E.C. Frankenstyle

Let's do another quickie post today.

While Dick Briefer's classic Frankenstein is the most famous comic parody of the creature, it was far from the only such strip. Let's visit with another old favorite around these parts - Ellis Chambers - and his take on the creature from 1951 -

page art by Ellis Chambers for Holiday Comics #2 (1951)

Frazetta Covers Buck

Not getting along with language right now, so let's just do a quick look this morning.

We've poked around a bit in early years of Famous Funnies - let's jump to the end. Nine of the final ten issues of the first true American style comic book featured a strip that had run since #3 back in 1934 - Buck Rogers. Always nice to see, but what made these special is they were all done by Frank Frazetta -

To my knowledge, these were the only Buck Rogers drawings done by Frazetta, along with an unused 10th cover that was later reworked and used for the covers of EC Portfolio #2 back in the early '70s.

cover art by Frank Frazetta for Famous Funnies #s 209-217 (1943-1945)

Frankenstein: Homecoming

As we saw last time, Dick Briefer turned the reformed Frankenstein into a Nazi fighter for a bit.

Ever wonder why there are relatively so few copies of comics from back in those days when they were frequently printed in the millions? This might offer up a clue, eh?

The tale also ended by urging the readers to recycle every scrap of paper, including the one in their hands.

The following issue introduced a pair who would become ongoing cast members for a while with the pronouncement "Trouble Starts Right Here!" -

The next issue brought Frankie back to the USA, along with his new companions. They spent the following few issues settling in to city life...

Then came issue #49, in which we've not only fully embraced the comedy nature of the series, but also looped back to the beginning with reference to his days as the villain of a superhero comic -

As noted previously, the comedy era is the most famous phase of Dick Briefer's Frankenstein comics, and it was at this point that he spawned his own title. The book was a bit irregular getting started. Two issues in '45, then 3 more in late '46 before settling into a bimonthly schedule with the March/April issue in '47.

Since beginning this series, i discovered that Dark Horse released a collection featuring the stories from the first seven issues of the title -

We haven't really touched upon those issues here, nor likely will we, if you looking for more of the series to read. We will look a bit more at the comedy years now that we've caught back up.

But, of course, in time the series evolved again...

page art by Dick Briefer for Prize Comics #s 42-49 (1944, 1945)

Creature Commando

When last we left Dick Briefer's classic Frankenstein('s monster), he had been transformed into a new 'man' and rehabilitated from his evil ways. After a few fish-out-of-water tales while the creature was being re-educated for life in our society, they made another major decision.

It's all well and good to say he's not evil any longer, but for a while he'd been the ultimate evil of their world - even palling around with the Devil, as we saw last time. To make it work, a redemptive arc was needed. The year was 1944, so it wasn't too difficult to decide on the way to go...

The following issue, Nazi agents - pretending to be German citizens oppressed by the Nazis - approach Frankenstein at home and manage to get close enough to inject and incapacitate him. Smuggling him back to der fatherland for treatment, they manage to transform him into their agent of destruction. And so, the following issue...

And now he was positioned to do what nearly every comicbook hero was doing at the time - fight Hitler and the Nazis. And doing it decades before his imitation would lead the Creature Commandos in the same fight...

Ah, the joys of a demented and free-wandering mind.
I've got a very strange cross-over running in my head of this series with Hogan's Heroes. Sadly, i'm far too lazy these days to lay out the breakdowns.

page art by Dick Briefer for Prize Comics #s 38, 40, & 41 (1944)