Grizzly Bearhug… Giant was a variation of the classic beanstalk tale.
In the opening episode we meet the Shorts who are driving in their car with a
caravan in tow. The car runs out of petrol so the parents go looking for some and
leave their two kids and the dog beside the car. When they return they find out
that a crooked witch has stolen the car but left the caravan and some beans
behind. The dog buries the beans under the caravan and the next thing the
Shorts know they are above the clouds atop a giant beanstalk. Their caravan
rolls through the gates of a castle and then somehow straight onto the table of
the ugly giant Grizzly Bearhug who lives there:
The sloppy and untidy giant is an ogre who hates ‘those
rotten tichy people and midget menaces’. He is very eager to have them for tea but the Smiths take
refuge in a hidey-hole behind the skirting board and spend the next 15 episodes
trapped in the castle, living the life of mice. They make several failed escape
attempts, outsmart Grizzly Bear a few times when the ogre plots to catch or
exterminate them, survive one or two attacks by Grizzly Bear’s giant cat and
raid the ogre’s larder.
They finally manage to escape from Grizzly Bear’s
castle in No. 17 but it takes them another two episodes to break completely
free from the kingdom of the ogres and make it safely to the ground where they
meet the evil witch and recover their stolen car.
The story lasted for 19 weeks in issues 1 – 19 and probably
wasn’t a hit with the readers because it was dropped very quickly (and rightly
so, IMHO). The illustrator was Andy Christine (as confirmed by signature in the
third episode). The artwork was rather crude, especially in the first few
episodes. The feature started as a three-pager in No. 1, then continued as a
two-pager until becoming 1 ½ pages long starting from No. 14 which also
marked the point when it was moved from the front of the paper to pages 30 – 31.
You've successfully introduced me to an IPC strip that I’d never heard of – a rare thing indeed! I looked at issues of MF in the now sadly closed Colindale Newspaper Library a year ago, but didn’t spot this character no matter how big he is. I think the problem was his name was silly – Grizzly obviously makes one think of bears, such as Teddy Scare. I suppose some credit should be given for originality of name, but he was really just a hulking ogre like any other. No great loss when he went.
ReplyDeleteNever liked this strip at the time, as you say it was too crudely drawn. And lets face it not patch on March of The Mighty Ones.
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