the
first page:
As a
character, Frankie is plain and simple: he is kind-hearted and always in a
jolly enthusiastic mood, but naïve and blissfully unaware of his own
hideousness. Despite Prof. Cube’s never ending diabolical plots, Frankie has
warm feelings towards Dad and the thought that his inventor might be trying to
get rid of him hardly ever crosses his mind. Pretty much a clueless dimwit.
Professor
Cube’s personality is by far more complex than Frankie’s. Strange as it may
sound, but he tries hard to be a good parent: he buys Frankie’s groceries, sees
him off to school, gives him pocket money, takes him to the Zoo, the circus,
the pictures, the seaside and even on overseas holidays, mends his shoes, tells
him bedtime stories, bakes his birthday cake, etc. But Professor Cube is
forever on the verge of a nervous breakdown because Frankie is a glutton who
eats him out of house and home, and a clumsy brute who costs thousands in
repair bills. Therefore Prof. Cube’s mind is always busy devising cunning and
violent schemes to get rid of his son, and he is unscrupulous in the choice of
his means. Everything goes – explosives, bombs, landmines and all sorts of
Professor’s own ingenious inventions – mechanical gadgets, potions,
concoctions, etc. Prof. Cube tries to get rid of Frankie by enlisting him in
the army, shipping him off to Timbuctoo packed in a box, turning him to the Zoo
as a ‘Wild Man’, pushing him off a train going at full speed, getting him a job
as a stuntman, putting him into orbit around the Earth, sending him off to cannibals’
island, transporting him to the past with the aid of a time machine, setting Frankie
up with a female robot and switching her to nag-mode in hope she will drive
Frankie out of town and even kidnapping Shiver artist to take control of that
week’s story. Needless to say, Dad’s schemes always misfire and turn against
him in the form of property damages or physical suffering. The episode below is from issue No. 46 cover-dated January 19th, 1974:
The paradox
is that most of Prof. Cube’s misery comes from his efforts to do away with
Frankie. If it weren’t for his failed mad schemes, Dad would only have to put
up with Frankie’s gluttony, his habit of forgetting to use the doors and
breaking through the walls too often, and being a general embarrassment to Dad.
Misfired schemes, however, push Prof. Cube deeper into despair and frustration because
they often result in damages of a grand scale, destruction of Mildew Manor and
Professor Cube’s bodily injuries. And still, Prof. Cube is torn by dual
emotions of hate and remorse for being so mean to Frankie, as can be seen in this
episode in issue No. 56 (March 30th, 1974) where Professor Cube speaks openly
about his feelings:
Come back
soon for Part Two.
A great character. My first comic was Shiver and Shake and I loved all the characters with Frankie being the best. The Reid strips are lovely with some great examples repirnted in the annuals (Annual 1974 - colorised which would probably annoy some but I have warm memories of this annual). I try to buy old issues of Wham when possible but they are very pricey, I wish IPC would re visit their past and bring out some collections.
ReplyDeleteIndeed, IPC had some excellent strips that very much deserve to be collected and published in one piece and Frankie is surely one of them.
ReplyDeleteThere's a chap who has down this for Reid's oldhams work - Dare a Day Davy from Pow, Frankie from Wham and Queen of the Seas and Nerves from Smash, and the Creepy Creations / Wanted pin ups from Shiver and Shake /Whoopee. Charges a fortune for them sadly.
ReplyDeleteDon’t quite understand why there's a poorly drawn monster at the end of the Wham strip’s title. Is this supposed to be a 'nasty' to contrast Frankie’s (general) friendliness?
ReplyDeleteThat monster head has always puzzled me too... They used a different masthead initially but replaced it with this one quite early on.
ReplyDeleteI believe it was because they extended the logo to include the 'friendly monster' tag and had to fill the extra space under it. Not much thought went into what to fill it with obviously, as it should have been Micky or Prof. Cube. Odhams 'bodgers' weren't always the best.
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