Jinty 14 May 1977

• Creepy Crawley (Trini Tinturé)
• Sue’s Fantastic Fun-Bag! (Hugh Thornton-Jones)
• Dads! Competition results
• Jamie! (artist Phil Townsend) – Gypsy Rose story
• Curtain of Silence (artist Terry Aspin)
• Make a Play-Changing Tent – feature
• Alley Cat
• Fans…Friends or Foes? – feature
• The Darkening Journey (artist José Casanovas)
• The Robot Who Cried (artist Rodrigo Comos, writer Malcolm Shaw)
• Kerry in the Clouds (artist Emilia Prieto, writer Alan Davidson)
• Spell of the Spinning Wheel (artist Jim Baikie, writer Alison Christie)

The cover has a very interesting design. Instead of the more common two panels it incorporates three, in a fan shape radiating from a sun that emphasises it being a “sizzling” comic.

In this issue, Jinty closes her competition “If Dad Did”, where readers won money if their letters on the jobs they wish their fathers could do were published. Letters published here imagine their fathers as potters, US presidents, lotto winners, dustmen, disc jockeys, gymnastics trainers and Romany gypsies.

In “Creepy Crawley”, warning bells are now ringing that the power of the scarab brooch is getting beyond Jean’s ability to control it. Sheila is the only ray of hope, because she has caught on to what is going on. But what can Sheila do when she does not even believe in herself?

A fisherman asks for trouble when he appropriates Henrietta for his own use. And when he puts his fish bait (worms and maggots) in Henrietta – well!

It’s part two of “Curtain of Silence”, and several plot threads emerge in this episode that are clearly going to shape the story. First, selfish Yvonne is in for a surprise (and so is everyone else) when she arrives in Mavronia – her rival Olga is almost a dead ringer for her! Second, a gypsy woman warns Yvonne to go quickly because she foresees “bad things” for her. Sounds like good advice, but the arrogant Yvonne isn’t taking it. Third, her arrogance is making her very unpopular with her teammates.

The Gypsy Rose story is one of Jinty’s rare forays into the subject of World War II, and it ends on a more tragic note than most of Rose’s stories.

Katy the robot makes a mistake that threatens to give her away – she uses too much strength on a bar and bends it. Can she worm her way out of this one?

“Kerry in the Clouds” is on cloud 9 right now, because she is becoming famous under Gail Terson. But she does not realise that Gail is taking advantage of her head always being in the clouds…

Thumper and Beaky have a narrow escape and are on their way to Julie again. But they’d better hurry, because doctors are not risking an operation on Julie while she is pining for Thumper too much.

Rowan tries to replace the evil spinning wheel with a harmless model. As a result, she finds herself in danger of falling down a quarry and is hanging by a thread, er, tree stump. It looks like the mist caused the accident, but Rowan is convinced it is the evil spinning wheel. If so, will it succeed in killing her this time?