Frankie Stein had quite a long life period for a comics character; weekly strips began
in the 4th issue of WHAM! in the summer of 1964 and ended in the last issue of WHOOPEE! in March 1985. That’s almost 21 years, minus the period when he
disappeared from the pages of WHAM! in 1967 and was reintroduced in SHIVER AND
SHAKE in 1973. For me, the “lifetime” of the friendly monster clearly falls
into three periods, each defined by distinctively different quality of the
stories and especially the artwork. X-mas episodes are as good an example as
any to illustrate this.
The first period is of course the original run in WHAM! (1964 – 1967) by the unsurpassed Ken Reid. Go to Part One of Frankie Stein Christmases for all four Christmas episodes of that period.
The first period is of course the original run in WHAM! (1964 – 1967) by the unsurpassed Ken Reid. Go to Part One of Frankie Stein Christmases for all four Christmas episodes of that period.
The second
period is different but equally good. In 1973 the illustrator’s duties were
given to Robert Nixon who remained the main artist of the strip until the very
end in 1985. The period lasted from March 1973 (the first issue of SHIVER AND
SHAKE) till approximately the end of 1978 and coincided with the time when Mr.
Nixon spent more time on his pages and drew first rate detailed sets (increasingly less so
towards the end of the period).
In the late
seventies and at the turn of the decade Frankie Stein and Prof. Cube mutated
into cuddly Smurf-like figures and continued like that throughout the remaining
part of the eighties. This third period is my least favourite of the three.
Let’s take
a look at Frankie’s Christmases of the second period that was also the time
when Mr. Nixon drew some memorable front covers of X-mas editions featuring
Frankie Stein:
1973
(SHIVER AND SHAKE):
By the X-mas of 1974 SHIVER AND SHAKE merged into WHOOPEE! By unfortunate coincidence, very soon the new title suffered from what is sometimes referred to as production difficulties and sometimes - as industrial action, and missed three weeks in the end of December 1974 / the beginning of January 1975. Hence no 1974 X-mas number. I have absolutely no doubt it would have been a really excellent one because WHOOPEE! was a first-rate packege in its early years.
1975:
1975 was
the year when Frankie also appeared on the cover of the X-mas edition of
Monster Fun Comic:
I’ve shown
it before, but the gallery of Frankie Stein’s Christmases would be incomplete
without this marvellous cover of SHIVER AND SHAKE 1976 Annual. In his interview for GOLDEN FUN (Winter 1981) the artist tells that it took him about a day and a half to draw the cover, which was "a fair amount of time". He used air-brush and it was done from a broad idea sent to him by Bob Paynter.
1976:
1977:
They are amazing Christmas covers...
ReplyDeleteI think the stories are also excellent, as is the art.
DeleteI agree...very good..
DeleteI sometimes wonder why Ken Reid wasn't offered another crack at the character when it was revived (maybe he was and declined?), but if you can't have Reid then Robert Nixon is probably the next best man for the job. Had another hand been at the tiller then I doubt the second incarnation of Frankie would've been as popular as it was. Great stuff, Irmantas, keep it up.
ReplyDeleteI sometimes wonder about that too. Perhaps IPC wanted a cuddlier version of the old character and Mr. Reid didn't want to do it. Or maybe he wanted to concentrate on Faceache, Creepy Creations/World-Wide Weirdies and his football strips in Scorcher at the time? Perhaps answers can be found in Mr. Reid's archive that I hear is very detailed and may one day become available to researchers...
Delete