WHO REMEMBERS FRANK STONE? (Updated)

Images copyright relevant and respective owners

Hard as it is for me to believe (and perhaps for you to care), it's around 50 years since I last saw or held this UK FRANKENSTEIN Comic Album (published by WORLD DISTRIBUTORS), which I first read as a lad in primary school (the annexe huts I think) during a break back in 1967 or '68.  Stop and think about that for a moment - 50 years, maybe 51.  Yet when I received this 'replacement' today, the decades rolled away as if they'd never happened, and I was once again a young boy with nary a care in the world except for what I'd get for my birthday or Christmas.

I say 'replacement' in inverted commas, 'cos the fact is that I never possessed this publication myself - it belonged to a classmate with whom I'd no doubt swapped one of my own comics or annuals for the duration of our break before swapping back again.  No point asking me what comic strip item I lent to him - or even who he was - because I can no longer recall, but I still remember some of the panels from this album even 50 years later.  Amazing, eh?  Sometimes images make such an indelible impression that they resurface fully-blown in our memory banks with only the slightest reminder to prompt them.

The school where I first (and last) saw this book was demolished over four years ago (having not long celebrated its own half-century), but just like this album, it yet survives in the 'filing cabinet' of my mind (and in extensive photos I took prior to demolition).  Unfortunately, I can't open the book wide enough to scan without risk of cracking the spine, so I can show no internal images, alas - you'll have to be content with the cover - but what a cover it is, eh?

In the same package as the above album were also the two FRANKIE STEIN annuals from the '70s.  I already have them, but the ones I received today are superior condition copies.  (And when I say 'copies' I don't mean facsimiles - they're the original ones.)  So, just because the covers are by the mighty ROBERT NIXON, I decided to show them in this post too.  Frankenstein and Frankie Stein together - what could be more apt?  (Note that the 1977 cover shows Frankie as a superhero crashing through a wall - similar to the scene above, but with a dash of humour.) 

Enjoy.

The back cover is the same as the front, so no point repeating it

But hold!  It occurs to me that you may wish to learn more about the superhero known as Frankenstein (whose secret identity was FRANK STONE, and who wore a rubber human mask to hide his green face).  A mixture of elements from CLARK KENT/SUPERMAN and BRUCE WAYNE/BATMAN comics, the title was launched in 1966 by DELL Publishing and lasted for three issues.  It had companion comics likewise loosely based on the UNIVERSAL Monsters - DRACULA and WOLFMAN.  Frankenstein was written by DON SEGALL and drawn by TONY TALLARICO and BILL FRACCHIO, and started with #2, #1 being a loose adaptation, published in 1964, of the 1931 movie starring BORIS KARLOFF, and bearing no connection to the issues which followed apart from the name and numbering.  So that's about it, but I can't go without showing you the covers.

The 'first' issue - but only the name was the same in the three that followed

WHEN THINGS ARE WHAT THEY SEEM - PRINT THE TRUTH...

Images copyright MARVEL COMICS

"Where men are the most sure and arrogant they are commonly the most mistaken..." wrote Scottish philosopher, historian, economist and essayist DAVID HUME.  He was right.  Nearly a year ago, someone I knew gave me the above comic mag.  I was extremely pleased as it had a JACK KIRBY cover, so I put it on my blog, first submitting it to some computer technology to lessen the fingerprints which mar its surface - clearly seen in the un-retouched scan before you.

This is what I wrote at the time:

"Originally the splash page of FANTASTIC FOUR #51, this great JACK KIRBY image of The THING now graces the cover of this new MARVEL 2 IN ONE first issue.  Superb stuff, eh?  Unfortunately, there were a few fingerprints (none of them mine) on the cover which have lifted the colour, but I've digitally disguised them as much as I can.  Still a great pic though, eh?"

As you can see, I attributed no blame to anyone, namely because I didn't know at what stage it had acquired the unsightly digit-daubs before passing into my possession.  I received an angry text (which I didn't see until a couple of days after Christmas because I never checked my 'phone over the yuletide period) from the bloke who'd given me the comic, saying that in 40-odd years of handling comics, he'd never given anybody one with fingerprints on it.  (Actually, he had, as I'd received similarly-defaced comics from him before, but I wasn't going to argue the point as they'd been free and I didn't want to appear ungrateful.)

I replied, wishing him a merry Christmas, and explained that I wasn't blaming anyone or even complaining (I had merely mentioned the fingerprints in case any readers noticed some 'fogginess' about the cover), but he was so intent on feeling offended that he ignored my festive felicitations and informed me how insulted he was.  Know what?  Dancing around the hyper-sensitivities of people who go through life with a chip on their shoulder and are determined to be offended or insulted at the slightest thing, especially where no offence or insult is intended (or even exists), is not something I'm prepared to do, so I closed the door on that source of potential vexation in no uncertain terms.  I've found that people who continually take offence often do so in order to have others apologising to them all the time and indulge their overblown sense of self-importance, but as far as I'm concerned they can play that game on their own.

Thing is, it only just occurred to me (half an hour ago in fact) to check out the cover on eBay and see if, as had been claimed by the person in question, the fingerprints were a deliberate effect intended by the colourist, instead of, as I had assumed, careless handling by some anonymous, inadvertent vandal whose hands were in need of a wash.  (Could've happened at the distributor's warehouse for all I know.)

As you can see in the image below (taken from eBay), the fingerprints in the picture above are conspicuous by their absence, meaning that I was right in my initial assumption and the other bloke was wrong - he had given me a comic with marks on the cover.  Maybe I should take offence and feel insulted at being accused of causing offence and being insulting when I was right all along?

And I have to admit - I love it when I'm right!  But then again, who doesn't?

See?  The prints aren't on the printed comic

Click to enlarge and compare