Favourite characters/stories in girl's comics

[Tammyfan]

Tonibunny: In regard to Down with St Desmond's, Carol Anne hated the school because she believes her mother was wrong expelled and died because of it. Actually, her father spun her that story because he couldn't bring himself to tell her the truth - that her mother is a nasty piece of work who hasn't changed one bit since she got herself expelled (why the heck did he marry her, then?!?). Once she is found out, she manages to blackmail the school into not expelling her. So they arrange for Carol Anne to meet her mother, forcing Dad to admit the truth. Carol Anne and her father redeem themselves when they save the school from being blown up by an old WW2 bomb and then quietly leave.

[Tammyfan]

Some stories that have stuck with me, even if I only have an episode or two of some of them:

Tammy:
The Stranger in My Shoes
Slaves of War Orphan Farm
Thursday's Child
The Four Friends at Spartan School
Sally in a Shell
Time Trap!
Olympia Jones
No Haven for Hayley
Rita, My Robot Friend
Dulcie Wears the Dunce's Hat
A Girl Called Midnight
Danger Dog
Betta to Lose
The Fairground of Fear
The Black and White World of Shirley Grey
Slave of the Clock
The Sea Witches
Slaves of the Hot Stove
E.T. Estate
Wee Sue
Sadie in the Sticks
The Strangest Stories Ever Told
Dear Diary - I Hate You!
Cora Can't Lose (except the last episode of her story, which was cut off when Tammy was cancelled)
Bessie Bunter - I can't get enough of her
Bella Barlow - just love those gymnastics. Nobody can match John Armstrong for drawing gymnastics.

Bunty
Catch the Cat!
Down with St Desmonds!
Witch!
The Imposter!
For Sam's Sake!
Looking for Lyn
The Courage of Crippled Clara
Move Over, Maria
Captain Carol
Ring of Truth
"I'll Never Forgive You!"

Misty
The Sentinels
Whistle and I'll Come....
The Four Faces of Eve
Moonchild

Judy
Hard Times for Helen
Rosie's Revenge
Betty vs Bumble
Be Nice to Nancy (reprinted in M&J as Be Nice to Nikki)
Skeleton Corner

Mandy
I'll Take Care of Tina!
Bad Luck Barbara
Angel
The Double Life of Dolly Brown
The Cat with 7 Toes
Everyone's Perfect Mum

Jinty
Worlds Apart
The Human Zoo
Dracula's Daughter
Girl the World Forgot
Tears of a Clown
Land of No Tears
Merry at Misery House
Fran'll Fix it!
Make-Believe Mandy
Creepy Crawley
Spell of the Spinning Wheel (the only serial I have ever seen that has a spinning wheel, and I am a spinner)
Mark of the Witch!
Tricia's Tragedy

[philcom55]

...Hmmm, so which of those comics was your favourite Tammyfan?

While most of the one-off tales of 'mystery and imagination' that were featured in comics like Misty, Spellbound, Tammy, June, Jinty, etc. depended on rather hackneyed twists that you could see coming a mile off, every now and then one of them would really get under your skin, staying with you for years afterward.

For me, one such was the following tale that appeared in Misty dated 23rd September 1978, with marvelous artwork by Eduardo Feito (who also illustrated the classic time travel serial 'A leap through Time..' in the same issue).









To be honest I'm still not sure why I found this story so disturbing. On the face of it Jan appears to get off much more lightly than most people who fall foul of one of the Chief of Tempters' diabolical schemes. Even if she does have to go through the rest of her life feeling like a character in 'Winnie the Pooh' that doesn't seem like such a terrible hardship: certainly not one worth losing her immortal soul over. It's only a matter of superficial appearances after all: the world itself hasn't really changed at all.

The trouble is I just can't get it out of my head - the thought of never seeing a human face again, and being confronted by that awful leering 'thing' in the mirror every time you try to comb your hair or brush your teeth!

Maybe - just maybe - it really would drive you stark staring mad in the end...!

- Phil Rushton

[RuthB]

I like the final words: I'm an ass! hehe. Very suitable for a lot of people!

[philcom55]

Nice line isn't it?

Come to think of it I'd guess that stories with a punchline which depends on a particular pun or double meaning must be something of a nightmare for translators. Fortunately in this case I suspect that the use of "ass" to mean a specific type of animal or a foolish human is likely to be common to most languages. Would it have the same effect in Spanish Ruth?

- Phil R.

[RuthB]

Yes!

[Tammyfan]

Phillcom: Tammy was my first comic and the main one I bought. But my love of girls' comics was not confined to Tammy.

[Peter Gray]

Nice imagnative story...with a good punchline...

remembering a film where he could see ghosts then found out he wa s a ghost himself type story..

[Digifiend]

You're thinking of The Sixth Sense.

[Tammyfan]

Peter Grey: Girls' comics have used the theme of somebody thinking they're seeing ghosts or wondering why the place is so empty - and then find they are the ghost.

[Tammyfan]

Philcom: There was a similar story, 'The Strange Spectacles' in Enid Blyton's book 'A Second Book of Naughty Children'. A gnome lends a girl a pair of magic spectacles. The glasses enable the girl to see everyone in class as what they really are: a spiteful girl appears as a cat, a greedy girl as a pig, a nice girl as a robin and so on. She returns the glasses to the gnome but regrets that she forgot to look at herself in the mirror with the glasses to see what she really was. I wonder this Blyton story was the inspiration for 'Don't Look Now!'?

[philcom55]

That's really fascinating Tammyfan. I wouldn't be at all surprised if the writer had read that Blyton story when young and based his Misty script on it - either consciously or unconsciously. In fact, now that you've mentioned it, I'm beginning to wonder if I could have read 'The Strange Spectacles' myself: it would certainly explain why I found 'Don't Look Now' so curiously disturbing. Anyone familiar with the original Grimms' Tales can't help being aware of what a fine line there is between fairy tales and horror stories!

In my opinion it's a shame that so many people look down on Enid Blyton nowadays. Politically incorrect she may have been by the standards of today, but it's hard to find anybody born in the 1950s or 1960s who wasn't deeply influenced by her! (Oddly enough I just picked up a first edition of 'More Adventures of Pip' off a local market stall and found its description of British wildlife seen through the eyes of a peripatetic pixie to be utterly charming - especially with the brilliant Raymond Sheppard illustrations!)



- Phil Rushton

[philcom55]

The more I see of the work of Jenny Butterworth and Andrew Wilson on 'The Happy Days' the more impressed I become. A while ago somebody asked what attracts grown men to the stories in girls' comics, and it occurs to me that this series gives a perfect demonstration of what I personally value about them.

As a child, though I never enjoyed the traditional boys' comic strips about cowboys & indians, sports or war - and cutaway drawings of steam engines and racing cars really bored me! - I was a huge fan of science fiction/fantasy stories filled with exploding suns, dinosaurs, spaceships and superheroes. The trouble with such a constant diet of spectacle, however, is that it eventually reaches saturation point - after which one starts to look for fiction about real people in real-life situations. And this, it seems to me, is what Butterworth and Wilson were so good at providing.

Take a look at this episode from July 1970 to see what I mean. On the face of it all that happens is a bunch of grumpy people meet at a bus stop on a rainy day and catch a bus to town. And yet...the storytelling is so acute that the reader is totally drawn into the disparate lives of its cast of characters. What's more, the hook at the end leaves you on the edge of your seat - eager to learn what happens next (the mark of all good writing!).





...Not an exploding planet in sight, but for some reason this seems so much more satisfying!

- Phil Rushton

[Peter Gray]

So the bus doesn't do a Dr Who and land on a alien sandy planet then..

[philcom55]

So the bus doesn't do a Dr Who and land on a alien sandy planet then..

No - but it does go to the seaside!

- Phil R.