1979 SHIVER AND SHAKE HOLIDAY SPECIAL

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…