Why are men collecting old girls' comics these days?

[DavidKW]

I don't think Doctor Who has been "sexist" since the camera lingered on Peri in a pink bikini back in the early 1980s

I can agree with that there - though when it was shown I was a naive hot-blooded 14/15 year old at the time and liked it then.

I think this was a time when they were "sexing up" Doctor Who & Peri at the time - perhaps to distract viewers from both the dreadful scripts and Colin Baker's dreadful costume, plus the fact that he was a terrible, abrasive & very unloveable Doctor.

[DavidKW]

Just to come away from the Tardis Tangent/Hornets nest I created:

On the subject of:

Any thoughts on what other old girls' serials would make great movies?

I think many stories & concepts would - I'm think, researching and putting together a list I'll put forward sometime.

Some of the concepts of the regular serials would make - with some tweaks - great ideas for TV series adaptations that could appeal to all. I've mentioned a few in other bits over this site. Will put an edited list together soon.

On girls who read boys' comics - I heard that though it was aimed at boys (esp in its adverts for annuals), TV21 did have a lot of girl readers too who wrote in (and perhaps didn't want Lady Penelope).

[DavidKW]

I recently purchased at Mandy comic library - "The Strange Change In Soppy Simpson" - and the shop keeper said that he knew of boys reading girls' comics - he thinks the artwork & the quality of it did much to attract them.

I agreed - then shocked him when I mentioned the one I'm buying is by a good artist - Robert MacGilivray. He was shocked that I knew more than him & stopped me there - before I could mention Rob MacG also drew in Sexton Blake books which he has a stock of.

[Tammyfan]

Just to come away from the Tardis Tangent/Hornets nest I created:

On the subject of:

Any thoughts on what other old girls' serials would make great movies?

I think many stories & concepts would - I'm think, researching and putting together a list I'll put forward sometime.

Some of the concepts of the regular serials would make - with some tweaks - great ideas for TV series adaptations that could appeal to all. I've mentioned a few in other bits over this site. Will put an edited list together soon.

On girls who read boys' comics - I heard that though it was aimed at boys (esp in its adverts for annuals), TV21 did have a lot of girl readers too who wrote in (and perhaps didn't want Lady Penelope).

Here are some stories I think would make great movies or tv serials (please note they are based on stories I have actually seen):

Catch the Cat (Bunty) - movie or tv
Valda (Mandy) - movie
Angel (Mandy) - tv
The Human Zoo (Jinty)
Land of No Tears (Jinty) - movie
ET Estate (Tammy) - movie
The Fairground of Fear (Tammy) - movie or tv
Someone mentioned The Happy Days (Princess Tina) for a tv series
Slaves of War Orphan Farm (Tammy) - movie
The Clock and Cluny Jones (Tammy) - movie
Molly Mills (Tammy) - tv
Towne in the Country (Tammy) - tv
The Shadow on the Fen (Jinty) - tv
Bobby Dazzler (Judy) - tv
The Sentinels (Misty) - movie

[DavidKW]

I found the scrap of paper I brainstormed ideas:

Note these are based on these (mostly regular) strips - there are slight variations on the concepts:

Jane Bond(Princess Tina)/Miss Adventure (June & SF etc.): Series on a sole working all-action female agent.

Girls From Noodles (Diana): About 2 young female agents

Sue Day/Happy Days (Princess Tina): (under titles such as "Meet The Days" to avoid Fonz & Sharks confusion) - mid 60s set suburban setting untouched by "swinging" things - ie straight adaptation of Ms Day's stories.

Patti's World (Princess Tina/Pink/Girl): set in early 70s & through decade - straight adaptation.

Catch The Cat (Bunty)/ The Cat Girl (Sally): purely based on these strips - may have time travel element to include today's world & WW2 settings.

Vanessa From Venus (June): wtriiten as Rentaghost meets Bewitched flavoured sitcom - Vanessa in flatshare with mate Candy.

Trixie's Treasure Chest (Debbie): Sitcom that goes all sorts of places.

Lucky's Living Doll (June & SF):With difference - the "Lucky" character is young adult where the childhood wish to bring the doll "Tina" to life has come years later; Lucky will be cursed if she breaks wish - and only one other will know of the doll's existence - a medium who also works for a government agency. Be some domestic & some agent episodes.

Misty & Spellbound stories: one-off half hour/hour long plays based on these stories in the comics - like a Hammer House of Horror or Tales Of Unexpected.
Could get movie treatment like an Amicus film anthology.
The Stangest Stories from June/Tammy could be done in a similar way.


These are all based on strips I know/have read too. Any more I'll think of I'll write down.

May have noticed I've included no Tammy stuff here - I've read details about these stories and are some good ones to make TV/Films. But I'm just not into Tammy & its like - just far too depressing for me (comics should be uplifting).

[Tammyfan]

I found the scrap of paper I brainstormed ideas:

Note these are based on these (mostly regular) strips - there are slight variations on the concepts:

Jane Bond(Princess Tina)/Miss Adventure (June & SF etc.): Series on a sole working all-action female agent.

Girls From Noodles (Diana): About 2 young female agents

Sue Day/Happy Days (Princess Tina): (under titles such as "Meet The Days" to avoid Fonz & Sharks confusion) - mid 60s set suburban setting untouched by "swinging" things - ie straight adaptation of Ms Day's stories.

Patti's World (Princess Tina/Pink/Girl): set in early 70s & through decade - straight adaptation.

Catch The Cat (Bunty)/ The Cat Girl (Sally): purely based on these strips - may have time travel element to include today's world & WW2 settings.

Vanessa From Venus (June): wtriiten as Rentaghost meets Bewitched flavoured sitcom - Vanessa in flatshare with mate Candy.

Trixie's Treasure Chest (Debbie): Sitcom that goes all sorts of places.

Lucky's Living Doll (June & SF):With difference - the "Lucky" character is young adult where the childhood wish to bring the doll "Tina" to life has come years later; Lucky will be cursed if she breaks wish - and only one other will know of the doll's existence - a medium who also works for a government agency. Be some domestic & some agent episodes.

Misty & Spellbound stories: one-off half hour/hour long plays based on these stories in the comics - like a Hammer House of Horror or Tales Of Unexpected.
Could get movie treatment like an Amicus film anthology.
The Stangest Stories from June/Tammy could be done in a similar way.


These are all based on strips I know/have read too. Any more I'll think of I'll write down.

May have noticed I've included no Tammy stuff here - I've read details about these stories and are some good ones to make TV/Films. But I'm just not into Tammy & its like - just far too depressing for me (comics should be uplifting).

One Tammy story that could work is The Button Box. The original premise was that every button in Bev Jackson's box has a story to tell. There were stories about war, animals, friendship, love & romance, hardship, survival, morals, light humour, dark and sad, historical periods, professions, and even fights for rights. Strangely, I never saw one that dealt with the supernatural, but there must have been one somewhere in that collection. Some of the standouts included the traffic warden button story, which reminds us that traffic wardens are human too, and the daisy button story, where a left-handed girl triumphs over being forced to use her right hand. The Button Box could be done in the same way that you have suggested for the Misty/Spellbound/Strange stories.

[DavidKW]

Button Box sounds a good story too; very TV worthy with many perspectives.

[DavidKW]

I was recently reading Sue Brewer's disappointing "Collecting Girls Comics" book recently - in the foreward pages 60s Pop star, later actor & musicals performer Mark Wynter remembered how he & he thinks other boys would take a sneaky look at girls' comics before thier paper rounds.

[DavidKW]

I thought I'd mention a notable encounter I had many years ago regarding girls' comics:

During the mid 80s over the Easter Hols I was dragged kicking and scremaing by my parents (even though I was 15, but my parents wanted to entrap me as a child & were never teenagers themselves) to a remote cottage in Brecon, which they'd hope this holiday would expand my horizons & stop me mooching about the house (I'm a teenager - hello!?).

THere was nothing to do there - no TV too - but in cottage the owners had a bookshelf containing assorted books - including 4 annuals - a Beryl The Peril, a 70s Diana & the first 2 June annuals.

I spend a lot of time there reading most of the books and started looking at the June annuals especially as I was just getting into all 50s/60s pop and British films and said to the parents I read them for the pop articles.

By the final day there & it raining yet again I insisted on staying in rather than going with them to some godforsaken place with their smelly kaghouls & them looking embarressing with me trying to distance myself from them. They accused me of being a moron for insisiting I stay in and read books rather than go with them.

That day I knew I could properly take my time & read these June annuals without the worry of the parents seeing & beating a stick of criticism - it was there I was amazed and in awe at how well drawn these strips were and so very well written they all were too, both in comic strips & text (the "DOCk Yard Dixie" story I particulary enjoyed, and the strip of an abandoned baby called Mandy).

It sure opened up a world for me in another way (I was just wishing the girls at my school were like those in the comics and not the small town snobs and b******* who just want to get pregnant I had to contend with).

It didn't inspire way back then to be a proper collector but would lead on another way many years later.

[Phoenix]

in the foreward pages 60s Pop star, later actor & musicals performer Mark Wynter remembered how he & he thinks other boys would take a sneaky look at girls' comics before thier paper rounds.

Were these the only pages that disappointed you, David?

I was just wishing the girls at my school were like those in the comics and not the small town snobs and b******* who just want to get pregnant

I once got a note from the school office while I was taking the morning register with my Year 11 (5th Form) tutor group. It said that they had just received a phone call from Mrs ****** to say that her son G (15) would not be in that day as overnight he had become a father. It could be argued that for G's also underage girlfriend, the last couple of panels of one of those serials in Bunty or Mandy where the heroine gets the last laugh, would be matching her feelings more or less exactly. She wasn't a b******, but most people felt she was a t***, and yes, she did work the system and did get the council house she was determined to get all along. She soon sidelined G, who did, however, score again just before Easter, in the Sefton Cup Final, when the Under 16s team I ran with a colleague won that year's trophy.

[Marionette]

Do you think we could turn down the misogyny a little? At least in the Girls' Comics section?

And if you can't bring yourselves to actually use a word, perhaps you would be better served employing an alternative you can use, rather than obscuring it and hoping people will guess.

[Phoenix]

Do you think we could turn down the misogyny a little? At least in the Girls' Comics section?

Come off it, Marionette. I'm not remotely misogynistic, and I defy you to provide any evidence of such in my post. Furthermore, why do you think it would be acceptable in any other forum?

And if you can't bring yourselves to actually use a word, perhaps you would be better served employing an alternative you can use, rather than obscuring it and hoping people will guess.

OK, the word t*** was tart, a generally voiced description of that particular girl.

[Marionette]

Come off it, Marionette. I'm not remotely misogynistic, and I defy you to provide any evidence of such in my post.

You responded to a long post which included the line:

(I was just wishing the girls at my school were like those in the comics and not the small town snobs and b******* who just want to get pregnant I had to contend with).

with a little anecdote about a girl you knew who was a horrible person. Nothing about the comics that David was talking about, just the problem he had with girls. And seriously, David; ALL the girls in your school were horrible?

So yeah, when your response to a misogynistic statement is to add an anecdote of your own, then maybe you should give a little thought to that. I'm not suggesting that either you or David are misogynists, but that doesn't mean you are immune to saying things that can easily be read as misogynistic in context.

Furthermore, why do you think it would be acceptable in any other forum?

I was being sarcastic.

OK, the word t*** was tart, a generally voiced description of that particular girl.

I worked that out eventually. I just think obscuring words is silly and pointless. I keep missing jokes on The Daily Show because they bleep out half the punchline.

[Phoenix]

Nothing about the comics that David was talking about, just the problem he had with girls...../.....So yeah, when your response to a misogynistic statement is to add an anecdote of your own, then maybe you should give a little thought to that. I'm not suggesting that either you or David are misogynists, but that doesn't mean you are immune to saying things that can easily be read as misogynistic in context.

I've read through David's post again, and I still can't see anything he says about comics that could have triggered a reply from me. My anecdote is simply picking up the point he makes about the girls at his school, or his perception of those girls, which may well have differed from that of other boys there, and illustrating one case in my own experience, for comparison purposes, of a girl who did set out deliberately to get pregnant. The reason I knew so much about it is that his parents asked for my help with their confused son in the aftermath, in the pastoral care role I had had with that mixed tutor group for the previous four years.

Isn't this how all posts develop out of others? You can't cover every point people make, but if you think you have something useful to add, you just go for it. Not being a misogynist, I don't ever expect to make a misogynistic remark. And to be fair, I'm not even that convinced that David's remark was misogynistic because he was only focusing on one aspect of his female classmates that was just more apparent to him than any other. There must have been some things about them that he liked. If not, it would say more about the boy he was then than about the girls. In my opinion, you have just mildly over-reacted.

[Marionette]

Look at it another way, if you take both anecdotes and replace "girl" with "black person", would you agree that they might look a bit racist to the casual reader?