MY FIRST MONSTER COMICS (PART 1)

In 1964, I spent the last week of school at my Grandmother's house. My parents had bought a new home some distance away and we had to be out of our old one before I could finish school. Gram was a great babysitter but there was only so much she could entertain me with. As a result, I had quite a bit of time on my hands . . . and a little bit of money in my pocket.

So, one afternoon I hoofed it by myself down to the local shopping center about a mile or so away and visited the drugstore that had always had a supply of candy, baseball cards and a couple spinner racks full of comics. I had a blossoming (my parents would say festering) interest in monsters at the time and had already enjoyed a steady dose of FAMOUS MONSTERS OF FILMLAND, MAD MONSTERS and HORROR MONSTERS from my older neighbor (the vile things weren't allowed in our house). I also managed to sneak a number of late night monster movies with TV hosts I can't remember.

My fondness for Archie Comics and superheros was easily forgotten when I came across two comics that I grabbed off the rack so fast the staples could have popped out of their binding.

The first was this great-looking Dell comic titled simply, FRANKENSTEIN, with the exciting subtitle, "THE MONSTER IS BACK!!!" . The cover image (in an incongruous modern setting no less by the talented illustrator Vic Prezio) bore a striking resemblance to the Karloff version that I knew from monster magazines and had seen on TV. I quickly flipped through it and noticed that the inside content looked nothing like the movie, but I didn't care -- this was a monster comic and it was all mine for only 12 cents! It was much later when I noticed that this was an "authorized" version licensed by Universal. Maybe they only let Dell use Karloff's likeness on the cover because it sure didn't look much like him in the story! However, there were a few panels that looked like they had been lifted from the movie. One example is on the last page in the next to the last panel that shows the monster in a similar pose when he perishes inside the burning windmill -- only this time he meets his destruction on a ship. Henry Frankenstein looked sort of like Colin Clive, but Fritz was way off the mark even if he did escape his hanging in the monster's lair and lived through the story (the Code wouldn't have stood for that!). Like I said, I didn't care!

With a cover date of August-October 1964, it was edited by the ubiquitous D.J. Arneson, and the adaptation was scripted by Don Segall and illustrated by Bob Jenney. Segall also wrote for a few of Dell's Four Color Comics, Margie, Beany and Cecil and Kona, including adaptations of THE MUMMY and Roger Corman's THE RAVEN. Bob Jenney was fairly prolific and drew for Dell and Fiction House in the 30's and 40's and later worked for Warren.The story itself? Loose as a bedsheet on a broomstick! I didn't care!

Anyway, this is it -- the first monster comic that I ever bought with my own money!

Oh, and the second comic I bought that day? That I'll share in a later post.