The penultimate edition of Frankie Stein Holiday
Special came out in the Summer of 1981, it had 64 pages and cost 45 p.
There were 26 pages of Frankie Stein in it, mostly new
material. It was the second year in a row that John Geering drew the main story
for the magazine. Frankie Stein in ‘No Holds Barred’ consisted of 3 parts and
occupied 18 pages. Crackpot inventor Professor Cube has an idea that putting
his lab-manufactured son behind bars might be a great way to get rid of him so
he writes a letter to the local Zoo telling them about a new and very rare
animal Frankius Stupidius. A team of Zoo
keepers set off after Frankie who senses foul play and runs as if his life
depended on it. The mindless pursuit causes lots of damage in destroyed buildings
and smashed vehicles. Owners have little doubt as to who should pick the bills
and the poor inventor ends up as a Zoo exhibit:
After enough people have paid to look at Prof. Cube to
pay for all the damage, he is released from the Zoo and realizes that Zoo was
the wrong kind of bars that he wanted Frankie put behind, and that prison was
the answer. He tries a series of ploys to get Frankie in trouble with the law
but ends up on the wrong side of the bars himself, again.
Upon
his release, Professor Cube has an idea that if he can’t put Frankie behind
bars in Britain, he should try somewhere else. He tells Frankie he has found
him a job as a secret agent and that his first mission as Double-O-Nothing is to throw a stink bomb at the chief of a secret
rocket base at Bugrolia. Frankie does well, is decorated by the real British Secret
Service and gets more assignments in exotic countries which he carries out
brilliantly, albeit always by accident rather than design. Oh, and his plotting Dad gets himself locked up
once again.
The
Holiday Special also contains a two-page set of Frankie Stein by Robert
Nixon which is a reprint from WHOOPEE! Besides,
Frankie’s name can be found on two reprint pages of Ticklish Allsorts by Les
Barton from MONSTER FUN COMIC.
|
Frankie Stein's portrait by Nigel Edwards |
Nigel
Edwards contributed one page of Frankie Postcards and two pages of Freakie
Frankie Jokes! The editor of this Holiday Special kept Nigel Edwards
busy: in addition to the three Frankie Stein pages, he also drew two pages of Creepy
Cartoons and Monster Hits! gags, as well as Escape
– a puzzles game on the centrespread, all in full colour (this is the first
Frankie Stein Holiday Special without a poster of Frankie Stein). I really like
his style, here are some examples:
Mr.
Hill illustrated two episodes of Monster Movie Makers. In the first
one Carlo Monte realises that their titles are too way out and they need to do
something more down to Earth. The idea of a film ‘It Came from the Cabbage Patch’ about a mutant caterpillar comes to
his mind. It has to be the biggest, best and most expensive monster movie ever
made so they hire all Britain’s top names to play the giant caterpillar:
Things
don’t go quite as planned but the film turns out a massive success and they win
more Oscars than they can carry:
In
the second story Carlo Monte and his crew are about to film their new blockbuster ‘The Abominable Snowman Strikes’ but it
is the middle of summer and they need snow for the setting. They try salt,
shaving foam and finally soap flakes. The result is not a horror movie but
a Monster Comedy…
Let’s
see what Computer Cop had on his hands in this Holiday Special. Well, he
is in the bank vaults getting ready to transport the World’s biggest diamond to the
museum. The crafty crooks come well-prepared once again but stand no chance
against the super robo-cop. Too bad his chief is a clumsy old geezer:
There
is also a rushed episode of Gook the TV Spook by Artie Jackson,
and that’s it as far as new material goes. The rest of the pages are reprints:
there are 3 pages of Reg Parlett’s Freddie Fang from COR!! and the
whole run of Grizzly Bearhug… Giant by Andy Christine from MONSTER FUN
COMIC. Both have been covered in their dedicated posts on KAZOOP!, you can
revisit the posts HERE and HERE.
Front
cover artwork for this FS Holiday Special was offered by Compal in their Autumn
2010 auctions. Here is how it was described: Frankie
Stein Special original front cover colour artwork (1981) drawn and signed by
Robert Nixon with Whoopee Frankie Stein page 1 original artwork (1981) also
drawn and signed by Robert Nixon Special: Poster colour on board. 13 x 9 ins;
Page 1: Indian ink on cartridge paper. 18 x 14 ins. They got the date of
the front cover art right this time, but the b/w page was actually first used
for the front cover of SHIVER AND SHAKE dated 21st September, 1974). The winner
paid £181.
Images 2014 © Egmont UK
Ltd. All rights reserved. Used with
permission.
And could that winner possibly have been you, Irmantas?
ReplyDeleteNo. I didn't bid on it. Frankly, I am not particularly impressed by this Holiday Special cover art.
ReplyDeleteI’m very fond of Edwards’s artwork – full of youthful energy – but I don’t think he does Frankie justice. He makes him look old! And what’s this about the whole Grizzly Bearhug storyline being included? You’d think they didn’t WANT the special to sell! With any luck it’ll be bound in with the British Library’s 1981 Whoopee issues, as the other Frankie specials are, so I’ll reappraise it when I’m next in. Not going to be a love affair with me and Grizzly though!
ReplyDeleteWith the vast archive of excellent strips to reprint, the Editor’s choice of Grizzly Bearhug was a very strange one indeed (as was the decision to reprint The Ghostly Galleon in FS Holiday Special 1980).
DeleteAs regards Nigel Edward’s take on Frankie, I quite agree with you, although I think that all the different versions of Frankie by various artists is a fun element in those FS Holiday Specials.
Got to see this Special in the British Library, in with that year’s Whoopee weeklies as anticipated. Geering’s take on Frankie was far superior to Edwards’s. Are you sure the entire Grizzly Bearhug storyline was reprinted as it did not seem like all 19 parts were there. Not that I felt cheated!
ReplyDeleteStephen, you are right about Grizzly - only 16 pages were reprinted, including the first and the last episodes which made me think it was a complete run.
Delete