A LOOK AT SHIVER AND SHAKE STRIPS: FRANKIE STEIN (PART TWO)

During the run of Shiver and Shake Frankie Stein grew increasingly popular with the readers: 1 ½ pages in the first three issues soon became 2 full pages (issues 4 - 48), then 3 full pages (issues 49 – 52), then front cover plus 3 full pages inside (issues 53 – 55) and finally front cover plus two full pages inside (issues 56 - 78). All in all, that’s 161.5 inside pages in black and white and 26 front covers in full colour.

First birthday of the paper (No. 53 dated March 9th, 1974) was marked with Frankie Stein’s promotion to the front cover (Frankie retained the position from that issue until the end of the run) and a 4-part Frankie Stein’s Mini Monster Mini-Book in issues 53-56 (March 9th – March 30th, 1974) in which he got front and back covers alongside with this nice little 8-page story:

Weekly episodes usually told a self-contained story but there were two occasions when the plot continued over two weeks. The first was in issues No. 36 and 37 (Nov. 10th and Nov. 17th, 1973) in which Dad takes Frankie on holiday to an exotic island in hope that he will be eaten by cannibals. They end up on a British battleship and are offered a free cruise back home to England but Frankie sinks the ship and Dad gets the blame. Here’s a nice sequence from the set:

 

The second was in issues No. 41 and 42 (Dec. 15th and Dec. 22nd, 1973) – this time Prof. Cube tries to get rid of Frankie with the aid of a time machine but Frankie safely returns to 1973 and brings back Professorus Cubius, Prof. Cube’s ancestor from Roman times. Now it’s the two of them trying to get rid of Frankie, with predictable consequences…

Here is a short list of episodes that I find particularly interesting in one way or another:

• No 50 (Feb. 16th, 1974) – Frankie’s birthday party with guests from other Shiver strips
• No. 56 (March 30th, 1974) – Prof. Cube shows his warm feelings towards Frankie
• No. 61 (May 4th, 1974) – Prof. Cube tells the shrink about his normal day with Frankie
• No. 71 (August 10th, 1974) – Frankie’s and Prof. Cube’s holiday snapshots from 1970 – 1973 (i.e. years preceding the launch of Shiver and Shake)
• No. 73 (August 24th, 1974) – Frankie gets kidnapped and his captors end up offering Dad cash to take him back (just like in the classic short story The Ransom of Red Chief by O. Henry).
• No. 75 (September 7th, 1974) – Frankie Stein is about to receive knighthood and Prof. Cube reveals the bootlicking and vainglorious side of his personality

Robert Nixon was responsible for nearly all of Frankie Stein art in SHIVER AND SHAKE, barring a few sets drawn by Frank McDiarmid and several Ken Reid reprints from Wham! Here is the list of issues with such ‘black sheep’ episodes:

• Issue No. 29 (September 22nd, 1973) – illustrated by Frank McDiarmid
• Issue No. 30 (September 29th, 1973) – single-page episode from WHAM! No. 136 rearranged to fit two pages, Micky not removed
• Issue No. 31 (October 6th, 1973) – illustrated by Frank McDiarmid
• Issue No. 32 (October 13th, 1973) – consists of two episodes by Ken Reid from WHAM! No. 74 and 37, Micky removed from the latter and wasn’t originally present in the former
• Issue 34 (October 27th, 1973) – illustrated by Frank McDiarmid
• Issue 48 (February 2nd, 1974) – the instalment consists of two episodes by Ken Reid from WHAM! No. 18 (half a page chopped off) and 51, Micky removed from both
• Issue 54 (March 16^th, 1974) – illustrated by Frank McDiarmid.

Although Frank McDiarmid contributed only four episodes of Frankie Stein in the weeklies, he deserves special praise because his sets offer an excellent version of the character different from Bob Nixon’s. The episodes burst with violent energy comparable to that of Ken Reid’s sixties original. I can’t help wondering if Nixon and McDiarmid worked from scripts written by the same writer because the stories look so different. Here is the complete two-page episode from SHIVER AND SHAKE No. 29 cover-dated 22nd September, 1973:

 

It is interesting to note how Prof. Cube’s son Micky is scrupulously removed from Ken Reid’s artwork in reprints of old WHAM! episodes, although he must have slipped the editors’ attention in Shiver and Shake issue No. 30 (September 29th, 1973). I wonder why they considered it OK to leave him intact in reprints included in Shiver and Shake annuals and specials. 

An interesting piece of trivia can be found in Shiver and Shake issue No. 6 (April 14th, 1973) where Frankie Stein set was re-drawn by Bob Nixon from Ken Reid’s original version in WHAM! No. 156, possibly to fill two pages (the original was a one-pager). The example would fit well in the Detective Work series that I did earlier on this blog. Below are matching pairs of panels from the two sets:

 

Given the popularity of the feature, it was not surprising that Frankie Stein confidently survived the incorporation of Shiver and Shake into Whoopee! in the Autumn of 1974. He appeared prominently and regularly throughout the 10-year run of Whoopee! illustrated by Robert Nixon and several other artists, including Brian Walker. Being a star of the comic, Frankie Stein featured on pull-out posters and in cut-out minibooks. In addition to episodes in WHOOPEE! weeklies as well as Shiver and Shake and WHOOPEE! annuals and holiday specials, the friendly monster got his own Whoopee! Frankie Stein holiday special (as many as 8 editions were published in the period 1975-1982) and even his own annual – the Book of Frankie Stein (2 editions in 1976 and 1977). At one point he even became too big for just one comic and took the position of ‘Honorary Editor’ of Monster Fun Comic where he hosted Letters to Frankie, appeared in Frankie's Diary feature, presented Ticklish Allsorts page and occupied front covers of a few Monster Fun Comic Annuals. I’ll not cover the publications and features here because this series is focused exclusively on SHIVER AND SHAKE, but IMHO Frankie Stein is one of the characters in UK comics history who deserves a thick coffee table book collecting his adventures from the pages of WHAM!, SHIVER AND SHAKE and at least the first few years of WHOOPEE!