Looking for Judy comics from the early 80s... or information

[Audiate]

Young Wendy Redreid-Robbin was orphaned when both her parents died from acute poverty after drinking water from their hovel's well. But Wendy had always dreamt of dancing at the Melchester Royal Ballet. By dint of working hard, selling rat turds to a grateful clientelle, Wendy was able to pay for an audition before Madame Dominatrix, a former Prima Ballerina, now reduced to appearing as a bitter and twisted old cow in childrens' serial stories. But the night before her audition, Wendy discovers that the pointe shoes she had made from old tractor tyres have perished. Now read on...

Oh, I remember that one! Didn't she have a younger sister to look after, too, and they were always trying to dodge the evil social services lady who wanted to take her away? And the sisters were also, between ballet auditions, trying to search for their lost lame dog, who wore a collar with a locket that contained the secret to the fortune they were supposed to inherit? And their evil uncle was trying to find it before them...
Oh, and the younger sister was allergic to chalk, so she couldn't go to school.

Yes. So they sent her twin brother in her place. In a dress. (and the first person who can identify which story that last idea was a reversal of wins the DC Thomson Prize for Extreme Cleverness).

OMG, I thought he died along with the parents in the car crash...?!
Wait... does that mean he's a GHOST???
eeeeeee! *runs away screaming*

Do I win the prize?

[steelclaw]

Sorry don't know.

[Phoenix]

If we are looking for opposites, it must be a girl incognito at a boys' school. Also, since the virtual prize is a DC Thomson Prize, presumably the story will be in a DC Thomson paper. My first stab at this therefore is Tammy Smart's Schooldays from Tracy. As my collection of that title is currently inaccessible, I am unable to check whether she has a twin brother or not.

[tony ingram]

If we are looking for opposites, it must be a girl incognito at a boys' school. Also, since the virtual prize is a DC Thomson Prize, presumably the story will be in a DC Thomson paper. My first stab at this therefore is Tammy Smart's Schooldays from Tracy. As my collection of that title is currently inaccessible, I am unable to check whether she has a twin brother or not.

Ladies and gentlemen, we have a winnah!!! It was indeed Ms Smart, who successfully impersonated her brother at an all-male school in Tracy in 1979!

[Audiate]

The fact that you retain that amount (and detail) of comic info in your head scares me.

[Phoenix]

their first impression might be that that the majority of the stories are about ballerinas and boarding schools. (And let's face it, whether those were excellent, average, or poor, there certainly were a lot!)

I'm obviously not getting anywhere in this discussion so I'm not going to rise to the new bait. What I will do though, Audiate, purely for information's sake, is take a full year of your favourite paper Judy and count up how many episodes there are of all the different types of story. I will then come back to this thread with the breakdown of the results. If this shows that 'there certainly were a lot' of ballerina and boarding school episodes, i.e. a large proportion of the total, I will hold my hands up. Oh, and by the way, there is no need to be scared, for two reasons. Firstly, I don't keep all the 'comic' information in my head. I have a filing system and lots of the papers to refer to as well. Secondly, Vancouver is a very long way from Liverpool, and I have allowed my passport to lapse. So you can chill out.

[Audiate]

Klakadak-ploobadoof, here are some scans to give you an idea of what some of the artwork is like. Unfortunately the scans don't do the original artwork justice, as the detail gets a bit lost (and these ones have really lovely detail). Wish I had information on who the artists were!

[Audiate]

And some more...

[Phoenix]

here are some scans

Just a suggestion. I think you will gain greater conformity, and clarity too, especially where the pages appear dark, if you convert your scans of black and white pages from colour to greyscale before saving and uploading them. Your scanner programme should also have brightness and contrast facilities. It might be worth your while experimenting with these.

[Muffy]

If we are looking for opposites, it must be a girl incognito at a boys' school. Also, since the virtual prize is a DC Thomson Prize, presumably the story will be in a DC Thomson paper. My first stab at this therefore is Tammy Smart's Schooldays from Tracy. As my collection of that title is currently inaccessible, I am unable to check whether she has a twin brother or not.

Ladies and gentlemen, we have a winnah!!! It was indeed Ms Smart, who successfully impersonated her brother at an all-male school in Tracy in 1979!

I think the most unusual/creative story of all was around 1981 in Tammy, called "Cuckoo in the nest," about an orphaned football-mad boy, Leslie having to pretend to be a girl at a girls boarding, for fear of his uncle/guardian, going to prison - having spent the money for boarding school from his great aunt, on football items and bikes. Complete with wig and girls uniform, 'Les' had to learn needlework and had to try to do well at 'The Nest' school. His wealthy great aunt was keen to see him/her do well. I think it may be the only time there was a male protagonist in a girl's comic.

[Phoenix]

I think it may be the only time there was a male protagonist in a girl's comic.

There is another story about a boy at a girls' school. Charley Boy! runs in Mandy 313 (Jan. 13 1973) - 324 (Mar. 31 1973). Nine-year-old Charles Kent's school has been destroyed by fire so Miss Talbot, the headmistress of Clifftops, the boarding school his thirteen-year-old sister Sara attends, offers the boy a home until other arrangements can be made. The lad, clearly the protagonist in this story, turns out to be a holy terror, but somehow he usually seems to end up smelling of roses. At least the author of this tale didn't need to skate round the problem facing the author of Tammy Smart's Schooldays and her ilk, that of how to include the gym, games and swimming lessons that surely formed part of the school's truly rounded curriculum.

[tony ingram]

There is another story about a boy at a girls' school. Charley Boy! runs in Mandy 313 (Jan. 13 1973) - 324 (Mar. 31 1973). Nine-year-old Charles Kent's school has been destroyed by fire so Miss Talbot, the headmistress of Clifftops, the boarding school his thirteen-year-old sister Sara attends, offers the boy a home until other arrangements can be made. The lad, clearly the protagonist in this story, turns out to be a holy terror, but somehow he usually seems to end up smelling of roses. At least the author of this tale didn't need to skate round the problem facing the author of Tammy Smart's Schooldays and her ilk, that of how to include the gym, games and swimming lessons that surely formed part of the school's truly rounded curriculum.

I would imagine young 'master' Smart was very popular in the showers...

If we're nominating most imaginative but unlikely stories from these comics though, my vote would go to another gem from Tracy, 'Dark Days for Jo (but no-one must know)', the everyday story of a would-be gymnast named Jo who had an unfortunate tendency to unexpectedly go completely blind at odd intervals, usually when she's in the middle of a routine. Naturally, Jo couldn't jeopardise her career by revealing her affliction, so her coach-a mad old woman called Wilson-secretly trained her to perform her routines blindfolded in an abandoned barn. As you would.

[philcom55]

Thanks for printing those scans Audiate - they were all quite new to me.

However, just to prove that DC Thomson didn't have a monopoly on good girls' comics in the 70s and 80s (and for anyone who can't afford their own copy of Misty no.1) here are the dramatic title pages from three stories in that issue:




As you can see a great deal of emphasis was put on the artwork for this comic giving it a kind of widescreen, cinematic effect. Incidentally, if you want to read the entire 'Carrie'-esque 'Moonchild' story by Pat Mills and John Armstrong, all 53 pages were subsequently reprinted in the 1983 Misty Annual.

- Phil Rushton

[Peter Gray]

Wow!!!

[Audiate]

That Moonchild one does look fabulous!