Happy Birthday Bunty!

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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Kashgar
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Happy Birthday Bunty!

Post by Kashgar »

Today marks the 60th birthday of D C Thomson's girls' picture paper Bunty. First published in January 1958 Bunty would outlive all the other Thomson picture papers, for both girls and boys, that came after her. Surviving for 2,249 over 43 years and spawning 50 annuals, 42 summer specials, 455 picture story libraries and several collections of Bunty stories in nostalgia volumes.
When the editorial staff at Thomson's came to create this new title for girls they wanted it to appeal to girls aged 10 to 14 and they wanted its title to somehow represent those ordinary, mostly working class, girls who were their target readership and therefore they decided they didn't want a Marilyn or a Mirabelle so, instead, they came up with Bunty, a name but then not a name, a pet name derived from other names more often than not. A name that harked back to the heroine of the very first story in Thomson's very first title for girls, "Bunty Brown - she couldn't keep out of mischief" who was the cover star of the very first issue of Thomson's "Girls' Weekly" published on 5th October 1912. A girl, like Mary Simpson, forty-six years later, who was on her way to start a new school....

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colcool007
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Re: Happy Birthday Bunty!

Post by colcool007 »

And being one of the comics to come from D C Thomson, it's not surprising to find that the Bunty was named after was Marion "Bunty" Low, R D Low's daughter.
I started to say something sensible but my parents took over my brain!

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stevezodiac
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Re: Happy Birthday Bunty!

Post by stevezodiac »

I'm iintrigued by the reference to the Thomson Girls weekly. What was its actual title? I've never seen one, does anyone have an image?

Kashgar
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Re: Happy Birthday Bunty!

Post by Kashgar »

"Girls Weekly" was its title Steve. It ran for a total of 492 issues between 1912 and 1922 when it was consumed by "My Weekly". It began life in the tabloid newspaper format before adopting what would become the Thomson boys' paper format during WWI. Sadly, I can't put up any scans.

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