WHAM! was ODHAMS PRESS and LEO BAXENDALE's answer to THE BEANO. Unfortunately, they must have misheard the question, because the former only lasted about three and a half years, whereas the latter is still going strong (relatively speaking) over seventy years later. One can't help but wonder if Wham! would have survived longer if it had been printed on cheaper paper and similarly priced to The Beano. We'll never know, alas, but in its day it was a very fine comic indeed - and although I didn't start buying it until it had discarded its photogravure printing, I now have quite a few of those early issues in my collection. One such is the Christmas number above from 1965 (it was a very good year), and I thought I'd share it with all you lucky peeps out there in Blogger land.
One of the most (if not the most) popular strips in Wham! was one created not by Leo Baxendale, surprisingly, but by KEN REID, the original artist of ROGER THE DODGER in the aforementioned Beano. The strip in question was FRANKIE STEIN, who was so popular that he survived Wham!'s demise in early 1968, being ressurected in SHIVER & SHAKE and MONSTER FUN COMIC in the early and mid-'70s. He also starred in his own series of Holiday Specials and two softcover Annuals. ROBERT NIXON did most of the art chores in Frankie's later incarnation, but to those of us who were familiar with Reid's earlier treatment of the character - good as it was to see ol' Frankie back - the new strips never quite matched the absurd shenanigans of the originals. So, presented above, for your reading pleasure, the Frankie Stein strip from the 1965 Christmas edition of the late, lamented Wham!
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