A LOOK AT SHIVER & SHAKE STRIPS: THE SHIVER GIVERS

The Shiver Givers showed the daily workings of Shiver editorial office, or rather its comical version that had nothing to do with real life, so don’t expect caricatures of the editorial staff or artists. The show was run by the fiendish SHIVER Editor and his secretary – the mini-skirted Miss Nightshade, a young witch. The two were the only original recurring characters of the strip. The rest of the team consisted of characters from different strips from the pages of SHIVER. I don’t think there was a single one that failed to make an appearance – even the short-lived and weird second-rate ‘stars’ like Adrian’s Wall, Biddy’s Beastly Bloomers and Ye Haunted Lake were included now and then. Some of the paper’s big stars such as Frankie Stein (who worked as an office boy) and Shiver the spook (who held the position of the sub-editor) featured almost every week, while residents of Horrornation Street, Webster, The Hand, Sweeny Toddler and others also appeared on a semi-regular basis, some more frequently than others. 

In the strip the offices of SHIVER and SHAKE were next door, so the Shiver Givers was also the place where characters from both sections of the comic occasionally crossed over. The writer even managed to squeeze in the Match of the Week once (issue No. 38 dated November 24th, 1973): 

The idea of the Shiver Givers was a very fresh one indeed – I don’t think any other comic before or since SHIVER AND SHAKE had a regular weekly strip with nearly all of the paper’s stars appearing on one page. The feature put some nice additional touches to the individual characters and SHVER offices in general: if it wasn’t for The Shiver Givers, we’d have never known that the Hand had (at least) two cousins – the Foot and the Ear; or that SHIVER night watchman was a werewolf, or that the janitor who worked in the boiler room was Satan himself (issue No. 35 dated November 3rd, 1973):

Creepy Creations were included several times. Here is the most prominent appearance in the issue dated August 4th, 1973:

The coming of the Shiver Givers was announced in SHIVER AND SHAKE issue No. 3 with the following ad:

The strip ran in SHIVER AND SHAKE issues No. 4 – 69 (except issue Nos. 9, 16, 26-28, 31, 32, 34, 40-42, 53, 58 and 65). Initially it was half-a-page in size. The practice continued for nearly a year but starting from issue No. 48 the feature was given a full page (although the first full-page experiment was in issue No. 36). The drawing style looks familiar, sometimes Mike Lacey and sometimes Tom Williams methinks...