welcome and enjoy!

Hi and welcome to my blog about comics from other people’s childhood! It is dedicated primarily to British humour comics of the 60s and 70s. The reason they are not from my childhood is simply because I didn’t live in the UK back then (nor do I live there now). I knew next to nothing about them until fairly recently but since then I’ve developed a strong liking for the medium and amassed a large collection, including a number of complete or near complete sets. My intention is to use this blog as a channel for sharing my humble knowledge about different titles, favourite characters and creators as I slowly research my collection.

QUICK TIP: this blog is a sequence of posts covering one particular comic at a time. The sequence follows a certain logic, so for maximum results it is recommended that the blog is read from the oldest post up.

Copyright of all images and quotations used here is with their respective owners. Any such copyrighted material is used exclusively for educational purposes and will be removed at first notice. All other text copyright Irmantas P.



Showing posts with label Damsel in Distress. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Damsel in Distress. Show all posts

Saturday, May 4, 2013

A LOOK AT SHIVER & SHAKE STRIPS: DAMSEL IN DISTRESS


Turning the page, we enter the zone of a few not-so-interesting strips that occupied the remaining pages of SHAKE section in the first issue of the magazine, and Damsel in Distress is first in line. There is nothing really wrong with them, it’s just that they are a little bit too traditional for my taste :) 

As the title suggests, the feature exploited the theme of a Fair Maiden imprisoned in a high tower surrounded by a deep moat, and her wannabe rescuer noble Sir Knight whose rescuing schemes always failed and sent him ‘back to ye drawing board’. The Knight’s nagging steed was the third recurring character who didn’t think much of his master’s ‘stupid efforts’ to save ‘that wailing woman’. 


Damsel in Distress started in SHIVER AND SHAKE No. 1 and continued until the first issue of 1974 (No. 44). The regular illustrator was Trevor Metcalfe who appears to have taken a few weeks’ break in the Autumn of 1973 when the strip was either not included at all or drawn by other artists who I think were Les Barton, Terry Bave and Robert Nixon. It is difficult to tell for sure because illustrations in the episodes are rather basic (mostly buildings, trees and a bloke in a coat of armour – nothing much to go by). The strip missed 7 weeks during its run and was not included in issues 21, 24, 29, 31, 33, 34 and 36.