Early episodes frequently made note of the fact that while technically he's Frankenstein's monster, everyone calls him Frankenstein. As you can see from the introduction above, things evolved along the way. One thing remained consistent was Dick Briefer (though he used the name Frank N Stein for the first few, then Richard Briefer before settling into Dick Briefer for the next few decades.)
The strip went through some odd changes over the years, but the most famous incarnation was this strange comedy version of the character. (Fret not - we'll come back to those other versions)
To give an indication of the weird humor prevalent in the series, here are some of the splash panels kicking of some of the stories-
Along with many strange adventures, he also met the man who made him famous in the cinematic world -
To wrap up this first post, here's the story to go with the cover above -
Coming up - some of those other weird tales of Briefer's Frankenstein...
page art by Dick Briefer for Prize Comics #s 43 & 48 and Frankenstein Comics #s 2, 3, 6, 10, 11, 14, & 15 (1944, 1946, 1947, 1948)
I've heard of Briefer's Frankenstein strip, but, AFAIR, never saw it before.
ReplyDeleteIn particular, I remember an article by Don Glut ca. 1969-70 that mentioned the story with horror movie star Boris Karload.
"Joyride" is evidently from WWII. The gag alludes to the then-common practice of removing bumpers from cars and replacing them with wooden boards. The old bumpers were donated to the government so that the metal could be used for the war effort.
IIRC, Mad (in its comic book format) used "Frank N. Stein" as the title of their own horror movie spoof in the early 1950s.
Briefer's Frankenstein debuted in 1940, so it ran through the war. I wonder how long afterward the wooden bumpers hung around?
ReplyDeleteYou recall correctly on Mad. What's nicely strange about that is Bill Everett did a tale called Frank N. Stein for Crazy that was published the same month. (Dec '53 cover date) One of them used an exclamation point, but i disrecall which.
Meanwhile, i'm online right now queuing up tomorrow morning's post. Included in that is the time when Briefer introduced Frankenstein to Frank N. Stein. Y'know - just to keep things odd.
;)