HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

I’ll take a brake from SHIVER AND SHAKE, switch to some gloomy backgrounds and join countless other bloggers in celebrating Halloween with some horror-themed stuff. 

Those of you who are familiar with WHOOPEE! comic must have vivid memories of the monstrous World-Wide Weirdies drawn by Ken Reid from readers’ ideas. Many were funny and witty, quite a few were weird and spooky but some were outright scary, depressing and other-worldly. I bet they caused nightmares to many an innocent mind back in the day. Can you believe these images come from a children’s humour paper?  

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

1981 SHIVER & SHAKE ANNUAL

1981 SHIVER AND SHAKE Annual came with a price tag of £ 1,50 and was 128 pages thick.

Contents: Sweeny Toddler (6 sets by Tom Paterson), Webster (3 episodes, probably by Artie Jackson), Lolly Pop (2 sets by Sid Burgon, one reprint and one new), Blunder Puss (by Jim Crocker), TheChumpions (3 reprints from COR!!, art by Peter Davidson), The Ghost’s Revenge (by Jim Crocker), Horrornation Street (a 3-pager by Tom Williams), The Forest Legion (a 6-pager),Ghouldilocks (by Tom Williams),  The Duke’s Spook (by Tom Williams), Shake (by Terry Bave), The Ghoul Guides (2 sets by an unknown artist), Grimly Feendish (a 4-pager by Paul Ailey, signed, and a reprint from SMASH!), Robby Hood (reprint from COR!!, art by Ron Turner), X-word (crossword), Wizard Prang and Demon Druid (2 episodes, possibly  new sets by Mike Brown), Sports School, Ghoul Getters Ltd (by Tom Williams), ‘Orrible Hole (by Les Barton), The Fixer, Shiver and Shake Spot the Difference (2 installments using front covers of old SHIVER AND SHAKE weeklies); Frankie Stein (two reprints from Shiver and Shake weeklies), Dodgem Game, Octopus Maze, Tough Nutt and Softy Centre (a 4-pager and a 2-pager by Norman Mansbridge, possibly reprints), Toby’s Timepiece (7 pages), Moana Lisa (2 sets, including one by Peter Davidson), The Hand (by Tom Williams), The Desert Fox (by Terry Bave), Moving House (7 pages by Steve Bell), Shiver (by Terry Bave).

Tom Williams contributed eleven pages of Horrornation Street, Ghouldilocks, The Duke’s Spook, Ghoul Getters Ltd. and The Hand. I think it is the first time that Tom Williams was asked to draw Ghoul Getters Ltd:

All 6 sets of Sweeny Toddler are by Tom Paterson. They are either reprints of the episodes from WHOOPEE!, or possibly new material drawn especially for this Annual. Here is one:

In the new episode of the Forest Legion Boss and Butch have a clever plan how to sneak into Lord Stately’s home and rob the Lord. The plan involves joining the Lord’s hunting party, bagging a fox and getting invited into the house. Needless to say, the legionnaires derail the plan once again.

The episode of Shake is interesting in the sense that it plays the theme of the old and long-forgotten rivalry between Shiver and Shake. I wonder how many readers of the Annual still remembered the times when the comic was a two-in-one package, like Whizzer and Chips… 

The Ghoul Guides is the only new strip included in this Annual. It tells the adventures of two scout guides who are in fact young witches. In the first tale they try to earn their medical badge and in the second – their needlework badge. Illustrator unknown.

Grimly Feendish thinks of another smart scheme how to rob people’s homes at Christmas: his Carol singers make such a horrid row that Grimly easily sells his soundproof ear-muffs to the annoyed citizens. Now he is free to break into their house as they sleep because they can’t hear anything. On his way out Grimly runs into Father Christmas, accidentally knocks him down and comes up with an idea to rob every house in town disguised as Santa. The tale becomes completely surreal towards the end when it turns out that a lot of the story was in fact Grimly’s dream… or was it not??? Artwork by Paul Ailey.

The second set of Grimly Feendish looks like a reprint. In it the crook takes up collecting stamps and has a go at the famous penny green…

In the episode of Toby’s Timepiece, Toby trips on his long Doctor Who scarf and finds himself centuries back in time where he gets to meet a greedy time-thief – a villainous scientist from the future who has built a time machine to travel back in time and steal treasures from medieval knights. The knights take Toby for the time-thief’s accomplice but the boy returns them their treasure. Furious, the scientist transports Toby with him to his own time in the future where Toby is taken into custody by the scientist’s robots. In a strange and unconvincing twist of the plot Toby persuades the robots that the Professor has to be arrested for possession of unauthorized valuables that are the spoils of his many raids into the past…

The last new strip I would like to cover is the second installment of Moving House by Steve Bell (the first appeared in the 1980 Shiver and Shake Annual). This time the Hardy family start all over again, as if the first episode had never happened – they are still unaware that the old grandfather clock in the attic is in fact a time machine and turning its hands means time-travel, house and all… The family are on their way to the circus, what they don’t realize is that the time machine has transported them to ancient Rome so they find themselves in Circus Maximus where they have a narrow escape from being run over in a horse chariot race. They escape from Circus Maximus to the relative safety of their house but the restless Grandpa turns the hands of the clock once again and the house lands in the Middle Ages where Grandpa is seized by a mean baron. Luckily for him, the same baron later challenges one of the Hardy boys to a joust, and is defeated. The Hardys return back home and reckon that the clock must be some sort of time machine. In the end, they get back to the 20th century just in time for the circus performance…

There are quite a few reprints in the Annual. I’ll mention two: Robby Hood is a reprint of the third story of Robby Hood and His One Man Band that ran in COR!! from 13th February until 27th March, 1971 (issue Nos. 37 – 43). You can read my account of the story HERE.

There are two reprints of Frankie Stein from old SHIVER AND SHAKE weeklies:  a 3-page ballet set from SHIVER AND SHAKE No. 51 cover dated February 23rd, 1974, art by Robert Nixon (one of the best sets by Mr. Nixon, IMHO), and a 2 ¾-pager from SHIVER AND SHAKE No. 54 cover-dated March 16th, 1974, art by Frank McDiarmid (an excellent energy-packed episode in which Prof. Cube invents a special high-pitched dog whistle that makes Frankie believe he is a dog). Here are sample pages from the two sets:

Overall, this is quite an unimpressive package to my eye.