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 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' this afternoon, 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 an 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.