1974: A LOOK AT THE SECOND (AND FINAL) YEAR OF SHIVER AND SHAKE

36 issues (Nos. 44 - 79) of the comic were published in 1974.

Important issues in 1974:

5th January, 1974 (No. 44) – New Year issue

9th March, 1974 (No. 53) – 1st birthday celebration issue, first Frankie Stein cover, part one of pull-out booklet

16th March (No. 54) – part two of pull-out booklet

23rd March (No. 55) – part three of pull-out booklet

30th March (No. 56) – part four of pull-out booklet

20th April (No. 59) – Easter fun issue

5th October (No. 79) – last issue

IMHO, front cover of 1974 New Year issue
deserves a place in the gallery of the worst
covers in the history of UK comics

Buyers of the 1974 New Year edition of Shiver and Shake should have immediately noted the difference because the number of pages was cut by four (from 36 to 32), formally at the expense of Shiver section. I say formally, because regular features from the comic’s spooky Shiver section (such as Webster, The Hand, Grimly Feendish and Sweeny Toddler) started migrating back and forth between the two sections of the comic. At the same time, Frankie Stein, the paper’s most popular feature from Shiver section, was given three full pages (in fact, the first Frankie Stein three-pager was in the Christmas edition the week before). The changes called for some serious space re-arrangement. Damsel in Distress and Wizards Anonymous were discontinued from the second issue of the year; Cackles and Creations Runners Up features ended up sharing one page:

The next major change took effect starting from 1st Birthday Celebration Issue (No. 53 dated 9th March, 1974) when Frankie Stein was promoted to the front page, permanently ousting the lovable spook and tusker pair. There was no room for The Match of the Week left in the revamped paper – one of the comic’s highlights made its last appearance in issue 52 (2nd March, 1974) the week before. The first four editions of Frankie’s front cover stardom were celebrated with a pull-out booklet entitled Frankie Stein’s Mini Monster Comic Book. In those first front-cover editions Frankie Stein came close to taking the comic over: he had the front cover and as many as three inside pages in issues 53 – 55 (that’s in addition to the front and back pages of the mini book in issue 53) whereas in issue 56 he had the front cover, two inside pages and all eight pages of the minibook devoted to him. Not to mention regular appearances in the Shiver Givers feature. Later on things settled down and Frankie’s weekly adventures were restricted to the front cover and two inside pages. Bob Nixon did an excellent job illustrating the feature. Here are some nice covers from the period: 

Pages of the pull-out booklet tend to be missing in Shiver and Shake issues 53 – 56 (March 9th - March 30th, 1974) but are well-worth seeking out because in addition to Frankie Stein they contain some nice mini-pin-ups of popular characters from the paper (Grimly Feendish, The Innkeeper, freaks of Horrornation Street and The Ed from Shiver Givers)...

... and as many as 4 pages of Ken Reid’s art – two Mini Monsters and two pages of Your Horrorscope:

 

The usual SHAKE section with the full-colour Shake strip on the cover disappeared in issue 53 to make room for the Frankie Stein pull out booklet but when it resumed in issue 57 it wasn’t as it used to be. The Editors probably decided to stop taking the two-comics-in-one gimmick seriously because the invitation to remove SHAKE section from the comic was gone, as was the date and IPC copyright notice on the cover of the section and Shake’s head with the speech balloon containing the weekly Elephant Joke. Here are both versions of SHAKE section front covers side by side:

They must have forgotten to allocate a new slot for Elephant Jokes because although Shake still trumpeted they were his favourites and encouraged readers to send them in, the jokes didn’t resume until issue No. 63 (May 18th, 1974) when the layout of Shake a Leg page was reshuffled to accommodate all 3 reader participation features (Mirth-Shaking Inventions and answers, Jokes and Trunk Call (letters section); here’s an example:

In July of 1974 Shiver and Shake fell victim to strike action by IPC’s printers and no issues of the paper came  out in the four weeks of the month. No explanation of the reasons that led to the interruption was offered when publication resumed in August. I find this rather strange, especially bearing in mind that earlier the editors saw it necessary to explain the absence of instalments of a weekly feature (Eagle Eye) by publishing these messages:

Back page of the last issue of
Shiver and Shake.
Note No. 79 - the number represents
the actual number of weekly issues

The gap in July is confirmed by two clues: one is the numbering of Creepy Creations on the back page (The Monster Map of England and Wales in the issue dated June 29th, 1974 is No. 69, whereas No. 70, The Rumbling Raspberry from Rustington, appears in the issue with the cover date of August 3rd, 1974, this suggests there were no Creepy Creations on the four dates in between), and two is the successive episodes of Menace of the Alpha Man (in the issue dated June 29th, 1974 the caption under the episode urges not to miss the exciting final instalment of the story next week, and that final episode can be found in the issue of August 3rd, 1974). Hence, although the paper continued for 83 weeks, only 79 weekly issues were published.

 As a possible compensation, the first issue after the interruption announced that two super new stories of the horror comedy variety were to start next week, they were Creepy Car and The Ghoul Getters. Alongside with the paper’s long-running top features Frankie Stein, Scream Inn, Webster and Lolly Pop and one recent addition (Blunder Puss), the two new stories eventually joined the lineup of Whoopee! when the two comics merged.

Front cover of the last issue

Funtastic news was broken in the issue with the cover date of 5th October, 1974 and the first combined edition with the clumsy name of WHOOPEE! and Shiver & Shake appeared a week later. Surprisingly (for me), neither Grimly Feendish nor Sweeny Toddler made it to the “new” magazine. Both entered the Pick-A-Strip competition (alongside with Shiver and Shake’s Desert Fox, 4 strips from Whoopee’s original roster and one new strip) that ran in the first combined issues of WHOOPEE! and Shiver & Shake. Readers voted for Sweeny Toddler. That's how the strip became a regular in WHOOPEE! and eventually turned out to be the longest survivor of Shiver and Shake’s original characters.

Centre pages of the last number of Shiver and Shake announcing 'Funtastic News"

Front page of the last pre-merger issue of Whoopee!

Centre pages of the last pre-merger issue of Whoopee!
with the 'Funtastic News' announcement. Note this is an inverted image of the
drawing from the centre pages of the last Shiver and Shake

Front cover of the first combined issue of
Whoopee! and Shiver & Shake

WHOOPEE! AND SHIVER & SHAKE continued under the title for a little over a year until 18th October, 1975 before the Shiver & Shake part was dropped all together. Shiver and Shake Holiday Specials appeared until 1980 and the last Shiver and Shake annual was published in 1985 (cover dated 1986).

ATLANTIC CROSSING - PART TWO

Before travelling to San Francisco, I googled for information about the famous underground comics scene of the early 70s and found this article.

I took metro street car line J from Downtown to Church/24th St station and spent a couple of hours in Mission District (the epicentre of action in the late 60s and the early 70s) looking for the places indicated on this map of underground comix artists and companies during the early seventies:

Below are my pictures of the spots marked on the map. It shows no house numbers but the map was quite easy to read and I hope I managed to capture the right buildings.

No. 1 marks the place of Roger Brand (contributor to Banzai!, Blab!, Candid Press, Insect Fear, Real Pulp Comics, Tales of the Leather Nun, Tales of Sex and Death, Yellow Dog and Young Lust; view Lambiek Comicopedia entry here) and Michelle Brand: 

No. 2: Apex Novelties operated by Don Donahue (publishers of Zap Comix, Snatch Comics, Terminal Comics and Mr. Natural among many others). The building that housed them was somewhere in the middle of this street:

 

No. 3: Bill Griffith (best known for his daily comic strip Zippy; view Lambiek Comiclopedia entry here) & Diane Noomin (best known for her character Didi Glitz; check out her website here) and Willy Murphy (producer of a series of comics called SF Underground Comix; view Lambiek Comiclopedia entry here):

 

No. 4: Ted Richards (check out Lambiek Comiclopedia entry here ) and Teresa “Terry” Richards (view Lambiek Comiclopedia entry here):

No. 5: S.F. Comic Book Co – America’s first specialised comic book shop operated by Gary Arlington who was the key figure in the underground comics movement of the 1960s and 1970s. The shop in Mission District at 3339 23rd Street was a focal point for the Bay Area's underground artists:

 

No. 6:  Trina Robbins – one of the few female artists in underground comics when she started, wife of Kim Deitch. She contributed to such publications as East Village Other, Gothic Blimp Works, It Ain't Me, Babe Comix, Swift Comics, Wimmen's Comix, etc.). Later she was the artist co-creator of Vampirella. Check out her website here):

No. 7: Jay Kinney (a member of the original Bijou Funnies crew; check out Lambiek Comiclopedia entry here), Leslie Cabarga (contributor to Real Pulp Comics, Comix Book):

 

No. 8: Joe Schenkman (collaborator on Arcade: The Comics Revue):

No. 9: Art Spiegelman (author of Maus, view Lambiek Comiclopedia entry here), Justin Green (author of the 1972 comic book Binky Brown Meets the Holy Virgin Mary; view Lambiek Comiclopedia entry here),  Shary Flenniken, prominent contributor to National Lampoon, check out her website here) and Bobby London, creator of Dirty Duck, view Lambiek Comiclopedia entry here):

No. 10: Gary Arlington (operator of S.F. Comic Book Co, see No. 5) and Kim Deitch, one of the key figures in underground cartooning, referred to by some as one of the godfathers of American underground comics (view Lambiek Comiclopedia entry here):

No. 11: John Bagley’s Company & Sons – publishers of underground comics:

 

Last but not least, here are two pictures of the building that once was the headquarters for Rip Off Press, publishers of Gilbert Shelton’s Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers, Fat Freddy’s Cat and other famous series. The address is 1250 17th Street in San Francisco. It is not on the map because it is located in the industrial area in a different part of the city. The building is now occupied by a company that sells bookbinding supplies and model making materials: 

ATLANTIC CROSSING - PART ONE

In case anyone was wondering about absence of posts over the last couple of weeks, the reason is that I was away travelling overseas. By coincidence, my travels included two major comics cities of America so I thought I might very well spend some of my free time there doing what people don’t normally do and try to see some of the buildings that used to house major publishers of comic books in the USA. Today Google Street View offers anyone who cares a possibility to see everything online but I thought taking a glance first-hand would be more fun. In an ideal World some smart tour operator might put together a special tour for the niche market of comic book fans. And get a dozen or so nutters a year to sign up…

My first stop was in the fine city of New York that was home to more comic book publishers than any other place in the world. I saw a few places there.

Here is the front entrance and a couple of pictures of 330 West 42nd Street that housed executive offices of Marvel Comics in the very early days of the company from October 1939 until Summer 1942:

Ace Comics (renowned as the publisher of Ace Comics #11 with the first appearance of The Phantom, the first-ever costumed hero that led to the Golden Age of superheroes in comics, and publisher of titles like Baffling Mysteries, Super-Mystery Comics, Web of Mystery, etc., etc.) had their editorial and executive offices at 23 West 47th Street between August 1947 and June 1956. The building sits in the middle of what is now (and what has probably always been) the Diamond District in Midtown a few steps from Times Square: 

Between 1946 and July 1954 the famous Entertaining Comics, commonly known as EC Comics (publisher of Crime Suspenstories, Tales from the Crypt, The Vault of Horror, Weird Fantasy, Mad magazine, etc.), had their editorial and executive offices at 225 Lafayette St. at the intersection with Spring, bordering Little Italy. I remember reading somewhere that the company was on the 7th floor. There is a subway station directly under the building and the posh corner entrance is to a 24-hour pharmacy. Chic interior of the pharmacy makes one think it used to be a lobby of a bank or maybe a small railway station hall. Today the building houses luxury $ 13,000 per month condominiums, some advertisements with photos can be found on the web if you google the address. Here are some pictures of the building that I took during my self-guided “tour”:

 

145 East 32nd Street became the second and permanent New York City home to Warren Publishing (Creepy, Eerie, Vampirella, etc.) when the company relocated from Philadelphia in the sixties:

My next post will include images of some important locations of the underground comix scene in San Francisco during the early seventies. I hope to resume my Shiver and Shake series soon afterwards.