Reprinted stories in Princess Mk.2

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: Reprinted stories in Princess Mk.2

Post by Phoenix »

Tammyfan wrote:Princess had a well-remembered photostory about a disagreeable man who gets turned into a talking rabbit.
That was Mr Evans - The Talking Rabbit, which ran in Princess for I think nine instalments from 1(Sep. 24 1983).

Jenny Andrews' father is a children's entertainer but since the death of Jenny's mother he has lost the will to work so they haven't enough money to pay their landlady. At a party things go well enough, and then Jenny finds a talking rabbit in a pen in the garden although at first she thinks her father is using ventriloquism. Her father thinks she is practising hers. Later the rabbit tells Jenny that he is actually Arthur Evans, who owns a joke shop. One day he had found an old book of spells in a market, tried one out on the cooker, which exploded, turning him from a 5'7'' balding human into a 5'' furry rabbit.

Mr Evans escapes and gets into Jenny's dad's car. Mr Andrews feels that it is essential that he and Jenny eat the rabbit. Understandably the rabbit gets tetchy. They go back to Mr Evans's shop to get the book only to discover that it has been sold by Mrs Evans, who doesn't seem remotely concerned that her husband had disappeared a few weeks earlier. ''Good riddance'', she says. ''Miserable old so-and-so he was''. Somehow he gets some money from the till for Jenny's father, and then starts to worry about how long rabbits live for.

The family, who didn't pay Mr Andrews for his show, come back looking for their daughter's rabbit. Mr Andrews tells them to look where they like, and then produces a great conjuring trick with a series of hats to confuse the family and save the rabbit. Mr Andrews then gets upset thinking about what would have been his 15th wedding anniversary the following day.

Jenny has to persuade her father to do a booked show because they need the money. In the event he can't go through with it. The rabbit can smell lots of other rabbits in the house and they are all terrified. Jenny will take over from her father if she can get the rabbit to help her. Her act succeeds so well that she gets paid a bonus. However, the other rabbits at the party are to be experimented on by the party girl's father at his research station. Some get out because the cage isn't locked properly, and Jenny becomes frantic when she realises that the rabbit she has brought home isn't Mr Evans.

Mr Evans remains lost, and when Jenny's father gets an entrepreneur to come and listen to Jenny's ventriloquism act, her efforts make him look silly. Jenny eventually finds Mr Evans and releases him from a trap. Mr Evans seems really ill and asks Jenny for help. Obviously all's well that ends well but I can't say how the serial ended as I have not noted it down.

Tammyfan
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Re: Reprinted stories in Princess Mk.2

Post by Tammyfan »

Phoenix wrote:
Tammyfan wrote:Princess had a well-remembered photostory about a disagreeable man who gets turned into a talking rabbit.
That was Mr Evans - The Talking Rabbit, which ran in Princess for I think nine instalments from 1(Sep. 24 1983).

Jenny Andrews' father is a children's entertainer but since the death of Jenny's mother he has lost the will to work so they haven't enough money to pay their landlady. At a party things go well enough, and then Jenny finds a talking rabbit in a pen in the garden although at first she thinks her father is using ventriloquism. Her father thinks she is practising hers. Later the rabbit tells Jenny that he is actually Arthur Evans, who owns a joke shop. One day he had found an old book of spells in a market, tried one out on the cooker, which exploded, turning him from a 5'7'' balding human into a 5'' furry rabbit.

Mr Evans escapes and gets into Jenny's dad's car. Mr Andrews feels that it is essential that he and Jenny eat the rabbit. Understandably the rabbit gets tetchy. They go back to Mr Evans's shop to get the book only to discover that it has been sold by Mrs Evans, who doesn't seem remotely concerned that her husband had disappeared a few weeks earlier. ''Good riddance'', she says. ''Miserable old so-and-so he was''. Somehow he gets some money from the till for Jenny's father, and then starts to worry about how long rabbits live for.

The family, who didn't pay Mr Andrews for his show, come back looking for their daughter's rabbit. Mr Andrews tells them to look where they like, and then produces a great conjuring trick with a series of hats to confuse the family and save the rabbit. Mr Andrews then gets upset thinking about what would have been his 15th wedding anniversary the following day.

Jenny has to persuade her father to do a booked show because they need the money. In the event he can't go through with it. The rabbit can smell lots of other rabbits in the house and they are all terrified. Jenny will take over from her father if she can get the rabbit to help her. Her act succeeds so well that she gets paid a bonus. However, the other rabbits at the party are to be experimented on by the party girl's father at his research station. Some get out because the cage isn't locked properly, and Jenny becomes frantic when she realises that the rabbit she has brought home isn't Mr Evans.

Mr Evans remains lost, and when Jenny's father gets an entrepreneur to come and listen to Jenny's ventriloquism act, her efforts make him look silly. Jenny eventually finds Mr Evans and releases him from a trap. Mr Evans seems really ill and asks Jenny for help. Obviously all's well that ends well but I can't say how the serial ended as I have not noted it down.
Thank you for that information. It so happens I do have the final episode somewhere.
Last edited by Tammyfan on 26 May 2016, 23:21, edited 1 time in total.

Tammyfan
Posts: 1981
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Re: Reprinted stories in Princess Mk.2

Post by Tammyfan »

Here is the last episode of Mr Evans the Talking Rabbit. It ended #12, 10 December 1983.

Image

Image

Image
Last edited by Tammyfan on 26 May 2016, 23:13, edited 1 time in total.

Tammyfan
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Re: Reprinted stories in Princess Mk.2

Post by Tammyfan »

Here is the printed version of the original artwork Philcom found. It is also the issue where Princess changes to the same newsprint and format as Tammy.

Image

Tammyfan
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Re: Reprinted stories in Princess Mk.2

Post by Tammyfan »

Now I have pulled out #19, I see it had another Tammy reprint - "Rowena of the Doves".

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Re: Reprinted stories in Princess Mk.2

Post by Phoenix »

Tammyfan wrote:Here is the last episode of Mr Evans the Talking Rabbit. It ended #12, 10 December 1983.
Thank you for that information, Tammyfan. To be totally honest, I wasn't that impressed by the serials in Princess. I borrowed the first twenty-eight issues from a former work colleague of mine at a local High School, a Maths teacher who, like me, is retired, and whose daughter loved the comic so much that she had nostalgically hung on to those first twenty-eight issues. She couldn't remember what had happened to the later issues. I made notes on just the first nine issues, which must be seen as a clear indicator of my interest level.

Tammyfan
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Re: Reprinted stories in Princess Mk.2

Post by Tammyfan »

Phoenix wrote:
Tammyfan wrote:Here is the last episode of Mr Evans the Talking Rabbit. It ended #12, 10 December 1983.
Thank you for that information, Tammyfan. To be totally honest, I wasn't that impressed by the serials in Princess. I borrowed the first twenty-eight issues from a former work colleague of mine at a local High School, a Maths teacher who, like me, is retired, and whose daughter loved the comic so much that she had nostalgically hung on to those first twenty-eight issues. She couldn't remember what had happened to the later issues. I made notes on just the first nine issues, which must be seen as a clear indicator of my interest level.
Yes, the Princess stories didn't seem to have the strength that Misty, Jinty or Tammy had and some were just plain weak. Falling back on reprints towards the end was not a good sign. From the comments I've seen about Princess 2, she was created to ride on the popularity of Princess Diana. But that wouldn't keep her going for years. Of course she did have her fans, like the lady's daughter you mentioned.

Princess did last just 28 issues. She merged with Tammy, the last title to do so.

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Re: Reprinted stories in Princess Mk.2

Post by Phoenix »

Tammyfan wrote:Princess did last just 28 issues. She merged with Tammy, the last title to do so.
I don't have that merger issue. My last Tammy is from 12 March 1983. I don't actually have that many issues anyway, and those that I do have I bought from my old friend, the writer and compiler Colin Morgan, in 2000 during his final days with terminal cancer, when he was trying to get some much needed funds together to help his wife, Sheila, cope financially in the immediate aftermath. It was a very sad time. My modest collection of issues of Jinty and the far larger piles of Girls' Crystal from the war years into the fifties and of School Friend from its first issue were acquired at the same time. It was to be years before I looked at any of them.

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Re: Reprinted stories in Princess Mk.2

Post by Kashgar »

Phoenix wrote:
Tammyfan wrote:Princess did last just 28 issues. She merged with Tammy, the last title to do so.
I don't have that merger issue. My last Tammy is from 12 March 1983. I don't actually have that many issues anyway, and those that I do have I bought from my old friend, the writer and compiler Colin Morgan, in 2000 during his final days with terminal cancer, when he was trying to get some much needed funds together to help his wife, Sheila, cope financially in the immediate aftermath. It was a very sad time. My modest collection of issues of Jinty and the far larger piles of Girls' Crystal from the war years into the fifties and of School Friend from its first issue were acquired at the same time. It was to be years before I looked at any of them.
Hi Derek. Can you roughly say which issues of Girls' Crystal/School Friend you have? I can't really believe it's so long since Colin passed away. His 'Rover Index' was certainly an inspiration when it came to me producing my own.

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Re: Reprinted stories in Princess Mk.2

Post by Phoenix »

I've had a good root round today but so far I haven't clapped eyes on any of my issues of Girls' Crystal. I may have put them in the attic. On the plus side I have found a box full of typed story scripts by W. G. Ede that I had completely forgotten about. The issues of School Friend were easier to locate. I have the following:- 1950 (19) : 1951 (16) : 1952 (4) : 1953 (38) : 1954 (47) : 1955 (53 ) : 1956 (48) : 1957 (48) : 1958 (4).

Other items that have surfaced from the boxes I brought home from Colin's after the funeral, at Sheila's request (urging really) as she wanted to sell the house with vacant possession as soon as possible so she could go back to her family somewhere in Surrey, include a batch of completes written by Anne Digby published between February and September 1963 that Colin had torn out of Girl, a serial called The Adventures Of Amanda also from Girl between May 1961 and March 1962, a serial called Kathy At Marvin Grange School, which looks as if it also has been extracted from Girl, as were quite a lot of stories about Jill of 21, Newlands Park. I also found a letter from Bill Lofts, an invoice from Norman Shaw in 1982 for £28.07 for 31 issues of The Wizard and 22 of The Rover, a few A4 stapled Newsletters from Alan Cadwallender, one of which contains information about your offer to answer any readers' queries about anything DCT, and the master sheets for the Red Circle stories that he sent to Billy Nicholls, a mutual friend that I am still in contact with. We ring each other at least twice a week about DCT matters that have arisen since our previous chat. That was just one box.

In another I have found the Sunday Times magazine containing the article The Secret World Of The Comic Kings, which was mentioned recently in the posts about The D. C. Thomson Bumper Fun Book, and the suggested covers of our joint indexes about The Big Four, which were to have been published in the late nineties under the 3M banner, Morgan, Marsden and Moore, your role being an advisory one rather than a hands on one as you lived so far away, but that was before I decided that if we were going to produce indexes we needed to do the job properly, by which I meant start at issue 1, not at the first issue in our then run. This will have to do for today, Ray, I'm getting tired, and thinking about Colin again is still upsetting. I think I'll go downstairs and watch the England v Australia football match.
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Tammyfan
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Re: Reprinted stories in Princess Mk.2

Post by Tammyfan »

Phoenix wrote:
Tammyfan wrote:Princess did last just 28 issues. She merged with Tammy, the last title to do so.
I don't have that merger issue. My last Tammy is from 12 March 1983. I don't actually have that many issues anyway, and those that I do have I bought from my old friend, the writer and compiler Colin Morgan, in 2000 during his final days with terminal cancer, when he was trying to get some much needed funds together to help his wife, Sheila, cope financially in the immediate aftermath. It was a very sad time. My modest collection of issues of Jinty and the far larger piles of Girls' Crystal from the war years into the fifties and of School Friend from its first issue were acquired at the same time. It was to be years before I looked at any of them.
A discussion of the Tammy and Princess merger issue can be found at https://jintycomic.wordpress.com/2016/0 ... pril-1984/

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Re: Reprinted stories in Princess Mk.2

Post by Phoenix »

Tammyfan wrote:A discussion of the Tammy and Princess merger issue can be found at https://jintycomic.wordpress.com/2016/0 ... pril-1984/
Thank you for that information, Tammyfan.

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Re: Reprinted stories in Princess Mk.2

Post by Phoenix »

Kashgar wrote:Hi Derek. Can you roughly say which issues of Girls' Crystal/School Friend you have? I can't really believe it's so long since Colin passed away. His 'Rover Index' was certainly an inspiration when it came to me producing my own.
I have now found them, Ray, but there are by no means as many as I thought there were, but having said that, I haven't even looked at them for several years. It's no wonder I couldn't find them. Under the circumstances I am inclined to buy a good few more. There are certainly some tempting gaps to fill. I have the following:-

1944:- March to December, all as single-sheet photocopies.
1945:- None
1946:- 2
1947:- None
1948:- 2
1949:- 31
1950:- 40
1954:- 1
1955:- A 3-month run (January to March) in a bound volume.
1958:- 1

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Re: Reprinted stories in Princess Mk.2

Post by Kashgar »

Thanks very much for taking the time to check out the details of the School Friend/Girls' Crystal for me Derek. It is much appreciated. As was the opportunity to see the possible covers of those proposed indexes from the 3M days. Bittersweet memories.
By the way, a strip titled 'Kathy at Marvin Grange' appeared in June and School Friend but as you say it had the word 'School' appended to the title maybe there was an earlier incarnation.

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Re: Reprinted stories in Princess Mk.2

Post by Phoenix »

Kashgar wrote:By the way, a strip titled 'Kathy at Marvin Grange' appeared in June and School Friend but as you say it had the word 'School' appended to the title maybe there was an earlier incarnation.
None of the pages of this story have a date on them, Ray, so I don't know which year it was published. However, in the same batch there are some text completes by Anne Digby, which range from February to September of 1963, which could be a guide for you. The title I gave you was correct though. See below.
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