Shiver and Shake #1

10 Mar 1973; Cover price 4p.
36 pages. Colour & B&W.
IPC Magazines Ltd.

Cover by Mike Lacey (uncredited).

Free practical joke.

Contents:

.2 Frankie Stein UNTITLED [Monday Morning at Mildew Manor] w: UNKNOWN; a: Robert Nixon (uncredited).

.3 Cackles from the Cave (half page) jokes.

.4 The Duke's Spook UNTITLED [Butler Wanted - Apply Within] w: UNKNOWN; a: Arthur Martin (uncredited).

.5 Webster UNTITLED [Sentry Box] w: UNKNOWN; a: Terry Bave (uncredited).

.6 Scream Inn UNTITLED [The Champ] w: UNKNOWN; a: Brian Walker (uncredited).

.8 Biddy's Beastly Bloomers UNTITLED [Rooted in the Garden] w: UNKNOWN; a: Sid Burgon (uncredited).

.9 Who'd Kill Cockney Robin, part one, w: UNKNOWN; a: Tom Kerr (uncredited).

11 Shake UNTITLED ["The wind's blown off my best bowler!"] w: UNKNOWN; a: Mike Lacey (uncredited).

12 Lolly Pop UNTITLED [Meet Lolly Pop ... Richest Dad in the World!] w: UNKNOWN; a: Reg Parlett (uncredited).

14 The Desert Fox UNTITLED [North Africa 1942] w: UNKNOWN; a: Terry Bave (uncredited).

15 Free in Next Week's Shiver and Shake

16 Gal Capone UNTITLED [A Super Go-Kart] w: UNKNOWN; a: Murray Ball (uncredited).

17 The Fixer UNTITLED [The Rich Kid's Birthday Party] w: UNKNOWN; a: Peter Davidson (uncredited).

18 Match of the Week Cowboys versus Indians w: UNKNOWN; a: Mike Lacey (uncredited).

20 Damsel in Distress UNTITLED [Knight on a Kite] w: UNKNOWN; a: Trevor Metcalfe (uncredited).

21 Mirth-Shaking Inventions / Shake a Leg

22 Tough Nutt and Softy Centre UNTITLED [Meet Tough Nutt...] w: UNKNOWN; a: Norman Mansbridge (uncredited).

24 Jail Birds UNTITLED ["Only nine more months budgies..."] w: UNKNOWN; a: UNKNOWN.

25 Sample Simon UNTITLED [Sprouto the Wonder Fertiliser] w: UNKNOWN; a: UNKNOWN.

26 Moana Lisa UNTITLED [An afternoon off school] w: UNKNOWN; a: Peter Davidson (uncredited).

27 Who'd Kill Cockney Robin, part one (cont.)

29 The Hand UNTITLED [Heads or Tails] w: UNKNOWN; a: Reg Parlett (uncredited).

30 Soggy the Sea Monster UNTITLED ["Fifteen years I've been stuck on this desert island!"] w: UNKNOWN; a: Robert Nixon (uncredited).

31 Sweeny Toddler UNTITLED [Banned from the Supermarket] w: UNKNOWN; a: Leo Baxendale (uncredited).

32 Horrornation St. UNTITLED [Tootin Common, the Egyptian Mummy, Slept Soundly] w: UNKNOWN; a: Tom Williams (uncredited).

34 Adrian's Wall UNTITLED [A Walking Wall with Ghostly Legs] w: UNKNOWN; a: UNKNOWN.

35 Ye Haunted Lake UNTITLED [Little Sebastian's Tiddler] w: UNKNOWN; a: UNKNOWN.

36 Creepy Creations The One-Eyed Wonk of Wigan a: Ken Reid (uncredited).

The two-comics-in-one gimmick works well here, with slight reservations. A comic which features a ghost and an elephant seems to lend itself to two distinct halves: horror-comedy resising with a ghost (Shiver), and comedy of other stripes residing with an elephant (Shake). However, Moana Lisa is in Shake's section. Such considerations aren't, by any stretch of the imagination, a deal-breaker, but these minor quirks do tend to display decisions made in concern to the title's layout, and indicate the journey from conception to print wasn't a smooth and easy one.

IPC's first horror-comedy comic gets rolling with an introductory cover, establishing the two hosts effects on their environments. While the logo works fine with a two-panel cover used here, it is extremely unwieldy - having such a busy title also means that attention is drawn away from the art, which I'm sure must have gone down well with creators. There's also a free gift (because IPC loved free gifts with first issues), but Shiver and Shake goes one better by having four. Okay, so there may only be one in each copy, but there are four practical jokes to collect.

Frankie Stein uses a tried and tested plot of a monster going to school. Of course, when it comes to Frankie doing anything, there is going to be a serious amount of destruction left in his wake. Predictable? Yes. Funny? Very much so. The character may have been softened, but the humour is as sharp as ever. Professor Cube's face in the final panel is priceless.

There's nice handling of social dynamics between Shiver and Grimes the Butler in The Duke's Spook, with Shiver desperate to frighten off Grimes, who is intruding on his lifestyle. Grimes is nonplussed by Shiver's antics, thanks to working in many haunted buildings previously. There isn't anything exceptional thus far, but it works perfectly - it is obvious that the rivalry isn't going to be resolved, but much appeal lies in seeing who is able to get the upper hand.

Webster is a bit of a let-down. Spiders can make for great horror stories, and (as with the BBC's Spider) can provide much entertainment, but this strip isn't quite as inventive or as funny as it should be. Terry Bave's artwork is superb as always.

Scream Inn (We're only here for the FEAR) is a very attractive strip, with a boxer and his manager arriving one night and seeing a sign offering a reward: a million pounds for anyone brave enough to spend a full night in the haunted bedroom. His manager sends Champ in to claim the prize (while he remains safely outside), kicking off a sequence of ghosts and ghouls doing their best to frighten Champ away. As dawn approaches it appears that he has bested the worst the haunted bedroom has to offer.
Everything about Scream Inn is excellent - a highlight of the issue, living up to Shiver and Shake's promise.

There have been numerous mobile, intelligent plants in fiction, but Biddy's Beastly Bloomers is a great step down from Day of the Triffids. As Biddy rests on her way home from Bosco Stores, plants attempt to eat sausages she has bought. She pulls the sausages away from the plants, uprooting them, but they follow her home. It is a comedy strip desperately crying out for a straight retelling, playing up horror elements, as it doesn't quite work as a humerous one.

The Yorkshire town of Gnarlford ...and amid the modern industrial blocks, one old building stood out like a sore thumb - the tiny factory that made Bollsbottam's Bullseyes!

Famous throughout the land, Bollsbottam's Bullseyes were huge, crunchy and round! Gobstoppers of true goodness!

For eighty years, the factory had been owned by one Bartholomew Bollsbottam... A Bullseye Millionaire!

But now, alas, poor Barty was no more!

The sole drama strip, Who'd Kill Cockney Robin lays out a lot of background before it really gets going. Employees of Bollsbottam's Bullseyes are outlined, and the reading of Barty's will (held up by the late arrival of Robin Radford) is the primary push of the story's first installment. To everyone's astonishment (save for astute readers), young Cockney Robin is bequeathed everything. Locked in the house, Robin discovers a note threatening his life, and must discover which employee wants him dead.

A great idea whose handling is fumbled. So slowly paced that Robin is likely to come of age before the strip gets to a point. Like a cut-price Zip Nolan, Robin has to spot each clue (one a week) in order to uncover the identity of his would-be killer, with reader participation in the form of a cut-out-and-keep clue tab at the end of each installment.

I would be prepared to put up with glacial pace and ridiculously flat characters if we actually got something approaching real violence attempted against Robin, but the great, unforgivable crime which must be solved is... a death threat. It is written in block letters, rather than cursive, so the cad probably deserves everything coming to him. If, indeed, our culprit is a man...

The most puzzling thing about Who'd Kill Cockney Robin isn't in the writing, but the core idea. If this strip (inexplicably) turned out to be very popular, how was it meant to progress? His death threat comes from inheriting the factory, with clear motivations for antagonist(s). Having a completely new group of people introduced every fifteen or so issues, with their prime characteristic being a hatred of poor Robin, plotting would soon wear very thin indeed. The only possible way to sustain a story of that kind is with farce, thus eliminating tension.

There's something unlikeable about Shake, whose attempts to "help" a man seem more like sustained and deliberate unprovoked violence.

Lolly Pop begins as it would go on and on, with an act of miserliness which kicks off a sequence of events resulting in a catastrophe costing much more to resolve in the long run. This first installment of the series revolves around Archie asking for money to purchase a football, but receiving a penny in order to get a ping pong ball... Which Pop haggles down to a ha'penny as it has a dent in it. In blowing out the dent a bingo game is disrupted, whereupon events rapidly escalate.

It isn't immediately obvious how many children, in 1973, would have known who Erwin Rommel was, nor why having a bunch of soldiers hunting an actual fox, in The Desert Fox, is a rather funny joke. Which is precisely the problem with this strip. The Desert Fox's sense of comedy is rooted in a bygone age, not helped by the fact that the strip merely ends rather than receives a conclusion. There's no clever punch-line, nor a complex twist, with its denouement arriving due to lack of space for more incident.

There is another "witty" title in Gal Capone, whose titular character is basically a larger Minnie the Minx with no redeeming features. At least a semblance of plot is present, and is rendered in fine style by Murray Ball, but it is hard to feel much more than mild apathy for a character who is so basic in motivation.

The Fixer feels like it is a knock-off of something from early 70s pop-cultural landscape rather than a completely original strip. Fixer, for he has no name, sets out to help others get what they want. Not for money, but to see if he can. His altruism rings somewhat hollow, as when the plan fails (as it must for maximum comic effect) he doesn't seem to care about any consequences resulting from his actions.

As per IPC tradition, Match of the Week is the mandatory sports inclusion. It doesn't work for me, but I don't know much about football. Damsel in Distress, as nice as Trevor Metcalfe's artwork is, doesn't even raise a hint of a smile.

Tough Nutt and Softy Centre is an "opposites" strip, much like Fit Fred and Sick Sid from a few years later, but much more extreme in depicting the two main characters' behaviours. Nutt cracks reinforced stairs as he makes his way to breakfast, which is fried tree roots and nail sauce. Softy aks to be carried down the stairs in case he trips and falls, whereupon he has to have his soggy, mushy cereal at just the right temperature - half a degree hotter will prompt an outburst.

Nutt hates Softy as he is "the weediest little twerp I know," and the draught from one of his punches is enough to knock his fragile neighbour over. It is a well-drawn strip with clearly defined characters, an obvious antagonism, portrays appropriate comeuppance for the aggressor, and runs through the entire story in two pages. But a certain spark is missing, and both characters come across as annoying in their own ways.

A good comparison would be Ivor Lott and Tony Broke, which follows much the same formula of diametrically opposed characters. Within the established framework of such stories were moments of (temporary) redemption, allowing for both the positives and negatives of their personalities to be explored. In Tough Nutt and Softy Centre both characters are shorn of any positive aspects, resulting in a lack of empathy for their fates.

Jail Birds is exactly what it suggests in the title. Two budgies in a cage, being fattened up for a cat's Christmas dinner. Their escape attempts are the focus of the strip, but where Tom and Jerry made light of a cat's hunger for flesh through comedy violence, this feels crueler - the birds have already been caged, and their lives depend of fleeing from the cage in which they are trapped.

There's a possible explanation for the origin of Biddy's Beastly Bloomers in Sample Simon (not that such cross-overs really occurred on anything like a regular basis), as a packet of Sprouto fertiliser causes immense growth in several plants he tests the sample on. Unfortunately the fertiliser makes caterpillars grow just as much as his plants. An old gag, but well handled.

Perpetually scowling, Moana Lisa is only happy when she is miserable - as readers are likely to become after reading the strip. Characters with personalities which deviate hugely from social norms ought to have wilder things to be (for example) miserable about. An afternoon off school seems too tame for an introduction, whereas being miserable because she has won something significant in a raffle would offer more of a contrast.

For a strip about a disembodied body part, The Hand is very amusing. Flipping a coin to decide whether to scare people or help them, then causing mischief regardless (we only have Hand's word for which side his coin landed), the floating, ghostly hand is a classic strip straight from its first outing. It may have all sorts of unanswered questions behind the concept, but the visual strength of Hand (rendered with utmost skill by Reg Parlett) surmounts such thoughts.

Soggy the Sea Monster has a distinctive look, while conforming to the generic look, but despite strong visuals the script feels like a checklist of "funny" moments being ticked off a list rather than an organic development of events.

Arguably the most important strip in the first issue, Leo Baxendale's Sweeny Toddler gets off to a strong start, with the violent baby causing enough mayhem for three strips by anyone else. Deceptively simple artwork plays with details (Sweeny bending the bars on his pram, a stack of knocked-over tins paying off a comment from the second panel) which work to heighten the comedy.

Horrornation St. plays off the title of Coronation Street, though (thankfully) doesn't require knowledge of the series to make sense of events. A series of monsters live together in an odd community, and interact with a series of puns, bad jokes, and strange behaviour. It feels like an adaptation of an old sit-com series with a creaky laugh track. I love it, obviously, especially as it doesn't rely on a "normal" cast reacting to events.

Reading Horrornation St. with hindsight shines light on some choices made - Sir Headley Deadly brings to mind Deadly Hedley, and looks like many of the ghosts which would populate IPC titles. It is much better than Adrian's Wall, which struggles to fill a single page with jokes, and it is clear even from the introduction of the walking wall that it is an idea with a finite lifespan.

Ye Haunted Lake, much like The Haunted Wood in Knockout, is a simple notion - if you take something from the lake then bad things will happen. In this case, little Sebastian's tiddler (safely ensconced in an empty jam jar) grows to incredible size during the journey home from the lake, with an accompanying increase in water. It shows that even simple ideas, when done well, can provide much entertainment. The issue is rounded off with a Ken Reid Creepy Creations illustration.

Not a perfect beginning, but with enough top-drawer material to make up for weaker strips.