A LOOK AT MONSTER FUN STRIPS: FREAKY FARM

Advertisement in MFC No. 39 the week before the premiere

Freaky Farm was a tale about a farm with an evil reputation run by the froight’ning Freaky Farmer – a monstrous humanoid who spoke with the West Country accent and had a hat instead of a head. Everything on Freaky Farm was predisposed against ‘pesky visitors’ and worked to scare them away and off the farm. Everything includes literally everything – from the Freaky Farmer:

… to farm animals, poultry and crops:

… to agricultural machinery and appliances:

… to buildings and structures, such as the freaky farmhouse, the barn and even the rocks of the stone wall:

… to wildlife, trees and plants growing on the farm:

… to the farm-hand:

… and of course the scarecrow:

Every week a new ignorant trespasser or adventurer would turn up at the unwelcoming Freaky Farm and the farm community took a concerted effort to make him/her/it/them run away in shock and terror. Here are two nice representative examples:

The horror show put up by the monsters of Freaky Farm never failed to produce the desired effect on the poor visitor(s), except in the very first issue when a reader of MONSTER FUN COMIC dropped by:

The 2-page strip ran in issues 40 to 73 and didn’t miss a single week. In the last frame of the final episode in MFC No. 73 Freaky Farmer told the readers he was retiring:

The main illustrator was Jim Watson who signed the majority of the episodes starting from No. 49. The first two sets were signed Elphin, although the first one in No. 40 looks very much like Jim Watson’s work to me. The episodes which followed in issues 41 – 48 may have been drawn by someone else but Elphin’s signature in No. 41 makes things quite confusing... Was Elphin a nom de plume of Jim Watson and it was him all along, experimenting with different styles before settling on the one he was satisfied enough to put his signature to?

The episodes in MFC issues 71 and 72 were drawn and signed by the excellent and universal Les Barton who IPC editors could always rely upon whenever their main artists weren’t available:

IMHO, the strip wasn’t very original or imaginative so it is probably not a big surprise that it did not make it to the new combined BUSTER AND MONSTER FUN. 

A LOOK AT MONSTER FUN STRIPS: GUMS

JAWS the blockbuster Hollywood movie was released in 1975. Gums the MFC strip was a clever and funny tie-in with the film and started in MFC No. 35 (7th February, 1976). Check out the famous poster of the movie and the advertisement of Gums in MFC issue No. 34 (the week before its premiere) side-by-side:

The scene was set on the sunny coast of Australia. The strip was about a toothless shark with a set of false choppers and the young Bluey who lived in a coastal town which the beast chose to terrorize. The shark was a dangerous and aggressive predator. The only way to render him harmless was by removing his false teeth – the mission which Bluey took upon himself. That’s the basic idea of this highly successful and long-running IPC strip which originated in MONSTER FUN COMIC.

The early stories were serialized and often spanned a period of two weeks; in the first week Gums usually lost his choppers:

…and won them back a week later, thanks to his own cunning and smartness, or through sheer luck or coincidence:

Bluey prevailed in the majority of the episodes but sometimes the shark got the upper hand. Typically, this involved the use of munition from sunken ships:

I really like the feature and I think it very well deserved to appear in full colour on the front cover for most of its run in MFC issues 35 to 73 (except in Nos. 48, 50, 51, 52, 66 and 67 when it was inside in b/w), besides, more than a half of the two-page sets occupied both front and back covers. Gums got its own poster very early on in issue No. 38 (28th February, 1976). After MFC ended, the strip was transferred to BUSTER and appeared there until 12th May 1984.

Initially the illustrator was Bob Nixon who, according to his own words in the interview for GOLDEN FUN, also designed Gums to the idea suggested by the editor. Mr. Nixon continued to draw the strip until issue 59 when Alf Saporito took over from him on a permanent basis (Alf Saporito’s first episode of Gums was in MFC issue No. 52). It is interesting to note that Mr. Saporito signed a few of the early sets:

Alf Saporito remained in charge of the strip in BUSTER for the rest of the seventies and during the early eighties when he was succeeded by John Geering.

The episode of in MFC No. 71 was illustrated and signed by Les Barton:

FRANKIE STEIN: HONORARY EDITOR OF MONSTER FUN COMIC

In case you didn’t know, in the mid-70s Frankie Stein was the big star in WHOOPEE! - another IPC comic of the time. Originally from WHAM! comic of the mid-60s, the character was revived in the short-lived but excellent SHIVER AND SHAKE and found himself in WHOOPEE! when the two titles were merged in 1974. I wrote a couple of detailed blogposts on Frankie Stein in my SHIVER AND SHAKE series, you can revisit them HERE and HERE.

When preparations to launch MFC took off in 1975, Frankie Stein was at the pinnacle of his stardom so IPC editorial staff probably decided he had become too big for just one comic and came up with an idea to capitalise on his fame by nominating him ‘honorary editor’ of their new paper with horror comedy as the main theme.

Frankie Stein made his editorial debut on page two of the first issue of MFC, welcoming his fans with a special message. The drawing was by Robert Nixon, who was in charge of the character in Whoopee! A cropped version of this drawing was later reused a few times in Frankie Stein’s editorials and elsewhere, as you will see later on in this post. Speaking of Frankie Stein’s messages, they were a regular feature throughout 1975 and ran nearly every week until issue 22 (8th November, 1975). After that they disappeared until the Holiday Season of 1975 and can be found in issues 28 and 29 (20th and 27th December, 1975). The last one ever was in the second issue of 1976 (No. 31). The messages were Frankie Stein’s rostrum for promoting various fun features in the current or the next week’s issue. Starting from issue 4 they usually appeared on Frankie’s Diary page and sometimes included a ‘Frankie-type joke’. Here are some examples:

Being the big star that he was, Frankie Stein made front cover appearances in issues 9, 29 and 48:

There were also instances when his mug was in the top right corner of the front page beside MFC logo, bellowing special messages such as these:

…but not necessarily:

Frankie Stein appeared on several pull-outs: he received his own poster in issue 20 and was the dominant figure in Frankie’s Monster Mountain pull-out game (No. 29) and Monster Fun Easter Eggrace Easter pull-out game (No. 46). Frankie’s pull-out Book of Monster Gags in No. 49 carried his name on the front cover but otherwise had nothing to do with him. Frankie Stein was also one of the characters whose cut-out badge was offered in issue 22.

Let’s take a look inside the paper and see how the Honorary Editor was represented there.

Frankie had two strips of his own in MFC – Freaky Frankie and Frankie’s Diary, both ran concurrently and were illustrated by Sid Burgon. Freaky Frankie was a simple newspaper-type strip without speech balloons, usually consisting of three panels. Check out some examples below. The strip first appeared in issue 14 and continued regularly until issue 42 (27th March, 1976). Later on it appeared only occasionally and the last one can be found in No.  71 (16th October, 1976).

 

Frankie’ Diary was more interesting. It started in MFC No. 2 under the headline Frankie’s Own Freaky Fun Page, then continued without a headline until issue 12 (the space at the top of the page was usually occupied by Frankie Stein’s messages; in issue 7 the page was headlined Frankie’s Page and the headline Frankie’s Diary was first used in No. 8, only to be dropped again a week later). It then took a break until No. 20 and from that issue till the end of the run the page came to be known as Frankie’s Diary. The episode in issue No. 20 is also notable because it was the only one drawn by Robert Nixon. Here is the first set from MFC No. 2 and Bob Nixon’s set from No. 20:

The title of the strip tells it all, really – it was a diary written by the friendly monster himself, telling readers about his misdaventures during the week. It was different from Frankie’s antics in WHOOPEE! because in MFC there was less of Prof. Cube so he didn’t have to suffer as much as he did in the other comic. In Frankie’s Diary most of the humour was at Frankie’s own expense. 

In a few early episodes Frankie’s week consisted of seven days:

… but normally he wrote his diary five days a week:  

…unless special circumstances dictated that it had to be cut to four or three days only:

Later on, six days became standard. No explanation for the exclusion of Sunday was offered, perhaps it was Frankie’s day off… Most likely though it was because pages looked less cluttered with only six entries of the diary:

There were two participation features involving the Honorary Editor. Letters of Frankie was a regular feature throughout the run of the paper. I won’t go into details because the letters column has already been covered in the yearly overviews HERE and HERE. 

The other one went by the headline Ticklish Allsorts and had little to do with Frankie Stein, except that he was the presenter and the feature always carried his portrait in the corner (in fact, the portrait was a cropped version of the same old drawing by Rob Nixon first used in Frankie’s editorial in MFC No. 1). Readers were invited to contribute “something amusing” and collect the award of a pound for every entry printed. Each week editorial staff would deliver an assortment of those amusing reader contributions to Les Barton who’d produce detailed sets that IMHO are a treat to the eye. They were usually half-a-page long but sometimes Les Barton did a full page. Here are some examples. Aren’t they brilliant!

Ticklish Allsorts was introduced in issue 23 and lasted until the end of the paper, missing a few weeks in between (34, 48, 52, 55, 56, 62, 64, 65, 68 and 72).

In order for this account of Frankie Stein’s appearances in MFC weeklies to be complete, I will also mention Frankie’s Fun Feature – a spot-the-difference kind of puzzle in issue 9; another one like this can be found in issue 19.

And finally, Frankie Stein also featured in a number of IPC in-house advertisements promoting summer specials (Shiver and Shake Summer Special in Nos. 2 and 3, Frankie Stein Summer Special in No. 54), annuals (Whoopee! Book of Frankie Stein in Nos. 16 and 19, Monster Fun Annual 1977 in Nos. 66 and 69) and other comics (Whoopee! in Nos. 35 and 38). Here are a couple of examples:

It remains to be checked, but I have a feeling that the Honorary Editor sometimes made the odd guest appearance in other strips of the paper, such as in Draculass in No. 51:

And now, on with reviews of individual strips and Kid Kong is first in line!