Preview: KEN REID'S WORLD WIDE WEIRDIES

 

In just two week's time, Rebellion will publish their latest Ken Reid collection, and it's a real winner! World Wide Weirdies collects the first two years of full page illustrations that Ken drew for Shiver and Shake and Whoopee! back in the mid-1970s, and they're all reproduced in full colour as in the original comics. 

The "weirdies" were mostly from ideas sent in by the readers and it's clear that Ken must have relished drawing them. These detailed, comic-horror images are easily on a par with his 1960s work for Odhams. In other words, some of the best work of his career! You owe it to yourselves to treat yourselves for Christmas or ask someone to buy you this book as a present. It deserves a place on the bookshelves of everyone who enjoys great artwork! 

Hopefully Rebellion will bring us more Ken Reid classics in the years to come. There's still quite a lot to choose from; Sub and the other football strips from Scorcher, Banger and Masher from Valiant, Tom Horror's World from Whoopee! and of course more Faceache from Buster! (Personally I think Banger and Masher is a good one but it doesn't seem to be a strip that most people remember.) 

Plus it would be great if D.C. Thomson would publish a Jonah collection! 

Anyway, enough waffle from me. Here's the Press Release from Rebellion, along with a few sample pages I'm able to show you...

• CREATIVE TEAM: Ken Reid
• RELEASE DATE: 28 November 2019
• HARDCOVER, 112 pages
• PRICE: £19.99 (UK) $24.99 (US)
• ISBN: 9781781086926
• DIAMOND: SEP191942

Glorious grotesques from around the globe! Beautiful and bizarre illustration collection from the legendary British cartoonist (ir)responsible for Faceache released to coincide with the holidays! World Wide Weirdies collects the almost weekly run of Reid's beautifully bizarre illustrations from IPC's Whoopee! and Shiver and Shake. Usually displayed in color on the back cover, they are among the most striking images to have appeared in British comics!
Available in print from: book stores, Amazon, and UK comic book stores via Diamond.

Available in digital from: Treasury of British Comics webshop & apps for iPad, Android and Windows 10

Recommended Reading: LEO BAXENDALE'S SWEENY TODDLER

My thanks to Rebellion for sending me a copy of Leo Baxendale's Sweeny Toddler, a very nice 100 page hardback collection. The book covers the start of the strip from Shiver and Shake No.1 (10th March 1973) up to Whoopee! dated 7th June 1975 which I think are all the Sweeny Toddler strips that Leo drew before Tom Paterson took over. There are also six "ghosted" pages that I noticed which the book mentions. I wasn't able to identify all the "ghost" artists although I'm pretty sure at least one is by Barrie Appleby.

As well as being a very funny collection, the book is significant because it's some of Leo's last work for mainstream comics before he went independent with Willy the Kid and Baby Basil. It's interesting that Rebellion have chosen to start their Leo Baxendale books with this one, but Sweeny Toddler was such a popular character that it's the obvious choice. I hope in future we'll see collections of Clever Dick, The Swots and the Blots (from when Leo took over the strip in March 1969) and selected highlights from Wham! A Grimly Feendish collection would be good too, but as Leo only drew about 20 of those, credits would have to be shared with Stan McMurtry and others. 

For the moment though, we have the Sweeny Toddler book, and very welcome it is too. Hopefully it'll sell well enough to guarantee more Leo Baxendale books... and a few reprinting Tom Paterson's Sweeny Toddler strips too!

Leo Baxendale's Sweeny Toddler is released on 25th July and will be ready to order soon from the Treasury of British Comics shop:
https://treasuryofbritishcomics.com/catalogue/

You can read my review of the book here:
https://lewstringer.blogspot.com/2019/04/preview-leo-baxendales-sweeny-toddler.html

Which humour strips of Leo's (and other artists) from Odhams, Fleetway, and IPC would YOU like to see collected? Post your thoughts below! 

Ken Reid's CREEPY CREATIONS ready to pre-order!

Ken Reid fans have been very lucky these past 12 months with no less than three collections of his work published... and here comes a fourth! You can now pre-order Creepy Creations from the publisher's website ahead of its publication date next month. 

The book is in full colour and reprints the excellent illustrations that Ken did for Shiver and Shake back in 1973/74. This ranks amongst his best work and shouldn't be missed! For the purposes of being a comprehensive collection, the volume also includes the fill-ins by Reg Parlett and Robert Nixon, which are worthy additions to the book.

In the back of the book there's also a preview of another humour collection, not by Ken, that's coming in 2019. A book that will delight many... but Rebellion will reveal all about that soon! 

https://treasuryofbritishcomics.com/catalogue/RCA-H0009

Now available to pre-order - Ken Reid's CREEPY CREATIONS!

• CREATIVE TEAM: Ken Reid
• RELEASE DATE: 29th November (UK) 5th December (US)
• HARDCOVER, 117 pages
• PRICE: £17.99 (UK) $21.99 (US)
• ISBN: 9781781086605
• DIAMOND: OCT181869

10th March 1973 saw the first issue of Shiver and Shake released on the newsstands in Great Britain. Like its stablemate Whizzer and Chips, it was two comics in one, with Shiver mainly consisting of horror-themed comedy strips. On the back page of the comic, readers were treated to ‘A crazy “Monster Piece” for you to cut out and collect!’, and thus the Creepy Creations were born!
That first gloriously gruesome entry from Ken Reid was titled ‘The One-Eyed Wonk of Wigan’. Readers were invited to send in their sketches for further instalments. Winners would receive a pound note for their work and see their creation brought to full-colour life by various Shiver and Shake artists (mainly by Reid).


The Creepy Creations were a grand triumph. Seventy-nine appeared in total, with further entries appearing in annuals and specials.

SHIVER AND SHAKE No.1 (1973)

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...

Shiver featured one adventure strip, and the prolific Tom Kerr was the ideal choice as illustrator. Who'd Kill Cockney Robin was a mystery serial, with a clue in every episode for the reader to deduce who was trying to kill the title character. 

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...

The back page presented us with something marvelous. The start of a series of monster pin-ups by Ken Reid! Creepy Creations No.1 was The One-Eyed Wonk of Wigan, with readers invited to submit their own ideas for Ken to draw in future editions. 

The 16 page middle section featured Shake No.1, with the cover strip by Mike Lacey. 

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. 

The first issue of Shiver and Shake took the unusual step of giving readers a choice of four different free gifts. The ploy to get people to buy more than one 
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...

Shiver and Shake lasted for 79 issues before merging into Whoopee! in 1974, but it's still fondly remembered today by collectors.