1981 SHIVER & SHAKE ANNUAL

1981 SHIVER AND SHAKE Annual came with a price tag of £ 1,50 and was 128 pages thick.

Contents: Sweeny Toddler (6 sets by Tom Paterson), Webster (3 episodes, probably by Artie Jackson), Lolly Pop (2 sets by Sid Burgon, one reprint and one new), Blunder Puss (by Jim Crocker), TheChumpions (3 reprints from COR!!, art by Peter Davidson), The Ghost’s Revenge (by Jim Crocker), Horrornation Street (a 3-pager by Tom Williams), The Forest Legion (a 6-pager),Ghouldilocks (by Tom Williams),  The Duke’s Spook (by Tom Williams), Shake (by Terry Bave), The Ghoul Guides (2 sets by an unknown artist), Grimly Feendish (a 4-pager by Paul Ailey, signed, and a reprint from SMASH!), Robby Hood (reprint from COR!!, art by Ron Turner), X-word (crossword), Wizard Prang and Demon Druid (2 episodes, possibly  new sets by Mike Brown), Sports School, Ghoul Getters Ltd (by Tom Williams), ‘Orrible Hole (by Les Barton), The Fixer, Shiver and Shake Spot the Difference (2 installments using front covers of old SHIVER AND SHAKE weeklies); Frankie Stein (two reprints from Shiver and Shake weeklies), Dodgem Game, Octopus Maze, Tough Nutt and Softy Centre (a 4-pager and a 2-pager by Norman Mansbridge, possibly reprints), Toby’s Timepiece (7 pages), Moana Lisa (2 sets, including one by Peter Davidson), The Hand (by Tom Williams), The Desert Fox (by Terry Bave), Moving House (7 pages by Steve Bell), Shiver (by Terry Bave).

Tom Williams contributed eleven pages of Horrornation Street, Ghouldilocks, The Duke’s Spook, Ghoul Getters Ltd. and The Hand. I think it is the first time that Tom Williams was asked to draw Ghoul Getters Ltd:

All 6 sets of Sweeny Toddler are by Tom Paterson. They are either reprints of the episodes from WHOOPEE!, or possibly new material drawn especially for this Annual. Here is one:

In the new episode of the Forest Legion Boss and Butch have a clever plan how to sneak into Lord Stately’s home and rob the Lord. The plan involves joining the Lord’s hunting party, bagging a fox and getting invited into the house. Needless to say, the legionnaires derail the plan once again.

The episode of Shake is interesting in the sense that it plays the theme of the old and long-forgotten rivalry between Shiver and Shake. I wonder how many readers of the Annual still remembered the times when the comic was a two-in-one package, like Whizzer and Chips… 

The Ghoul Guides is the only new strip included in this Annual. It tells the adventures of two scout guides who are in fact young witches. In the first tale they try to earn their medical badge and in the second – their needlework badge. Illustrator unknown.

Grimly Feendish thinks of another smart scheme how to rob people’s homes at Christmas: his Carol singers make such a horrid row that Grimly easily sells his soundproof ear-muffs to the annoyed citizens. Now he is free to break into their house as they sleep because they can’t hear anything. On his way out Grimly runs into Father Christmas, accidentally knocks him down and comes up with an idea to rob every house in town disguised as Santa. The tale becomes completely surreal towards the end when it turns out that a lot of the story was in fact Grimly’s dream… or was it not??? Artwork by Paul Ailey.

The second set of Grimly Feendish looks like a reprint. In it the crook takes up collecting stamps and has a go at the famous penny green…

In the episode of Toby’s Timepiece, Toby trips on his long Doctor Who scarf and finds himself centuries back in time where he gets to meet a greedy time-thief – a villainous scientist from the future who has built a time machine to travel back in time and steal treasures from medieval knights. The knights take Toby for the time-thief’s accomplice but the boy returns them their treasure. Furious, the scientist transports Toby with him to his own time in the future where Toby is taken into custody by the scientist’s robots. In a strange and unconvincing twist of the plot Toby persuades the robots that the Professor has to be arrested for possession of unauthorized valuables that are the spoils of his many raids into the past…

The last new strip I would like to cover is the second installment of Moving House by Steve Bell (the first appeared in the 1980 Shiver and Shake Annual). This time the Hardy family start all over again, as if the first episode had never happened – they are still unaware that the old grandfather clock in the attic is in fact a time machine and turning its hands means time-travel, house and all… The family are on their way to the circus, what they don’t realize is that the time machine has transported them to ancient Rome so they find themselves in Circus Maximus where they have a narrow escape from being run over in a horse chariot race. They escape from Circus Maximus to the relative safety of their house but the restless Grandpa turns the hands of the clock once again and the house lands in the Middle Ages where Grandpa is seized by a mean baron. Luckily for him, the same baron later challenges one of the Hardy boys to a joust, and is defeated. The Hardys return back home and reckon that the clock must be some sort of time machine. In the end, they get back to the 20th century just in time for the circus performance…

There are quite a few reprints in the Annual. I’ll mention two: Robby Hood is a reprint of the third story of Robby Hood and His One Man Band that ran in COR!! from 13th February until 27th March, 1971 (issue Nos. 37 – 43). You can read my account of the story HERE.

There are two reprints of Frankie Stein from old SHIVER AND SHAKE weeklies:  a 3-page ballet set from SHIVER AND SHAKE No. 51 cover dated February 23rd, 1974, art by Robert Nixon (one of the best sets by Mr. Nixon, IMHO), and a 2 ¾-pager from SHIVER AND SHAKE No. 54 cover-dated March 16th, 1974, art by Frank McDiarmid (an excellent energy-packed episode in which Prof. Cube invents a special high-pitched dog whistle that makes Frankie believe he is a dog). Here are sample pages from the two sets:

Overall, this is quite an unimpressive package to my eye.

1980 SHIVER & SHAKE HOLIDAY SPECIAL

1980 SHIVER AND SHAKE Holiday Special was the last Sh&Sh Holiday special, it cost 45 p. and had 64 pages.

CONTENTS: Horrornation Street (a 4-pager by Tom Williams), The Chumpions (3 reprints from COR!!, art by Peter Davidson), Lolly Pop (most likely a reprint, artwork by Sid Burgon), Sweeny Toddler (looks like a reprint, art by Leo Baxendale), Percy the Peacemaker (2 reprints), Wizard Prang and Demon Druid in Wiz War (new, a 4-pager, possibly by Martin Baxendale), Sports School (by Jim Watson in full colour, signed), Shiver (by Terry Bave), Shake (by Terry Bave), Freddie Fang the Werewolf Cub (4 reprints from COR!!, including one in full colour on the back page, art by Reg Parlett), Frankie Stein (a 6-pager by Jogn Geering and a 4-pager by Brian Walker), Mirth-Shakes (2 pages of gags), A Fright Seeing Tour of London full-colour poster by Ken Reid, Blunder Puss (by Jim Crocker), Ghoul Getters Ltd (by Russel Brooke, signed), Toby’s Timepiece (a 5-pager), Monstermind puzzles, Ghouldilocks (by Tom Williams in full colour), The Duke’s Spook (by Tom Williams), The Desert Fox (by Terry Bave), Grimly Feendish (2 ½ pages by Paul Ailey and two shorts, possibly reprints), What’s Your Line? (a strip without speech balloons)‘Orrible Hole (by Jim Crocker).

If you get a feeling that you’ve seen the cover of this Holiday Special on another comic, that’s because the idea is borrowed from an old SHIVER AND SHAKE weekly. At least it is not a lazy reprint, besides, Mike Lacey has given it a new seaside holidays twist. Here is the old comic:

Tom Williams illustrated as many as three different strips in this edition. He drew Ghouldilocks 

...and The Duke’s Spook, 

... and that's in addition to his usual Horrornation Street, in which instead of going to the beach, residents of Horrornation Street have Hoodoo Voodoo (not Yoodoo…) arrange for the beach and the sea to come to them:

I think it is the first time that a new episode of Wizard Prang and Demon Druid was commissioned after long years of reprints. Would I be right in saying that Mike Brown who was the strip's regular illustrator in POW! and SMASH! is the artist? Here is the first page of the set:

There were two episodes of Frankie Stein in this Holiday Special, each by a different artist. In the set illustrated by John Geering Prof. Cube enters Frankie in the round-the-world yacht race, hoping that he will perish in a storm. It looks like seamen haven’t seen anything as monstrous as Frankie since the days when the Beano’s Jonah roamed the seas twenty years ago... Frankie sets his own boat on fire when he tries to fry himself some sausages, then he scares the crew off a posh yacht and finds himself in the zone of naval war games, sinks an indestructible destroyer, petrifies a vicious-looking killer whale, navigates it to the finish and wins the race. Too bad Prof. Cube has to pay all the damages and they both are sent to jail:

Frankie and Prof. Cube do some extreme driving
on their way to the wedding...

In the second story, the first in a Shiver and Shake Holiday Special or Annual to be illustrated by Brian Walker, Prof. Cube gets an idea to get rid of Frankie by having him marry and move away so he builds a monster bride to suit Frankie’s taste. Prof. Cube runs into a problem when he realizes that she doesn’t fancy Frankie. He adjusts a few screws in her head and programs her to fall in love with the first face she sees. As Prof. Cube’s luck goes, Frankie shows up with a copy of the Evening Post that has a large photo of Prof. Cube on the front page. We’ll never know how the unfortunate inventor got out of this scrape… 

Ghoul Getters Ltd. are called to take care of a ghostly knight who has nabbed a donkey and trampled all the sandcastles on the beach. The two-pager is illustrated and signed by Russel Brooke whose style I find very appealing. Can anyone tell me where I can find more of his art? A quick Google search returned nothing but he is very much my kind of artist…

In Toby’s Timepiece Toby finds himself in the future where he meets a loony scientist and his robot assistants. The scientist believes that his robot medical team will make human doctors out of date because each of his mechanical creations has the knowledge of fifty surgeons built into their circuits. He tries to prove his genius to the authorities by sending his robots to help the crew of a crash-landed spacecraft but it turns out that the robots only care about other robots, not humans. At first the scientist appears to be the usual obsessed villain but surprisingly he goes straight and admits his mistakes. He even gives Toby a new pair of roller skates as an apology and a sign of gratitude for helping him see his erroneous ways.

In the Grimly Feendish episode by Paul Ailey Grimly accidentally finds out that all policemen are on a cop shop outing at the beach and realizes that with no cops in town, he has free hands to commit all the crimes he wants. He uses air balloons in hope to escape abroad with a carful of loot but seagulls disrupt the plan and he lands in the middle of the cop shop outing… The other two Grimly Feendish episodes have the format of a newspaper strip and may be reprints:

To me, the biggest treat is A Fright Seeing Tour of London full colour poster by Ken Reid featuring some of his very best World-Wide Weirdies from the famous series in WHOOPEE!  By the time the 1980 SHIVER AND SHAKE special came out, the series had already ended, so this is the last non-reprint set of World-Wide Weirdies by Ken Reid. In the Autumn of 2007 the original artwork was offered by Compal Auctions (Indian ink on cartridge paper. 19 x 12 ins), with the winner paying £611.

 

This is where I’ll close the last chapter of SHIVER AND SHAKE Holiday Specials. You can go through the whole SHIVER AND SHAKE specials sequence by clicking HERE or by choosing the SHIVER AND SHAKE Holiday Specials label in the column on the right.

Shiver and Shake series will continue because there is still a good supply of Annuals left :)