Comic horror! what sticks out in your brain..

[Peter Gray]

This was a great concept which had some very clever ideas..very creative..

Some quite zany ideas like Adrian and his wall from Shiver and Shake..a boy and his wall which had a ghost inside..lots of kids got black eyes walking into him..
The evil eye..orrible hole..creepy car..The Hand..there was even a Ghostly leg..

What sticks out for me is..
Fun fear was strange...it often made them scared when something happened to them directly like there bodies changing..the one that sticks in the mind was when they get lost in a labyrinth and they take months to get out of it..ripped clothes and exhausted...you really felt for them..also the monsters though scary did show a softy side if they failed to scare them and the Boss comforting them..

[stevezodiac]

Not quite on topic but during the late 60s I occasionally came across copies of Casper and Hot Stuff and the various offshoots. If my collection wasn't so vast i would really enjoy getting hold of these comics again. They had an innocent charm to them.

[Peter Gray]

I think Reg Parlett did some great comic horror strips..it was something new in Fleetway comics as you say America had been doing this in the 60's...we caught up with this idea in the 70's.

Harvey is cited as a good artist on Casper..Hot stuff..

I think our comics were better having many different characters to enjoy and every week!!

[philcom55]

Actually Harvey was Casper's publisher rather than his artist.



As far as British comic horror strips are concerned I'd say they go back at least as far as Ken Reid's Frankie Stein and Leo Baxendale's Grimly Feendish in the mid 1960s.

- Phil Rushton

[Niblet]

The Ghostly Leg must be a strong contender for the title of Most Bonkers Strip Ever. I've only ever seen 2 examples, I'd love to see the strip's first appearance to see if an explanation was given as to what happened to the rest of the ghost.

Anyone remember Creature Teacher? I've only seen a couple of reprints but it was quite a memorable character.

http://www.toonhound.com/creature.htm

[Tin Can Tommy]

Creature Teacher i've read that in a couple of Monster Fun annuals. The main thing that stuck in my mind about that comic strip was how similiar some of the pupils in Creature Teacher's class looked to the Bash Street Kids.

[Raven]

I used to like IPC's comic horror as a whole (there was just the odd weaker strip or two, like The Duke's Spook and Gook the TV Spook). I loved the horror-half of Shiver and Shake, and especially adored Monster Fun - full of captivating concepts - as a comic.

The strips that probably stick in my mind with most fondness now are Creature Teacher (Niblet, you should definitely buy a stack of Monster Fun weeklies and gorge yourself on Creature Teacher), Major Jump - Horror Hunter, Terror TV, the Reg Parlett strips (probably Evil Eye, 'Orrible Hole and his run on Harry's Haunted House most of all; his run on The Mummy's Curse in early Whizzer and Chips is a lesser known one that's also fun ), and Terry Bave's Draculass. Freaky Farm (and its freaky farmer with a hat for a head) was also quite memorable! But there's very little that isn't permanently embedded in my brain. It was wonderful to have one's developing mind pleasantly warped by all this stuff.

Reg Parlett and Terry Bave were very interesting in that they could do both sunny, cheery, uplifting style characters and artwork seemingly effortlessly, but could do quite fiendish, creepy, snarling creations just as well.

[Peter Gray]

Robert Nixon was also great at comic horror..
did some nice Hire a Horror for example..
IPC really were creative in these themes..more than DC Thomson

Also Brian Walker did some great ghostly stiuff especially the super Scream Inn..

[Raven]

Oh yes, Brian Walker was fantastic. I should have added Scream Inn to my list of most outstanding above.

[Peter Gray]

Thanks to Buster and Monster fun Holiday special I got to know these strange characters..like Freaky Farma nd Creature Teacher.like Kenj Reid's World Wide Weirdies they were from another world!!!!!!! It did freak me out But I couldn't stop reading them either and enjoying them..

Of corse Tom Paterson did some great horror ones..which you saw now and again in Sweeny Toddler..

[Niblet]

All this talk of Reg Parlett has whetted my appetite for a Rent-A-Ghost strip...

Buster 13 September 1975


Love the scared poultry eyes in the cage and the baddie getting biffed on the nose by the fleeing chicken.

[stevezodiac]

Has anybody mentioned Sam's Spook? A Baxendale strip - forget which comic. Lion?

[Niblet]

What was the name of the Reg Parlett strip set in a haunted school, where the ghosts would moan 'Go!! Begone!!' to try to get the kids and teachers to leave?

Creepy Comix was another of his.

[Raven]

Has anybody mentioned Sam's Spook? A Baxendale strip - forget which comic. Lion?

It was originally in Smash. I grew up reading reprints of it in Monster Fun (sometimes in full colour) and sundry Specials.

[Raven]

What was the name of the Reg Parlett strip set in a haunted school, where the ghosts would moan 'Go!! Begone!!' to try to get the kids and teachers to leave?

Fright School:

http://galleryofillustration.com/acatal ... ttFS1.html