Wednesday, September 11, 2013

1976 SHIVER & SHAKE HOLIDAY SPECIAL



1976 SHIVER AND SHAKE Holiday Special cost 25 p. and was 64 pages thick. Here’s what was inside. Again, red marks the strips that weren’t familiar to readers of Sh&Sh weeklies, earlier annuals or holiday specials.

Freddie Fang the Werewolf Cub (5 reprints from COR!! including two in full colour); Shiver (2 episodes by Terry Bave, including one in full colour); Ghouldilocks, The Hand; Scatty Bat (4 reprints from WHIZZER AND CHIPS); Frankie Stein by Frank McDiarmid; The Ghost’s Revenge; Shake by Terry Bave (3 episodes, including two in full colour); Moana Lisa by Alf Saporito; Mirth Shakers (5 pages of gags illustrated by Mike Lacey); Wizard Prang and Demon Druid (4 reprints from SMASH!/POW!); The Desert Fox by Terry Bave; International Street by Joe Colquhoun; Sports School by Jim Watson; Webster by Terry Bave; Brain Raiders puzzles centrespread; Tough Nutt and Softy Centre by Norman Mansbridge; Fixer by Les Barton; Grimly Feendish (reprint from SMASH!); Blunder Puss by Jim Crocker (signed); Horrornation Street by Tom Williams; Which Witch is Which? by Ken Reid; Ghoul Getters Ltd. by Les Barton; Ring the Changes puzzle by Tom Williams featuring Horrornation Street; The Duke’s Spook.

Terry Bave was the biggest contributor with 9 pages of Shake, Shiver, The Desert Fox and Webster artwork. Here is a large colour panel from one of his Shake sets:


The second largest input was by Mike Lacey who drew the cover and 5 pages of Mirth Shakers gags.

A number of sets were drawn by substitute artists, such as Frank McDiarmid on Frankie Stein:


… Alf Saporito on Moana Lisa:


… and Les Barton on Fixer and Ghoul Getters Ltd.



By this time regular readers of Shiver and Shake annuals and holiday specials were well familiar with Scatty Bat and Wizard Prang and Demon Druid that were in fact reprints from older comics. In this edition the roster of reprints was supplemented with another feature - Freddie Fang the Werewolf Cub, originally from COR!! I covered the strip last year in my COR!! series, you can read the review HERE. The 5 episodes included in the 1976 Shiver and Shake holiday special were by the brilliant Reg Parlett. The original sets were in black and white but two of the reprints were coloured in. Check out an original and its coloured version side by side. This happens to be the first episode of Freddie Fang from the first issue of COR!!



As can be seen from the list of the strips above, the special had no Scream Inn that was always the feature to look for in Shiver & Shake publications but the two surprise one-offs included in the edition are more than enough to make up for the omission.

The first one is International Street from the hand of Joe Colquhoun. It may very well be a reprint but if it is, I don’t know where from and would be delighted if someone told me the source and whether it was part of a series:


And if you thought International Street was the highlight of the 1976 SHIVER AND SHAKE holiday special, think again because the magazine also included Which Witch is Which? – a two-pager by no less than Mr. Ken Reid. We’ll probably never know if this was a test episode for a series that was never followed up, or perhaps something that Mr. Reid drew for his own enjoyment and the editor though it was too good not to be printed. Either way, it is an excellent set showing the master at his very best… 


6 comments:

  1. What a fantastic Ken Reid page! It's a pity there's no more, the storyline could work every week!

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  2. What a brilliant Ken Reid find...avertised your blog post of this..

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  3. I wonder if that Ken Reid strip was drawn for SPITFIRE, the proposed sixth 'Power Comic' that was shelved when IPC took charge of the Odhams titles? Some strips were definitely drawn for it, and it reached the dummy stage, but sadly never appeared.

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    1. I didn’t know that there was a proposed sixth Power comic! As for the strip, I think the style is more like that of Faceache from the mid-seventies than that of Mr. Reid’s work in the late 60s…

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    2. Yes, you may be right. Interesting that it looks like Ken did his own lettering on the strip. He used to pencil in all the lettering anyway, for the letterer to follow (usually David Gould in Odhams' case) but on this occasion it appears he did the whole job.

      It was Mike Higgs (of 'The Cloak' fame) who first told me about Spitfire. It was going to be more of a traditional comic, like Lion or Valiant, rather than like Wham, Smash, or Pow. (Which presumably meant it'd feature war and sports stories.) It was to feature some humour strips as well though, and Mike created and drew a new strip for it. As I said, it reached the dummy stage but then IPC started making changes at the company and the idea was binned.

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    3. It is all very interesting, Lew. I wonder what was that strip that Mike Higgs created for Spitfire and what became of it when the whole project was abandoned?

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