1979 SHIVER AND SHAKE Holiday Special. 40 p., 64 pages.
CONTENTS: Shiver (2 episodes by Terry
Bave), Shake (by Terry Bave), George and His Magic
Dragon (by Alan Rogers), Horrornation Street (a 3-pager by
Tom Williams), Percy the Peacemaker (2 episodes
by an artist whose name I don’t know), It’s a Smile
(1/4 page, gags by Artie Jackson), Scream Inn at the Seaside (a 4-pager
by Brian Walker), Creepy Car (by Jim Crocker), Sweeny Toddler (by Frank
McDiarmid in colour and a 2-pager by Tom Paterson), Freddie Fang the Werewolf Cub (4 episodes, reprints from COR!! by
Reg Parlett, one coloured-in), Robby Hood (8 pages by Ron Turner, reprint
from COR!!), Webster (2 sets, one by I don’t know who and one by Frank
McDiarmid in colour on the back cover), Brain Busters (2 pages of puzzles by
Les Barton), The Duke’s Spook (looks like a reprint from an old Shiver and Shake weekly), Lolly Pop (by Sid Burgon), Frankie
Stein in America (3 pages by I don’t know who), Grimly Feendish (one
reprint from SMASH!, one 4-pager by I don’t know who, and one episode by Tom
Paterson, signed), The Desert Fox (by Frank McDiarmid, in colour), Moana
Lisa (by Frank McDiarmid, in colour), It’s A
Laugh (1/4 page, gags by Artie Jackson), Ghost
Town (by Tom Williams, reprint from WHIZZER AND CHIPS), It’s a Joke (1/5 page, gags by Mike Lacey), Tough
Nutt and Softy Centre (3 pages by Norman Mansbridge), Ghouldilocks
by Tom Williams, Sports School by I don’t know who.
First, let’s
take a look at the new strips and features. Percy the Peacemaker was
about a boy who was always trying to help quarrelling parties to resolve their
differences but ended up in trouble. I believe this is a reprint and I'd be grateful if someone told me where from. I wonder what the illustrator’s name was?
I know I’ve seen a lot of his work in other IPC comics. Here is a page with an
example of Percy the Peacemaker, followed by It’s A Smile gags. There
were three such gag strips in this Holiday Special, all had a different
headline: It’s a Smile, It’s a Joke and It’s a Laugh:
The second
new tale was George and His Magic Dragon, illustrated by Alan Rogers:
Horrornation
Street are at a holiday camp. They are having fun scaring other
holiday makers but suffer a bicycle accident and end up at the camp sick bay:
After a
longish break, Scream Inn made a comeback to the pages of SHIVER AND SHAKE
Holiday Special with a 4-page story by Brian Walker. It is quite an unusual instalment because the
setting is a sunny beach rather than the gloomy Inn. The episode is
entitled Scream Inn at the Seaside and in it the familiar gang of
monsters and freaks help a boy win a sand castle competition. This happens to
be the last ever instalment of Scream Inn proper because the weekly
series ended in WHOOPEE dated 1st October, 1977 to become Spooktacular 7 (which
ended on 22nd July, 1978, except for two more stories in WHOOPEE! 1979 and 1980
annuals).
The Holiday
Special has three Grimly Feendish tales, all by
different artists. One is a reprint from Smash!,
one a new 4-pager by an unknown artist (Mike Higgs, perhaps??) in which Grimly
uses a magnet as an instrument of crime but the police turn it against him in
the end:
… and one by Tom Paterson:
Frank
McDiarmid stepped in for the regular artists and illustrated as many as 4
strips: Sweeny Toddler, The Desert Fox, Moana Lisa and Webster,
all presented in full colour. Here are two examples:
In the
episode of Frankie Stein Prof. Cube takes Frankie on a holiday to the USA
– the land of opportunity, in hope of an opportunity to get rid of him. He
tries three schemes – pushing Frankie off a skyscraper, sending him to space on
board a rocket launched out of the space centre in Florida, and finally
abandoning him without food somewhere out in the great Mid-West. During this
last adventure the starved Frankie finds himself on a peanut farm and gets to
meet no less than Mr. Jimmy Carter, the then President of the US! I believe
that’s one of the very few occasions when a contemporary politician was
portrayed in a UK children’s comic. In fact, I can’t remember other such
examples, except for Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini during WWII, so it’s a
very interesting instalment in this regard, never mind some geographical
inaccuracies (the landscape of what Prof. Cube refers to as ‘the great
Mid-West’ looks a lot more like that of Southwestern USA, and the state of
Georgia where Carter’s farm is located is nowhere even close).
Speaking of
reprints, the episode of Robby Hood by Ron Turner is
in fact a reprint of the first story that originally ran in COR!! comic between
14th November until 12th December, 1970 (issues No. 24 – 28); you can read my
account of the story HERE.
Ghost Town must be a reprint
from Whizzer and CHIPS.
I will sign off with images of the centerspread that I find quite hilarious.
On the page preceding the centerspread we see a crowd of curious citizens
flocking to see a Stately Haunted Home:
Turning the page, we see a busy picture of what is taking place inside the
mansion:
… and overleaf, terrified folks flee the scene in panic:
I don't know who the artist was but just imagine what a brilliant sequence this would have been, had the
illustrator’s duties been given to Brian Walker, Ken Reid, Frank McDiarmid or
Tom Williams…
