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.

A LOOK AT SHIVER & SHAKE STRIPS: SWEENY TODDLER

First episode from SHIVER AND SHAKE No. 1

Sweeny Toddler was a fiendish, demonic infant. His parents' house had a sign “Tremble with fear Sweeny lives here” (with the odd spelling error here and there) and Sweeny's cot had a skull drawn on it. The miniature monster always made a nuisance of himself. His hobby was playing practical jokes on other people and he was a constant source of trouble and embarrassment for his parents. The parents, however, often found crafty ways to control the pest. Some of Mom’s methods of bringing Sweeny to heel wouldn’t go down well with social services in today’s England, that’s for sure…

Sweeny Toddler started in the first edition of SHIVER AND SHAKE and appeared regularly until the very last issue missing 4 weeks in between (Nos. 17, 30, 71 and 75). Originally part of SHIVER section, it was moved to SHAKE starting from issue 73. The illustrator was Leo Baxendale, except in issues 14, 18, 38, 73 when the strip was drawn by another artist.

Sweeny Toddler was one of Leo Baxendale’s last creations during his career in comics and therefore received a couple of passages in his book A VERY FUNNY BUSINESS. Mr. Baxendale recalls drawing the first Sweeny Toddler page on the first day of January 1973. The title was suggested by Bob Paynter but Mr. Baxendale created the character, wrote the scripts and drew the pages. This was the time when the artist was consciously downsizing his output and was determined to leave the world of comics at the earliest opportunity, he was just waiting for it to come along. In the meantime he was writing and drawing 4 ½ pages a week – Swots and the Blots, Clever Dick, Sweeny Toddler and Nellyphant. He also tells about the time he spent pencilling and inking his sets. Sweeny Toddler took 6 ½ hours in January 1974 but then Mr. Baxendale looked for ways to improve on his times and one month later he was able to cut the time down by 45 minutes. He also recalls the exact date when he agreed with Bob Paynter that he was giving up Sweeny Toddler to concentrate single-mindedly on his Badtime Bedtime Books in the new Monster Fun Comic. The date was 29th April, 1975 although he did draw just one more set to give the editor time to fix up another artist for the feature. Taking in mind production times, this means the last Sweeny Toddler by Leo Baxendale was printed in Whoopee! one month later, i.e. approx. early in June 1975.

Although in his book Leo Baxendale described Sweeny Toddler as a fiendish and demonic infant, the Sweeny of Leo Baxendale in SHIVER AND SHAKE was an angel in comparison with his later self in Whoopee and Whizzer and Chips when Tom Paterson got a hang of his manic style. Here are some covers by way of example:

Sweeny Toddler outlived all his original stablemates by a good margin and was SHIVER AND SHAKE’s biggest legacy to British comics. It survived merger with Whoopee! in 1974 (albeit not by way of direct transfer, but rather by way of becoming the winner of Pick-A-Strip competition). Eleven years further down the line it made a successful transfer to Whizzer and Chips, and retained his front cover star status. When Whizzer and Chips was no more, the strip continued for some time in the pages of Buster, although it remains to be checked for how long. Here is the last episode from SHIVER AND SHAKE No. 79 (October 5th, 1974):

Sweeny Toddler made one guest appearance in the Star Guest feature in COR!! No. 191 (26th January, 1974). As far as I can tell, it is Tom Paterson's very first attempt at drawing the character: