WHOOPEE! FRANKIE STEIN HOLIDAY SPECIAL 1978

The fourth WHOOPEE! FRANKIE STEIN HOLIDAY SPECIAL 1978 had 64 pages and cost 35 p. 

If I were a kid who bought it in the summer of 1978 I would have probably been disappointed with the low amount of Frankie Stein content – only 27 pages featured the friendly monster. This includes the front cover, the pull-out poster of Frankie Stein in a space suit drawn by Robert Nixon – not a reprint this time, 4 pages of Freaky Frankie Puzzles by Artie Jackson, Ghoulish Picture Crossword by Cliff Brown and 19 pages of Frankie Stein antics serialised in three interconnected stories: Adventure in Space (8 pages), African Safari (6 pages) and Holiday Cruise (5 pages).

Watching 'Warstars' and seeing Frankie enjoying it very much gives Dad an idea to send him on a trip into space. As Prof. Cube’s luck goes, he accidentally finds himself on board the spacecraft together with Frankie. 

They run into some space creatures and Dad gives them Frankie as a gift, telling them he is a slave robot. Frankie proves to be completely useless as a servant and the aliens kick him out.

Frankie and Dad’s space journey continues and they find themselves in the middle of an inter-stellar war. 

Frankie helps the clashing space tribes make peace and is rewarded with a spaceship to transport him home. Dad makes his last attempt to get rid of the ‘big lunk’ by programming the spacecraft to take him to the Sun but a massive explosion on the surface of the Sun destroys the craft and the pair land on planet Earth in the middle of Africa. This is where the space adventure ends and the African safari begins. Dad’s ploys during the safari include dropping lion skin on Frankie in hope that hunters will shoot him down, encouraging Frankie to take a boat to see some nasty waterfalls up close and finally losing him in the desert. 

Digging for water in desert sands, Frankie strikes oil, sells the well, catches up with Dad and suggests that they go home on a luxury liner. 

While on the holiday cruise, Dad throws Frankie into the ocean to play with the sharks, then attempts to poison him by putting ‘stuff’ in his salt and finally leaves him stranded on a desert island inhabited by cannibals. 

Frankie leaves the island on the back of a whale but soon finds himself stranded on a coral reef. I like the ending:

I may be mistaken but it looks like the illustrator was the same Doug Baker who signed two Frankie Stein gags in the previous Holiday Special and drew a number of FS tales in other Frankie Stein publications earlier on. If it was indeed him, his style had improved somewhat since the second Frankie Stein annual (Robinson Frankie and Frankie Stein Super-Freak stories) and grey wash also made the drawings look better.

Let’s look other new stories. In Monster Movie Makers Carlo Monte and his crew are shooting their latest epic – ‘The Loch Ness Monster’. The budget prevents them from hiring extras for the crowd scenes so they take their cameras to the actual loch, hoping to scare the holidaymakers with a dummy monster and film their reaction. Things don’t go as planned but turn out well for the daft movie makers in the end. The artist was Mr. Hill who also drew Monster Movie Makers for the previous FS Holiday Special (as well as the subsequent ones).

Computer Cop was a new strip drawn by Alan Rogers. It was about a super robo-cop. Here is the last page of this 4-page episode:

Five WHOOPEE! strips (The Hand, Fun-Fear, ‘Orrible Hole (by Les Barton), Gook-TV Spook (by Artie Jackson who is also responsible for five pages of puzzles and gags in this magazine) and Webster (by Terry Bave)) look like new material drawn especially for this Holiday Special. Here are both pages of Fun-Fear. I wonder who drew them? Looks like Mr. Hill to me:

They stopped reprinting The Haunts of Headless Harry and Ghost Ship but introduced reprints of a few strips previously unseen in FS publications: there were 2 episodes of Ghoul Guides from KNOCKOUT (IPC version), 2 episodes of Monkey Nuts by Graham Allen (I can’t remember where the reprints are from) and 5 pages of Tell Tale Tess by Joe McCaffrey from COR!!

For the second time after the previous FS Holiday Special, this edition also has 2 episodes of Barney’s Brain Box, reprinted from COR!!

I will round up this post by showing a page of gags by Artie Jackson:

…and Frankie Stein pull-out poster:

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

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.