Jinty 25 February 1978

This is the third consecutive issue I’ve posted in date order over the past few days: I wanted to get out an issue to show spooky story “Come Into My Parlour” but was so entranced by the covers of the issues after it that I then wanted to post them all. It’s a cover very of its time: I showed it to my brother yesterday and he said ‘is that from around 1978?’ without looking at the date itself. The skating gives it away of course, but yeah, he could identify it as precisely as that just from the cover.

“Concrete Surfer” is interesting in the way it’s written: protagonist Jean is actually pretty quiet in terms of how much she says out loud, but her inner monologue is sharp and rather bitter. Told by the advertising man to do some solo skating while smiling, she thinks to herself “I don’t feel like smiling at the moment, but I’ve got to, otherwise I don’t get paid…”. We don’t hear her accuse her cousin Carol of being the smarmy, spiteful girl that Jean thinks she really is, or not out loud, so for quite a long time it hangs in the balance as to whether Jean is right in her judgement of the world, because no crisis is caused by her blurting out something sudden.

Stories in this issue:

• Concrete Surfer (writer Pat Mills, artist Christine Ellingham)
• Sue’s Fantastic Fun-Bag! (artist Hugh Thornton-Jones)
• Two Mothers For Maggie (artist Jim Baikie)
• Alley Cat
• Waking Nightmare! (artist Phil Townsend)
• The Zodiac Prince(artist Trini Tinturé)
• Paula’s Puppets (artist Julian Vivas)
• Shadow on the Fen (artist Douglas Perry)
• Darling Clementine (artist Richard Neillands, writer Alison Christie)