Saturday, April 27, 2013

A LOOK AT SHIVER & SHAKE STRIPS: GAL CAPONE



Gal Capone was a short-lived strip about a heavyset school girl who was part of a weird kind of gangster underworld. Her rival gang was Manx Mound Mob (consisting of three blokes who all looked like grown-ups or at least disguised themselves as such) with whom Gal Capone fought a ruthless war using cork popguns, peashooters and catapults while driving around in armoured self-propelled cartys. The reason of the conflict wasn’t quite clear – something about rival territories and the town not being big enough for the two of them… 



It’s interesting to note that Gal Capone looked a lot different in SHIVER AND SHAKE 1974 Annual – the gangster ingredient was gone and Gal was more of a regular school bully, not immune from corporal punishment for her wrongdoings at the hands of grow-ups:

 
Gal Capone started in the first issue of Shiver and SHAKE and ended in issue 21, missing two weeks inbetween (it did not appear in issues 16 and 19). The illustrator was Murray Ball with Les Barton drawing one episode in issue 8.
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5 comments:

  1. George ShiersApril 27, 2013 at 11:22 PM

    I've seen Gal Capone in an issue of Whoopee - 24th March 1979. This is the only issue I've got from this time - was it just a one off filler strip?

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    1. IrmantasApril 28, 2013 at 2:37 AM

      Well spotted, George. Gal Capone indeed appeared in Whoopee! between Feb. 24th, 1979 and January 12th, 1980, with some big gaps. The number of episodes (18) is just about right for it to be a reprint, I will check my Whoopee! collection on Monday.

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  2. Peter GrayApril 27, 2013 at 11:30 PM

    What I like about your blog is you're covering every character no matter how obscure or fogotten or short lived...its nice they are looked at..and this strip is worth looking at again..

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    1. IrmantasApril 28, 2013 at 2:38 AM

      Thanks, Peter, that’s what the blog is here for. I want it to be like an index for those who might be interested. Maybe I will put an edited version of the posts into a paper book (or an e-book) one day because IPC children’s humour comics haven’t been properly indexed so far…

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    2. Peter GrayApril 28, 2013 at 3:14 PM

      I like the idea of it being a paper book..maybe print when people ask...to keep costs down..

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