Tuesday, 29 January 2013

Shiver and Shake - 1980!

Well gosh, if Shiver and Shake isn't my new favourite old comic, I don't know what is. And him over at Kazoop's going through the whole lot of them in just as meticulous a fashion as he did with Cor!, which is obviously a good thing. Meanwhile, this week I've got hold of the 1980 annual (published in 1979, obviously).


Whilst it's slightly disappointing to not find anything of Brian Walker's Scream Inn in this particular book, it has yielded some other nice surprises...


First up is The Shake Squad, one of those big splash page-type things that are always so much fun to look at (see also The Hoot Squad - that's a lot of squads!). It definitely LOOKS like it was done by Leo Baxendale, and according to Peter Gray it's a reprint of The Lion Squad (from Lion, of course). I'm usually wrong about these things though, so we'll go by assumption until someone points out where I've gone wrong. Here's all the Shake Squad pages from the annual anyway:






The other nice surprise from this annual is an eight-page adventure strip from "The If Man", Steve Bell! It concerns a house that can travel through time, and all the trials and tribulations one would expect from living in such a place:









That's my... third Shiver and Shake book then - only ten more to go! Each one (so far) has been more surprising than the last, so there's a lot to look forward to there (and even more so in the case of Irmantas!).
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6 comments:

  1. Irmantas29 January 2013 at 07:09

    Thanks for the plug! If you are after Scream Inn in Sh&Sh annuals, the last one was in the 1977 Annual; 1978 Annual had two pages of reprints. Whoopee! annuals 1979 and 1980 had original episodes of Spooktacular 7 (sequel to Scream Inn in Whoopee! weeklies by Brian Walker).

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    1. TwoHeadedBoy29 January 2013 at 10:28

      It's a pleasure, boss - you're doing a VERY impressive job there. Never heard of Spooktacular 7, so I'll be on the lookout for those annuals, definitely.

      And it turns out that Scream Inn Christmas Special was the last "original" one? Well, it went out on a high at least.

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    2. Irmantas29 January 2013 at 11:33

      Spooktacular 7 is an excellent strip and well-worth seeking out. In Whoopee dated 1st October 1977 the Inkeeper won the million pounds and a week later he set up the S.O.S. (Send Our Spooks) Service, keeping all of his staff and the Inn as the office. It ended in July 1978. As for the Specials, I believe the next one came out in the Summer of 1974 whereas the weekly folded in October, so the 1974 edition qualifies as the last original one, I believe.

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  2. Irmantas29 January 2013 at 11:59

    oops, I have just realised I've misread your comment about the Christmas Special - I thought you were referring to Shiver and Shake Special, not the Scream Inn. You'll probably be glad to know that Scream Inn never resorted to reprints in the weeklies during its long run in Sh&Sh and later Whoopee and had very nice Christmas episodes every year.

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  3. Deadpan Flook4 February 2013 at 01:55

    I've got a couple of Shiver and Shake annuals myself...I'll need to hunt them out! I've also just remembered I've got a few issues of Sparky Comic somewhere that I haven't read properly yet, with stuff like Some Mummies Do 'Ave 'Em..... :-)

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  4. Mr Straightman6 February 2013 at 19:19

    Well, Steve Bell is certainly "consistent"... I've never laughed at anything he's done.

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