23 January 2019

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)

22 January 2019

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)

21 January 2019

Moonday Morning With Genius Jones

Running late today, and i could use the help of Genius Jones. I've spent most of the morning trying to figure out where the few dozen issues of comics i had set aside for this feature have gone. Quite disappeared, they have.

While there were quite a few boy inventors in old comics, most familiarly around these parts, Ulysses Q. Wacky, Genius Jones was a different sort. Rather than inventor, he was a boy problem solver. Jones ran for over 50 episodes starting in Adventure Comics #77, later switching over to More Fun Comics by way of All Funny Comics. While i'm trying to find where those earlier issues are hiding, let's look at a couple of later tales to introduce our young hero -



Jones also owned the covers of these two issues. Stan Kaye is the presumed artist of the tales above, and definitely the delineator of the covers below -



When i can find the material, we'll go back to his beginnings - and the creators of Genius Jones. The boy's got him some pedigree.

page art by Stan Kaye(?) from More Fun Comics #s 115 &120 (1946, 1947)