Dick Briefer's Lost Frankenstein

A rare, unpublished page of Dick Briefer’s Frankenstein comics shows the Merry Monster making a blood bank delivery, unaware of a vampire stowaway. Note the pencils still showing and the squiggles in the margins where the artist brought a freshly ink-dipped brush to a fine point. Click the art to see it large.

Another page from this story appears in Craig Yoe’s book, Dick Briefer’s Frankenstein, showing “Duke Tracer”, Briefer’s take on Chester Gould’s the oft-lampooned straight arrow detective Dick Tracy.

According to Yoe, this story was one of three orphaned episodes, finished but never to appear, after the publisher pulled the plug on the Frankenstein comic book in 1949. When the title rebooted in 1952, it was as a horror comic, bringing Briefer’s Frankenstein series full circle.

Briefer had first introduced his version of Frankenstein as a horror strip in Prize Comics number 7, in 1940, creating the first ongoing horror series in comic book history. Briefer’s gruesome, angular Monster rained panic and mayhem on New York, fighting superheroes, and terrorizing Nazis during WW2. After the war, Briefer surprised his readers with a bold switcharoo, turning the nasty, snarling, split-faced monster into a lovable lunk with his nose up on his forehead.

The sublimely silly, surrealistic, so-called “Merry Monster” version ran concurrently in Prize Comics — until the title folded in February 1948 — and its own comic book, Frankenstein, through 17 issues, from 1945 to February 1949. There followed a three-year hiatus until Frankenstein started back up as a horror series, again, with No.18 in March 1952. It ran 16 issues until its final demise, with No.33 in October 1954, the year Frederic Wertham published Seduction of the Innocents, setting the stage for the notorious Congressional inquiry that would sweep horror comics from the nation’s newsstands.

In the mid-50’s, Briefer drew up some samples for a funny Frankenstein daily strip that prefigured The Munsters, but when syndicates passed on the project, Briefer quit comics and went into commercial illustration.

Dick Briefer always preferred the strip’s funny version, and he was obviously enjoying himself creating wildly inventive and genuinely funny storylines, drawn in a loose and elegant brush style evident in the examples shown here. This is Briefer at his peak, at once exuberant and confident.

Thanks go out to comics writer John Arcudi for generously sharing this wonderful original art with Frankensteinia readers, and Craig Yoe, author of Dick Briefer's Frankenstein, for expert information.

Related:
Previous posts about Dick Briefer.

Celebrating Dick Briefer's Frankenstein

Yauuggghhh! It’s Frightful Frankenstein Friday! Join the mob as we pick up our torches and chase down Dick Briefer’s Frankenstein!

Today, I’m joining fifteen fellow bloggers in celebration of Craig Yoe’s new book about legendary artist Dick Briefer and his extraordinary Frankenstein comics, published between 1940 and 1954.

Click through the links for reviews, reflections and, best of all, a selection of classic Briefer Frankenstein episodes! But beware…. If you’ve never read a Briefer Frankenstein before, you are in for a real treat, whether its one of his gruesome horror version, or the surprising “Merry Monster” version. I’m guessing you’ll love them both, and you’ll be a fan forever more.

Here are the participating blogs:

And Everything Else Too

Blog of Frankenstein

Cartoon Snap!

Comicrazys

Four-Color Shadows

Magic Carpet Burn

Pappy’s Golden Age Comics Blogzine

Random Acts of Geekery

Sekvenskonst

Sequential Crush

Stephen Bissette’s Myrant

The Big Blog of Kids Comics

The Comic Book Bin

The Fabuleous Fifties

The Horrors of It All

The ITCH Blog

For my own contribution to Frightful Frankenstein Friday, in the spirit of Book Month on Frankensteinia, I asked Craig Yoe to speak about his book and his love for Briefer’s art.

The ridiculously talented Mr. Yoe is an artist and writer, art director, toy designer, and formerly a creative director and VP with The Muppets. As a writer, editor and comics historian, Yoe has published a number of important books such as Felix The Cat: The Great Comic Book Tails, George Herriman’s Krazy & Ignatz in Tiger Tea, The Art of Steve Ditko, and Secret Identity: The Fetish Art of Superman Co-Creator Joe Shuster, just to name a few. Dick Briefer’s Frankenstein, published by Yoe Books and IDW Publishing, is out NOW.

Here’s Craig…

When Dick Briefer died in 1980 I drew a picture of his Frankenstein with a tear in his eye running past his monster’s upturned and misplaced nose for the Comic Buyer's Guide newspaper. I said in the copy that accompanied my cartoon that I was not only sad about the artist’s passing, but also that so few people knew of Dick Briefer or his genius. It has taken me a long time, but at last I'm doing my part to help rectify that with a full color hardback book, Dick Briefer's Frankenstein (Yoe Books/IDW), about the monster and the man behind him. Though it does go into depth about the artist's colorful life, mostly the book proves Briefer’s genius by just reprinting a crypt full of comics as evidence.

Briefer was of two minds. The cartoonist drew a horrific version of Frankenstein during the horror comics craze of the 50s. The stories were dark, grim and foreboding. But, before that he drew a humorous Merry Monster version that was lighthearted, nutty, and wacky. Think The Munsters or The Addams Family--kooky and creepy, altogether ooky. This was the version Briefer himself preferred. Actually, when I was putting together the book I discovered that there was a THIRD version. The early 1940s original stories in Prize Comics, starting in issue #7 were almost a synthesis of the two known styles. At least art-wise. These seminal stories were gritty, but the art had a bit of that boffo, gusto, and bravado of the early Golden Age comics that had a simple cartoony flair, almost humorous, approach. Those comic books are trez expensive. I had to almost beg a collector to scan his valuable and fragile inaugural Frankenstein stories for me. So I am thrilled to present the fascinating rare first three Frankenstein stories in the book.

So there are three styles of Dick Briefer's to chose from and adopt as a fave. In early reviews of the book people are already stating which ones they grok the most. Me, I love them all, but I'm going with Briefer in that I dig his all-out funny take on Frankenstein the best. When I became the Creative Director/VPGM of the Muppets I was versed about the appeal that the Sesame Street lovable monsters like Bert and Ernie and the Cookie Monster have. Jim Henson himself explained to me that kids fear monsters, but that the Muppets, warm and friendly and silly and approachable, human-like, helped the young set deal with their childhood fear of monstersunder the bed. I think as adults we never outgrow our fear of the Monsters of Life. Maybe they are no longer the things-that-go-bump-in-the-night variety of monsters. But, as adults there are monsters like Politicians, Left Wing and Right Wing TV Commentators, Corporation CEOs, Bill Collectors, War Profiteers, Heads of Insurance Companies that keep us awake at night--they TRULY horrific and real threats! So a fun, approachable, lovable Monster like Briefer's Funny Franky with his peculiar proboscis can help give us some relief and help us face ghosts and ghouls whether we're snot-nosed kids or a full-grown relatively clean-nosed adult human beings.

Or the Frankenstein comics by Briefer can just be a great read. We do have to remember that, in the words of the great R. Crumb that “’It’s is only lines on paper, folks!” There doesn't have to be a Deep Reason to like Dick Briefer's Frankenstein. In fact, ultimately I'm going to avoid any really deep scholarly dissection of the Monster here as I did in the book, too. Briefer's Frankenstein, like Shelley's, was a man of many parts and I'm not going to take them apart in my La-BOORRR-a-TORY today and kill him in the process.

I'm only going to ask you to have a grand time reading all the great Dick Briefer comics on all the great blogs participating in Frightful Frankenstein Friday. I deeply thank Pierre, with his frightfully fantastic Frankensteinia blog, for giving me this little soapbox today. Now start reading the on-line comics, and order my book, Dick Briefer’s Frankenstein, if you like what you see. I think you'll scream with delight!

Thanks Craig!

Dick Briefer Frankenstein Sketch

Here’s an unusual find: A very different Frankenstein drawing by the great Dick Briefer (1915-1980).

Briefer, of course, is celebrated for his Frankenstein comics and the two opposite styles he brought to his characterizations. With Prize Comics, in 1940, Briefer introduced a horrific Frankenstein Monster with a split lip, a gruesome scar down the middle of his face and a murderous disposition. In 1945, Briefer redesigned his Frankenstein as a humorous character with a misplaced nose and a heart of gold.

The drawing above, date unknown, turned up at auction recently. It’s a relatively small piece, beautifully done in dry brush and gouache. If you look closely, you can see penciling around the neck bolts.

Considering the extreme interpretations of The Monster that Briefer is justifiably famous for, it’s fascinating to see his take on a straight-up, classic movie-style Frankenstein.

Related:
Dick Briefer’s Frankenstein
Frankenstein vs. the Prize Comics Superheroes
Briefer’s Frankenstein Revisited
Dick Briefer Frankenstein Links

The Boris Karloff Blogathon : Day Five

It may have taken a gazillion volts to kaboom The Monster to life, but all it took to keep him going was a cup of tea.

It’s Day Five of the Boris Karloff Love Fest, and here are your links for today… Enjoy!

From Filo Loco, à Paris, a Frankenstein stamp created by Sardon.

Kate, the Merciless Mistress of the Tenebrous Empire, navigates the troubled rapids of transgressive cinema with the sure hand of a devotee, the critical astuteness of an unimpeachable connoisseuse, and that most precious talent of all, humor. Kate’s blog is a personal favorite of mine, an indispensable daily stop, and I urge you to discover its dangerous delights (as in “nunsploitation”, among other disreputable genres).

I’m delighted with Kate’s very personal and highly original contribution to the Blogathon, a visual survey of Karloff’s Career, as Told Through Tiny Paintings. On Love Train for the Tenebrous Empire.

Bill, of Radiation-Scarred Reviews, loves his Mummy. Beautifully written and enormously satisfying, Bill’s review of the 1932 Karloff classic not only singles out Boris’s restrained performance and his unique ability “to project a quiet menace and instill a scene with a real sense of dread¨, but also pays much deserved homage to director Karl Freund.

The Brides of Boris… Brittney-Jade Colangelo writes, “I figured I'd give Ol' William Henry Pratt some recognition as far as how he wooed us women.” Meet The Uncanny Women of Boris Karloff on Day of the Woman.

OK, now listen up…

Is there’s anybody out there who doesn’t get it?

Is there’s anybody who can’t understand what compelled over one hundred bloggers to congregate here this week and celebrate the life and the career of Boris Karloff? Is there anyone who can’t make sense of our affection for this actor, our love for this man?

May I simply point you to Richard Harland Smith’s essay …and last but not least, thanks for Boris Karloff.

Read it, and you’ll understand.

In Black Sabbath, the film that gave the metal band its name, Boris Karloff played his first and only vampire role, The Wurdalak, bathed in the near fluorescent colors favored by director Mario Bava. Shonen King posts a collection of startling screen caps, on Black Sun.

When Roger Corman shot his version of The Raven (1963) as a comedy, he knew he could count on the joyful complicity of its principals — veteran actors and friends —Karloff, Vincent Price and the irrepressible Peter Lorre. Paul Castiglia, horror-comedy specialist, rates the film as “a first-class romp” in which “Karloff’s beautifully understated performance… is nothing short of brilliant”.

Paul’s comprehensive review is posted on Scared Silly.

In the US, the day after Thanksgiving is called Black Friday, and wouldn’t you know it, that was the inspiration for The Lightning Bug’s review of, well, Black Friday, a snappy little gangster film with a brain swap angle, courtesy of Dr. Boris. Bela Lugosi puts in n appearance “as a mobster with a Hungarian accent”. It’s up on The Lightning Bug’s Lair.

Rob Kelly dips into the vault for his final illustrated contribution, a Frankenstein banner done for a long lost blog. On Rob Kelly Illustration.

Before audiobooks, we had Spoken Word records, and Boris owned the vinyl horror franchise. Here’s Volume Two of Tales of the Frightened. Six short tales, including The Vampire Sleeps, Never Kick a Black Cat and Nightmare! Listen, on The Captain’s Ramblings.

And before Spoken Word records, we had Radio Drama. And Karloff mastered that form as well. Orange and Black looks back on Boris’ short association as host and star of Creeps by Night, with audio of one of its few surviving episodes, The Final Reckoning, originally broadcast on May 2nd, 1944.

I’ve got some images sampled from various Blogathon contributions up on my picture blog, Monster Crazy.

Artist David Kirwan continues his series of Karloff caricatures, cross-posted on his blog and his Kirdoodle tumbler. Today's offering: Ardath Bey!

A sinister, silent Karloff, captured in a collage by J. Mendez, on The Ladies and Gents Auxiliary.

Boris Karloff’s performance as the Frankenstein Monster was instantly iconic and has permeated pop culture ever since. In the early Forties, artist Dick Briefer used Karloff’s silhouette and manners as the template for his comic book Monster. Briefer’s extraordinary Frankenstein series would switch back and forth, at various stages of its evolution, between humorous kiddie-oriented adventures (one episode guest-starring that Hollywood horror actor, “Boris Karload”), and a gruesome, dead serious horror comic version.

In an indirect but unmistakable homage to Karloff, my friend Karsell, over at The Horrors of It All, has posted two outstanding episodes from the Briefer horror era: The grisly Rebirth of the Monster, and Voyage of Death, originally published in 1952.

Halloween’s come and gone, Thanksgiving is over, now we prepare for winter. The Frankenstein Monster plans to enjoy the upcoming season, according to cartoonist and illustrator TS Rogers. On Teaessare.

James, at Behind the Couch, has a wonderful week’s worth of posts up. I’ll be stepping through and peppering you with links all evening (or you can go and see the whole thing in one shot!).

First up, a nice Birthday message, followed by Brides and Broads, a survey of Karloff’s most memorable leading ladies, all accompanied by superb photos.

I’ll jump back Behind the Couch later on.

Here’s an interesting change of pace. Claire Napier looks at the 1999-2001 reboot of The Mummy and The Mummy Returns, with references to the original Karloff movie of 1932. On Illustrator Claire.

There’s a fine collection of audio clips from Inner Sanctum, on Peeping Tom’s tumbler, and an essay about Karloff’s literary tastes, with Karloff quotes in English, on Lost Eyeways.

Friends, you’ve got some serious reading to do tonight, with some truly outstanding contributions coming in.

James Gracey offers up Dark Dignitaries, a chronicle of the remarkable collaboration between Boris Karloff and RKO producer Val Lewton. It’s an in-depth, detailed account, and a pitch perfect evaluation of three very unconventional horror films — and films that Karloff was very proud of — that still fascinate today.

Dark Dignitaries is a first-class, thought-provoking read, offered in three parts: Isle of the Dead, The Body Snatcher, and Bedlam. On Behind the Couch.

Even as a young actor, Karloff was usually cast as the villain of the piece, his gaunt looks no doubt influencing the casting. After he played The Monster, his career went stratospheric and he was forever typecast as Hollywood’s premiere boogieman. When he came to Broadway, in Arsenic and Old Lace, it was to play a murderer, and his screen name was a punch line.

Boris had the chops, amply demonstrated even when saddled with just another superficial mad doctor part, but there were very few opportunities for him to play non-villainous roles. One such occasion came in 1955, when he was invited to join the cast of The Lark, to play Bishop Cauchon opposite Julie Harris as Joan of Arc. The part would earn him a Tony nomination and remain his personal favorite among the hundreds he had played.

Steven Senski reports, in great, revelatory details, on the making of The Lark. It’s a superlative contribution, and a reference piece for anyone interested in Karloff’s career.

Read The Bishop on Broadway, on Heart in a Jar.

Hammer Films expert Holger Hasse reveals a passion for Old Time Radio, offering a detailed overview of OTR collecting and an appreciation of Boris Karloff’s incredibly prolific radio career. The article is accompanied by a monumental checklist of Karloff’s radio appearances, with links whenever a recording is available online. It’s a wonderful resource, worth bookmarking, found on Hammer and Beyond.

Rounding up James Gracey’s contributions for today, via Behind the Couch, here’s a very nice collection of Candid Karloff photos, and a Creepy Karloff Moment, examining the very brief and utterly unforgettable scene when Karloff comes to dusty life, at the expense of a young archeologist’s sanity, in the opening sequence to The Mummy (1932).

When the Karloff-hosted anthology series, Thriller, appeared on NBC, in 1960, it’s 60-minute format was a an opulent departure from usual brisk, half hour episodes of The Twilight Zone and The Alfred Hitchcock Presents. A sometimes awkward mix of horror and suspense dramas, the series was short-lived, but some of its episodes, like The Cheaters and The Incredible Dr. Markesan are fondly remembered as startlingly scary television fare.

Ivan G. Shreve Jr. has a look back at how Thriller came together, and discusses the suspect circumstances of its demise. Read As sure as my name is Boris Karloff, on Thrilling Days of Yesteryear.

Frankenstein-inspired art and a link to a website devoted to it, on Wouldn’t You Like to See Something Strange?

There’s a nice collection of Karloff video clips up on Poe Forward’s Poe Blog. My favorite, which I hadn’t seen yet, is a knockout clip from Smart Money, one of 16 films Boris made in the Frankenstein year of 1931. Watch as he plays a loose-limbed, toothpick-chewing, two-bit gangster rubbing shoulders with Edward G. Robinson and James Cagney. Great stuff!

Dick Briefer's Frankenstein Revisited

Cartoonist and animator Doug Gray keeps a lively blog called The Greatest Ape where he posts classic humor comics by the likes of Carl Barks, Walt Kelly and Harvey Kurtzman. Gray is currently showing some of Dick Briefer’s lighthearted Frankenstein stories.

There are classic strips here, like Frankenstein and The Mummies, and Frankenstein and The Terrible Werewolf. Check out the insane Frankenstein and The Time Machine where our hero and Professor Goniph careen through time, forwards and backwards, colliding with martian invaders along the way. Briefer dresses The Merry Monster in a futuristic costume and as a musketeer, and there’s even a “it’s a bird, it’s a plane” joke thrown in.

It’s fabulous, wigged-out stuff and the scans are gorgeous, the colors really pop. You'll come away just shaking your head at how brilliant Dick Briefer was.

Dick Briefer's Frankenstein Gets Clobbered

Here’s another vintage comic book treat, this one an unusual Dick Briefer Frankenstein story that awkwardly combines three different styles: Horror, superhero comics, and the so-called ‘bigfoot’ school of cartooning.

First introduced in 1940, Briefer’s celebrated Frankenstein character would, over the years, switch back and forth between gruesome horror and Munsters-like humor. In this incarnation, circa 1942, the early, monstrous Frankenstein is beset by an inclusive who’s who of Prize Comics heroes, bringing together — jarringly — the righteous and the ridiculous, the grim Green Lama and his costume hero kin working in tandem with the comedic General and the Corporal.

The “evil wicked” Monster seems to be minding his own business, happy in his forest retreat, when he’s jumped by the assembled do-gooders and left comatose in the final panel. Dialogue is jingoistically typical of the era, with Frankenstein said to be “the size of twenty japs”. The issue, No. 25, had the patriotic duo Yank and Doodle on the cover, punching out Nazis attempting a homeland invasion by U-Boat.

The energetic strip, eight color pages, is a good, head-scratching read. It is reproduced in its entirety — and properly skewered — on Brian Hughes’s excellent and very entertaining blog, Again With the Comics.

Related
Dick Briefer’s Frankenstein

Dick Briefer's Frankenstein Links

Updating my previous post… There are quite a few Dick Briefer Frankenstein stories available on the net, if you don’t mind clicking around a bit. The rewards are great.

In addition to his Briefer posts this weekend (and the promise of more to come around Halloween time), Karswell of The Horrors of It All has three more stories sitting in his blog archives. There’s Frozen Alive (Parts One and Two), a story that starts at the North Pole and somehow ends up inside an Egyptian pyramid; a classic, harrowing tale called The Beautiful Dead, and a comedy-era story, Frankenstein and the Mummies.

Elsewhere: On Pappy’s Golden Age of Comics Blogzine (a delightful daily stop for me), you can find no less than 18 Briefer Frankenstein tales! This Link will take you to Pappy’s Frankenstein archives. Scroll down through the posts (all of them fun) to get to the Briefer stories. There are real gems to be found, like the bittersweet and horrific The Monster’s Mate, and the wildly imaginative World of Monsters, featuring dinosaurs and a vicious cat woman. In the comedy style, there’s lots to enjoy, too. Check out the surrealistic splash pages for The Curse of the Flying Dutchman and Frankenstein’s Job. You can also read the origin story, Frankenstein’s Creation, from issue number one, in 1945.

Still more: Pure Excitement carries two humorous stories, here and here, and American Comic Archives has three, including the legendary Frankenstein Meets Boris Karload.

Briefer is worth exploring. You might have a hard time picking a favorite style, the gruesome or the giggly. I absolutely love his scary, morbid Frankensteins, but then again, the cartoony ones can go from silly to utterly mind-blowing at the turn of a page, and you can’t get enough of those, either.

Click and enjoy!

With thanks to Karswell and Mr. Cavin.

Dick Briefer's Frankenstein

Dick Briefer broke into comics in the pre-superhero days of 1936. Working out of the Iger-Eisner shop, he learned his craft punching out adventure and science fiction strips featuring characters with names like Storm Curtis, Crash Parker and Rex Dexter (of Mars!).

It was in Prize Comics number 7, in 1940, that Briefer introduced The New Adventures of Frankenstein, featuring a genuinely chilling creature, giant-sized, with a cruelly twisted face, as a pulp riff on the Universal Frankenstein movies of the Thirties. This gruesome Frankenstein messed with Prize heroes and World War Two Nazis until 1945 when Briefer submitted a proposal for The Monster’s own comic book, but with an unexpected twist… The Frankenstein comic book would be humorous.

The Monster was simplified and beautifully cartooned up, scars erased, given a button nose that rode up on its forehead and his suit redone in primary colors. From ’45 to ’49, over a 17 issue run, Dick Briefer’s oafish, heart of gold Frankenstein — now billed as “The Merry Monster” — romped with vampire, werewolf and ghost friends. Wild to the point of surrealism, Briefer’s funny Frankenstein stories were perfectly served by his gorgeous brush strokes. The series stands as a true classic of Golden Age funnies, which makes the next step in Briefer’s Frankenstein career all the more surprising. Three years after its cancellation, the title was restarted, picking up with number 18, but as a horror comic, returning to The Monster to its grim and grisly origins.

Face split in half and mouth tortured in a permanent snarl, this new incarnation of The Monster combined the earlier nasty Monster with the clean lines and lavish brushwork that had distinguished his comical doppelganger. The series ran another fifteen issues, its demise coming with the backlash against the very horror comics fad that had made its reboot possible. But Briefer was not quite done yet… In the mid-50’s, he doubled back to the comedic Frankenstein, doing up a set of black and white gags as a proposal for a syndicated newspaper strip. Unfortunately, it didn’t sell. Briefer then stepped away from comics and spent the rest of his career as a commercial artist.

A happy coda to Briefer’s story is that his Frankenstein was “rediscovered” and celebrated by a new generation of artists and comic book fans before he passed away in the early 80s.

Dick Briefer’s comics, with their unusual back and forth, horror to comedy arc, masterfully done in both registers, holds a unique and preeminent place in the pop culture history of Frankenstein. There’s a real need for a comprehensive collection of Briefer’s Frankenstein stories. All we have at the moment is a print-on-demand title, The Monster of Frankenstein, reproducing some of Briefer’s horror work in black and white.

Here’s a taste of Briefer’s range: Karswell, host of the ever brilliant and essential The Horrors of It All, has posted Briefer Frankenstein stories in both horror and comedy modes.

The first selection, The Monster and The Statue, is from the 1952 horror comic restart issue, number 18. Note: The post includes a mind-blowing photo — by Weegee! — of a Frankenstein/Dracula re-release marquee, the very subject discussed here and on the Greenbriar Picture Shows blog.

The second post, How I Had (and Lost) a Pet Dinosaur, harks back to the comic's cartoon era, from issue No. 5, in 1946.

Related
Dick Briefer's Frankenstein links

The Covers of Frankenstein : House of Frightenstein No.1

Not to be confused with TV’s Hilarious House of Frightenstein, this is a one-shot comic book published by AC Comics in 1994.

Main feature is a black and white reprint of Dick Briefer’s classic Frankenstein strip “The Monster’s Mate”, originally published by Prize Comics in 1953. Unfortunately, the art is badly manhandled, the panels cut up and repositioned, some are stretched or tilted to eat up space, adding 2 pages of jigsaw padding to the strip’s original 13-page length. The name Frankenstein is replaced with Frightenstein in the word balloons.

The issue carries another vintage horror strip and a 5-page photo-feature on Forry Ackerman’s Ackermansion. The cover Monster wears a full-head mask by Cinema Secrets — “Scare the crap out of your baby sister!” — available by mail-order.

Halfway between a monster mag and a comic book, this one is, at best, a curio.