- Destiny Brown (artist Rodrigo Comos)
- Sue’s Fantastic Fun-Bag! (artist Hugh Thornton-Jones)
- Guardian of White Horse Hill (artist Julian Vivas, writer Pat Mills)
- Alley Cat
- The Goose Girl (artist Keith Robson, writer Alison Christie)
- Rinty ‘n’ Jinty
- Stage Fright! (artist Phil Townsend)
- The Kids Fly High! – feature
- A Window on the Past – Gypsy Rose story (artist Hugo D’Adderio)
- Make Your Own Mini-Monster! (feature)
- Fran’ll Fix It! (artist Jim Baikie)
- Cursed to be a Coward! – final episode (artist Mario Capaldi, writer Alison Christie)
This issue came out about Halloween time, but there is nothing to commemorate Halloween in the issue. The nearest to it is the mini-monster feature. However, the issue promises that the Guy Fawkes issue next week will be a sparkler, and in more ways than one – because that is when the Jinty classic, “Land of No Tears”, starts.
The story that gives way to “Land of No Tears” is “Cursed to be a Coward!”. The prophecy is fulfilled, but the twist is that it does not come true in the way Marnie expected – it had a completely different meaning altogether. And that is exactly how a prophecy is supposed to work. Once it is fulfilled, the crazed fortune-teller who had been trying to kill Marnie has one more desperate go at it – but there is something she apparently did not foresee, for all her powers to see in the future…
Alison Christie’s other story, “The Goose Girl”, is now on its penultimate episode. Glenda wants to go for an interview to get the career she wants. Unfortunately, her impossible mother messes everything up by sending her off to another interview because she is still pushing her into fashion design.
“Destiny Brown” also messes things up because she misinterpreted what her second sight was telling her – again. This time it screws up the chance that she and her father had of escaping the criminals who kidnapped them.
Fran and Co are off on a camping trip. But the outfits Fran picks show how ignorant she is about camping or country life, and it’s causing some embarrassment.
The mystery of the frightened girl deepens in “Stage Fright!” when Linda tries to reach out to her, but gets rebuffed. Linda turns to the mystery of the acting trophy instead and finds a clue there. And in “Guardian of White Horse Hill”, Janey’s emotional state gets so bad that her foster parents decide to send her back for expert help. Janey gets even worse when she overhears this; what will it drive her to do next week?
In the Gypsy Rose story, Tracy Gray discovers a window that can show her the past and the story of a stern father who is coming between his son and the girl he loves. But the story gets altered for the worse when a replacement pane from an evil house is fitted. Can the story be put right before the girl gets murdered?
Henrietta takes exception to Sue’s nail polish and her showing it off at school (um, isn’t nail polish banned in school?), and casts a spell in response. However, things rebound a bit on Henrietta when the spell has unexpected results that have her giving up in the end.
A Resource on Jinty: Artists, Writers, Stories 
In my oppinion a strong issue, when Jinty was at a peak. Of course, Jinty never had real ‘lows’, but all of the serials during this period I’ve read and re-read, and sometimes re-re-read.
Yes, I reckon 1977-1979 were Jinty’s peak years. How about you?
Yes, and I think even a bit earlier. About from the moment Jinty merged with Lindy until the merger with Penny. And that brings on another thought: would Jinty have lasted longer if it wouldn’t have merged with Penny, and lost some of her identity?
Although Penny had *some* good serials, many were also not very good, at least from a Jinty fan’s the point of view. If Jinty was doing well enough on her own, and the merger was brought on just because *Penny* was not doing very well, they could as well have let Penny finish after the final issue.
But, if both were not doing very well in early 1980, and the merger with Penny gave us another year and a half of Jinty, then I’m glad they merged.
The Jinty editorship changed around late 1979; Mavis Miller left the team, and it was she who made Jinty what it was. There is widespread feeling in Jinty fandom (and also from Pat Mills) that the loss of Mavis caused Jinty to jump the shark. Certainly things began to change in 1980; for example, there is a noticeable reduction in the SF element that had given Jinty such identity. Terry Aspin left after “Toni on Trial” and Jim Baikie after “White Water”. Both artists had given Jinty a lot of her artistic flavour. The most striking change was the covers, where they shifted from showing panels from various stories to the Mario Capaldi sports covers and then full-size versions of the spot illustrations in the text stories. The regular appearance of text stories in 1981 was also another odd shift and I wonder what was behind it.
Personally, I think that Jinty inherited the better stuff from Penny, particularly Tansy. None of the Penny stuff that was aimed at younger readers.
There were indications that Penny was in trouble; the switch to cheaper paper, for example.
Yes, the same as Princess in 1984, before it merged with Tammy. The ten final issues were printed on cheaper paper, and there were no colour pages anymore.
It also reprinted old serials from Jinty and Tammy towards the end. It was not a good sign for a new comic to reprint stuff from older ones.
No, it’s certainly not a good sign. I think by then it already had been decided that Princess was to merge with Tammy, and they tried to make the two look more alike, so Princess readers would still recognise their paper after it had merged, which would not have been the case if it had merged after issue 18. So, besides the same paper and size, the page count went up from 24 to 32, like Tammy. And to fill these extra pages, they reprinted stories from Jinty and Tammy.
They seldom let anything finish after the final issue – they usually merge it into another title. There are exceptions of course, such as TV Comic, Buster and Bunty, which I suspect are because there is nothing else for them to merge into. But if there is, they will do it.
I don’t know if the merging of comics was a typical British thing, or that other countries had it, too. Over here, in the Netherlands, two times comics merged in the 60’s, but otherwise comics just came and disappeared.
I wonder if a merger between Jinty and Misty would not have made a good combination. The merger between Jinty and Lindy was okay, I think, although the two stories that were carried over from Lindy were not the two strongest. I love ‘Pavement Patsy’ from Lindy. Nothing unusual about it, but is has the lovely art of Miguel Quesada.
I have wondered how a Jinty and Misty merger would have worked too. Both used strong SF elements. On the other hand, sports and horror are an odd mix. After some thought I decided the combination would have been too risky.
Merging comics was certainly British, anyway. I know they did it a lot during World War 2 because of paper shortages. I don’t know about other countries.
Penny contributed more to Jinty than Lindy because she had one regular (Tansy) and a sequel to an already popular story, Seulah the Seal. Not to mention Snoopa. They didn’t carry on with Blunder Girl, who could have been fun; maybe there was not enough room.
Lindy was not strong on regulars and only had Penny Crayon to carry on after her two remaining serials ended in the merger. But I suspect “Slaves of the Candle” and “Bound for Botany” were originally written for Lindy. They are very ‘Lindy’ stories and were drawn by one of her artists.