WEEKLY OUTPUT – BRIAN WALKER

In this second part of the series covering the weekly output of humour comics artists as reflected in the various IPC comics cover-dated 30 March, 1974, let’s take a look at the pages by the excellent and inimitable Brian Walker. He drew a total of five pages – three can be found in Whoopee! (The Ghost Train) and two in Shiver and Shake (Scream Inn). 

Graham Allen is next in line!

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GUEST APPEARANCES AT SCREAM INN – SMILER

The series of guest appearances of fellow-Whoopee! characters in Scream Inn concludes with an episode featuring Smiler – the boy with a permanent smile. Drawn by Nick Baker, the character first appeared in 1976 in Whoopee! issue No. 102 (March 6, 1976) and ended in 1983 in issue No. 475 (June 25, 1983 – the last one before WHOOPEE! absorbed WOW!). 

Here is the two-pager, followed by the episode of Smiler from the same issue of WHOOPEE! Note how Brian Walker credited Nick Baker in the opening panel of Scream Inn. Quite unusual, isn't it? 

 

Scream Inn is a great strip and one of my favorite ones in British comics so I will surely return to it in the future…

GUEST APPEARANCES AT SCREAM INN – TOY BOY

Whoopee’s own favorite Toy Boy visited Scream Inn in Whoopee! issue cover-dated August 28th, 1976. As always, two pages of Scream Inn by the ever-excellent Brian Walker are followed by the episode of Toy Boy from that same issue. The artist is of course Terry Bave.

Now there’s only one installment of this series left in the pipeline. Can you guess who the star-guest might be? :) 

Blogger is still treating me poorly because the list of my favourite blogs that used to show on the right-hand side of this page is still missing and I have no idea how to restore it. I tried doing it manually but it still didn’t work. I find it quite annoying as I can’t conveniently visit my friends’ sites whenever I check in here. Any ideas how to fix this??

GUEST APPEARANCES AT SCREAM INN – BUMPKIN BILLIONAIRES

The filthy-rich Bumpkin Billionaires were among the least-likely candidates to show up at Scream Inn in hope to win a million. On the contrary – they worked hard every week devising crazy schemes to get rid of some of their enormous wealth they had won in the lottery in the first issue of WHOOPEE!

Nonetheless, they did appear in Scream Inn strip, but in the capacity of finance providers rather than guests of the haunted inn!

The comedy of Bumpkin Billionaires was that the family’s efforts to waste money inevitably backfired, making them even wealthier than before. That week they had to endure two disappointments – one in Scream Inn, illustrated by Brian Walker, and one in their own strip, illustrated by Mike Lacey. Both episodes are from Whoopee! issue No. 124 cover-dated 7th August, 1976. Enjoy!

GUEST APPEARANCES AT SCREAM INN – SWEENY TODDLER

The guest appearance at Scream Inn of Sweeny Toddler, the ‘orriblest kid in the World, in WHOOPEE! and SHIVER AND SHAKE cover-dated 6th December, 1975 (No. 89) was long overdue.

HERE is my article about the SHIVER AND SHAKE run of this strip, and HERE is another one about Sweeny’s return to the pages of WHOOPEE!

In this episode of Scream Inn Brian Walker even inserted some “side-jokes” in the margins - something Leo Baxendale used to do a lot when drawing Sweeny Toddler in SHIVER AND SHAKE and later in WHOOPEE!  Also, see if you can spot Snooper (a BUSTER character) hiding somewhere on these pages...

As always, here’s the character’s own strip from the same issue of the magazine. I believe Leo Baxendale had already stopped drawing the strip by then but I am unsure who the artist is -Mike Brown, or Tom Paterson, perhaps?