Sci-Fi strips in girls comics

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.

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Phoenix
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Re: Sci-Fi strips in girls comics

Post by Phoenix »

philcom55 wrote:It's interesting that Thomsons published no papers aimed exclusively at girls for such a long time - especially as they printed so many text stories for boys and older women; presumably a lot of girls read the latter instead. Also it's worth noting that titles such as Family Star did occasionally concentrate on younger protogonists in place of the usual romantic entanglements so maybe they tried out the odd SF setting from time to time as well?
I have mountains of such titles as Red Letter, Family Star, Secrets and Red Star Weekly, all dating from the late sixties to the early eighties. What I lack, Phil, is sufficient enthusiasm to start reading them. I always seem to have something more interesting to read, or indeed, to do.

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Re: Sci-Fi strips in girls comics

Post by Bunty Girl »

Phil is spoiling me with another episode of The Pink Peril and a page of Isle of a Million Wings (got the date wrong, sorry, perhaps some other story was set in 1980). Thanks, Phil.

It is interesting what Phoenix says about the DCT girls' story paper The Blue Bird merging with My Weekly, which was a woman's magazine and is still running.

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Re: Sci-Fi strips in girls comics

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Bunty Girl wrote:It is interesting what Phoenix says about the DCT girls' story paper The Blue Bird merging with My Weekly, which was a woman's magazine and is still running.
Yes, I've made the point before, possibly on this forum, that technically one DC Thomson story paper is still alive, and hanging on in there.

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Re: Sci-Fi strips in girls comics

Post by philcom55 »

'Singing for the Green Stranger' was another Diana series which made clever use of a single spot colour. In this story a mysterious alien who looked like some kind of extraterrestrial Isaac Hayes kidnapped and hypnotized a Scottish girls' choir which he proceeded to transport around the country in his flying saucer.

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...One interesting touch that only became apparent as the series progressed was the fact that the Stranger was gradually dying - a condition reflected by his green skin which became noticeably paler every week.

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= Phil Rushton

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Re: Sci-Fi strips in girls comics

Post by matrix »

That has to be the icing on the cake! We could just about say we've seen it all now, or have we? Isaac Hayes "Travelling millions of miles to make them the greatest choir the planet has ever known". Now we know who started all the Idol, and similar pop shows!

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Re: Sci-Fi strips in girls comics

Post by helsbels »

This story is almost exactly the same as "Sing A Sing Of Terror" from Spellbound! "The Pink Peril" also reappeared in Debbie (drawn by Norman Lee), I think when Spellbound had been merged with it. There definitely was a Diana - Debbie - Spellbound connection where reusing/rehashing stories was concerned (Fabulous Four/Supercats, Up To Date Kate, Mary Brown's Schooldays and the two mentioned above).

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Re: Sci-Fi strips in girls comics

Post by Tammyfan »

One great sf I remember from Suzy was Force of Evil. Britain is invaded by evil Sin Pact forces from Asia. During the course of the story we see paranoia and hysteria bringing out the worst in people, prison camps, reeducation centres, and the resistance. Worst of all, we see the heroine watching her father working as the spokesperson and mouthpiece for the Sin Pacters. But she just cannot believe he is a traitor and is determined to prove otherwise. And she has to prove it in the face of her family being ostracised and harassed, and at times beginning to doubt her father herself.
Last edited by Tammyfan on 03 Aug 2013, 07:29, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Sci-Fi strips in girls comics

Post by philcom55 »

You know, it's never occurred to me before but reading the above makes me realize that, apart from one or two more 'mature' details, Alan Moore's 'V for Vendetta' wouldn't have been out of place at all in a British girls' comic (...and it even manages to quote Enid Blyton!).

- Phil R.

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Re: Sci-Fi strips in girls comics

Post by peace355 »

Continuing with the green theme, there was a Judy story "Green for Danger". A girl gains superpowers after a science lab explosion. Her eyes glow green when she used her powers, but she is being controlled by an evil scientist. He makes her do various things like steal for him and even tries to get her to kill another scientist. The girl has no memory of these things afterwards.

It was all in black and white though so no clever use of green colouring.

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Re: Sci-Fi strips in girls comics

Post by felneymike »

Phoenix wrote:
Bunty Girl wrote:It is interesting what Phoenix says about the DCT girls' story paper The Blue Bird merging with My Weekly, which was a woman's magazine and is still running.
Yes, I've made the point before, possibly on this forum, that technically one DC Thomson story paper is still alive, and hanging on in there.
What about The People's Friend? That is a story paper which is both still going and still a story paper!

There's also My Weekly Story Library, which is a weekly book. It used to be Commando-sized, but was changed to paperback sized, and has now gone 'large print' and is paperback thickness too. But £2.99 rather than £6.99, and only on sale for a week. I bought one a while ago about a midwife in 1947 who discovers a murder.

There's a similar one with a pink logo, but I'm not sure who publishes it.

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Re: Sci-Fi strips in girls comics

Post by Phoenix »

felneymike wrote:What about The People's Friend? That is a story paper which is both still going and still a story paper! There's also My Weekly Story Library, which is a weekly book.
They are for adults.

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Re: Sci-Fi strips in girls comics

Post by philcom55 »

It's surprising how many strips in girls' comics featured a heroine whose father or uncle was an eccentric scientist. One such series was the Push-Button Academy in which Ingrid Bergen helped her father to run a state-of-the-art, fully mechanized school for girls. 'The Dunce From Outer Space' celebrated the arrival of their very first alien pupil by converting to full colour in Diana no.368 (7th March 1970).

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Re: Sci-Fi strips in girls comics

Post by Marionette »

philcom55 wrote:It's surprising how many strips in girls' comics featured a heroine whose father or uncle was an eccentric scientist.
No. Mad scientists always have beautiful daughters. I think it's a law.
The Tammy Project: Documenting the classic British girls' comic, one serial at a time.

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Re: Sci-Fi strips in girls comics

Post by suebutcher »

An old thread, but I hadn't been able to see most of the scans until recently, so thanks for the pages from The Pink Peril. The colouring is out of this world! I wonder if John Burns had this strip in mind when he drew Countdown?

Here's Schoolgirls Picture Library No 314, "Planet Of Fear", from June 1965. A nice cover, but the contents are routine space opera, the only unusual thing being the first-person narration from Kim, who lives on Venus with Professor Mullen and her chums Zenda and Apollon. Is this related to a strip in June And School Friend?
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Re: Sci-Fi strips in girls comics

Post by Tammyfan »

suebutcher wrote:An old thread, but I hadn't been able to see most of the scans until recently, so thanks for the pages from The Pink Peril. The colouring is out of this world! I wonder if John Burns had this strip in mind when he drew Countdown?

Here's Schoolgirls Picture Library No 314, "Planet Of Fear", from June 1965. A nice cover, but the contents are routine space opera, the only unusual thing being the first-person narration from Kim, who lives on Venus with Professor Mullen and her chums Zenda and Apollon. Is this related to a strip in June And School Friend?
There was a strip in J&SF called "Vanessa from Venus".

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