The Tammy difference

[Tammyfan]

Tammy set out to be cruel and nasty and writers coming up with all sorts of ways to torture them. Some of them even bordered on the bizarre and grotesque. In The Four Friends at Spartan School Miss Bramble's ideas of disciplining problem pupils include imprisoning them in the pillory, dungeons and iron masks. Miss Steele of The Girls of Liberty Lodge put girls on trial before the whole school before meting out harsh punishments. Miss Valentine resigns in protest against Miss Steele's harshness and sets up a liberal school in reaction against her. And there was Slaves of 'War Orphan Farm' where Ma Thatcher forces war orphans to work in a quarry. She also locks them in an animal cage even if the night is cold or the victim is sick, and forces them to stand outside in the rain among other punishments. When she is in danger of discovery, she plots to kill them. And if you notice that Ma Thatcher bears the same name as a certain prime minister, yes, it's no coincidence. Those were in some of the slave stories.

Cinderella stories could be just as cruel. In Common Cathy her parents tie her up in one episode to prevent discovery. In Bella at the Bar, Bella has been forced to work on a whole day without food and been chained to the floor among the other things her aunt and uncle do to her.

I could go, on, but you've probably read enough.

Funny thing, though - to the best of my knowledge Tammy never locked her heroines in collars.

[Marionette]

And if you notice that Ma Thatcher bears the same name as a certain prime minister, yes, it's no coincidence.

But not because of anything she did as PM, since that was 8 years in the future. It's almost certainly because shortly before the appearance of Tammy, Margaret Thatcher got her first brush with fame as "Thatcher, Thatcher, milk snatcher", being the education secretary responsible for the ending of the policy of free milk for over seven year olds at school.

[Tammyfan]

And if you notice that Ma Thatcher bears the same name as a certain prime minister, yes, it's no coincidence.

But not because of anything she did as PM, since that was 8 years in the future. It's almost certainly because shortly before the appearance of Tammy, Margaret Thatcher got her first brush with fame as "Thatcher, Thatcher, milk snatcher", being the education secretary responsible for the ending of the policy of free milk for over seven year olds at school.

Yes, I know that Ma Thatcher was named after the then milk snatcher. Wonder how many Tammy readers picked up on the reference?

[Tammyfan]

Here are links if you want more information on Pat Mills and the Tammy revolution:
http://comiczine-fa.com/?p=3810
http://patmills.wordpress.com/2012/10/1 ... le-2000ad/

Just in case anyone wants to read Terror behind the Bamboo Curtain:
http://www.bestofbattle.sevenpennynightmare.co.uk/?p=60\

And a blog post on the subject:
http://stormcomicsuk.blogspot.co.nz/201 ... rtain.html

[Phoenix]

Thank you for those links, Tammyfan. You preempted the request I had decided to make for the whereabouts of Mills's views, on the basis of going back to primary sources, as I mentioned in a different context earlier in this thread. It was important as you and Marionette seemed to be singing from the same hymn sheet. I've printed off all except the Best Of Battle one, and I will read the 40 pages this evening. In the meantime, unless the answer appears somewhere in the links I have just downloaded, could you at least answer here the question I asked on the Sheila In The Swim thread as to why you still seem to be distinguishing between the individual girl slave (No Tears For Molly) and the group (The Girls At Liberty Lodge etc.).

[philcom55]

On the subject of Battle, assuming you've never seen it before Phoenix, you might want to investigate Mills' First World War strip 'Charley's War'. It's very much a war story for people who don't normally like war stories - as well as being, in my opinion, one of the best British comic strips ever produced.

- Phil R.

[Tammyfan]

@Phoenix: Pat Mills said there were three lynchpins to a girls' comic: The Cinderella story, the slave story, and the friendship story. When a serial has one girl is being mistreated by parents/guardians it's the Cinderella story because the girl is just like Cinderella. If it is a group that's being exploited, then it's the slave story. And because it is a group that is being mistreated, the serial will follow a different pattern from a Cinderella-based serial. I should know; I've read enough of both types to know how different they are when it's an individual or group that is being mistreated. That's why you have to define an individual being exploited as a Cinderella serial and a group being exploited as a slave serial.

[colcool007]

@Phoenix: Pat Mills said there were three lynchpins to a girls' comic: The Cinderella story, the slave story, and the friendship story. When a serial has one girl is being mistreated by parents/guardians it's the Cinderella story because the girl is just like Cinderella. If it is a group that's being exploited, then it's the slave story. And because it is a group that is being mistreated, the serial will follow a different pattern from a Cinderella-based serial. I should know; I've read enough of both types to know how different they are when it's an individual or group that is being mistreated. That's why you have to define an individual being exploited as a Cinderella serial and a group being exploited as a slave serial.

That's a useful definition to differentiate between the stories.

[Phoenix]

That's a useful definition to differentiate between the stories.

Yes, but my current gripe is that while I can obviously understand Tammyfan's explanation, I can't understand why she still chooses to muddy her own waters by listing a story about one single girl being mistreated (No Tears For Molly) in a paragraph expressly devoted to her slave girls issue, and then starts her next paragraph off with the words Cinderella stories could be just as cruel., clearly differentiating the theme and content of that paragraph from the one that preceded it. If I seem pig-headed or pedantic, I'm sorry, but I do need to see things in black and white. Fifty shades of grey are no good to me.

[Tammyfan]

@Phoenix: re No Tears for Molly: I re-read my passage and found that I did make a mistake in the structuring there. I have now reworked it and sorry for any confusion.

Still, if you like things black and white, discussions on categorising girls's serials are probably not for you. Categorising serials can be murky, especially when the serial has a combination of common themes in girls' comics. For example, Land of No Tears (Jinty) can be broadly defined as an SF story, but it also features elements of the slave story, and someone may call it a sports story because they use a sporting event to rebel. And I'm not sure whether to call Roberta's Rebels (Tammy) a slave story or a sports story.

[Tammyfan]

By the late 1970s Tammy lost her streaks of cruelty from her pioneering years. No new slave stories or Cinderella stories (strangely, they were going strong in DCT titles, which is probably one reason why they lasted far longer than IPC titles). It has been put down to counter-revolution and changes in editorship, but I think the comics that merged with her had a hand as well. They brought in Bessie Bunter, the Storyteller, Wee Sue, and Pam of Pond Hill. More regulars meant fewer serials. They also brought changes in artists and presumably changes in writers. Tammy credits that started in mid 1982 indicated that Jenny McDade, who started with Star Struck Sister in 1972 and wrote the original Bella at the Bar, was leaving; she was credited only once during the credits period.

[DavidKW]

I'd disagree with Phil about IPC's late 60s output being bland - it was far more innovative & interesting than DCT in art & stories - I always found DCTs 60s/70s lacking warmth in most places (Diana excepted) & a bit conservative. But that's another thread.

DCT's Mandy comic was already doing "Cinderella" & cruelty to animals style stuff but with happier endings & some fun strips as well; IPC had artists such as most notably John Armstrong doing increasingly "grittier" stories along those themes (most notably "Patsy On The Warpath" in June).

It seems that Pat Mills & co may have wanted to take things up to a further level perhaps ie no happy endings but DCT wouldn't let them & with IPC being ones to encourage innovation & with good artists to do it.

[DavidKW]

... plus that Tammy was virtually all those kind of strips mentioned and was not lost amongst the other more action adventure/surreal/humour/fun strips.

About the only happy thing on that first issue was the smiling girl on the cover, the rest is virtually all hard-hitting cinderella/slave/cruelty stories.

[philcom55]

Oh I liked IPC's late 60s/early 70s output too - but in some ways I think that was Mills' point. The trouble is that I was already fifteen by 1970 so the fact that adventure comics such as the revamped Smash! were still reprinting stories from the late 1950s/early 1960s meant they were no longer connecting with the new generation who should have been their target audience. More than almost any other entertainment medium comics have to continually move with the times - yet most of the editors were still stuck in the last decade but one!

- Phil R.

[DavidKW]

I can understand that - in fact I noticed a lazy reprint of a 60s Bessie Bunter in a 72 June. And of course Tammy would go on to contunue that strip & have a decline (I never found BB very funny at all anyway).