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.



Monday, July 22, 2013

A LOOK AT SHIVER & SHAKE STRIPS: THE GHOST'S REVENGE




The main character of the strip was another ghostly headless cavalier with a ball and chain. I’ve lost count of them in the SHIVER AND SHAKE – I think it was the fourth of maybe fifth strip in the paper that he featured in.


This one had a grudge against Bloggs family because their ancestor Sebastian Blogg of Cockfosters was the headsman who chopped the ghost’s nut off umpteen hundred years ago. The ghost turned up at the Bloggs house and vowed to take his ‘most awful revenge’ on them. The family weren’t really scared of him but the silly old spook was a nuisance so they always tried to fool him and slip away from him. The ghost usually caught up with the Bloggs and found ways to annoy them. Sometimes he fell victim to his own plots to the joy of the Bloggs.


The Ghost’s Revenge ran in SHIVER AND SHAKE issues 58 – 79 (April 13th 1974 – October 5th, 1974) and missed Nos. 70 and 74. The strip was part of the 'spooky" SHIVER section of the paper. The majority of the episodes were by Arthur Martin (please, correct me if I am wrong); the episode in issue 72 was by Tomboy artist (Mike Atwell?) while the episodes in issues 75, 77, 78 and 79 were by David Jenner. The strip didn’t survive merger with WHOOPEE! Here is the last episode:


Friday, July 19, 2013

A LOOK AT SHIVER & SHAKE STRIPS: BLUNDER PUSS




Blunder Puss was part of a small-scale revamp of SHIVER AND SHAKE that took place in issues 57 and 58 when three new strips were launched (Riddle-me Ray in No. 57 (Apr. 6, 1974) and Blunder Puss alongside with The Ghost’s Revenge in No. 58 (Apr. 13, 1974)). The arrival of the Ghost’s Revenge and Blunder Puss was trumpeted a week before the premiere with a full-page add in issue 57: 


Blunder Puss was the World’s most accident-prone cat. In the introductory episode we find out that Blunder Puss has already lost eight of his cat’s lives so he only has one left. The clumsy and clueless puss would be as good as doomed if it wasn’t for the help from the eight souls of his expired lives who became his guardian angels:


Blunder Puss kept his guardian angels really busy saving him from the endless nasty CATastrophes. Check out a few random episodes:




Blunder Puss was illustrated by Jim Crocker. The strip was part of SHAKE section and ran until the last issue of SHIVER AND SHAKE missing just one week (you won’t find it in issue No. 73 with the cover date of 24th August, 1974). It survived merger with WHOOPEE and continued to appear on the pages of its new home until the end of February of 1976. (whoever wrote the script didn’t bother with a proper ending of the series – the strip was put to rest quite abruptly without an apparent reason for this and no, Puss didn’t lose his last life in the final episode).  Blunder Puss must have been doing pretty well in the popularity charts of WHOOPEE! and often received full colour privileges. The colour logo at the top of this post is from the Whoopee! era.

Tuesday, July 16, 2013

A LOOK AT SHIVER & SHAKE STRIPS: RIDDLE-ME RAY



Riddle-me Ray was a super riddler who claimed he could solve any riddle in the World! The problems that he occupied himself with were often rather strange and he solved them in his own unique ways, usually involving word-play.


Riddle-me Ray was another feature where readers could win cash prizes, this time by supplying a riddle to beat Riddle-me-Ray. It’s difficult to tell for sure, but it looks like the response to the challenge wasn’t overwhelming because the first time that the contributor was credited was in the 14th episode (in issue No. 70 cover-dated August 3rd, 1974). During the first weeks the writer came up with some clever riddles and solutions, such as When is a department store like a boat? - When it has sales, or What month of the year does a soldier hate the most? - A long march, or my favourite one - How can a hunter in the woods find his lost hound? - By putting an ear to the tree and listening to the bark. The majority of the ideas sent by readers were admittedly rather weak, such as What has a tongue but can’t talk?  - A shoe, or What language does nobody understand?  - Baby language, although I did like this one:


The feature was launched in issue 57 (April 6th, 1974) and ran until the last issue (No. 79 dated October 5th, 1974), missing one week in the process (there was no Riddle-me Ray in Shiver and Shake No. 75). The strip didn’t make it to the combined WHOOPEE AND SHIVER AND SHAKE. The first episode was one and a half pages long and all the subsequent ones were one-pagers. The illustrator was Mike Lacey who was substituted by someone else on two occasions in issues 73 and 75. Mike Lacey drew his self-portrait in the episode that appeared in issue 63 (May 18th, 1974): 


Saturday, July 13, 2013

A LOOK AT SHIVER & SHAKE STRIPS: MENACE OF THE ALPHA MAN




Menace of the Alpha Man was a suspense mystery tale that stretched out for 18 weeks in issues 53 to 70 (March 9 - August 3, 1974) and was the longest of all adventure serials in SHIVER AND SHAKE. Just as all but one of them, it offered attentive readers a chance to win themselves some cash. The illustrator was Eric Bradbury. This is how it was advertised in SHIVER AND SHAKE issue No. 53 a week before the premiere:


Let’s take a look at the plot. Doctor Frank Carter was a scientist at Greystone Research Laboratories – a top-secret research establishment in the Scottish Highlands, who had just finished developing a secret and dangerous formula. The scientist was on a rock-climbing trip with his daughter Penny when he was abducted and kidnapped by a masked muscular villain who called himself Alpha Man and wore a chequered skin-tight costume decorated with letter symbols. Alpha Man was after the secret invention but as he was taking Doctor Carter away in his Chinook-type helicopter, the scientist managed to pass the reel with the formula to his daughter and told her to save it no matter what. Jamie Robertson, a local 16 year old lad, came to Penny’s rescue and saved her from the menacing Alpha Man. The two formed a team. The girl knew her father had been expecting the ‘international crook’ to come after him and remembered how once he had told her that if anything happened to him, a letter in his desk would explain everything and tell her what to do.  Jamie and Penny found the letter and this is what it said:


The villain sure had a manic fixation on letters! Although this wasn’t in the letter, Penny somehow knew they had to collect eight letters and arrange them into a man’s name consisting of two four-letter words.

As the story developed over the weeks, the two youngsters survived a series of vicious and crafty plots and attacks by Alpha Man and slowly collected the letters that they needed to reveal the name of the villainous crook and confront him in the final show-down. Strange as it may sound, the more letters they collected, the longer their list of suspects became. It  included Major Bret Shaw, head of security at Greystone Laboratories (Penny remembered how he and her father took an instant dislike to each other when they first met and how he was always prying into Dad’s work)...


... Bert Gash, the local poacher and the least suspicious of the lot...


... Herb Sant, toy shop owner in the little fishing village of Tannoch where Jamie’s home was and where most of the action took place; he became a suspect because of his name and also because one of Alpha Man’s attacks came in the form of nasty mechanical toys... 


... and Thab Rees, the caretaker of the sinister Tannoch castle (a very aggressive type who hated kids snooping around the ruins)...


The list of suspects became complete in issue 63 when the young heroes were still two letters away from the set of eight. Here is how their list looked:


Jamie and Penny got their last letter in this thrilling ghost-packed episode in issue 68:


It was high time to announce the WHO IS THE ALPHA MAN? competition:


In the next issue (No. 69) Jamie and Penny found out the name of the villain (but didn’t share it with readers of SHIVER AND SHAKE who were busy sending in their competition entries). They realised they had to catch him red-handed with that infernal costume of his. Jamie decided time had come to use the secret formula so he put Doctor Carter’s reel into a battery-operated cassette player, hoping to use it against Alpha Man. The scene of the final show-down was set at the sinister Tannoch castle. In the last episode (in the issue cover-dated August 3rd, 1974 that came out after a four-weeks’ interruption due to industrial action) the two youngsters demonstrated the effect of the top-secret formula, exposed the true identity of Alpha Man and rescued Penny’s Dad from captivity:


The list of clue words and names of the lucky prize-winners were printed in issue 76:


Five years later the strip was reprinted in CHEEKY WEEKLY comic (issue dates from 3rd March till 30th June, 1979).