GHOSTLY GO ROUND FEATURE

Ghostly Go Round was an interesting feature in WHOOPEE! comic. As young readers gradually lost interest in the once-popular horror comedy genre (as confirmed by cancellation of such brilliant WHOOPEE! features as World-Wide Weirdies and Scream Inn/Spooktacular 7) and the Editor needed to clear space for new material, he came up with an idea of bringing four strips under one umbrella and rotating them in sequence. The strips that formed Ghostly Go Round were Evil Eye, Fun-Fear, Creepy Car and ‘Orrible Hole. The feature was launched in the first issue of 1979 and continued for slightly more than a year before all the four strips were put to rest one by one.

Ghostly Go Round required a new logo that could be used with all the 4 strips and the job was given to Ken Reid. He used the idea of Bob Nixon’s original Fun-Fear logo, made it spookier and squeezed the four main characters into the bottom left corner. The result wasn’t so great, IMHO. I think Bob Nixon’s old version was much better. Below are both logos side-by-side.

Here are the first appearances of the 4 strips in the heyday of WHOOPEE! comic. Evil Eye started in the very first issue of the paper:

… followed by Fun-Fear in the issue cover-dated 17 August, 1974:

… then Creepy Car on 12th October later that year (UPDATE: the strip was in fact an immigrant from SHIVER AND SHAKE where it had started nine weeks before the paper folded. The episode shown below is the first one in the combined Whoopee! and Shiver & Shake, hence the recap of the origins):

… and finally ‘Orrible Hole in the first issue of 1975 (cover-dated Jan 18 because the comic missed a few weeks due to industrial action at the junction of 1974/75):

A LOOK AT SHIVER & SHAKE STRIPS: CREEPY CAR

Advertisement in SHIVER AND SHAKE No. 70

Creepy Car was a motor ghost and the spirit of an old car that was sent to the scrapyard. Here is the first episode that tells us about its origins:

The car ghost that we know from the brief run in SHIVER AND SHAKE wasn’t one of those spooks that were fond of scaring people. It was a weak little phantom that saw no fun in being one because other cars would drive right through it so it was always in search for a quiet place where it wouldn’t be bothered. Being a ghost, it preferred to ‘park’ inside other vehicles. Needless to say, it always chose the wrong places.

Creepy Car was introduced in SHIVER AND SHAKE 71 and lasted for 9 weeks until the final issue. It was part of SHIVER. The illustrator was the excellent Reg Parlett. The strip made it to the combined new paper and enjoyed a long run in WHOOPEE!  until the first issue of 1980, first as a weekly strip, and from 1979 – as part of the Ghostly Go Round feature that was introduced as the popularity of the horror comedy genre began to fade and the weekly rotation of the once-popular strips Evil Eye, Fun Fear, Creepy Car and ‘Orrible Hole started.

Creepy Car is also the last on the list of 'proper' strips in SHIVER AND SHAKE which means that all of the paper’s features have now been accounted for in this blog! The next post will deal with the Star Guest feature and a few remaining bits and bobs, and then it I will turn to SHIVER AND SHAKE holiday specials and annuals.