welcome and enjoy!

Hi and welcome to my blog about comics from other people’s childhood! It is dedicated primarily to British humour comics of the 60s and 70s. The reason they are not from my childhood is simply because I didn’t live in the UK back then (nor do I live there now). I knew next to nothing about them until fairly recently but since then I’ve developed a strong liking for the medium and amassed a large collection, including a number of complete or near complete sets. My intention is to use this blog as a channel for sharing my humble knowledge about different titles, favourite characters and creators as I slowly research my collection.

QUICK TIP: this blog is a sequence of posts covering one particular comic at a time. The sequence follows a certain logic, so for maximum results it is recommended that the blog is read from the oldest post up.

Copyright of all images and quotations used here is with their respective owners. Any such copyrighted material is used exclusively for educational purposes and will be removed at first notice. All other text copyright Irmantas P.



Saturday, December 21, 2013

THE CHRISTMASES OF FRANKIE STEIN - PART THREE



Time for Part Three of Frankie Stein’s Christmases that covers the period from the late 70s till the middle 80s.

When interviewed by Alan Clark for GOLDEN FUN No. 12, Mr. Nixon remembered how he really used to put a lot of work into his early sets and enjoyed it. The interview took place in the early 80s and he admitted he didn’t go into that kind of trouble anymore. “Quite honestly, it doesn’t pay” – said Mr. Nixon. He went on to say that the he would work on an early page for twice as long as a ‘normal’ page and therefore did half the amount of work and halved his income – which he just couldn’t afford to do with a family to support.  Fair enough.

As I said in the previous post, this is my least favourite period of the strip but I have no doubt that many people for whom those years were “their time” of reading the comic would argue it was the best version of Frankie ever…

1978:


1979:



1980:


Bob Nixon must have been very busy in the early 80s because he had no time to draw new Christmas sets of Frankie Stein. The episodes included in the Christmas editions of Whoopee! in 1981 and 1982 were reprints of the original sets printed in 1975 and 1976 (you can view them in the previous post HERE).  However, here’s the cover of 1981 edition of Monster Fun Comic Annual with Frankie and Santa, so it qualifies to be included in this series.  I don’t know who drew it:


The cover of GOLDEN FUN Winter 1981 Grand Christmas Number (No. 12) also falls into the category of Frankie Stein's Christmases:



Normal service resumed in 1983 but the episode was just one page long:


1984 X-mas edition of Whoopee! was the last festive number because by the Holiday Season of 1985 the paper was no more. Bob Nixon contributed the cover and a new episode of Frankie Stein:


Brian Walker occasionally stepped in for Bob Nixon as illustrator of Frankie Stein in WHOOPEE! He didn’t draw any Christmas episodes in the weeklies but here’s a nice example from SHIVER & SHAKE Annual 1986:


6 comments:

  1. Even Robert Nixon's simpler style was more effective than a lot of artists' attempts at more detailed work 'though, don't you think? (On their own strips, I mean.) The only characters who RT's style didn't seem to suit was Oor Wullie and The Broons in The Sunday Post. (Ken Harrison's the only artist to do justice to them since Dudley Dexter Watkins passed away, in my opinion.)

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    1. I like Bob Nixon's early version of Frankie but I think Frank McDiarmid would have done an even better job, had he been commissioned as the main artist. His few sets in Shiver and Shake weeklies were brilliant and close to Ken Reid's version, IMHO.

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    2. I am not familiar with Nixon's work in The Sunday Post...

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  2. I can see what you're saying...But they are still good...I love the way in the later period how he played around with panels..the early 80's..
    Of course it is striking the differences...reading in the 80's I didn't know any better..

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  3. -Brian Walker sure did a good job and in the mid 80's..
    I can see what you mean...

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  4. Hope Santa was good to you, Irmantas, Merry Christmas.

    (There's an example of Bob Nixon's Sunday Post work on my blog somewhere. If you type in 'Calling Chris B...' in the Blogger search box in the top left-hand corner of the page, it should hopefully take you right to it.)

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