shiver and Shake

[Peter Gray]

What a great comic reading on Kazoop blog..

Some nice work by Robert Nixon on Frankiestein..much better than you think...Ken Reid is a hard act to follow...even Frank drew one and it is quite dark in humour..

Scream Inn is amazing work by Brian...the extra details in the props in the house all period pieces...
the fun breaking the fourth wall with editors and artists visiting Scream Inn..
In Whoopee and Shiver and shake Ossie the office boy..Sweeny Toddler and Thumpty Dumpty also had a go..
Scream Inn is so worth rereading again..
also in Kazoop's latest post you can see Chief from I Spy on the bus!!
You can tell Brian loved drawing this..

looking forward to the review on Wizards A..

I love the Fleetway comics in the 80's.But my taste is changing the 70's was a great time...

[klakadak-ploobadoof]

Thanks for the plug, Peter. There is a lot of goodness ahead – Lolly Pop, Grimly Feendish, Match of the Week, Sweeny Toddler, Horrornation Street, Creepy Creations. etc.
I much prefer IPC humour comics of the 70s to their later version.

[ISPYSHHHGUY]

I thought that SHIVER and SHAKE was a brilliantly inventive comic: during the 60s and very early 70s, I thought that DCT were miles ahead in the comics-quality stakes, but come 1973, their winning formulae was becoming too safe and unadventurous for my tastes, and I jumped ship somewhat in this year----DCT put out the rock-solid BUZZ at almost exactly the same time, but the IPC effort was more fun by far, I thought......

Alongside the similarly-themed MONSTER FUN, Shiver and Shake had a pretty short run: into it's second year, if I remember........looking through many early editions only recently, I reckon it's held up pretty well, and I've never been able to fathom out why it wasn't all that successful-------but who can, when it comes to public taste?

Gotta agree with Peter that SCREAM INN was one of the many highpoints: I was well familiar with Brian Walkers work on some SPARKY strip which has slipped my memory, but his 'ink-dripping-off-the-nib-onto-the-page ' approach used in this strip and also the later GHOST TRAIN still looks teriffic, and I savoured much of this quality material just recently.

I also agree with klakadak that the output from IPC was more preferable from this period: more detailed panels [but not over-done] and larger scale cartooning than the following decade.....

[Lew Stringer]

I reckon it's held up pretty well, and I've never been able to fathom out why it wasn't all that successful-------but who can, when it comes to public taste?

The public perhaps?

Speaking as a member of that public of the 1970s, I reckon it was down to a) theme comics not doing as well as comics with wider subject matter, b) it came out at a time when IPC (and others) were overstuffing the market with comics, and c) the "two comics in one" thing might have been convincing when Whizzer & Chips was launched, but not so much by the time Shiver & Shake came onto the scene.

Just my opinion anyway. I liked Shiver & Shake, and I think I had most, if not all, the issues, but I found I was buying it out of habit towards the end. Then again, I was 14, and therefore older than its intended audience so what do I know?

[Raven]

Alongside the similarly-themed MONSTER FUN, Shiver and Shake had a pretty short run: into it's second year, if I remember........looking through many early editions only recently, I reckon it's held up pretty well, and I've never been able to fathom out why it wasn't all that successful-------but who can, when it comes to public taste?

It might have been down to IPC business techniques and practices we're not aware of, ISPYSHHHGUY. Maybe Whoopee was selling less, but was thought to have most potential as the long-term umbrella title. Maybe the IPC policy was: if in doubt, always merge and start new comics, as new launches sold more, which kept IPC output consistently fresh and new, and a healthy alternative to the never-changing Thomson titles. Who knows? (And there were a lot of good comics out at the time, and maybe many kids, with limited funds, tended to be loyal to a particular title or two.)

With its double-pagers of Match of the Week, Scream Inn, Lolly Pop, and Frankie Stein, their respective artists at something of an ambitious peak - and that's before you even get to the Reg Parlett, Leo Baxendale, Ken Reid, Trevor Metcalfe and Terry Bave material - Shiver and Shake was a real "fun comic" powerhouse; along with Monster Fun, one of the most consistently likeable and creative humour comics of the '70s, I think, and one of the genre's peaks.

The Kazoop blog is a wonderful reminder of its quality; IPC were really firing on all cylinders at this point.

[Lew Stringer]

Maybe the IPC policy was: if in doubt, always merge and start new comics, as new launches sold more, which kept IPC output consistently fresh and new, and a healthy alternative to the never-changing Thomson titles. Who knows?

Yes, from what people who worked there back then have said, there was a policy like that, with comics often produced with the expectation of failure. "Hatch, match, and dispatch". According to Kev O'Neill on Comics Britannia, IPC management saw producing comics as being "like a sausage factory". Which, really, it isn't.

It really was a wonder that comics that went outside the usual formula, such as Action, 2000AD, and Oink!, managed to get the green light at all under those circumstances. I understand IPC management would have been happier doing more clones of Lion and Whizzer & Chips like Jet and Knockout if people in the creative dept hadn't convinced them otherwise.

[Phoenix]

Speaking as a member of that public of the 1970s, I reckon it was down to a) theme comics not doing as well as comics with wider subject matter

It's a jury's-out situation as far as the Thomson titles were concerned. There only were two major theme comics, Romeo and Warlord, but they were never to be companion titles. Romeo gave up the ghost in September 1974 when she fell into the arms of Diana, and Warlord was born just two weeks later. Romeo had had a good run from 1957, and Warlord had its time in the sun for more or less exactly twelve years before surrendering to The Victor in 1986. Two minor titles alive in the seventies, Bullet and Spellbound, lasted less than three and two years respectively.

[Peter Gray]

http://petergraycartoonsandcomics.blogs ... cream.html

Scream Inn was still going really well in whoopee!!

Ghost Train started in whoopee!! number 1 then ended when Shiver and shake joined six months later...as you say another good Brian Walker strip..

http://petergraycartoonsandcomics.blogs ... tists.html




Heres a not so known Brian Walker strip.looking forward to the review on Kazoop..








From whoopee!! number 1 love Brian's ink washes..

[AndyB]

Do you notice that Brimstone shares his face with all the jolly-faced characters of the 1930s AP comics? Very Roy Wilson.

[Peter Gray]

The way the two wizards are flying are like the tramps that flew around from the early day..
found what I mean

Chips 'Alfie the Air Tramp' reprint from Chips 'Casey Court'



from Cheeky blog
http://cheekyweekly.blogspot.co.uk/sear ... ld%20Comic

Well spotted Andy..