SHIVER AND SHAKE CHRISTMAS SPECIAL

[stevezodiac]

Looking in a bag of what I thought were IPC Summer Specials I found this from 1973. Must be the only IPC Christmas Special - am I right?

[Digifiend]

Well it's the only Shiver and Shake one in the specials gallery and there's no Buster or Whoopee ones. But there was a Whizzer and Chips Winter Special in 1989.


Speaking of which, I see the thumbnail for Whizzer and Chips Summer Special 1980 is missing. Also, the Whoopee Holiday Special 1988 is also shown for 1998.

[Muffy]

Digifiend, during 1987 IPC comics becomes Fleetway, in order to be sold to Robert Maxwell, and were no longer part of IPC magazines. So you are wrong the 1989 Whizzer and Chips special is not an IPC special, I'm surprised (that for someone who likes to do so much research and be so pedantic about things) you could make such a blunder.

If it is of any interest, there are plenty of other Fleetway winter specials (eg. 2000ad did one most years).

Does anyone else know if there were any other IPC Christmas specials or winter specials?

Edited 31st October, so as not to offend Digifiend too much.

[felneymike]

What do you mean, you made a mistake??!!?!?!?

[Digifiend]

Ahem, IPC was using the Fleetway brand long before that takeover (the name dates from 1959, as a rebrand of Amalgamated Press - IPC took over Fleetway and Odhams in 1963), so I counted IPC and Fleetway as one and the same thing. After all, Shiver and Shake is part of Egmont's Fleetway archive, you'll find.

[Niblet]

Looking in a bag of what I thought were IPC Summer Specials I found this from 1973. Must be the only IPC Christmas Special - am I right?

I don't know about that I'm afraid, but I'm interested in the contents - are all the strips Christmas-themed? Are there a lot of reprints? The artists and writers would have had to produce two lots of Chrimbo-style S&S publications that year, assuming there was the usual Xmas issue of the comic. I would imagine that it's harder to come up with ideas for a Christmas special than a Summer special, as a Christmas theme is more narrowly-focused. Also they would want to avoid duplicating storylines in the Christmas special and normal Christmas issue, so the idea of a Christmas special is (to me, anyway) a surprising one.