A LOOK AT SHIVER & SHAKE STRIPS: MALICE IN WONDERLAND

The 10-weeks period between two Eagle Eye stories (Shiver and Shake issues 32 – 41 (13 October, 1973 – 15 December, 1973)) was filled with another suspense serial Malice in Wonderland, this one illustrated by Ron Turner. The secret-agent yarn was different from other SHIVER AND SHAKE adventure stories so far because it didn’t offer readers a chance to win cash prizes.

Sammy Hunter and his father John Hunter travel to New York but Sammy’s long-awaited trip turns into a baffling and perilous adventure. Upon arrival in New York City Sammy soon finds out that his father is a British secret service agent rather than a carpet salesman as he has always thought, and that their holiday trip to America is in fact a ‘cover’. His father’s true mission is to deliver some top-secret vital information to American government. Armed enemy agents derail the original plan in the very first episode by killing John Hunter’s contact. As he breathes his last breath, the poor man tells John Hunter he should go to Wonderland – the biggest amusement park in the World, and deliver the information to a new contact but fails to identify him by name:

Chased by hostile agents, John Hunter wastes no time in getting to Wonderland. We soon find out that John Hunter’s pursuers are followers of Octopus – a weird mutant and string-puller whose sinister organisation is secretly headquartered in Wonderland… 

I will skip a number of perilous situations from which the Hunters make a narrow escape. As the story develops, the minions of Octopus capture John Hunter’s new contact. Octopus threatens to kill him unless John Hunter surrenders himself with the secret information. Being an experienced secret service agent, John Hunter quickly finds out where his colleague Brett Richards is being held prisoner and takes action:

Differently from Eagle Eye, in this story it is not the boy but the father who is sharp-eyed and observant. Ron Turner’s Sammy Hunter looks a bit too old to carry the plastic gun or be so excited about the rides in the amusement park, don’t you think?

A LOOK AT SHIVER & SHAKE STRIPS: EAGLE EYE

Eagle Eye continued the tradition of SHIVER AND SHAKE suspense and adventure features by offering readers a chance to follow the story and win some cash. It was a simple detective yarn with no magic or the supernatural involved. I am not sure who the illustrator was, although the style looks familiar. The two-page feature appeared in SHIVER section but the last episode of the second tale was in SHAKE.

Eagle Eye was the nick-name of the main character – a London school boy Tommy Trotter. The young man had a very sharp eye for spotting things that escaped other people’s attention and his powers of observation were remarkable.

There were two Eagle Eye stories in SHIVER AND SHAKE weeklies, the first ran in issues 24 to 31 (August 18 – October 6, 1973) and the second – in issues 42 to 51 (December 22, 1973 – February 23, 1974). Let’s take a quick look at both.

In the first story Tommy Trotter spotted something strange about a baker’s van, followed it and discovered it was used in a robbery. In the process of trying to get a better look at the criminals so that he could describe them to the police, the lad is captured by the gang and taken to a spooky old house where he is kept prisoner. The alert and observant boy doesn’t take long to find a way to escape and shake off his persecutors. He leads the police back to the old house and uses his extraordinary talents to help officers in recovering the loot and arresting the gangsters.

In every episode Tommy Trotter spotted an important clue and readers were encouraged to keep their eyes peeled for them because the clues were their chance to win a cash prize. This is the announcement that came after the last episode in issue 31:

The clues were revealed and names of the lucky prize-winners printed ten weeks later in issue 41 (December 15, 1973):

The second Eagle Eye story started next week in issue 42. This time we see Tommy travelling with his parents to a ski resort in Scotland. On the train he spots a suspicious pair and soon finds out that they are Professor Simon Dale, an atomic scientist from the Government research centre in Cambridge, who is held prisoner by an enemy agent Igor (ah, those Russians!). Igor plans to take the Professor to the West Coast where a foreign submarine will be waiting to ship him abroad and then force him to reveal top-secret information.  As the story develops over the weeks, the youngster not only saves the Professor but also sinks the enemy submarine and hands over the enemy agent and the submariners to the authorities.

Once again, the last instalment comes with an announcement of the Eagle Eye reward. Fifty 1-pound prizes were up for grabs by the readers who were able to answer a few (embarrassingly easy) questions:

Correct answers and prize-winners’ names were printed in issue 61 (4th May, 1974):

It looks like foreign spies and Igor’s accomplices did their best in trying to prevent readers of SHIVER AND SHAKE from following the second Eagle Eye story because weekly instalments of the feature were delayed on two occasions, necessitating the inclusion of the following notices by the Editor in issues 46 and 50:

It looks like the problems were post-related. The Editor urgently had to find something to fill the empty space with. This might be an explanation of the origins of a strange feature entitled ‘ED – That’s me, folks! It very much looks like something that was drawn and included at very short notice. ‘ED made only three appearances in SHIVER AND SHAKE weekly issues 46, 48 and 50. Note how two of the issues coincide with the Eagle Eye delays; I think this confirms the assumption that the strip was put together in a rush as an emergency space-filler. It is also found in a few SHIVER AND SHAKE annuals and holiday specials.

A nice episode of Eagle Eye was included in Shiver and Shake Annual 1975 where it was illustrated by the excellent Ron Turner; you can see the first page in my earlier post about the 1975 ShSh Annual.

TOM PATERSON'S CARTOON WORK IN SHIVER & SHAKE

The previous post on Grimly Feendish contained a number of examples of early work by Tom Paterson. In addition to the weekly strip about Grimly, Tom contributed illustrations to a few reader participation features, namely Cackles from the Cave, Mirth Shakers and Jokes section of Shake’s ‘editorial’ page. Since I am on the subject of Tom Paterson, it is a good excuse to say a few words about the features and show a few more examples of Tom’s early IPC work.

Cackles from the Cave started in the first issue of the paper as a half-pager in which Shiver promoted the reader participation features of his section and where some of readers’ jokes and other contributions were printed with illustrations by the paper’s artists. I am unsure about the name of the artist who was there from the first week (possibly Alf Saporito), and another one who joined in towards the end, but Tom Paterson started doing these illustrations from issue 24 (August 18, 1973), a few weeks before the appearance of his first Grimly Feendish set, and continued drawing them more or less regularly until the end of the paper’s run. This is the first installment of Cackles from the Cave with Tom's drawings:

Time for change came in the beginning of the 1974; in issue 48 (February 2, 1974) the feature was renamed Cackles Corner, but only for one week; starting from issue 49 and right up to the end of the run Cackles shared a page with Creations Runners Up, at first on a fifty-fifty basis, later as the dominant feature (in terms of space). Here are some examples:

The 'editorial’ page of SHAKE had as many as three columns crammed into it and jokes sent in by Shake fans was one of the elements. Some of them were text jokes, others were gag cartoons. Tom Paterson started drawing them in issue 25 (August 25, 1973) and continued pretty much regularly until the end:

Last but not least, Tom Paterson’s cartoons can be found in Mirth Shakers feature that appeared in full colour on the back cover of Shake section during 4 weeks in issues 28 to 31 (September 15 – October 6, 1973) and then in black and white from issue 63 (May 18, 1974) until the very end of the run. Here are some examples: