With the success of Whizzer and Chips as a faux 'two in one' comic, IPC tried it again with football adventure comic Score 'n' Roar in 1970 (see here) and once more in 1973 with Shiver and Shake. Neither proved to be anywhere near as popular as Whizzer and Chips but they did contain some worthwhile content. Here's a selection of a few pages from Shiver and Shake No.1, dated 10th March 1973...
The concept of Shiver and Shake was that 20 page Shiver contained funny horror/monster strips and 16 page Shake carried, well, humour strips without a horror theme. The cover (above) was by Mike Lacey, featuring the hosts of each comic, Shiver the ghost and Shake the elephant.
The first notable thing about Shiver is that it kicked off with a revamp of Frankie Stein, a character last seen in Wham! in 1967 and a few Wham! Annuals that followed. However this version was a more subdued Frankie than Ken Reid's edgy original, and the comedy was much lighter in tone, as was the norm at IPC. Nevertheless, Robert Nixon did a very nice job on the artwork.
Scream Inn, with distinctive, atmospheric art by Brian Walker, was a superb strip, and was later adapted into a board game! Walker used hatching, cross-hatching and Letratone to great effect here...
The character who'd become one of the biggest hits with readers was Sweeny Toddler, who made his debut towards the back of the comic. Created by the wonderful Leo Baxendale...
Inside Shake, veteran artist Reg Parlett gave us the arrival of Lolly Pop, a character who would outlast the comic and survive in other comics.
On the back page of Shake was Moana Lisa with art by Peter Davidson.
copy convinced me for one, and I went for the trick rubber pencil and the plastic 'chocolate' biscuit. I've mislaid the rubber pencil, but here's a photo of the trick biscuit and the free gift wrappers...
13 comments:
I had that chocolate biscuit! Thanks for the memory.
Another great read, Lew. I remember Shiver and Shake very well, Haunted Inn was brilliant, fantastic artwork. Actually looking at the comic now, the Shiver part was excellent and not so the Shiver.
Yes, Shake was a bit weak. Perhaps it needed a theme to compliment its companion comic.
I've read some Frankie Stein, Sweeney Toddler and Lolly Pop just last night as they're in the next comic I'm covering in my Beyond Oink! series. I'm not covering them in the blog post as there were just too many others to choose from, so it's great to see them popping up today here by coincidence too, I don't feel so guilty anymore!
Ah, I can guess which comic you're going to cover, Phil. Good choice!
Though I realise you can't cover everything, Lew, and nor should you be expected to, I was slightly surprised you didn't mention arguably the comic's highlight and most inventive strip: Match of the Week from the centre pages, initially with art by Mike Lacey and some scripts by Leo Baxendale, pitting Navy against Pirates, Sweepers against Litter Louts, etc., usually on the football field, but also with diversions, including a Shiver vs. Shake land yacht race! With Match of the Week and Lolly Pop I thought Shake had two leading strips to easily match Shiver's best two.
Some great material in Shiver and Shake; buying it as a young boy, it seemed another absolutely fresh and modern, exciting IPC title. I also remember being fond of Horrornation Street, Terry Bave's Webster, the Trevor Metcalfe art on Damsel in Distress (though it was a one note strip) and Sample Simon (not sure who the artist on that one was), as well as the obvious big hitters, but Match of the Week being the dazzler, with quite some anticipation as to who the competing teams would be. I think there were a couple drawn by Leo Baxendale, too.
I nearly included Match of the Week but as it was a spread I'd have to do it in three scans and patch it together. Basically I couldn't be bothered. The first one didn't grab me too much personally, although obviously I don't always select my favourites. Yes, according to Leo's book, he drew at least two, but for some reason the editor chose a Mike Lacey one for issue one.
Another few inspired team pairings were City Gents vs. Labourers, Toddlers vs. Old Folk, and Zoo Keepers vs. Zoo Animals. I do think this strip inspired its writers to come up with the creative goods. Mike Lacey was an ideal artist for it. There was at least one by Les Barton, which wasn't up to the strip's usual standards.
Did you recognise the Sample Simon artist, by the way?
Shiver and Shake is one of my favourite British comics and I spent more than a year doing a detailed overview of the paper, all of its strips (each received its own dedicated post with a synopsis, details of start and end dates and sample illustrations), Annuals and Holiday Specials on my blog at http://kazoop.blogspot.com. Anyone who cares should enter Shiver and Shake in the search box of the blog and they’ll have all the info at their fingertips :)
Yes, I urge everyone to check out Irmantas' blog for well-researched info on British comics.
Raven, sorry, I don't know who the artist of Sample Simon was. It doesn't look familiar at all unfortunately.
Irmantas's great Kazoop blog (the information superhighway's ultimate Shiver and Shake site) suggests David Mostyn as a possibility, though it doesn't look like his work to me.
Styles take a while to develop but I don't think it's him. It could be someone who dabbled in comics before moving into advertising or gag cartoons something. That happened at times.
I used to read shiver and shake mother once bought it back from the news agent for me she said l got your squeeze and shake l said pardon? She said it again l started laughing and said you mean shiver and shake ! We both burst out laughing!!.
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