Discuss all the girls comics that have appeared over the years. Excellent titles like Bunty, Misty, Spellbound, Tammy and June, amongst many others, can all be remembered here.
'Day and Knight' is another one of Juliana's stories that was unfinished when the 1980s version of Princess was cancelled after only 28 issues. Fortunately it continued in Tammy after the two titles merged, with the final episode appearing in the issue dated 28th April 1984 - but as I don't have that one I've wondered for years how it ended. Here's a scene from the penultimate Princess where poor Sharon has just learned that school bully Carrie is about to move in as her stepsister - in addition to which she will have to get rid of her beloved cat because Carrie says she's allergic to him!
Does anyone know how this story finally resolved itself? I'm betting the two girls ended up as best friends - though in some ways I'd like to hear that the appalling Carrie fell under a passing combine harvester, shortly after being exposed to the whole world as an irredeemable monster!
Re Day and Knight: to fill in between, things get so bad between Carrie and Sharon that Sharon runs away to her grandmother. The day after, Dad catches Carrie out when he finds the guitar that she stole off Sharon. The shock of seeing her mother so angry jolts Carrie into remorse, but Sharon doesn't listen when Carrie tries to make things up with her (after pressure from mum). Sharon wants thing to be what they were before and does not listen to her grandmother's warnings that things will never be the same again. Carrie and her mother move out, with Mum telling Carrie she will never forgive her for spoiling her marriage. At first Sharon is delighted to be home, but then she sees how heartbroken her father is. She realises that gran is right about things never being the same again, and her relationship with her father will become embittered. The only way out is reconciliation, but Sharon can't stand the thought of living with Carrie. So what to do?
And now we come to the final episode above.
So Carrie was not an irredeemable monster. In fact, the plost demanded that she repent and be redeemed so the marriage would not be destroyed by her bullying. Mind you, there are some characters in girls' comics, such as 'The Honourable SJ' from Judy and Ma Thatcher from Tammy's 'Slaves of War Orphan Farm' who really are irredeemable monsters. And was Nancy Norden aka Nasty Nancy from Judy's 'Be Nice to Nancy' irredeemable? There was nothing to redeem her in the story (except maybe being spoiled). But does the special school she is sent to at the end of the story reform her? It would have been interesting to see a sequel about Nancy's time at special school and see if she gets turned around.
Oh, I'm getting a bit off topic. To return to the subject of the last Tammy, Scream! was luckier than Tammy. Like Tammy, Scream! vanished abruptly - in fact, it was the week after Tammy. It must have been another casualty of the strike. But unlike Tammy, Scream! was eventually allowed to continue in Eagle with one of its biggest drawing cards, 'The Thirteenth Floor', becoming a lasting Eagle regular.
Last edited by Tammyfan on 21 Feb 2017, 10:09, edited 2 times in total.
Ruth B: Congratulations on your luck in tracing Juliana. We can't guarantee that she does know or remember how Cora Can't Lose ended. But she seems the best bet because I read that the artwork was returned to the artists. Oh well, fingers crossed we'll get a synopsis or even scans of the original art for the conclusion to Cora Can't Lose!
Thanks Mari and Tammyfan! Much as I liked Ruth's version I have to admit that's a really well constructed ending (and, fortunately, it doesn't seem to have been unduly 'rushed' because of the merger). I 'm especially impressed by the way in which the writer has taken the 'black and white' symbolism of the girls' surnames and complexions and turned it on its head when Sharon comes to realize that she isn't entirely good, any more than Carrie is all bad. And while it's not overly preachy I can't help feeling that this story would have been genuinely helpful for any readers who found themselves in a similar situation.
Incidentally, it's interesting that Princess only converted to the Tammy format a few weeks before the two titles were combined, which makes me think that this particular series was always intended to be a 'Tammy' story. Bearing that in mind it might be a nice idea for any Compleat Tammy collection to include the earlier episodes as 'essential extras', just like the missing conclusion to 'Cora Can't Lose'.
I think... I think I might have two original pages I bought in France of this story. I will put them up in a minute and you can tell me if it belongs to this one!
I wonder what might have been if Tammy had been cancelled as scheduled (besides the endings to Cora and the other serials) and, I presume, merged with Girl? I would say not much because Girl was a photo-comic; space for picture stories was limited and the competition from Patty's World was fierce. I guess that after any remaining Tammy serials were finished in Girl (probably Secret Sisters), it would have been either Bella or Pam, and maybe Sadie in Waiting as the cartoon.
The unfinished Tammy stories (which may have been finished through the Spanish comics or original art returned to the artists) were:
The running Bella story
The running Pam of Pond Hill Story
Secret Sisters
No Use to Anyone!
I'm Her - She's Me!
Cora Can't Lose
The Secret Garden (actually a reprint from Jinty, so you can catch up with that one if you track down the Jinty issues). Princess, which had recently merged with Tammy, reprinted stories from Tammy and Jinty (not a good sign for a fledgling comic to be falling back on reprints from older comics), so I wonder if this reprint was a carryove of that.
The Button Box (it was a regular, not a serial, but it was left with no final episode).
Bella was printed in Spain but not so many episodes as in UK. Maybe that one was. The other ones I can't be sure as they often changed the names of the stories for no apparent reason. Or the names of the characters! for example Our Terry was called in Spain Our Sonia. For no reason at all. If it was a name of difficult pronunciation I voud understand, but Terry???
I bought the final Tammy Annual last year in the hope they might’ve published unseen material from the post-cancellation days. It’s not so farfetched. The 1986 Scream Holiday Special printed the cover of the unpublished issue 18, along with revealing the face of Ghastly McNasty which readers had been previously encouraged to draw. (The prize was eventually won in Eagle).
Alas it was chock-a-block with reprints, most or all from 1981. Looking at that year in the now sadly now closed Colindale Newspaper Library I spotted: The Black and White World of Shirley Grey (7th Feb – 30th May), Molly Mills and the Sporting Life (8th – 29th Aug) and three Wee Sue stories (10th and 31st Jan, 7th Mar), and no doubt there were others that I missed. What a wasted opportunity.
(Then again, with Tammy you could never be sure which way it would go!)
