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?

GUEST APPEARANCES AT SCREAM INN – EVIL EYE

The next WHOOPEE! fellow-character to turn up at Scream Inn was the wicked Evil Eye. Illustrated by Reg Parlett, the character was part of the original WHOOPEE! lineup since the very first issue of the comic. The Scream Inn and the Evil Eye episodes shown below are from WHOOPEE! & SVIVER ND SHAKE No. 75 with the cover date of 30th August, 1975. 

I hope you are enjoying this series of guest appearances, and there are a few more left, including Sweeny Toddler, the Bumpkin Billionaires (this bunch actually hoped to get rid of some of their wealth rather that win the measly million offered by Innkeeper & Co), Toy Boy, and Smiler, so be sure to come back soon to see them!

GUEST APPEARANCES AT SCREAM INN – SCARED-STIFF SAM

In the last episode of Scream Inn with a guest appearance of another Whoopee! character that I showed some three weeks ago the resident spooks hoped for Scared-Stiff Sam…

They had to deal with ‘Orrible Hole instead that time, but sure enough, the forever-scared 'clumsy great jollop' was the next Whoopee! character to have a go at the prize of one million pounds in the issue of Whoopee! & Shiver and Shake cover-dated August 2nd, 1975.

As always, the images below show that week’s episode of Scream Inn, followed by the strip where the guest character appears in his normal setting. Four pages by two excellent artists Brian Walker and Mike Lacey. It’s British comics at their very best, as far as I am concerned! Enjoy! 

GHOUL GETTERS LTD. TURN GHOST GETTERS

It’s time I took a break from the alternating routine of SPARKY/The Moonsters and Scream Inn  and did something else I enjoy in my quest of researching British comics. 

The theme of this post was suggested by Stephen Archer – a long-time friend of this blog. When commenting on my 2013 article about Ghoul Getters Ltd. (a SHIVER & SHAKE strip that made a jump to WHOOPEE! AND SHIVER & SHAKE when the two papers were merged in 1974) he mentioned reprints in 1984/1985 WHIZZER AND CHIPS with nice alterations to original artwork. 

It’s not often that you find those done nicely, so when Stephen mentioned them to me for the first time, I suspected they might be new material by Trevor Metcalfe (whom I’m also proud to have in my followers list). I only have two issues of WHIZZER AND CHIPS with the reprints (Stephen thinks they ran from 24/11/84 till 23/3/85) but having pulled out my WHOOPEE! collection, I soon found that Stephen was right and they were indeed reprinted from the WHOOPEE! run.

My original article mentions similarities between Ghoul Getters Ltd. (1974) and the American supernatural film Ghostbusters (1984). When the film was released and became a blockbuster in 1984, it was only natural for IPC to revive Ghoul Getters Ltd., renamed as Ghost Getters, in one of their comics. IPC also made sure the heroes were more ‘Ghostbuster-like’, hence alterations and additions (Dad wears a crash helmet and Arnold’s cap has an aerial, etc.). Check out two samples of the two versions below. What do you think of the alterations?