WHOOPEE! FRANKIE STEIN HOLIDAY SPECIAL 1977

The third Frankie Stein Holiday Special (the first one to be called a holiday special after two summer specials in 1975 and 1976) was the fifth Frankie Stein publication. It cost 30 p. and was 64 pages thick. The front cover artwork was by Robert Nixon whose only other contribution was the pull-out poster. Like in the first FS Special, the poster was actually a reprint of the drawing for the front cover of SHIVER AND SHAKE (28th September, 1974 – the penultimate issue of the paper):

There were 40 pages of Frankie Stein and 24 pages of other stuff. The central story was Frankie Stein in Jolly Holidays (Who’s Kidding Who?) consisting of 5 parts (4 pages each), spread across the paper. Frankie and Prof. Cube are off on holiday again but their flight to Spain is delayed. Frankie spends the time examining various stickers on his travel suitcase and reminiscing about their previous holidays which all turned out to be a disaster for poor Dad. 

The memories of the holidays past take up the first 4 parts until they are finally called to board their flight and arrive in sunny Spain:

In part 5 of the story Frankie wastes no time getting into trouble which prompts his desperate parent to make the only attempt to get rid of the ‘big oaf’ in this long 20-page story by signing him up as a matador for a bull-fight.

All 20 pages of the story were drawn by Andy Christine who had illustrated Grizzly Bearhug… Giant and a few early episodes of Tom Thumbscrew in MONSTER FUN COMIC in 1975. Unexpectedly, Andy Christine was the biggest contributor in this WHOOPEE! FRANKIE STEIN HOLIDAY SPECIAL 1977 – he also drew Odd Men Out (a puzzle) and a 2-page set of Ghoul Getters Ltd. which I will mention later on.

The 4-page episode of Monster Movie Makers was unusual in the sense that it featured the star of the paper – Frankie Stein! In this episode assistant director is having a hard time finding a suitable monster to shoot until he runs into Frankie. Illustrated by the artist who signed his work as Mr. Hill (the episode isn't signed though):

If I were to pick my personal highlight in this magazine, it would certainly have to be The Curse of Dr. Jackal by Mike Brown. The one-off story not only featured Frankie Stein as the presenter/story-teller but also the artist himself. I showed the whole set in Part 8 of my series of artist self-portraits some time ago, you can find it HERE (I highly recommend that you check it out!). 

Speaking of non-comic-strip Frankie Stein features, it is worthwhile mentioning Frankie’s Fun Break and Prof. Cube: Inventor – two sets of 2 pages filled with gags by the same artist who drew a few Frankie Stein stories in the earlier FS publications (including Robinson Frankie and Frankie Stein Super-Freak in the second FS annual). The artwork is rather poor but the artist identified himself by signing a couple of gags so I can now confirm him as a Doug Baker:

There were a few strips that were new to FS publications. In the mid-seventies Fun-Fear and Ghoul Getters Ltd. ran side-by-side with Frankie Stein in WHOOPEE! weeklies, so readers probably weren’t too surprised to see them in this WHOOPEE! FRANKIE STEIN HOLIDAY SPECIAL 1977 for the first time. As was often the case, other artists were invited to do the job for the regular ones. I am not sure who substituted Bob Nixon on Fun-Fear but the place of Trevor Metcalfe – the regular illustrator of Ghoul Getters Ltd. in the weeklies, was taken by Andy Christine – the champion of this Holiday Special in terms of the page count (23 all in all): 

Like the previous FS publications, this one included reprints of The Haunts of Headless Harry (5 episodes) and Ghost Ship (3 episodes):

The lineup of reprints was revised by dropping Crabbe's Crusaders and adding two 2-page sets of Barney’s Brainbox – a short-lived strip from COR!! comic, and two 4-pagers of Patch-Eye Hooker Terror of the Seas – a pirate tale from BUSTER of the late 60s (reprints of the strip can also be found in COR!! Holiday Specials and Annuals in 1978 – 1980).

A few years ago original cover artwork for this magazine was offered by Compal Comic Book Auctions. Here is how it was described (please, note that they got the date and the name of the publication wrong once again):  Frankie Stein original cover artwork (1980) drawn and signed by Robert Nixon for Monster Fun Annual 1980 Frankie's fright is menacingly magnified! Poster colour on board. 16 x 15 ins. The winner paid £280; here is the image of the front cover artwork taken from Compal Auctions website:

Images 2014 © Egmont UK Ltd.  All rights reserved. Used with permission.

WHOOPEE! BOOK OF FRANKIE STEIN 1977

The second and the last Frankie Stein annual – WHOOPEE! BOOK OF FRANKIE STEIN 1977, was 128 pages thick and cost 85 p. – an increase of 10 p. since the previous year. The soft-cover volume had colour covers with the same drawing by Robert Nixon used on the front and the back, and was all b/w inside. 70 pages were filled with Frankie Stein material and 58 were non-Frankie Stein content.

The first story that one finds on opening the book is This is Your Life – Story! – a 10-page spoof of This is Your Life TV programme nicely drawn by Robert Nixon. Unexpectedly for himself, Frankie becomes a special guest of a TV show hosted by Raymond Andshake, the sneaky TV interviewer. The show is a mix of documentary footage about Frankie’s life and his surprise ‘live’ studio reunions with people from his past, such as the local electrician who has aged prematurely through having to work day and night trying to repair the damage caused by Frankie, his school football team mates some of whom are still suffering from the injuries they received playing with Frankie and finally his Dad who comes to regret being on the show because he gets bashed by other studio guests for creating Frankie. Mr. Nixon did a great job drawing the strip, and I have included it in full at the bottom of this post for you to enjoy and appreciate.

The covers and This is Your Life – Story! was the only new material that Mr. Nixon contributed to WHOOPEE! BOOK OF FRANKIE STEIN 1977.  As had become a tradition in those Frankie Stein publications, the editor re-used some of Mr. Nixon’s Frankie Stein artwork from Shiver and Shake weeklies, turning it into spot-the-difference puzzles (two of them in this book) and even putting it on the title page:

It seems that none of the better IPC artists were available to draw the other two new Frankie Stein stories, so the job was given to an illustrator whose name I don’t know and who IMHO wasn’t really up for the task. In Robinson Frankie (a 6-pager) Prof. Cube has an idea to get rid of Frankie by dumping him on a desert island and making him Robinson Crusoe. In Frankie Stein Super-Freak (an 8-pager featured on the front cover) we find out that Frankie is a fan of Superman TV programme and likes to play at being Superman. This gives Prof. Cube an idea to make him a Frankieman suit with a pair of rockets attached to his boots, so that with a bit of luck they would take him to another galaxy. As could be expected, the plan misfires and causes big trouble for Dad. The first panel of the first page shown below is the other illustrator’s poor sketch of the bright front cover artwork by Mr. Nixon.

The 8 pages of Frankie Stein by Ken Reid reprinted in the annual are taken from WHAM! issues 50, 72, 83, 84, 109, 31, 152 and 53 (listed here in the order of their appearance in the book). It was nice of them not to tamper with the artwork or the text, although they had to extend a few rows of panels to fill the pages. They also used a drawing of Prof. Cube’s head by Ken Reid from the episode of Frankie Stein in WHAM! No. 76 and turned it into this puzzle:

Original drawing in WHAM!

The book has 9 pages filled with themed Frankie Stein gags by Jim Crocker: Frankie’s Fun Spots (signed), Frankie at Work, Frankie in Uniform, Frankie Stein Film Star and Frankie Abroad (all unsigned).  

Two pages of Professor Cube – Inventor! gags (also illustrated by Crocker, I believe) shared the title with Professor Cube – Inventor! ‘Relatively Speaking’ - a nice 6-pager drawn for this book by the excellent Frank McDiarmid. The brand new story introduced us to some of Prof. Cube’s relatives from around the World. I showed the strip in full not so long ago, you can view it HERE.

The book also offers a selection of nice Frankie Stein fun features, such as three 2–pagers of Frankie Puzzles by Les Barton that look very much like Ticklish Allsorts in MONSTER FUN COMIC:

… a 4-page Frankie’s calendar by Sid Burgon, here are the first 6 months:

… The Frankie Stein Book of Knowledge (a 2-pager) by the artist whose name I don’t know but I believe he also illustrated Mum’s the Word in the early issues of Whoopee!:

… and Frankie Job References:

Frank McDiarmid was responsible for most of new non-Frankie Stein content. He drew two instalments of Monster Movie Makers, 4 pages long each. In the first story Carlo Monte, the head of the now famous film-studios, decides to make ‘The Ghost of Cleopatra’ and uses some real ghosts who volunteer to join his cast. The film turns out so scary that it frightens off all the customers and the ghosts are the only ones enjoying it in the empty theatre during the premiere… In the second story Carlo Monte and his crew go to the Himalayan Mountains in Tibet to make a documentary film of the abominable snowman but after many hours of searching the project ends in fiasco because of Carlo Monte’s idiot assistants.

Frank McDiarmid also contributed a 4-page episode of Weird Wolf in which the howling ghost wolf is so sick and tired of being an outcast from society that he decides to stop himself from howling at the moon. Easier said than done…

Together with 6 pages of Professor Cube – Inventor! ‘Relatively Speaking’ which was mentioned before, the contribution of Mr. McDiarmid to WHOOPEE! BOOK OF FRANKIE STEIN 1977 amounted to 18 pages.

Draculass (a two-pager) by Terry Bave and Creepy Car (a two-pager) by I’m not sure who but definitely not by Reg Parlett who at the time was the regular artist of the strip in WHOOPEE!, were included in a Frankie Stein publication for the first time and may very well be new material.

The House on Hangman’ s Heath was another new addition to the package. It was a 12-page one-off chilling mystery yarn about an orphaned boy named Roddy Mason who inherited an old deserted mansion from his deceased uncle and went to inspect the property without listening to his lawyer Jabez Kane who advised against going there. While exploring the mansion, the boy and his new friend Nick Damon from the local newspaper experience a series of strange life-threatening events and encounter a hooded ghost figure that is determined to send them to their death. The two think the villain is Jebez Kane, the solicitor, but in the end it turns out to be Roddy Mason’s uncle who hadn’t died but pretended that he had to escape his problems with the law. Why the uncle wanted to kill the boy and the journalist both of whom he had never seen before remains a mystery unsolved, so it’s a case of suspense for the sake of suspense – not a very rare thing in comics. The story looks like new materia. Reader of this blog Briony C says the artist was Tony Coleman (also known as George Anthony). Thanks, Briony!

The House on Hangman’ s Heath was not the only adventure strip in WHOOPEE! BOOK OF FRANKIE STEIN 1977 – there were also two 6-page episodes of Crabbe’s Crusaders, both reprinted from BUSTER where it ran in 1969. Like in the previous three Frankie Stein publications, there were also some reprints of The Haunts of the Headless Harry and Ghost Ship from SMASH! (3 original one-page episodes of each strip have been converted into two-pagers).  One two-page episode of Harry’s Haunted House by Reg Parlett was included for the first time; the caption at the top of the page said it was ‘a freaky Friend of Frankie from Whizzer and Chips’.

Ghost Ship crew

And now, as promised, here is THIS IS YOUR LIFE – Story! in full. I’ve said it once and I will say it again – wouldn’t it be great if Egmont put together a collected edition of Robert Nixon’s Frankie Stein from the seventies before the artist adopted a simplified drawing style! 

Images 2014 © Egmont UK Ltd.  All rights reserved. Used with permission.