On this day, 5 October 1974: Shiver and Shake; Scorcher and Score

Oct 5

Oct 5 On this day, 5 October 1974: Shiver and Shake; Scorcher and Score

On This Day, Shiver and Shake, Scorcher, Score 'n' Roar, Last Issues

On this day, 5 October 1974 … Arguably, this is one of the darkest dates in IPC comics’ history. Certainly it was one of the most ruthless, and significant, dates, marking the covers of the last editions of two highly influential titles: humour comic Shiver and Shake (after nineteen months and 83 issues), and football title Scorcher and Score (after nearly five years, initially just as Scorcher, and 248 issues). Ruthless because I think these were popular comics (they do at least seem to be fondly remembered among all those I feature on the blog), and significant because properties of both titles went on to become among the most loved and best known strips of the publications into which they merged. Whoopee! was the beneficiary of Shiver and Shake’s Sweeny Toddler, Frankie Stein and Lolly Pop (as well as other great stories including Scream Inn, Creepy Car and The Hand and artist Ken Reid, whose Creepy Creations would become the wonderful World-wide Weirdies), while Tiger inherited Billy’s Boots, Nipper and Hot-shot Hamish from Scorcher and Score. Without most of these, Whoopee! and Tiger (which, coincidentally, shared the date of their own final issues: 30 March 1985) would have been very different comics indeed.

Funtastic News advert: Terry Bave (artist)

I’ve run out of time for much of a blog post for today, but I’ll be looking at the first merged issues of Whoopee! and Shiver and Shake and Tiger and Scorcher next week.