Shiver and Shake Annual 1986

Today I thought I’d share a few pages from the 1986 Shiver and Shake annual. Other than being the last S+S annual to hit the shelves, there’s nothing particularly significant about it. But I thought I’d share some pages because it is simply a fantastic and beautiful comic, really showcasing the talent of the day. Artists inside included Martin Baxendale, Tom Paterson, Terry Bave, Sid Burgon, Jack Edward Oliver — I could go on.

The full colour pages were also stunning, and among the best full colour I’ve ever seen in a Fleetway comic. Here are the front and rear endpapers, illustrated by Roy Mitchell who signed his pages as ‘Mitch’. 

For a comic from 1986, quite a few pages were printed in full colour. For their £2.50, readers were given 96 pages (counting the covers), 16 of which were in full colour. A good number more had either blue or red ink.

One of the more bizarre inside pages was this Jumbo Jesters page, featuring various photos of an elephant — elephants of course being the ‘Shake’ part of the comic. I have so many questions. Is it a real elephant? Where did they get a real elephant? How did they get a real elephant on a bus?

Another good page is this Desert Fox puzzle board game. Elsewhere in the book the Desert Fox strip is illustrated by Terry Bave, but this spread is instead by Jack Edward Oliver.

Trevor Metcalfe also had a few pages. Here’s a nice Ghoul Getters Ltd strip. Metcalfe was an expert at motion - just look at the slamming doors or the man spinning around at top speed! It makes me dizzy just looking…

As I said, there’s no shortage of great pages to share and I could easily go on, but I’ll wrap things up with this Lolly Pop strip by Sid Burgon. The Fleetway annuals from this time are relatively common and usually pretty cheap, so I would definitely recommend picking them up if you come across any.

Free with Shiver and Shake

Shiver and Shake is a much loved title among collectors. I've always found copies to be scarcer than similar comics of the time, probably due to lower sales back in the day, but a few years ago I was lucky enough to come across a near complete stack of them and they were mine without hesitation.

When the first issue came out on 10th March 1973 it was clear that this new comic, subtitled "two comics in one-double the fun", took inspiration from the hugely popular Whizzer and Chips. It claimed that "Shake was inside Shiver", the idea being that you could seperate the comic into two - two comics for the price of one. For me, Shiver and Shake didn't feel as free as Whizzer and Chips did, as its characters seemed forced to fit a formula, but I still enjoy the comic and I know a lot of people actually prefer it to its more successful counterpart. Each to their own I suppose, but perhaps readers of the '70's felt the same way as me, because the final issue, #79, came out only a year and a half later on Monday 5th October 1974. 

Back to the topic of this post, the free gifts. Only three proper gifts were given away with the comic, all of them right at the start to help launch the paper. The first issue was presented with a free practical joke. "Free practical joke inside... which one will you get?" read the strapline, followed by a picture of the four gifts a reader might get. These were a joke chocolate biscuit, a trick stick of liquorice, a fake pencil and a plastic spoon with a hole in it. These, above an advert for next week's gift, were shown on page 15.

Which brings us on nicely to the second free gift - a "super spooky screamer". An annoying gift for parents no doubt, as the idea was for kids to blow into the toy to produce a loud noise. This was by no means unique to Shiver and Shake as a few years later Krazy comic would repeat the idea in the form of the 'Top Pop Hummer', as demonstrated by Cheeky on the front cover. Similar toys were given away with other Fleetway comics around this time too. I've misplaced my copy, so I've borrowed this scan from Peter Gray's site.

The gift had to be assembled by the reader, and instructions were provided inside, above an advert for the free "glow fun stickers" that were to be presented in the following issue. 

There were, I think, four sets of stickers. At least, that is what the advertisement in issue two would have you believe, but I have never seen a single set either photographed or for sale. I did, however, manage to find this very poor quality image from what appears to be an expired eBay auction, but even this only shows one sticker. If anybody does have any, please do send photos my way!

Now, when I say only three "proper" gifts were given away, that is because I don't refer to a pull-out as a "proper gift". None-the-less, I shall cover them in this post for the sake of completeness. To celebrate Shiver and Shake's first birthday the 9th March 1974 issue came with part one of 'Frankie Stein's Mini Monster Comic Book'. The instructions were to remove the centre four pages from the comic and cut and fold them to produce an eight page booklet. This was just the first part, readers had to buy the following three issues in order to complete the booklet. 

Even in the comics dying months, no more gifts were given away to help the failing paper. Shiver and Shake would merge into Whoopee in October, where its name would remain for another year. The holiday specials and annuals would do better, the former lasting until 1980 and the latter through until 1986, well after the weekly was long forgotten.  

Of course, for those of you who want to read more on Shiver and Shake, Irmantas covered absolutely everything to do with the title a few years ago over on his excellent blog Kazoop. Here's the first post:

http://kazoop.blogspot.co.nz/2013/01/shiver-and-shake-2-comics-in-1-double.html

This Week In: 1973 - Shiver and Shake

The issue of Shiver and Shake that went on sale this week 41 years ago saw the introduction of not one, not two but "four super fun features". The full-page advertisement from the previous week's issue shows what they were. 

Although it isn't the order in which they appeared inside the comic, I'll look at them as they appeared on the advertisement, starting with Charlie Williams and moving clockwise. Williams was a Shake resident, appearing on page five of the elephant's comic or page fifteen overall. Illustrated by Alf Saporito this strip is rather similar in format to the celebrity strips that appeared in Buster in the early 1960's. Below is Charlie's page with a Charlie Drake page underneath for comparison. Illustrated by Arthur Martin, it can be found in Buster dated 19th May 1962.

Wizards Anonymous is next, and it appears just over the page. This strip is my favourite of all the new features - it has a good, fun story with excellent accompanying artwork by Brian Walker.

The other two new features both appear in the Shiver section. Ghouldilocks is next on the above advertisement, and appears on page eight. The artist is Stan McMurtry and this particular episode is a reprint from Jag, although some fresh pages were drawn for her run in Shiver and Shake.

The final of the "new fun features", both on the advert and in the comic, is Grimly Feendish, a character originally created by Leo Baxendale as Eagle Eye's arch nemesis in Wham. Here the artist is Stan McMurtry and this episode is a reprint from Smash no. 58. Some new strips were produced for Shiver and Shake by a young Tom Paterson.

I Spy in Whoopee!

A few days ago in the comments section of my previous post, Irmantas mentioned that I Spy, a D.C Thomson character from Sparky, appeared in a Scream Inn strip, in IPC's Whoopee comic, in the issue dated 26th October 1974! Here is that strange, inter-companies crossover in full, illustrated by Brian Walker.

Is it I Spy though? I'll leave that for you to decide...

This wasn't the only crossover mentioned. A few months earlier in the 2nd March 1974 edition of Shiver and Shake, Timothy Tester, a Whizzer and Chips favourite, leapt out of the pages of Whizzer to test Scream Inn, and to try his chances of winning the million. Here is the two-page strip. The menu boards in Scream Inn are always interesting, so be sure to take note of it in this strip.

Many thanks for Irmantas of Kazoop for informing me of these crossovers and providing the scans. As you may already know, Irmantas writes a very interesting blog that mostly focuses on cataloguing entire comics. He started off with Cor, then Shiver and Shake and is now beginning on Monster Fun. He covered Scream Inn's run in Shiver and Shake in four posts last year, the first of which can be found here:

http://kazoop.blogspot.co.nz/2013/03/a-look-at-shiver-shake-strips-scream-inn.html

And whilst you're there, be sure to check out the whole blog - there's lots if interesting stuff!

Two Comics In One - Double The Fun

Whizzer and Chips was clever in the way that it was advertised as "two comics in one". It made the buyer feel as though they were buying two comics for the price of one, although they weren't of course, as Whizzer and Chips was always regarded as one comic within the walls of the Fleetway Fun House. At first the idea was just a trial and nobody knew if it would work but, fortunately for us, it did. This led to me asking myself the question: why was Whizzer and Chips a flying success when others that followed weren't? The first comic that followed using the "two comics in one" technique was called Score 'n' Roar and it came not long afterwards in September 1970 (proving that Whizzer and Chips must have been an instant success). I can't say much for Score 'n' Roar myself since I don't have any issues, but Lew Stringer over on his blog Blimey did an excellent review of it back in January 2008. I'll repeat his main points here:

• The "two in one" gimmick was convincing for Whizzer and Chips because its main rivals, Dandy and Beano, at that time were 16 page comics for 4d (8d in total). So Whizzer and Chips being "two" 16 page comics for 6d undercut DC Thomson. However, Score 'n' Roar were claiming to be two 16 page comics for 9d in a market where other adventure comics has 32 pages for around 7d each. (Yes, a mere 2d made all the difference in those days.) Therefore Score 'n' Roar seemed poor value in comparison, and its "two in one" gimmick seemed phony (which of course it was).

• Score 'n' Roar fell between two stools. Was it a comic or a magazine? Only a year previously IPC had successfully launched footie mag Shoot! Why should Shoot's loyal fanbase buy Score 'n' Roar when they could get more football info from Shoot?

• Similarly, IPC had earlier that year launched footie comic Scorcher. Again, why should readers of Scorcher buy the more expensive Score 'n' Roar? By their very nature theme comics only appeal to readers interested in that theme and this was stretching things too thin. Seemed there was only enough support for one football comic and Scorcher (being newsprint and cheaper to produce) had the upper hand.

Read Lew's full post here:

http://lewstringer.blogspot.com/2008/01/score-n-roar-short-run-soccer-comic.html

The first issue. As you can see - "2
Comics in 1... Double The Fun!" was
printed along the bottom. I'm sure it 
would have helped sales had it been
printed in bold at the top.

Another "two in one" comic followed in 1973, Shiver and Shake. Lew's points above are all very well for Score 'n' Roar but they don't apply to Shiver and Shake. Like Whizzer and Chips and Score 'n' Roar the titles represented the two comics within, in this case Shake was "inside" Shiver. At four pence per issue it was the same price as Whizzer and Chips and had the same amount of pages (36). Whizzer and Chips can be granted that it had a few pages in spot red and blue meaning that it had twelve colour pages (one being a regular weekly advert at this time) compared to Shiver and Shake's four, but other than that the two papers were more or less the same (both had four full colour pages).

So why then, did Whizzer and Chips succeed but Shiver and Shake fail? I think one possible reason is that Whizzer and Chips wasn't a themed comic so the possibilities for strips and zany ideas were endless whereas Shiver (if not Shake) was a horror themed comic. Since the Shiver section was the first section a reader would read that would be the lasting impression of the title and let's be honest, the horror wasn't actually very scary at all, in fact it was more comical than scary but simply had creepy(ish) characters in the stories. Granted, this would work for one or two stories but across a whole comic it might have seemed a little repetitive. If readers were after a properly scary comic they were better off going for the American imports, which could often be pretty gruesome and actually scary! I am sort of suggesting here that the comic might have been more successful had Shake been the cover comic (but the title Shake and Shiver doesn't quite have the same ring to it) or the two comics were never two comics and were "merged" into one, but the latter would defeat the whole "two in one" technique.

Good? Yes! But scary? Maybe not...

Another theory is the lack of effort that they made in making Shiver and Shake two separate comics and not just one. One of the first things I noticed when reading it was that by April 1974 the "front cover" of Shake no longer looked like a front cover at all. In the early issues it was adorned with the strapline "Companion Comic To Shiver", a date, "Every Monday" written on it, instructions on how to separate Shake from Shiver and a bold, eye-grabbing logo, which made the publication feel a lot more like two separate comics. By April 1974 most of that was gone and all that was left was the Shake title, but without the details it just looked like another ordinary title box. Whizzer and Chips on the other hand kept the Chips cover looking like an actual front cover for a long time, right up until its dying days (Whizzer and Chips actually merged into itself just before it went).

Whizzer and Chips also had a rivalry between the Whizz-Kids and the Chip-ites. Readers would join their favourite comic and throw away the other half (or were instructed to anyway). Each comic had its own letters page and a "raider", who would invade the other comic. It was the job of the readers to find their raider and cheer them on, and blot out the raider in their comic (which if my second hand comics are anything to go by, many of them did). Whereas Shiver and Shake did have their individual letters pages they didn't encourage or advertise any kind of rivalry towards each other, so it's possible that many readers were confused by the fact that there were two letters pages instead of one. The Beano and Dandy, although printed and sold separately, also had a bit of rivalry between each other, occasionally mentioned in the comic strips inside.

As you can see from this cover,
there is no rivalry between Shiver
and Shake themselves. Compare this
to the Whizzer and Chips cover
below.

My final theory is that maybe it's down to the much simpler reason that themed humour comics just don't work. In 1975 Monster Fun was launched but that only lasted 73 issues and in 1984 School Fun folded after just 33 issues. Themes certainly seem to work in adventure comics, Commando and Battle are good examples of this, as is Roy of the Rovers, (That's not to say they were always a success) but they never seem to last in traditional humour comics.

Left: Last issue of School Fun (#33).
Right: Last issue of Monster Fun (#73).

Whatever the reason behind Shiver and Shake's failure it seemed to end the "two in one" attempts, as no more surfaced afterwards. Whizzer and Chips survived for a long time though, folding 21 years after it started with the last issue coming out in 1990. Maybe there is only enough room one "two in one" comic on the shelves at any one time, or maybe the kids just weren't falling for it. I wonder if the technique would work again now, 23 years later?

.............................................

If you want to find out more about Shiver and Shake Irmantas has just finished the summaries over on his blog, Kazoop. He has covered every character in detail that appeared in the title and has reviewed all the specials and annuals. It's been a huge project that has taken him a whole year, as did his Cor project, and next up is a summary of Monster Fun. Check it all out here:

http://kazoop.blogspot.com


.............................................

There is also a Score 'n' Roar fansite. Although the last update was in 2010 there are lots of comic strips and a cover gallery of all the issues. Check it out at:

http://scorenroar.blogspot.co.nz

Riddle Me Ray - He Jumps Off The Page!

Whilst looking for some images for a post that I'll be publishing either today or tomorrow (depending on when it's finished) I found this rather interesting Riddle me Ray strip from Shiver and Shake, in which both Mike Lacey (the artist) and an unnamed "reader" take part. Enjoy...

Fleetway Firsts - Blunder Puss and The Duke's Spook

The issue of Shiver and Shake dated 13th April 1974 came with a strapline almost as big as the title: "2 Great New Fun Features - Inside!" Those two new fun features were Blunder Puss and The Ghost's Revenge, the former appearing in Shake and the latter in Shiver.

First up (going by order of appearance) is Blunder Puss. This unlucky feline had already lost eight of his lives from various idiotic accidents and only had one left - and it was up to the ghosts of his past lives to help him through any life-threatening situations. The artist was Jim Crocker, and it must be said that the story is a good one and is often hilarious, and although this origins strip isn't the funniest it's still good to read.

The Ghost's Revenge was about the tale of a ghost who sought revenge on the descendants of Sebastian Bloggs (of Cockfosters) for the chopping off of his head! Naturally, his haunting failed to scare the Bloggs', but annoyed them more than anything. Jumping through walls was a strange way of seeking revenge, but who am I to argue with a several hundred-year-old ghost. After all - the older the wiser (or so the saying goes...).

What's the date?

I picked up this Shiver and Shake annual from a bookshop today, only to notice that it hasn't got '1975' written underneath 'Annual' on the cover. Anybody know why?

The image from Tony's Trading: