Susan BoylePeter Gray wrote:Nice seeing that Steel Claw..
Might use the Gordon Bell one for the blog if thats Ok..
as it is aa reprint in the 1990 Judy...wonder what year it comes from roughly..
the cover of the photo of the girl..wonder what she looks like now...
Looking for Judy comics from the early 80s... or information
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Re: Looking for Judy comics from the early 80s... or information
- Peter Gray
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Re: Looking for Judy comics from the early 80s... or information
It does look a bit like her Susan Boyle.
The other 2 pages to 'Lady Sarah's Secret'
The other 2 pages to 'Lady Sarah's Secret'
Re: Looking for Judy comics from the early 80s... or information
WONDERFUL artwork. Do you know who the artist is?
Re: Looking for Judy comics from the early 80s... or information
I'm not sure of the full name of the artist, but when he/she illustrated stories in IPC comics such as Misty, Tammy and Jinty I did see the signature D'Adderio.
When I've got a mo, I'll post a list of stories from some of the 8o's annuals.
When I've got a mo, I'll post a list of stories from some of the 8o's annuals.
Re: Looking for Judy comics from the early 80s... or information
What Al says about Judy in the family tree section.
Judy
(16/1/1960 - 11/5/1991)
Judy was a very successful girls comic from D.C. Thomson. It ran for a phenominal 31 years (1635 issues) and consisted of all that was good about girls comics back in the sensational 60's. There was romance, orphans, school, dancing, music and girl-next-door-makes-good stories.
This formula was obviously very successful, hence the life span of more than 3 decades, although throughout the 1980's, girls seemed to be more interested in pop and fashions magzines. But, to give D.C. Thomson their due, they attempted to move with the times by including these subjects within the pages of Judy, but it was really neither comic or magazine. This may have counted towards its final demise, but it had a fantastic life and even managed to whether the grim-reaper during the 1980's, which was NO mean achievement.
But, to coin a phrase, all good things come to an end, and Judy's end, as a single entity, occurred on the 18th May 1991 which was when it teamed up with Mandy to become a new publication called Mandy And Judy. Judy did incorporate just the one title, that of Emma on the 29th September 1979. Well done Judy,you had a great life.
Judy
(16/1/1960 - 11/5/1991)
Judy was a very successful girls comic from D.C. Thomson. It ran for a phenominal 31 years (1635 issues) and consisted of all that was good about girls comics back in the sensational 60's. There was romance, orphans, school, dancing, music and girl-next-door-makes-good stories.
This formula was obviously very successful, hence the life span of more than 3 decades, although throughout the 1980's, girls seemed to be more interested in pop and fashions magzines. But, to give D.C. Thomson their due, they attempted to move with the times by including these subjects within the pages of Judy, but it was really neither comic or magazine. This may have counted towards its final demise, but it had a fantastic life and even managed to whether the grim-reaper during the 1980's, which was NO mean achievement.
But, to coin a phrase, all good things come to an end, and Judy's end, as a single entity, occurred on the 18th May 1991 which was when it teamed up with Mandy to become a new publication called Mandy And Judy. Judy did incorporate just the one title, that of Emma on the 29th September 1979. Well done Judy,you had a great life.
Re: Looking for Judy comics from the early 80s... or information
Didn't they then incorporate another comic, too?
I wonder if the amalgamated one is still going, or if it met its demise...? How many girls' comics are current in the UK?
I wonder if the amalgamated one is still going, or if it met its demise...? How many girls' comics are current in the UK?
Re: Looking for Judy comics from the early 80s... or information
Sadly there are no girls comics still being published in the UK. Judy's stablemate Bunty was by far the most successful but even that has gone now, apart from an Annual which still manages to recall past glories every Christmas.
- Phil Rushton
- Phil Rushton
Re: Looking for Judy comics from the early 80s... or information
Aw, I didn't know that! Times sure have changed...
When did Bunty bite the dust?
(do they not even have any young-girls' comics? of the Twinkle ilk?)
When did Bunty bite the dust?
(do they not even have any young-girls' comics? of the Twinkle ilk?)
Re: Looking for Judy comics from the early 80s... or information
Audiate have a look at this link.
Glad you got the scans Ok
Are you from the UK originally and then moved to Canada?
http://www.comicsuk.co.uk/FamilyTree/Fa ... leBox=Judy
Glad you got the scans Ok
Are you from the UK originally and then moved to Canada?
http://www.comicsuk.co.uk/FamilyTree/Fa ... leBox=Judy
Re: Looking for Judy comics from the early 80s... or information
To add to Phil's post, Judy swallowed up Tracy in January 1985, Mandy and Judy, or M&J as it was better known, passed away on May 24th 1997 and Bunty breathed her last as a weekly with issue 2249 on February 17th 2001. In addition there were five 64pp issues of Bunty Monthly between March and July 2001. They were just reprints of old material I believe.
Re: Looking for Judy comics from the early 80s... or information
Unfortunately I don't have any copies of Judy specifically from the early 1980s, but I thought you might be interested in this quote from Paul Gravett's Great British Comics:
- Phil Rushton
...Does this ring any bells from your own time as a Judy reader? At any rate it certainly sounds like the sort of story that would be worth seeking out......Probably the ultimate waif tragedy...was 'Nothing Ever Goes Right', told in jarringly misshapen panels in Thomson's Judy in 1981. At its climax Heather Morgan's rescue of two children trapped in a demolished house makes her weak heart finally give out and she is buried, unknown, in an unmarked grave. According to Judy artist Ron Tiner, this tale "remained an all-time favourite among the readers".
- Phil Rushton
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Re: Looking for Judy comics from the early 80s... or information
There can't be no girl's comics! Though any survivors are probably fashion magazines with an appended page or two of strip. There's probably still "nursery" comics aimed at girls, but those will be corporate advertainment that's mostly puzzles and features too.
I beleive there is a traditional-styled girl's comic, reprinting old Judy, Bunty etc material, published in Germany. I tried to persuade a friend to buy one while she was at uni over there, but she never did.
I beleive there is a traditional-styled girl's comic, reprinting old Judy, Bunty etc material, published in Germany. I tried to persuade a friend to buy one while she was at uni over there, but she never did.
Re: Looking for Judy comics from the early 80s... or information
Ah yes! I assume this is Wendy - arguably DC Thomson's last extant girls' comic which, despite the fact that it is produced in the UK and contains new material is only available in Germany: a very strange footnote to the history of British comics! Here's an old post in which Captain Storm got the whole remarkable story straight from 'the horse's mouth' (unfortunately the punctuation has degraded somewhat over time):felneymike wrote:I beleive there is a traditional-styled girl's comic, reprinting old Judy, Bunty etc material, published in Germany. I tried to persuade a friend to buy one while she was at uni over there, but she never did.
- Phil RushtonCaptain Storm wrote:Bill Graham on WENDY:
WENDY: THE STORY SO FAR . . .
Back in the early 1980?s a Dutch publisher called Peter Tuijnmann approached D.C. Thomson. He had a comic called Penny which was aimed at girls who wanted to read about horses. Peter didn?t originate much material himself. He syndicated it from other publishers. He knew that pony stories had long been a staple of our girls? comics like Bunty and Judy and he wanted to buy the rights to publish in Europe. Peter was a smart guy and very hard working. He brought in publishers from Norway, Germany, Sweden and Denmark who all published their own editions of Penny. This kept costs down. Penny was a success in all of those countries because they all had lots of little girls who were mad about horses. In the late ?80?s I became involved. We would take a story of about 10 or 12 three-page episodes and repackage them into one complete story.
But because of the constant demand and the fact that our girls comics were starting to run down, we began to run out of stories to sell to Peter and his co-publishers. So we decided to originate what we called pony stories, solely for syndication purposes. Because we retained the copyright, some were published in our own girls comics but very few of these stories actually appeared in our own publications. What had been almost a sideline for me ? I was also in charge of Starblazer and the Football Picture Story monthlies ? now became my main job.
The pony stories were published in Germany by Ehapa, an offshoot of Egmont. In January 1990 I was invited to Stuttgart to meet an editor called Hans-Jurgen Meyer. Up till that point there were no recurring characters in the pony stories but Ehapa had come up with a story idea centred on a fifteen year old girl called Wendy Thorsteeg who lived on her dad?s riding school and stud farm in Schleswig-Holstein. ( Hard to say after a few half litres of what Germany does best! )
At this point I have to say I am still unclear as to who originally thought of the character of Wendy. I know that several different people in Ehapa have tried to claim the credit. I suspect that several people played a part and that it went along the lines of one person saying ??Let?s have a continuing story about a fifteen-year-old girl.? Someone else would suggest that she lived on her dad?s stud farm and it would snowball from there. My experience is that is how a lot of comic characters are ?created?.
Anyway, whoever thought of it, Ehapa didn?t have the type of editorial expertise to develop the story. But this was the kind of thing I had been doing nearly all my working life. I was given a cast of characters and the description of the stables. From there my staff and I worked up a synopsis for the first episode. This was approved by Hans-Jurgen then the synopsis was farmed out to a writer called Deirdre Alden. ( Deirde later dropped out when she became a prospective Conservative MP at the last election ). I already had an artist in mind ? Jaume Forns who is based just north of Barcelona. From the descriptions we gave him, Jaume drew all the main characters in the story.
It took a bit of time to build up a stock of episodes. We had to find more artists as there was no way Jaume could handle it on his own - the early episodes ran to up to 36 pages. The first episode was published in late summer 1991. It was a huge success in Germany, Denmark, Norway and Sweden. By this time we had parted company with Peter Tuijnmann so the story didn?t appear in Holland. At first, the Wendy episodes were published alternately with the other pony stories but Wendy was so successful that these other stories were quickly dropped.
Wendy was originally published fortnightly but it was such a success in Germany that it went weekly in 1994. However, it stayed as a biweekly in Scandinavia because of the way the comics market works there. However, Scandinavia publishes a winter and a summer special and four pocket books a year all about Wendy.
Pony comics have been phenomenally successful throughout northern Europe for the last 25 years. In Germany there are at least two others which compete against Wendy but I believe it sells more than the other two combined.
Wendy made a brief and unsuccessful appearance in the UK in our comic for younger girls called Animals And You. It didn?t surprise me. That was completely the wrong vehicle for the story and, combined with the fact that the stories were hacked into 8-page episodes, it came as no surprise that the readers hated it and it was eventually dropped.
The character Wendy is not owned by D.C. Thomson nor Egmont. It is in fact the copyright of a company called Wendy Promotions which is 50% owned by DCT and 50% by Egmont! And it is still a very important brand for the latter. It is heavily merchandised in Germany and Scandinavia ? everything from duvets to coffee mugs. Oh, and the stories have also been syndicated to a French publisher.
A television series based on Wendy was made in New Zealand in 1995 called Riding High. It was never shown in the UK although I did see an episode on Irish TV while visiting Dublin. It was reasonably successful throughout Germany and northern Europe as well as Australia and Mexico! Bit of Wendy trivia here ? the part of Wendy?s boyfriend was played by Karl Urban who later starred as Eomer in Lord Of The Rings and the assassin Kirill in The Bourne Supremacy!
But, you ask, who actually produces the stories? I have a staff of three. We think up the story lines every week and these are distilled into a synopsis of around 3000 words. This is approved by a German editor then the synopsis is sent to one of two writers. The synopsis is very detailed and the writers? input is therefore fairly limited. We have tried asking writers to submit their own story ideas but it hasn?t been successful. Each episode now runs to 23 pages ? around 120 frames. No writer or even group of writers can meet that weekly deadline. The formula we have of producing scripts is tried and tested and it works.
When the scripts come in my staff ? all female ? sub edit them before sending them to the artists. Five are Spanish, including Forns, and two are English. The two Englishmen are Barrie Mitchell ? yes, the one who used to draw Roy Of The Rovers ? and Jim Colthorpe, a veteran of our girls? comics. The late Phil Gascoigne was also one of the team. He was actually working on a script when he died recently.
When the artwork comes in the type is added electronically in English. It?s then sent to Germany and Scandinavia where it is translated into their own languages.
I?ve been working on Wendy for nearly eighteen years and there are times when I reflect on the irony of it. You see, I was once the editor of Warlord where I created another German comic character. His name was Heinz Falken who led the penal battalion named after him ? Kampfgruppe Falken. Not a lot of people in Germany know that.
Re: Looking for Judy comics from the early 80s... or information
Thanks for that family tree link.
And fascinating info about Wendy magazine! Does anyone out there own any?
My brother and I were addicted to Beano, Dandy, etc., so I grew up more with 'boy' comics than girl (although I'm still not clear if the Beano and that ilk were aimed at boys and it just happened that girls read them, or if they were aimed at both... the girl comics were certainly only aimed at girls!) I stayed loyal to the Beano but also discovered Judy, and those stories (and the artwork) hooked me good and proper! I remember rushing to the newsagents on the day Judy came out (was it a Thursday?) because I was too impatient to wait until the weekend.
I later lived in the UK, for many years, but by then I'd passed the comic age. I'm back in Canada now, which is why I can't pop down to the newsagents to see what comics are still on sale... er, what ones *are* still going?
(And still I'm reeling in shock that there are no girl comics! Even when I was a kid, they seemed dated, but we still READ them!)
I'm curious to know how the blokes on this forum got into the girl comics! Were they sisters' comics, lying around the house, and you started reading them out of boredom but then got hooked...? Do tell!
And fascinating info about Wendy magazine! Does anyone out there own any?
I grew up in Canada but with British parents, and spent many summers in the UK, so I 'felt' more British than Canadian (and my literary repertoire was all British - Noddy, Wombles, Paddington, Rupert Bear, and then the Blyton adventure novels...)steelclaw wrote:Are you from the UK originally and then moved to Canada?
My brother and I were addicted to Beano, Dandy, etc., so I grew up more with 'boy' comics than girl (although I'm still not clear if the Beano and that ilk were aimed at boys and it just happened that girls read them, or if they were aimed at both... the girl comics were certainly only aimed at girls!) I stayed loyal to the Beano but also discovered Judy, and those stories (and the artwork) hooked me good and proper! I remember rushing to the newsagents on the day Judy came out (was it a Thursday?) because I was too impatient to wait until the weekend.
I later lived in the UK, for many years, but by then I'd passed the comic age. I'm back in Canada now, which is why I can't pop down to the newsagents to see what comics are still on sale... er, what ones *are* still going?
(And still I'm reeling in shock that there are no girl comics! Even when I was a kid, they seemed dated, but we still READ them!)
I'm curious to know how the blokes on this forum got into the girl comics! Were they sisters' comics, lying around the house, and you started reading them out of boredom but then got hooked...? Do tell!