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.

FRANKIE STEIN SUMMER SPECIAL 1976

WHOOPEE! FRANKIE STEIN SUMMER SPECIAL 1976 was 64 pages thick and cost 25 p. Unusually for the times, it was printed on fancy glossy paper. Unlike in both previous Frankie Stein publications, the page count of Frankie Stein-related content outweighed other features by a good margin: there were 46 pages of the former and only 18 pages of the latter. What’s also good is that as many as 44 pages of the Summer Special was new material.

Frankie Stein Around the World was the central story of the magazine. Split into 5 parts, it was 24-pages long – the first 14 were by Frank McDiarmid, followed by 1o from the hand of Brian Walker. Mr. McDiarmid had already drawn a few Frankie Stein sets in SHIVER AND SHAKE weeklies whereas for Brian Walker it must have been the first Frankie Stein job (his first one in WHOOPEE! weeklies didn’t come out until the issue cover-dated October 9, 1976).

It’s holiday time so Prof. Cube takes Frankie to the seaside where he risks facing charges for two counts of attempted murder, first by pushing Frankie off the cliffs, then by cutting the line as they do water-skiing.

Two failures make Dad reconsider seaside holiday so he charters a battered plane and takes Frankie abroad. First Prof. Cube tries losing the friendly monster in the desert:

...then the North Pole:

...the jungle:

...the Far East:

...and finally the lost world in South America:

Just as Prof. Cube thought he was free at last, a famous explorer spotted Frankie wandering in the wild and brought him back to England, believing he was the missing link:

It was back to the drawing board for Dad, so he took Frankie to the swimming pool and this was nearly the end for Frankie Stein but angry readers forced Prof. Cube to bring their favourite character back to life. 

8 pages of Frankie Stein by Ken Reid were reprints from WHAM! issues 38, 58, 33, 49, 40, 122, 36, 158 (listed here in the order of their appearance in the Summer Special). This time common sense prevailed and they kept alterations of the originals to the minimum, such as increasing the height of two rows of panels on pages without the masthead – they had to do something to fill the page. Only two episodes were affected whereas on the remaining six the new masthead was the only change, save for the odd word whited-out here and there for no reason at all. The episode from WHAM! No. 158 was coloured-in, check out the result:

They also re-used some of Mr. Reid’s more recent artwork: in Doomerangs spot-the difference puzzle they borrowed something from the World-Wide Werdies pin-up that can be found in the 19th October, 1974 issue of Whoopee! and Shiver and Shake:

The other two spot-the-difference puzzles also re-used drawings from older comics: in Double Trouble it was a panel by Bob Nixon from the weekly episode of Frankie Stein in Shiver and Shake No. 68 (June 22nd, 1974), and in Double Shocker – a panel by Brian Walker from the conger eel episode of Scream Inn in SHIVER AND SHAKE No. 65 (June 1st, 1974). The SUMMER SPECIAL also had two double-pagers of Frankie Stein puzzles, all new material drawn by I don’t know who, possibly Jim Crocker. Here is a sample:

Let’s take a quick look at the rest of Frankie Stein content. Jim Crocker contributed two double-pagers of gags in the form of Frankie’s notes which strongly reminds me of Frankie’s Diary in Monster Fun Comic. One was called All the Fun of the Fair and the second – Back to the Drawing Board. Here are the first pages of both:

In my previous post I mentioned the interesting practice of inviting new artists to draw some Frankie Stein material for those publications. In WHOOPEE! FRANKIE STEIN SUMMER SPECIAL 1976 you can find this two-page piece called Frankie’s Camping Holiday which, I think, was illustrated by the same artist who drew Mum’s the Word in WHOOPEE!:

The centrespread was given to Frankie Hike! board game drawn, I believe, by Artie Jackson:

Just like in the two previous FS publications, there were some reprints of Ghost Ship (2 episodes, originally from SMASH!), The Haunts of Headless Harry (2 episodes, originally from SMASH!) and Crabbe’s Crusaders (adventure tale, one episode on 8 pages split in 2 parts, originally from BUSTER).

The 4-page episode of Monster Movie Makers, first seen in Frankie Stein Book 1976 and illustrated this time by Les Barton, was the only new piece of non-Frankie Stein material in WHOOPEE! FRANKIE STEIN SUMMER SPECIAL 1976. In this episode Carlo Monte, director of International Film Studios, came up with an idea to make another epic called The Curse of the Mummy and ‘borrowed’ a haunted Mummy case from the local museum. 

Robert Nixon’s only contribution was the front cover – a redrawn colour version of one of the panels from the FS Around the World story by Brian Walker. I wonder who copied whom because the drawings are very much alike:

Incidentally, the original cover artwork was offered by Compal Comic Book Auctions some time ago under this description (note that they got the date wrong): Frankie Stein Holiday Special original front cover artwork (early 1980s) drawn and signed by Robert Nixon Frankie's practising his diving but 'Dad' has other ideas … Bright poster colour on board. 17 x 13 ins. The winner paid £284. Here’s what the piece looked like: