Stories in this issue:
- The Jinx From St Jonah’s (artist Mario Capaldi)
- The Haunting of Form 2B (artist Rodrigo Comos)
- Gwen’s Stolen Glory
- Make-Believe Mandy (artist Ana Rodriguez)
- Merry at Misery House (writer Terence Magee)
- What’s Cooking? Muesli, Creme aus Rohen Apfeln (recipes)
- Dora Dogsbody (artist José Casanovas)
- Gail’s Indian Necklace (artist Phil Gascoine)
- A Dream for Yvonne (artist Miguel Quesada)
- Do-It-Yourself Dot (artist Alf Saporito)
- Desert Island Daisy (artist Robert MacGillivray) last episode
- Jinty made it herself… so can you! (craft: papier-mâché elephant)
- Angela’s Angels (artist Leo Davy)
Back to the early issues of Jinty, when the Katie Jinks stories had a serious undertone as well as lots of slapstick. The story arc that had champion swimmer Karen refusing to swim, in best tear-jerking style, ends happily as she rescues a drowning Katie and snaps out of the depression she’s been in since her best friend drowned. Unlike earlier episodes, the art all looks like pure Capaldi to me, rather than being finished off by a stand-in artist.
There is no “Pony Parade” this week and it’s also the last episode of “Desert Island Daisy”, signalling a change in the make-up of the title to focus primarily on the more serious stories. In “The Haunting of Form 2B”, matters are clearly moving to a climax, and protagonist Judy is not sure if she’s failed totally with no way of stopping the tragedy! There are still a couple of episodes left before the final denouement, though.
In “A Dream for Yvonne”, circus girl Yvonne has lost her memory and is being made to skivvy for an unscrupulous exploiter, Ma Crompton. By day she has to cook, clean, and tidy up, and by night she has to dance in a skeevy nightclub in skimpy clothes. Cor blimey! Things are about to get worse though as Ma locks her inside while going shopping, only for a fire to break out in the badly-maintained hovel… if it’s not one thing it’s another, eh.
A Resource on Jinty: Artists, Writers, Stories 
What are the others doing in this issue? Merry, Gwen, Mandy and Gail?
Gwen has been challenged to climb the cliff that she was stuck on before; she thinks everything’s over but one of her kind schoolfriends thinks her new fall is just because she’s terrified after the accident, rather than realising she was never able to climb it at all. Mandy has been set a difficult task by Miss Madden – she has a few of those to come, thinking she has failed each time, but they are not necessarily testing what she thinks they’re testing. Merry has been betrayed by Adolfa, who feigned friendliness so that they could escape together – but it’s all so that Merry’s own escape could be foiled. Gail’s necklace is confiscated by a teacher and she thinks she’s free of it, but of course nothing is so simple.
Thanks for that. Ooh, Merry should have known better than to trust Adolfa. Or did Adolfa do something to gain Merry’s trust?
Adolfa turned on the waterworks and Merry was soft enough to fall for it… but then this is only episode 9 so she hasn’t realised yet that Adolfa is not to be trusted even when she seems ok!
Talk about irony! Remember what happens between Adolfa and Merry in the final episode?
Yes, and I think it all works together well, don’t you think? The final episode is a long way down the line and by then Merry has even saved Adolfa from the spotty disease. It makes sense that while A might still be happy to do Merry down while not wanting her to actually die after everything they’ve been thru.
It’s always interesting to read what happens in each issue of Jinty. Sometimes it makes me want to read all the episodes of a story at once.
The stories from these early Jintys have to wait a bit; I still need to find 14 issues from 1974 and 1975 before I can read the early stories. From 1976 onwards I’ve now got a them all (but one from 1979). Lately so many Jintys have been offered on Ebay that I was able to fill many gaps. It should be possible to find the final issues before the end of 2016.
The most interesting stories are the ones that were never published in the Netherlands, because these are completely new to me.
I had given up looking at eBay but looking again now you’re right, there are a lot of Jintys available for an ok price at the moment. There are also various reasonably-priced ones on the 30th Century website, of the ones I am looking for. Maybe time for a bit of ‘filling in the gaps’!
Plus, I am glad to see positive comments about the issue posts. They are definitely worth doing for reference of course, but it’s easy to think that they might not be as exciting or interesting as the posts about individual stories or creators.