Frightful Frankenstein Friday!

Today, 17 blogs will unite for a Web-wide event celebrating a new book by Eisner-award winner Craig Yoe, DICK BRIEFER’S FRANKENSTEIN and the character by that name. Prominent bloggers across the Web will be posting vintage Frankenstein comics, both from Yoe's book, which collects Briefer's top comics, and from the bloggers' personal collections. (More info at the end of this post.)

Author Craig Yoe himself has the very first Frankenstein story from the December 1940 issue of Prize Comics #7 posted at his blog HERE! and then THOIA picks up the pulverized pieces for PART TWO from the January 1941 issue of Prize Comics #8:



For PART THREE in Dick Briefer's Frankenstein Saga, head over to And Everything Else Too! And of course there's lots more fearsome and funny Frankenstein action courtesy of these fine blogs too:

Blog of Frankenstein

Cartoon Snap!

Comicrazys

Four-Color Shadows

Frankensteinia: The Frankenstein Blog

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 ITCH Blog

DICK BRIEFER’S FRANKENSTEIN: The first volume in Yoe Book's thrilling new series, "The Chilling Archives of Horror Comics," fittingly features the first and foremost maniacal monster of all time... Frankenstein! Dick Briefer is one of the seminal artists who worked with Will Eisner on some of the very first comic books. Briefer created a bizarre, twisted version of the classic Frankenstein that is legend among comic book aficionados. If you like the comic book weirdness of cartoonists Fletcher Hanks, Basil Wolverton, and Boody Rogers, you're sure to thrill over Dick Briefer's creation of Frankenstein. The large format book lovingly reproduces a monstrous number of stories from the original 1940s and '50s comic books. Briefer did both a dark horror take and a more humorous-yet twisted-styling of Frankenstein, and both are powerfully showcased here. The stories are fascinatingly supplemented by an insightful introduction with rare photos of the artist, original art, letters from Dick Briefer, drawings by Alex Toth inspired by Briefer's Frankenstein-and much more!

($21.99, 144 pages, hardcover) is now available in stores and online HERE!

And don't forget to visit http://www.idwpublishing.com/ to learn more about the company and its top-selling books.

Live With a Man

Time to wrap up another THOIA full issue presentation, this time it's the July 1954 issue of Weird Mysteries #11 and what a violent, mean-spirited, satanic shocker this one is-- complete with a gloriously cheap, but fitting ending too!

And hey all you horrorheads, don't miss out on the frightening fun happening over at my other blog all this month too! And Everything Else "BOO!" Too!

The Door

I don't know what these two lovebirds did to deserve a fate such as this, but leave it to the insane July 1954 issue of Weird Mysteries #11 to put them through the endless ringer of torment anyway.

Lords of the Upper Air

Backpedaling a bit to  Ghost Comics #11 (1954) for another story from the dark beyond. I was initially saving this gem for the colder, more wintery months ahead of us, but THOIA reader Ben Dickow wrote in today looking for "any pre-code comic book stories that feature a yeti or big foot monster or big ape" --so who am I to disappoint? Hope this was what you're looking for Ben!

FYI: Ben Dickow has a theater company in LA that performs pre-code comic book stories in the spirit of old radio shows. If you live in or near Los Angeles check www.capturedauralphantasy.com for more info about their upcoming "Halloween Gallery of Horrors" October 29th and 30th! Looks like a blast!

Cremation / Life Insurance

Two creepity, crispity-climaxity tales from the July 1954 issue of Weird Mysteries #11, the first story narrated by yet another EC style horror host clone known as "The Ghoul Teacher." And OMG, if you missed the mind-shatteringly insane "Voodoo Dolls" (same issue) that I posted way back in 2007 HERE then check it out too!

Case no. 105 B: The Witch's Doll!

Back in February 2008 I posted a pre-code Dr. Drew tale called "The Strange Case of the Absent Floor" by Jerry Grandenetti, so how about another of his creepy case files as featured in Ghost Comics #11 (1954.) And as with anything he illustrated in this full-on "Eisner mode" style, today's tale contains some seriously clever, panel bustin' artistic touches that really makes it stand visually miles above the other stories appearing in this issue.

Grab-Bag

A silk scarf... a pair of shoes... a hand held mirror... these are just some of the things that spell doom for a group of unsuspecting sorority sisters in this crisply illustrated, and refreshingly different supernatural tale from Ghost Comics #11 (1954), art by Bill Benulis and Jack Abel. This is the kind of story that William Castle or Roger Corman would have turned into a great B-film classic.