A LOOK AT SHIVER & SHAKE STRIPS: GHOUL GETTERS

If you’ve got a spook you want shifted, call for the Ghoul Getters, Ltd. - read the caption above one weekly episode of this nice strip by Trevor Metcalfe. The ghoul-getting service was a small family business run by Dad and his lad Arnold.  When called, they would arrive in their ghost-proof van, sometimes use their ‘spookometer’ to detect the ghost, put one of their letter-coded plans into action and send the ghost packing. Plan A was the one that never failed – it involved the use of the ghost sucker, or the super ‘spook-sucker-inner’ – a device that would suck the ghost in. The Ghoul Getters would then drive it away and drop it off someplace where the ghost wouldn’t be such a nuisance. In the first episode they rid a lady from a noisy one and dropped him off at an all-nite disco where visitors couldn’t care less about noise.

The Ghoul Getters started in SHIVER AND SHAKE issue No. 71 and was a strong addition to the lineup. The strip occupied 1 ½ pages in the spooky SHIVER section of the paper. All but one episodes were illustrated by Trevor Metcalfe who signed a number of his sets towards the end, and the episode in issue 75 was by Tomboy artist. Seven episodes were self-contained stories but the Phantom Piper tale (the last story in SHIVER AND SHAKE) was serialised over two weeks. You can read both parts in this post, here is the first:

SHIVER AND SHAKE was merged into WHOOPEE merely 9 weeks after The Ghoul Getters first appeared. It was considered to be good enough to deserve a slot in the new combined paper and continued there for nearly two years until the end of February 1976 (exactly like Blunder Puss).

One can’t help noticing similarities between The Ghoul Getters and the famous Ghostbusters film, although the strip predates the movie by a whole decade so it wasn’t a spoof but rather the other way round. Could it have been that the American writers of Ghostbusters were familiar with this little strip published in a British children’s comic?  

A LOOK AT SHIVER & SHAKE STRIPS: DAMSEL IN DISTRESS

Turning the page, we enter the zone of a few not-so-interesting strips that occupied the remaining pages of SHAKE section in the first issue of the magazine, and Damsel in Distress is first in line. There is nothing really wrong with them, it’s just that they are a little bit too traditional for my taste :) 

As the title suggests, the feature exploited the theme of a Fair Maiden imprisoned in a high tower surrounded by a deep moat, and her wannabe rescuer noble Sir Knight whose rescuing schemes always failed and sent him ‘back to ye drawing board’. The Knight’s nagging steed was the third recurring character who didn’t think much of his master’s ‘stupid efforts’ to save ‘that wailing woman’. 

Damsel in Distress started in SHIVER AND SHAKE No. 1 and continued until the first issue of 1974 (No. 44). The regular illustrator was Trevor Metcalfe who appears to have taken a few weeks’ break in the Autumn of 1973 when the strip was either not included at all or drawn by other artists who I think were Les Barton, Terry Bave and Robert Nixon. It is difficult to tell for sure because illustrations in the episodes are rather basic (mostly buildings, trees and a bloke in a coat of armour – nothing much to go by). The strip missed 7 weeks during its run and was not included in issues 21, 24, 29, 31, 33, 34 and 36. 

A LOOK AT COR!! STRIPS: DR. WHAT AND HIS TIME CLOCK

Dr. What and his Time Clock was a comedy version of BBC’s Doctor Who. It was strange tale that appeared in just two COR!! publications but had quite an impressive page count nonetheless.

The strip premiered in the second COR!! Summer Special (the one published in 1972) and was 19 pages long. Dr. What invented a time clock, a time machine in effect. Dr. What could set the clock to any year and when the alarm went off, he was transported to the past or the future. In the first episode he visited 1664 and nearly prevented Isaac Newton from formulating his theory of gravitation because Dr. What caught the apple as it was about to fall on the scientist’s head. His next trip was to the future and the year was 2072. Dr. What accidentally got on a space bus and ended up on the Moon. There he discovered that the Moon was inhabited by Mooniks (some of whom were Moonatics), law and order was guarded by Policemoons, while the government was led by Prime Moonister. He fell off the Moon’s End and was taken prisoner by Martians who thought he was a spy. He got rescued by a Plutonian Pilot from the Planet Pluto. They escaped from Mars in the Plutonian’s flying cup but it took a direct hit from Martian anti-flying cup fire. Dr. What travelled back in time to 1972. From there he transported himself to the year 1026 where he met King Canute and then Neptune. He decided he’d had enough when he was invited to join Danish army on its way to conquer Norway. Dr. What was about to use the time clock and make his escape but the Danish general suspected he was a Norwegian spy trying to activate some secret Norwegian weapon and threw him overboard. Dr. What had to wrestle giant marine creatures to get his clock back. Finally, Dr. What saw a shore that he believed to be good old British soil. To his disappointment, he found himself in Calais. He accidentally set his clock off and ended up in 1789 when the French Revolution was still on. Dr. What tried his hand at being the Scarlet Pimpernel and nearly got himself guillotined. He managed to time-clock himself back to 1972 and lost his clock just before reaching the White Cliffs but promised to invent another one. 

Here are two sample pages from COR!! Summer Special 1972:

Dr. What was given a break of a year and reappeared in COR!! Annual 1974 as another 12-page epic. The daft inventor shows up at the Patents Office to patent his invention but the clerk doesn’t think much of it. Here are the the first two pages:

Offshore radio stations were officially outlawed in the UK 

in the late 60s. This confirms that the strip is a reprint.

Dr. What decides to go to the year 1492 - Columbus’ times. After a lot of trouble that he gets from a sword fish and a giant gorilla he spends a short time on board Santa Maria but is thrown overboard for knocking Christopher Columbus out with a mop. He reaches the shore and beats Columbus at the discovery of America. Dr. What becomes the Great Whiter than White Chief of Red Indians who also take him for a weather man. Things get complicated when Dr. What is unable to stop the rain and Red Indians decide to scalp him. Dr. What uses his time clock again to travel to America of the 20th century where he finds himself in the company of entrepreneurial Luke Backwards, chairman of Coyote County’s historical reference library. Here is how the story ends:

Dr. What also made a brief appearance in one of the two episodes of Jasper the Grasper in the 1974 annual illustrated by Trevor Metcalfe:

I am guessing that the three blokes behind the Gasworks Gang 

in the top right corner of the last panel may be 

portraits of IPC artists or editors. 

Does anyone know who they might be?  
UPDATE: Peter Gray has answered this for me in his comment: 
of course, they are the Goodies!

Something about reproduction quality and the way Dr. What stories are structured suggests the strip may be a reprint but if that’s the case, I don’t know where from. The name of the artist who illustrated the two long episodes of Dr. What and his Time Clock in COR!! Summer Special 1972 and COR!! Comic Annual 1974 is unknown to me but the artwork isn’t very impressive, IMHO.