April 17, 1897: The title on this one is pretty self-explanatory. I forgot to do his hat again (I owe two hats now). The bicycle on this was such an incredible stretch for me that I quibbled over it for weeks! So that's why it took me so long. I finally just made up my mind to paint something approximating an 1890s bicycle and be done with it. Otherwise it would drag on forever and I'm trying much harder to finish things that I start.

Unfortunately, while all that quibbling was going on, I accidentally deleted all my other Frank Merriwell files (argh! fie on you, Dropbox!). That's the first time I've ever done anything to stupid, and now I have to rebuild everything to make printable plates. I can't tell you how much that stinks. So it may not happen any time soon. In the meantime I thought I would post Bicycle Frank even if he's missing his background stand thing (which he needs to cover his feet). He'll be properly finished in the plate.

September 30, 1899: Here's another one of Frank's non-Yale uniforms for a baseball team. Baseball was America's favorite pastime, but football was getting to be rather exciting as well. While Frank could compete in any sport, he was often depicted in baseball and football games. After these, it was mostly racing: running, cycling, crew, skating, etc.

Basketball was still a pretty new sport at the turn of the century (created in 1891). I've yet to see a depiction of Frank playing basketball, but of almost 900 issues, I've also only seen a limited sampling of covers, so it could be that I just haven't come across one.

No idea what the "M" stands for on this one. A local league, is my guess, since, again. Frank was probably in New York when this issue takes place.

I have a cycling outfit and another set of street clothes, but neither are painted. I may not get to them until next weekend.

December 2, 1899: One of the last issues before the turn of the century, this one depicts the rather interesting sport of roller-skate hockey. I don't know what team Frank is playing for, as this issue comes after he leaves Yale for a spell. No idea what the "V" is for, but aside from the unusual sport, I also chose to do this one because he wasn't wearing a "Y".

I was a bit sloppy on the design of this one. Frank's hockey stick is too short and it ran off the paper. I was going to "correct" these flaws in Photoshop, but then I got lazy (great, right?). All part of my plot to get over my perfectionism (at least that's my excuse and I'm sticking with it for the time being).

I have one more Frank piece to post tomorrow. There are at least three others I would like to paint, but I don't know if I will get to them before I run out of what's already done.

Tomorrow: batter up!

March 27, 1897: I can't really tell what the sport is in this issue as the picture depicts just a group of boys similarly dressed in what looks like maybe a boathouse having a confrontation. So my inclination is to say this is like a crew uniform, perhaps? Most likely a boat sport of some kind.

Frank has a lot of similar outfits to this: long-sleeved Yale blue knit tops and white shorts ~ basic all-purpose sport clothing. The "Y" is pretty ubiquitous on almost all of these.

Patten, who wrote the series, never went to Yale, but apparently did his research.

November 27, 1897: The Frank Merriwell series was supposed to run about 30 issues. When its popularity exploded, the writer and publisher had to prolong it, so they had Frank drop out of Yale due to financial hardship. By interrupting his college career, they were able to extend it (indefinitely if need be), and in the interim sent Frank on what was basically a whirlwind of international adventures.

He couldn't wear sports clothes while traveling and saving damsels in distress from wild leaping animals, so quite a few covers feature "adventure" or "city" Frank as opposed to "sports" Frank.

Can't tell you much about this particular issue, though I think it takes place in New York, where Frank spent some time working odd jobs before his globe-trotting began. These are street clothes common in the city: a standard men's suit and bowtie. He should have a bowler to go with this, but I forgot to make it. I'll catch up on that another time.

October 21, 1899: The effect of Frank Merriwell's adventures on the desire in young boys to attend Yale probably cannot be underestimated. Frank had a long stint at Yale since he had to drop out due to financial difficulties for a spell (mostly this was a ploy by the writer to extend his college career as long as possible).

This particular issue focused on a sport at which Frank displayed his excellence time and again: running! Nothing complex about running clothes back then. Shoes were not the highly sophisticated, over-engineered marvels that they are today, but the science of sport was definitely underway. While football and baseball had not quite caught on to the cleat (I forgot to mention this on the football post yesterday), rubber was being used on running shoes.

Couldn't tell from the cover I used as a reference this whether the colors were just faded or if that "Y" on the shirt should have been dark blue (Yale's blue). I decided, since I had a number of "Y" outfits for Frank, to vary the blues a little, just to keep it interesting.

November 13, 1897: Frank has a football story. It's probably not his first, but I am not posting these things in any particular order. Contrary to what I said yesterday, the title of this one is a variation on the typical "Frank Merriwell's X", but it's close enough.

The picture I was using to create this costume was not especially good, but I did make one glaring accidental omission (which I literally did not realize until I came to post it): I forgot to put on his shin guards! Football before the turn of the century (and well into the early decades) was pretty brutal business. Players wore padded vests and pants, leather shin guards, and eventually leather shoulder pads (this costume has some shoulder padding). Players did not wear helmets.

I might go back and add the shin guards, or I might just be lazy about it. Not sure why I forgot to put them on.

I have not read many of these stories, so I can't tell you particularly what this issue is about, but I am fairly confident Frank wins the day honestly despite some unsportsmanlike effort from his opposition.

I made Frank in the same watercolor way as my other dolls, though I had trouble with his face (because of the style of the time ~ illustrators who drew him gave him the same bland profile that everyone wore in pictures). I did a lot of Photo-shopping after he was painted because my rendition had puppy dog eyes and too weak of a chin. He looks better now.

I put him in a pair of wrestling "shorts". These were typically worn with tights (but not always) and probably more of a 20th century thing, but I was loathe to put him in period-appropriate underwear.

I'm limiting his clothing to items he wears on the covers of Tip Top Weekly (one of the first nickel weeklies to go full color on the "wraps" ~ a big deal in 1896). Also, I am limiting his wardrobe (aside from the shorts) to items depicted between 1896 and 1900 in order to keep him within the scope of this blog. So expect to see some very early sports uniforms (some might even surprise you), and other "Gay '90s" apparel.

Lastly, I used the logo from the weekly as his name on the base of the doll. Issues were titled "Frank Merriwell's [something or other]; or, (and then an alternate, more descriptive title)".  So I adopted that format for the titles of these blog posts.

When I have posted all the pieces, I will "plate" these for easy print-quality downloading. In the meantime, click on the images for larger versions and enjoy!

Tomorrow: pigskin!

Gilbert Patten created Frank Merriwell in 1896 for Street & Smith publishers under the pseudonym Burt L. Standish (misprinted here on the first issue shown at right as "Burr"). Patten had no way of knowing then that he would spend the next 16 years (and probably more than 13 million words) writing Frank Merriwell's adventures (25-30 thousand words every single week!).

As a commodity, Frank Merriwell was both popular and lucrative! Even as the era of the nickel weekly waned, Frank found audiences in radio and other media. He remained popular into the 1930s when cinema and comic books killed him once and for all.

Frank as a character is pretty flat, I think: he's plucky, cheerful, and athletic with no vices whatsoever. Hard to believe this goody-two-shoes could interest young readers, but he was the "it" entertainment of his day (and remember this is prior to the movies, so everything is relative). Still, he was something entirely new in a medium where characters like Buffalo Bill and Jesse James had dominated for decades. Most likely his super-human athletic ability attracted an audience (there was no sport at which he could be fairly bested ~ definitely a precursor to the ideal all-American superheroes who would dominate comic books later), but maybe even more than that, he was someone that young readers could actually relate to. He went to school, he got into fights, and sure, he had crazy globe-trotting adventures (and was attacked by too many wild animals to enumerate [see cover above]), but at the end of the day he was just a nice all-American fella.

Anyway, enough with the history lesson.

The point is, last weekend I was trying to come up with something for the Titanic commemoration (since it was on TV and in the news and whatnot), but I felt like 1912 was a bit of a stretch for "19th Century Paper Dolls" and, besides, I don't actually care for the fashions of that era. But I figured maybe I could do something turn-of-the-centuryish and that would be kind of close. I had, sitting on my desk at that time, an issue of Tip Top Weekly, and I thought: Oh why not, Frank's certainly got no dearth of sports uniforms depicted on the covers.

So all this week I will be posting pieces of Frank and Frank's clothing. He had two girlfriends during the run of the series (one of whom he eventually married), but I am not sure I will be making him any friends.