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.
I have recently started up a Debbie comic collection and am presently reading a nice run from 1976. I must say I prefer Debbie at this period in time, some years before the awful photo stories started appearing . I just wonder why the Debbie comic was singled out in this way, as if the publishers were trying to go for a slightly older readership - when Debbie was merged with Mandy in 1983 the rubbish "Randell Road Girls" was featured for a while and then (thankfully!) disappeared.
Apart from that, I thought I'd get the ball rolling on the subject of Debbie - a comic which I only read occasionally at the time, but which hindsight has made me appreciate more.
Hi Helsbels! (It's always nice to see somebody flying the flag for these criminally underrated girls' comics!)
Although Debbie managed a pretty respectable run of 518 issues from February 1973 to January 1983 I think it was always seen as weaker title than its older companions Bunty, Judy and Mandy, so it was probably the obvious choice to try out the new photo strip format when sales began dropping across the line. It's also interesting that Thomson's other experimental title Spellbound ended by being combined with Debbie. Unfortunately I don't have many examples to go by, but as a long time fan of all types of time-travel stories I've always had a soft spot for the adventures of Ursula and her amazing 'Time Umbrella'.
I bought a 1927 Schoolgirl's Own annual simply so my walk around town wasn't wasted... and it's great XD. Couple of stories which are likely to have been by the legendary Charles Hamilton in there. Also the later 40's / 50's Chatterbox annuals by Dean where very unisex, quite a few girl's stories in the 1944 edition (which also has an excellent serial).
Something that strikes me about the old girl's adventure/school stories of that era is how UN-different they are to the boy's ones! the articles might have been about sewing and ponies but the stories where the same mix of action, adventure and mystery... just usually with less violence and hockey replacing cricket!
Also it seems lazy writers in a hurry could round off adventure stories with the main character fainting and then waking up and everythings OK, and someone nonchalantly goes "Oh we ran into some police and they helped us beat the crooks"
Here's an example in which Ursula and her Time Umbrella bump into Robin Hood and his Merry Men, from Debbie No.29 (1st Sep 73). Next week our heroine "falls into the hands of the ancient Romans!"
Thanks Phil for the pic of Ursula and her time umbrella. If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes I wouldn't have believed it ever existed! I definitely must get hold of the early copies of Debbie just for this alone!
. I just wonder why the Debbie comic was singled out in this way, as if the publishers were trying to go for a slightly older readership - when Debbie was merged with Mandy in 1983 the rubbish "Randell Road Girls" was featured for a while and then (thankfully!) disappeared.
(It's always nice to see somebody flying the flag for these criminally underrated girls' comics!)
