1976 SHIVER & SHAKE HOLIDAY SPECIAL

1976 SHIVER AND SHAKE Holiday Special cost 25 p. and was 64 pages thick. Here’s what was inside. Again, red marks the strips that weren’t familiar to readers of Sh&Sh weeklies, earlier annuals or holiday specials.

Freddie Fang the Werewolf Cub (5 reprints from COR!! including two in full colour); Shiver (2 episodes by Terry Bave, including one in full colour); Ghouldilocks, The Hand; Scatty Bat (4 reprints from WHIZZER AND CHIPS); Frankie Stein by Frank McDiarmid; The Ghost’s Revenge; Shake by Terry Bave (3 episodes, including two in full colour); Moana Lisa by Alf Saporito; Mirth Shakers (5 pages of gags illustrated by Mike Lacey); Wizard Prang and Demon Druid (4 reprints from SMASH!/POW!); The Desert Fox by Terry Bave; International Street by Joe Colquhoun; Sports School by Jim Watson; Webster by Terry Bave; Brain Raiders puzzles centrespread; Tough Nutt and Softy Centre by Norman Mansbridge; Fixer by Les Barton; Grimly Feendish (reprint from SMASH!); Blunder Puss by Jim Crocker (signed); Horrornation Street by Tom Williams; Which Witch is Which? by Ken Reid; Ghoul Getters Ltd. by Les Barton; Ring the Changes puzzle by Tom Williams featuring Horrornation Street; The Duke’s Spook.

Terry Bave was the biggest contributor with 9 pages of Shake, Shiver, The Desert Fox and Webster artwork. Here is a large colour panel from one of his Shake sets:

The second largest input was by Mike Lacey who drew the cover and 5 pages of Mirth Shakers gags.

A number of sets were drawn by substitute artists, such as Frank McDiarmid on Frankie Stein:

… Alf Saporito on Moana Lisa:

… and Les Barton on Fixer and Ghoul Getters Ltd.

By this time regular readers of Shiver and Shake annuals and holiday specials were well familiar with Scatty Bat and Wizard Prang and Demon Druid that were in fact reprints from older comics. In this edition the roster of reprints was supplemented with another feature - Freddie Fang the Werewolf Cub, originally from COR!! I covered the strip last year in my COR!! series, you can read the review HERE. The 5 episodes included in the 1976 Shiver and Shake holiday special were by the brilliant Reg Parlett. The original sets were in black and white but two of the reprints were coloured in. Check out an original and its coloured version side by side. This happens to be the first episode of Freddie Fang from the first issue of COR!!

As can be seen from the list of the strips above, the special had no Scream Inn that was always the feature to look for in Shiver & Shake publications but the two surprise one-offs included in the edition are more than enough to make up for the omission.

The first one is International Street from the hand of Joe Colquhoun. It may very well be a reprint but if it is, I don’t know where from and would be delighted if someone told me the source and whether it was part of a series:

And if you thought International Street was the highlight of the 1976 SHIVER AND SHAKE holiday special, think again because the magazine also included Which Witch is Which? – a two-pager by no less than Mr. Ken Reid. We’ll probably never know if this was a test episode for a series that was never followed up, or perhaps something that Mr. Reid drew for his own enjoyment and the editor though it was too good not to be printed. Either way, it is an excellent set showing the master at his very best…

1976 SHIVER & SHAKE ANNUAL

1976 SHIVER AND SHAKE Annual cost 95 p. and was 144 pages thick. Here is the list of strips and features included in the book. Red indicates the strip that wasn’t familiar to readers of Sh&Sh weeklies or earlier annuals and specials.

Spooks and Ladders game; Webster by Terry Bave, (3 episodes, two in full colour), Horrornation Street by Tom Williams (3 episodes, one in full colour); Demon Differences (Spot the difference puzzle featuring the Scream Inn); The Hand (2 episodes by the regular Sh&Sh artist), Grimly Feendish by Tom Paterson (5 episodes); Frankie Stein (a 4-pager by Robert Nixon and one Ken Reid reprint from WHAM!); Ghouldilocks; The Duke’s Spook (4 episodes); Wizard Prang and Demon Druid by Mike Brown (4 reprints from Smash!/Pow!); Scatty Bat (2 reprints from WHIZZER AND CHIPS); The Shiver Givers (two 2-pagers my Mike Lacey); Creepy Car (4 episodes, including two by Frank McDiarmid); Scream Inn (a 4-pager by Brian Walker);  Shake (6 episodes: two in full colour (including a 2-pager) and three in b/w by Mike Lacey, one in b/w by Terry Bave); Moana Lisa (3 episodes, one in full colour and two in b/w by Peter Davidson); The Desert Fox by Terry Bave (4 episodes, two in full colour); Sports School by Jim Watson (4 episodes, two in full colour); Tin Tramp and Tinker (4 episodes, including two in full colour);  Sweeny Toddler by Leo Baxendale (2 episodes); Mirth Shakers gags (2 instalments); Tough Nutt and Softy Centre by Norman Mansbridge; Blunder Puss by Jim Crocker (3 episodes); Lolly Pop by Sid Burgon (2 episodes); The Forest Legion (6 pages in b/w); Astro-Nut (in full colour, by The Forest Legion artist); The Ghost’s Revenge; Ghoul Getters by Bob Nixon (3 pages in full colour); Frankie Stein’s A-Maze-ing Brain maze by Robert Nixon.

The book followed the structure of the weeklies, i.e. SHAKE was inside SHIVER, framed by blocks of colour pages on both ends. Both sections featured their regular strips, just like in the not-so-distant old days when the comic was up and running. When the Annual came out, the weekly had already bit the dust and any survivors migrated to Whoopee! Check out this panel from the Annual in which Shake fights with some dude over a copy of his new favourite comic: 

1976 SHIVER AND SHAKE was the only Sh&Sh annual with Frankie Stein as the cover star. To me, it is one of the most (if not the most) scrumptious IPC annual covers ever. Frankie Stein also features prominently inside the book: Bob Nixon contributed a 4-page set and Frankie Stein’s A-Maze-ing Brain maze; as a bonus, the annual contains a reprint of one old Frankie Stein episode by Ken Reid from WHAM! No. 81 cover-dated 1st January, 1966. As was the custom, the original one-pager was cropped and re-arranged to fill two pages in the Annual and Micky’s presence was removed (this time it was an easy job because he only appeared in a single panel in the original). Check out the old episode from WHAM! and the reprint from the Annual below and see if you can spot more differences:

From WHAM! No. 81, 1st January, 1966

From SHIVER AND SHAKE 1976 Annual

In the new Frankie Stein episode by Robert Nixon, Prof. Cube tried (and failed) to get rid of his dreaded son by shrinking him to a safe size with a ray-gun. Mr. Nixon also illustrated the episode of Ghoul Getters Ltd. in the Annual. By a strange coincidence, plan “S” that Dad and his lad Arnold put into action this time involved the use of a special monster-shrinking ray gun to shrink the giant polar bear down to normal size. The shrinking ray-gun thing is a bit too repetitive, don’t you think?

 

The book offers a nice collection of familiar strips by the regular artists from Shiver and Shake weeklies as well as earlier Annuals and Holiday Specials. Terry Bave contributed as many as 15 pages of Webster, The Desert Fox and Shake artw0rk; Mike Lacey drew 10 pages of Shake and The Shiver Givers; Tom Williams’ input was 10 pages of Horrornation Street, Jim Watson illustrated 8 pages of Sports School, Jim Crocker, Peter Davidson and Sid Burgon contributed 6 pages of their regular strips each.

The Forest Legion foiled Boss’ and Butch’s cunning plot once again in a 6-pager illustrated by an artist whose style looks a tiny bit like Alf Saporito's to me, but it's hardly him. Here are two last pages of the set:

Astro-Nut was the only strip in this Annual that readers of Sh&Sh weeklies, specials and annuals hadn’t seen before. Readers of this blog pointed out that Astro-Nut was a reprint of Milkiway from the early years of BUSTER (later reprinted as Monty Muddle in SMASH!). BUSTER index says art was by Nadal / Juan Rafart.

The Shiver Givers appeared twice in the Annual. Below is the masthead of the first set (in which Squelch plays a new disc by Freddie Fang and the Werevolves (remember the character from COR!!?) and the stomping staff members crash through the floor plastering Shiver artists working below), and the last panel of the second one (in which Scream Inn’s Cooky rids the offices of mice with 500 year old Gorganzola), both by Mike Lacey:

Another strip that is well-worth mentioning is Creepy Car, particularly the two nice episodes by the excellent Frank McDiarmid. Here is one:

There are as many as five new Grimly Feendish episodes in the Annual, all are lovely new 2-pagers by Tom Paterson. Here is one:

A Shiver and Shake annual wouldn’t be complete without Scream Inn. In this one Scream Inn features in the Demon Differences puzzle (it is in fact the last panel of the set from the final issue of Shiver and Shake weekly - the French Onion Seller episode, with speech balloons removed):

 

…plus a 4-pager in which an unscrupulous bloke gate-crashes the New Year party at Scream Inn and faces the consequences. As always, Brian Walker’s artwork is a treat to the eye: