Richard Briefer (January 9, 1915 – December 1980)[2] was an American comic-book artist best known for his various adaptations, including humorous ones, of the Frankenstein monster.
Briefer's earliest recorded credit is as writer and artist of a five-page story beginning an adaptation of the 1831 Victor Hugo novel The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, in Jumbo Comics #1-8 & 10 (Sept. 1938 - July 1939 & Nov. 1939), for the Eisner-Iger client Fiction House.
[5] Also during this time he also drew the comic strip Pinky Rankin, about a Nazi-fighter, for the American Communist Party newspaper The Daily Worker.
[8] Considered by comics historians to be "America's first ongoing comic book series to fall squarely within the horror genre",[9][10] the feature, set in New York City circa 1930, starred a guttural, rampaging creature actually dubbed "Frankenstein" (unlike Shelley's nameless original monster).
Briefer, with his trademark "loose and smooth ink and brush skills" began telling stories that would "straddle some amorphous line between pure children's humor and adventure and an adult sensibility about the world".
They read well and are beautifully drawn; they're full of unforgettable images, like the wizard eating Frankenstein on a hot dog.