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.

Wham Turns 50!

It was 50 years ago today that the first issue of Wham was dated for sale. Wham was the first of the five power comics, followed by 'Smash' and 'Pow' as humour comics and 'Fantastic' and 'Terrific' as adventure comics. Wham was a fantastic comic, created mostly by Leo Baxendale who was commissioned by Odhams to create a "super-Beano". The comic also includes some fantastic artwork by the great Ken Reid, most notably in the form of Frankie Stein, which arrived with Ken in #4.

My first taste of Wham was in the form of the 1968 annual, which I picked up soon after I started reading comics in a nearby antiques shop. This and issue #4 are my only two Wham comics (the image at the top of this post comes from Phil-Comics' website).

For me, Wham will always be the best of the Power comics (even if it wasn't called a "power comic" from the start). I've never been a fan of either Fantastic or Terrific, and Smash and Pow seem to lack something Wham had, regardless of the quality of Ken Reid's Queen of the Seas or whatever else was in the others. Despite their short runs (Wham would produce just 187 issues) the impact of the power comics is huge, and remains memorable to this day.

UPDATE

After posting this it's good to see a few other people joining in with the birthday celebrations. Here are some links (in order of time posted):

Scans of the complete first issue of Wham (in two parts) by Kid:

Part 1 - http://kidr77.blogspot.co.nz/2014/06/super-free-birthday-gift-wham-1-part-one.html

Part 2 - http://kidr77.blogspot.co.nz/2014/06/part-two-of-wham-1-super-birthday-free.html

Advertisements for the first two issues by Irmantas:

http://kazoop.blogspot.co.nz/2014/06/advert-for-wham-no-1.html

Birthday celebration post by Lew Stringer:

http://www.lewstringer.blogspot.co.nz/2014/06/whams-50th-wham-iversary.html

POW! Free gift sells for £340!

A large collection of rare free gifts have been listed up on eBay over the past few weeks, including the Pow! Haggis Launcher seen above, which came with a replica cover of issue 3 and sold for £340!

Issue 3 of Smash! came with a cardboard Royal Navy Carrier Aircraft. In unused condition, this one rocketed itself to £304.89! (This didn't come with the original comic, just a scan of the front cover.)

Early Buster gifts are extremely hard to come by, and recently two were sold on eBay! Issue two's Zoomer Jet with original bag catapulted to £116 and issue three's Dodger Kit, also with the free bag, sold for £86! (Again, these only came with scans of the original covers.)

A Cor! Ratty Rasper without the original elastic band and metal ring, sold for just £14.50, which suddely seems really low compared to the other gifts! This was given away in October 1973.

And there are currently a few exciting items up for sale, including the Big Bang Gun from Smash issue #1, along with the original comic. It is currently up to £112.09. You can find it here.

When Wham! merged with Pow! in 1968, a free gift was given away to celebrate!  It was the 'Out Of This World Flying Saucer', which is currently on eBay for £32, with a few days of bidding left to go. Click here to see the auction.

The Buster Boomerang given away in 1962 is on eBay for a hugely overpriced £199 Buy-It-Now. See the listing here.

Also overly expensive are these transfers and pull-out booklet from Pow! and Wham! issue #54. Coming with a scan of the cover, the seller has listed them here as a Buy-It-Now for £229!

Frankie Stein Wham Award!

An intresting piece of comic history. Recently sold over at compalcomics.com for £275, with an estimated price of £300 - £350, sadly not quite reaching that.

Here is the auction description:

Lot # 215

Frankie Stein Monster Award by Ken Reid for WHAM! (1960s)
A one-off bust made by Ken Reid for a WHAM! readers competition that apparently did not take place. Entitled 'Frankie's Monster Award' the bust is made from resin and was modelled and painted by Ken with his brother's help. It measures approximately 4 x 4 x 2 ins deep. It is unique
£300-350

Congratulations to the winner of the auction! If you happen to be reading this could you please contact me as I'd love to see some more photo's of the model!

UPDATE:

I recieved an email from Ken Reid's daughter in law Linda, and it turns out Ken didn't actually make it model! It was designed and manufactured by Anthony (his son) and painted by Linda!

Frankie Stein arrives!

Wham! was one of five Power Comics created by Odhams Ltd. and was launched on 20th June 1964, lasting 187 issues, until it merged with it's sister comic POW! in January 1968. During it's short life Wham created dozens of incredible stories such as Biff, The Tiddlers, General Nitt and his Barmy Army, Georgie's Germs, Eagle Eye, Pest of the West all of which were amazingly illustrated by such artists as Leo Baxendale, Terry Willers, Gordon Hogg, Artie Jackson and more.

Four isssues into it's run a new story would appear. Frankie Stein was of the magnificent Ken Reid, who decided to follow his love of drawing monsters, aliens and all things weird! Some of the stuff was so ghastly, it was never published in the comic itself and was never even seen until it was eventually published in an underground comic in 1969! The art Ken drew for Odhams was definatly some of his best, whole collections have even been put into books, some of those books reaching sky high prices of over £190 each! Frankie Stein is one of them, and he first came to life inside the covers of Wham issue 4, on page 17, way back in 1964! Although he didn't appear on the cover of that issue, Frankie Stein would later become one of Britain's most popular characters, appearing in many different comics and annuals. He even had two of his own annuals in 1976 and '77, both titled the 'Whoopee Book of Frankie Stein', although by this time Robert Nixon had replaced Reid. Even more collectable are the Frankie Stein holiday specails, which ran for eight years between 1975 and 1982. At the start of the series the comic was priced 25p and by 1980 it had doubled to 50p. Nixon's front cover artwork for the first special sold at auction in 2008 for £378.

So here, for all those Reid fans who haven't seen the first Frankie Stein strip, here it is!

Apologies for my scans been on an angle, it's just that my copy of this comic is in near mint condition so I didn't really want to damage it.