Time Travel strips in Girls' Comics

[philcom55]

I've been a big fan of time travel stories since before Doctor Who made his debut so comic strips that fall into this category have always attracted my attention. Fortunately British comics for boys and girls proved to be especially rich in this genre; however the means by which characters found themselves transported to the past or future tended to vary considerably from one storyline to another. While some people travelled in a traditional time machine, others found themselves relocated to another age by magic - and even in one notable case by eating cheese!

In girls' comics the magical method was particularly popular, though there were also some Science Fiction series in which Time Travel had become as commonplace as flying abroad for your holidays. One example of the latter was 'Glory Knight - Time Travel Courier' in which the eponymous heroine chaperoned tourists from the present day around Ancient Rome or Regency London. This appeared in June & Schoolfriend during 1970 and featured artwork by the great John Burns.





By contrast, 'Trapped in Time' told of two sisters on a narrow boat holiday who suddenly found themselves mysteriously stranded in the eighteenth century after tracing the inscription on an old gravestone. This appeared in Bunty during 1986 with artwork by (I think) Douglas Perry - though it may well have been a reprint.







I wonder if anyone else can think of other time travel stories in British girls' comics that made a particular impression on them...?

- Phil Rushton

[RuthB]

there was one where the girl travels to a paralel world of magic.. but I can't remember the name...

[Marionette]

One of the opening stories in Tammy goes the magic route in The Secret of Trebaran, in which our heroine is given a magic medallion and whenever she puts it on, she travels back to a specific time, but it only seems to work on this one small island full of witch-burning puritans. The time travel aspect really isn't explored beyond being a doorway to and from the island, and the story itself mostly consists of her playing tag with the evil magician over some maguffin of a magic stone.

[Tammyfan]

Misty's A Leap Through Time has a girl time travel to ancient Greece and walks away confident in gymnastics.
Jinty's Land of No Tears has lame Cassy Shaw travel to a dystopian future where emotion is banned and people who have things wrong with them are treated like criminals. There is no explanation as to how Cassy travels through time except through some weird coma she falls into while on the operating table.
Time travel back to Victorian times is common. Bunty's Ghost Train and Yesterday's Children were but two.
Mandy's Freda Who? starred a girl who travelled back in time from the future.
"Door to Yesterday" was a common title for time travel stories. Mandy and M&J both had time travel stories with that name.

Time travel was also used by aliens to put right damage they (often unintentionally) caused. Jinty's The Human Zoo and Tammy&Misty's The Loneliest Girl in the World are two examples.

Vehicles for time travel included strange comas, magic objects, gadgets, doors, and strange mists or whatever that appeared out of nowhere.

[Tammyfan]

How do you insert an image here? I keep trying img but all I get is the word 'image'.

[helsbels]

there was one where the girl travels to a paralel world of magic.. but I can't remember the name...

Another story I can't remember the title of offhand, but I think you may mean the story in Jinty about a girl who is very selfish and mean (aren't they always?) who whilst ridiculing a female magician's show, walks into the magician's cabinet and emerges into a parallel world where everybody uses magic. Of course, she eventually sees the error of her ways and order is restored. I'll have to look through my Jintys to remind myself of the title.

Is this the story you were thinking of, Ruth?

[RuthB]

That's the one. I think I have it a Jinty annual and it was published in Spain too (I think it got published in Gina and then in Pecosa too)

[Tammyfan]

there was one where the girl travels to a paralel world of magic.. but I can't remember the name...

Another story I can't remember the title of offhand, but I think you may mean the story in Jinty about a girl who is very selfish and mean (aren't they always?) who whilst ridiculing a female magician's show, walks into the magician's cabinet and emerges into a parallel world where everybody uses magic. Of course, she eventually sees the error of her ways and order is restored. I'll have to look through my Jintys to remind myself of the title.

Is this the story you were thinking of, Ruth?

The story is "The Girl Who Never Was".

[matrix]

I like that "Time travel courier" strip, how long did that run for Phil? There is one story in the 1977 Jinty summer special.

On a slightly different note, here is Uncle Lionel up to his tricks, after building a time machine he sends poor Julie back and forward in time, and she is not amused!

[philcom55]

How do you insert an image here? I keep trying img but all I get is the word 'image'.

Probably the easiest way is to include the file as an 'upload attachment' when you post a reply (using the box provided below the message space). Alternatively, if you have already uploaded the image to a hosting service like Tinypics you just need to copy the link that has 'img' at the beginning and end.

- Phil R.

[peace355]

There was also a story "Traveller's in Time" from Bunty where 2 Victorian girls time travel to the "present".

[felneymike]

There was one from Jinty, though I can't even remember if it was the weekly or an annual at this point, where somebody being hunted as a witch in the past runs under a magic tree and emerges in the present, meeting a girl who is reading there.

[helsbels]

There was one from Jinty, though I can't even remember if it was the weekly or an annual at this point, where somebody being hunted as a witch in the past runs under a magic tree and emerges in the present, meeting a girl who is reading there.

This sounds like "Shadow On The Fen" from the Jinty weekly and the witchfinder also follows her into the present, determined to catch her. There's also the story "Witch Hazel" from Tammy where a witch time travels to the present after leaping from a cliff to escape her persecutors.

[philcom55]

I love parallel world stories where people travel 'sideways' in time. Here's the sequence in 'The Girl Who Never Was' where Tina finds herself transported into a magical world in which she was never born:





'The Clock & Cluny Jones' in Tammy features a similar journey - this time caused by a clock striking thirteen. Here Cluny discovers the theory behind her predicament with the help of a science teacher:



Of course, the best-remembered parallel world story in a British girls' comic was probably 'The Sentinels' in Misty, but that one's already been covered on the Sci-Fi thread.

- Phil Rushton

[Tammyfan]

There was "Time Trap!" from Tammy which would count as time travel, even though it was not physical. Leonie is hypnotised for a past life regression experiment. She recalls a past life existence as Wat Tyler's sister, now running for her life after the collapse of The Peasants' Revolt. The trouble is, the scientist who hypnotised her suffers a heart attack, leaving Leonie stuck in her trance - and the past.