welcome and enjoy!

Hi and welcome to my blog about comics from other people’s childhood! It is dedicated primarily to British humour comics of the 60s and 70s. The reason they are not from my childhood is simply because I didn’t live in the UK back then (nor do I live there now). I knew next to nothing about them until fairly recently but since then I’ve developed a strong liking for the medium and amassed a large collection, including a number of complete or near complete sets. My intention is to use this blog as a channel for sharing my humble knowledge about different titles, favourite characters and creators as I slowly research my collection.

QUICK TIP: this blog is a sequence of posts covering one particular comic at a time. The sequence follows a certain logic, so for maximum results it is recommended that the blog is read from the oldest post up.

Copyright of all images and quotations used here is with their respective owners. Any such copyrighted material is used exclusively for educational purposes and will be removed at first notice. All other text copyright Irmantas P.



Tuesday, April 9, 2013

A LOOK AT SHIVER & SHAKE STRIPS: SCREAM INN (PART 4)


Rounding up this 4-part Scream Inn series, here is a page of Brian Walker’s original Scream Inn artwork for SHIVER AND SHAKE No. 62 (11th May, 1974). The piece is huge – it is four times the size of the printed page. The logo is a glossy photo print, so is the poster at the entrance, both glued to the paper. The logo has come off and there is the name of the author of the story idea written underneath, presumably by Mr. Walker himself. The stamp on the back shows issue number and date, alongside with the artist’s address and phone number.



In his interview for GOLDEN FUN Mr. Walker told the interviewer he took a long time over his work. He used a variety of nibs and preferred drawing on one sheet Bristol board that was virtually no thicker than paper. He liked it because it rolled up easily and he could get four or five pages rolled up inside a 1 ¼ inch plastic drain pipe in order to send them off to IPC. A friendly plumber kept pipe cut-offs for him. Here are some panels close-up for your enjoyment:



I wonder if any of my readers could enlighten me as to the dotting technique used by Mr. Walker to make grey shadows in his artwork? Looking at the printed version I assumed it was printwork but panels of the original page above suggest differently.

Saturday, April 6, 2013

A LOOK AT SHIVER & SHAKE STRIPS: SCREAM INN (PART THREE)



Here comes the second half of Scream Inn visitors’ book. For some weird reason the post with the first half is not showing in Google search. Here is the link for those of you who have missed it: Scream Inn visitors’ book Part One. Or you can simply scroll down to the older post.

Issue No. 41 December 15th, 1973 Gluemaker from Caerphilly
Issue No. 42 December 22nd, 1973 Secretary
Issue No. 43 December 29th, 1973 Good King Wenceslas (X-mas episode)


Issue No. 44 January 5th, 1974 Old Year who's supposed to be going out & Baby New Year
Issue No. 45 January 12th, 1974 Pantomime actress
Issue No. 46 January 19th, 1974 Bank manager
Issue No. 47 January 26th, 1974 Smelly tramp


Issue No. 48 February 2nd, 1974 Corporation Dustmen
Issue No. 49 February 9th, 1974 Injun Brave Lowawatha - Head Small Brother of Hiawatha
Issue No. 50 February 16th, 1974 Coward
Issue No. 51 February 23rd, 1974 Innkeeper tries to find a normal person to spend a night at Scream Inn. Fans of Brian Walker’s I Spy from SPARKY comic will recognise Chief reading the paper on the bus in the last panel of page one. This was a very unusuall episode, a kind of social satire:


Issue No. 52 March 2nd, 1974 Werewolf + This week's extra guest: Timothy Tester from Whizzer and Chips makes a guest appearance at Scream Inn (2 pages). This was quite a special issue because it had as many as four pages of Scream Inn – the regular 2-pager in the Shiver section and a 2-page set of Timothy Tester (guest-strip from Whizzer and Chips) in Shake. The latter set is of particular interest because the regular artist of Timothy Tester was Cliff Brown who was also the writer of Scream Inn. Thus, the set is a combined effort with Cliff Brown not only writing the script but also doing some of the artwork together with Brian Walker. Here is the first page of the set:


Issue No. 53 March 9th, 1974 Old-fashioned executioner
Issue No. 54 March 16th, 1974 Genie of the lamp
Issue No. 55 March 23rd, 1974 Laughing cavalier painting
Issue No. 56 March 30th, 1974 American fo0tballer
Issue No. 57 April 6th, 1974 School master
Issue No. 58 April 13rd, 1974 Fortune teller
Issue No. 59 April 20th, 1974 Baker
Issue No. 60 April 27th, 1974 A person of many disguises
Issue No. 61 May 4th, 1974 Gladiators - Stickum Innicus and Civitta Twisticus
Issue No. 62 May 11st, 1974 Skinny Scottish skeleton
Issue No. 63 May 18th, 1974 The Great Maro (conjurer)


Issue No. 64 May 25th, 1974 Innkeeper's uncle Obadiah
Issue No. 65 June 1st, 1974 Electric eel
Issue No. 66 June 8th, 1974 Wokingham witch
Issue No. 67 June 15th, 1974 Giant Numbskull of Norwich - the double-headed giant
Issue No. 68 June 22/1974 Long John Silver
Issue No. 69 June 29th, 1974 Bagpiper
Issue No. 70 August 3rd, 1974 Robin Hood
Issue No. 71 August 10th, 1974 Bertie Bedsheet (one of Scream Inn resident spooks)
Issue No. 72 August 17th, 1974 Scientist who makes crazy inventions


Issue No. 73 August 24th, 1974 Creepy Creation
Issue No. 74 August 31st, 1974 Eskimo hunter
Issue No. 75 September 7th, 1974 Madame Tussaud
Issue No. 76 September 14th, 1974 Queen


Issue No. 77 September 21st, 1974 Fisherman
Issue No. 78 September 28th, 1974 Keep fit expert
Issue No. 79 October 5th, 1974 A French onion seller