• The Shop at Shudder Corner – Spellbound: #14 (25 Dec. 1976) – #21 (12 Feb. 1977)
• The Shop at Shudder Corner – Spellbound: #32 (30 April 1977) – #39 (18 June 1977)
• The Shop at Shudder Corner – Spellbound: #53 (24 September 1977)
• The Shop at Shudder Corner – Debbie: #372 (29 March 1980) – #374 (12 April 1980)
• Art: Norman Lee (Spellbound and Debbie picture story libraries)
• Art: David Matysiak (Debbie  and Debbie Annuals)

Other Appearances:

• London’s Burning! – Debbie Annual 1980
• The Shop at Shudder Corner – Debbie Annual 1981
• The Shop at Shudder Corner – Debbie Annual 1982
• The Shop at Shudder Corner – Debbie Annual 1983
• The Shop at Shudder Corner – Debbie Annual 1984

• The Shop at Shudder Corner – Debbie Picture Story Library #64
• The Shop at Shudder Corner – Debbie Picture Story Library #136

Plot:

Sheila Hawkins  and Jean Marsh help in an antique and curio shop called The Shop at Shudder Corner, run by Jean’s uncle, John Shudder. One day after school, while on their way to the shop, Sheila drops and breaks her torch lens. When a storm comes upon them they shelter in a hut and see lightning hit a nearby bush. When the storm clears, Sheila notices something glinting in the bush, it’s a round piece of glass and it’s a perfect fit for her torch. She notices scratches on the glass that appear to be in a shape of a pentacle, she is more surprised when she tests it out on an object in the shop, a spider in a glass paperweight, and the spider grows and breaks out of the glass. The girls run outside to find that it is now night-time and the street seems to have disappeared, but they don’t have time to think about it as they are now being chased by many spiders. They are then caught up in a big web. As they have figured out the torch got them into the mess, then it should help get them out. Changing it to narrow beam rather than wide beam and aiming at spiders makes them smaller. Suddenly they find themselves back in the shop and the paperweight is normal again. Jean’s uncle returns and tells them some history of the paperweight. It came from Italy in 1850, from a family whose members had been condemned to death for witchcraft by “The Spider” where ropes were tied around them tightly like a web until they could not breathe. The girls test out the torch at home but nothing happens and they conclude it only acts strangely when dealing with something creepy and mysterious, with the wide beam awakening the danger and the narrow one stopping it.

The next time the girls are in the shop, Jean is hesitant to use the torch, especially on anything creepy, Sheila picks a walking stick and shines the torch on it without more thought. It turns out to belong to a guardian that is scaring his young charge with a “ghost” dog, in order to get rid of the boy and claim his inheritance. The girls help the young boy and while going across the marshes Jean shines her torch at the ground near the guardian and he and the dog sink down into the marsh. (This has similar story points used in a picture story library later). They are returned to shop and John Shudder explains the history of the walking stick again without knowing any of the girls adventure. Next they end up travelling to London just before the Great Fire of 1666 breaks out, they help a man escaping some thieves, he repays them with a broach and Jean is happy that it gives her idea to write for her history homework. In another adventure they help a notorious handsome highwayman by the name of  William Tate as they can’t help but be charmed by him.

They continue to go on more adventures, usually following a format of Jean being more hesitant but Sheila  jumping right in, the torch only bringing them back when they have done or seen what they need to and  after their adventure, Jean’s uncle tells them the story behind the objects. Often their adventures are just time travelling to important event and influencing some person they meet there, but other times there was more supernatural elements in play, like when they get in carriage but the passengers are silent and have an eerie blue glow around them they just manage to get back to their own time as the carriage goes over a cliff, or when they end up on Wrecker’s island, where wreakers have broken the beacon to loot ships that will crash into the island, instead it it the ghost ship the Flying Dutchman that rams the island causing the cliff to collapse. In another they have to escape from a witch finder with a girl called Sarah. A magically brought to life chair aids them in their escape, though Sarah seems to disappear before they find out if she is safe. Later from Mr Shudder they find out carvings of the chair is because family had legend of turning into hares and they now know Sarah is safe. The first series ends with another witch, but this one isn’t as nice as Sarah, as she nearly traps them in her cottage with plants.

The next series also starts off with a witchy story.  This time the girls find themselves being chased by a group of witches that can take form of cats. The next story breaks the usual format, when Sheila shines her torch on a clawed table with cloth, it turns into a leopard, as they run outside they find unusually they have not time travelled, but the leopard turns into a witch doctor and starts causing chaos. Everything goes back to normal after they sine light on him. From that story to a more historical story as they get transported to Scotland in1879 and nearly perish in the Tay Bridge disaster, only escaping with the torch in the nick of time. Other adventures include meeting Spring-Heeled Jack, candlesticks that  bring them to mysterious inn, where guests have disappeared before and a fair where they help a boy who gets flung from a roller-coaster. They travel to a nice cottage but no-ones is around Sheila carelessly unties a knot in a rope, despite Jean’s warnings and the superstition that it keeps the sea calm appears to comes true as story weather and a shadowy hand comes out of the sea destroying the cottage and nearly the girls too, before they escape last minute.  For there last adventure in the second series, after shining a torch on a replica of a gate, they end up in Victorian London, they are chased by some thieves but end up escaping through a mysterious gate to the beautiful countryside, they are not in a hurry to leave but Sheila drops the torch and they are sent back. John Shudder tells them how the gate carving was done by a man in prison for debt who one day mysteriously vanished from his cell, he thinks it’s a fantastical tale, but the girls know better!

In the last Spellbound story the girls end up in a beautiful Georgian house, the people can’t see them, then a shadowy figure appears and starts to make the people disappear, the girls make it back to the shop. Mr Shudder tells them  legend that a crafts woman who designed the house and garden and swore revenge after they cheated her out of her fee, the girls know she got her revenge.

The girls returned briefly in Debbie (with new artist David Matysiak), though there were some changes as the girls had switched names! Now the long haired blonde girl was referred to as Sheila and she carried the magic torch and Jean was now the brown bobbed hair girl who was reluctant to go on adventures! Unusually as well the first story was a 2 part story, then there was a stand-alone episode and that was the last of the stories for the weekly issues, but they still appeared in Debbie annuals and picture story library and the switched names stayed the same in these too. The two stories in Debbie issues have familiar plots, in the 2 part story the girls travel back in time and meet a boy Rafe who is trying to escape his uncle, who will inherit everything if he dies, they escape first taking a boat but a storm, forces them back to land. They return to the manor hoping that Rafe’s uncle will presume them drowned, but his hounds pick up their scent. They manage to escape again using a secret passage and the uncle is killed when the manor catches on fire after been struck by lightning. A fun twist at start of that story is Jean takes the torch away from Sheila at the start to prevent an adventure but accidentally ends up using it herself! In the second story the girls are back in the Georgian era, his time the girls clothes have changed to be appropriate to the time and they are  able to participate and interact with the party happening at the grand house. They are enjoying this adventure until a betrayed Gipsy woman, returns to gets revenge.  All the guests disappear as they are engulfed in shadow and the house is taken over by roses. The girls make their way back to their own time and Sheila’s uncle tells them a legend about Gipsy Rose who was driven of the land and came to claim the ground back.

Thoughts

Halloween is perfect opportunity to revisit some Spellbound stories. The Shop at Shudder Corner was a story that lasted in other formats past the demise of Spellbound. Essentially this was an episodic story, so it was no surprise to see it turn up as one-off stories, in annuals and picture story libraries. Although it regularly appeared in Debbie annuals, it didn’t actually last very long in the weekly issues, in fact it didn’t even appear until 2 years after Spellbound merged with Debbie at which point the Spellbound logo was long gone from the cover.  It maybe at the point of the merger that Damian Darke, as another popular supernatural Spellbound story, filled that niche instead, but it was nice to see it get revived briefly and have a presence in the annuals.

It was a strange mix of stories, the 1st episode was unlike most of the stories as it involved the torch making the spiders grow, while the modern streets do seem to have disappeared when the girls run from the shop, it’s not clear that time travel has occurred.  After this time-travel becomes more explicit and they have a series of more straight forward time-travel adventures, then it starts to bring in more supernatural elements again, with witches being a common encounter. The torch itself is quite mystical, the pentagon symbol implies some sort of magical properties, but we don’t know where it came from, was it always in the bush and the lightning brought it to life? In the first picture story library they change the origins to more simply being found in the shop, which also makes sense as it seems to be connected to the objects in the shop. There are a few early adventures where they use the torch in a more active way during their adventure such as shrinking the spiders, or causing the cruel guardian to sink in the mud, but soon these more complicated uses are ignored and it becomes just their means of travel. The torch doesn’t always do what they want though, in one story they plan to shine it on a shepherdess statue, but instead it catches  on a candlestick, it also only works to bring them back when the adventure is done, and sometimes it is very close calls!

In the Debbie run of stories, it confused me at first until I realised the girls names has swapped, though keeping some elements , the blonde girl it’s still her uncle’s shop, but now she is the one who found the torch and has brown haired girl’s personality of being the one wanting adventure. Also there is some inconsistency in later adventures with the shop, being called “The Shudder Shop” or it is said to be located at Shudder Corner rather than it being it’s actual name. Interesting in first stories as well that the girls just appeared in the new locations, before adding in the more dramatic whirls and sound effects when they travel. While the first story seems like only objects in the shop are effected, there are some stories later where outside the shop they shine the light on something old, such as cobblestones and it also works. Sometimes the girls could interact with people, other times they seem to be only witnessing events, the stories did not restrict itself to certain rules, instead did whatever worked best for the story. The story with the witch-doctor stands out as being different from others, as they don’t time-travel, and the torch undoes the damage he causes rather than them being whipped back to their time at the last minute.

Despite some of the inconsistencies, it was fun read, later stories also used some similar settings, like the cruel guardian, Georgian house or Great Fire of London, but even then they change things enough to make it interesting.  Norman Lee and David Matysiak, both were perfect artists for this series, for spookiness, depicting different time periods and epic scenes.