A LOOK AT SHIVER & SHAKE STRIPS: MOANA LISA

Moana Lisa was a strip about a bad-tempered girl who could always be trusted to find something to moan about. She moaned even about Shiver and Shake because there was nothing in it to moan about! The moaner and griper gave everyone around her a hard time so it’s not surprising she wasn’t exactly popular with other people. What I find a bit surprising is that the strip enjoyed such a long run from the first to the penultimate edition of the paper (missing issue Nos. 32, 53, 55, 63, 72, 73). Was Moana Lisa popular because readers of SHIVER AND SHAKE hated her so much that they liked to see her come off worst in the end every week?

The artist was Peter Davidson (except in issues 42, 44, 51 and 56 when someone else stepped in for him) who included his self-portrait in issue No. 62:

Initially the strip was on the back page of SHAKE section and had full-colour privileges. This lasted until Issue No. 34 except in issues 29-33 when Moana Lisa turned b/w and was moved to the inside of SHAKE for a while. After issue 34 the changes became permanent.

A LOOK AT SHIVER & SHAKE STRIPS: SAMPLE SIMON

Sample Simon was a strip that had one of the shortest runs in SHIVER AND SHAKE. As the title suggests, Simon was always eager to take free trial offers and try out free samples or goods he got on approval. Simon sampled Fixo glue, a 100-volume handyman’s encyclopedia, a parachute, an unbreakable tea set, Cleanso vanishing cream, Fizzo lemonade powder, Strongo strength potion, cement mixer, carpet shampoo, etc.

The strip ran in SHIVER AND SHAKE issues 1 to 21 and failed to appear in No. 17. The artwork was rather sketchy and unimpressive to my eye. I don’t know the artist’s name.

 

A LOOK AT SHIVER & SHAKE STRIPS: JAIL BIRDS

Jail Birds was another short-lived strip about a cat and two caged budgies, both of whom were named Bluey.  The cat kept the two birds hoping to fatten them up for his Christmas dinner. He made no effort to hide his plans from the budgies and jailbreak was the only way for them to avoid the fate. They tried everything but luck was always against them, no matter how sophisticated the escape plots were. 

Jail Birds started in the first edition of SHIVER AND SHAKE and continued until No. 36 missing 6 issues in between (Nos. 10, 18, 21, 23, 24, 28). The illustrator’s name is unknown to me.

I expected the series to end with a spectacular break into freedom at Christmas (or maybe with the cat and the budgies becoming buddies), but the story was put to rest quite abruptly 7 weeks before the Holidays when the cat decided he didn’t want to wait any more and declared that today was Xmas day on his calendar. Under the circumstances, any escape plan had to work or else the young reader would have been faced with a disturbing ending... Did the writer run out of jailbreak ideas or was the feature doing poorly in the popularity charts – we’ll never know for sure. Here is the last episode from SHIVER AND SHAKE No. 36 (November 1oth 1973):