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Showing posts with label Brian Walker. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Brian Walker. Show all posts

Wednesday, July 30, 2014

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.



Friday, April 18, 2014

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!

Sunday, June 9, 2013

Frankie Stein Holiday Special 1979


Let's dive straight into action and take a look at the first summer special of the year. We head back to the summer of '79 for this one, and I present the Frankie Stein holiday special. At 40p this comic was by no means a cheap summer special, the Beano and Dandy specials cost 25p each and Whoopee, the comic this special was a spin-off from, cost 10p less at 30p (although interestingly Whizzer and Chips and Buster specials did cost 40p each).

For your money you got 64 "Freaky Fun Pages", eight of which were in full colour, including a fantastic poster on the centre spread by Frankie's second major artist Bob Nixon.



The rest of the Frankie Stein strips weren't by Nixon though (presumably he was too busy drawing other pages at the time), and instead Brian Walker (of Scream Inn fame) picked up the pen, and did a cracking job of it too.



Brian's Frankie strip was called Frankie Stein Time Traveller, and is the tale of Professor Cube trying to get rid of Frankie in a time machine, which was inspired after watching an episode of Doctor Who. Naturally it failed, but only thanks to the professor's own ignorance. After abandoning Frankie in the Stone Age he comes back to the present day. But after building the time machine he has no money left so decides to use his invention to make some cash, and takes some museum executives to, you guessed it, the stone age, and reappears right in front of Frankie! The strip was split into four parts throughout the comic, and put together it was 26 pages long!




The jokes and puzzles aside, I'm fairly certain the rest of the comic is filled up with reprints. A few other strips in the comic are Ghoul Guides, Gook - TV Spook and Tell Tale Tess. Yet despite this being a holiday special not a single strip is based at the seaside - Blackpool is something that should be appearing in every holiday and summer special!

Here's an episode of Monkey Nuts, by Graham Allen.



Gook - TV Spook appeared in full colour on every strip in this special, and is a reprint from Whoopee.



And here's a Ghoul Guides strip by Murray Ball, which is a reprint from Knockout.


Inside the back cover was an advertisement for three of IPC's comics - Cheeky, Whizzer and Chips and Whoopee. Cheeky didn't have long left after this unfortunately, and folded in February 1980. 



There were eight Frankie Stein specials in total, the first being released in 1975 and the last in 1982. Frankie must have been a really popular character to have such a successful series of holiday specials produced; very few other characters have experienced such fame.

Monday, December 12, 2011

Scream Inn Board Game!

Scream Inn was a popular comic strip in Whoopee and was drawn by Brian Walker! But - to my complete suprise - there was also a board game! Produced in the 1970's by Denys Fisher, it was described as "A howling, hair raising, 3D action game." Intrestingly though, none of the characters from the story featured in the game, exept for the ghost. Another intresting piece of comic history, along with Ken Reid's Frankie Stein model, and the game can be picked up on eBay for around £70. Here's a few images:















The later instruction booklet was a bit more boring:

Another board game made by Denys Fisher is called Ghost Train, but I don't think this is related to IPC. Pictures below.