Pat Mills: Interview

Pat Mills is someone who has already contributed lots to our knowledge of girls comics of this era, but even so there are still some gaps in our knowledge of what he wrote, and always plenty more questions to be asked. With thanks to him for his contributions now and in the past, here is a brief email interview.

1) In previous discussions you’ve identified the following stories in girls’ comics as having been written by you. Are there any stories missing from that list that you can remember? Some other stories have been attributed to you – also listed below – which you’ve either specifically said you didn’t write, or which haven’t been included in those previous discussions. It would be great to clarify this once and for all, if we can.

Known stories (Jinty)

• Girl In A Bubble (1976)
• Land of No Tears (1977-78)
• Concrete Surfer (1978)

You have also said before that you wrote a horse story, without identifying which one it was. Might it be “Horse from the Sea”? Or perhaps “Wild Horse Summer“?

Pat Mills: No. Doesn’t ring a bell. It’s possible I did the horse story for Tammy, but it wasn’t very good.

Tammy

• Ella on Easy Street?
• Glenda’s Glossy Pages?

Pat Mills: Charles Herring wrote Ella which I hugely admire. I wrote Glenda. Also – Aunt Aggie, School for Snobs, and Granny’s Town, but not all episodes.

Misty

• Moonchild
• Roots (Nightmare)
• Red Knee – White Terror! (Beasts)

Pat Mills: Think “Red Knee” was mine if it was the spider story. Also “Hush Hush Sweet Rachel” – art by Feito.

And some Jinty stories you didn’t write but which are often attributed to you: “Knight and Day” (now confirmed as not yours), “The Human Zoo” (I think this is thought to be Malcolm Shaw’s), “Wanda Whiter Than White“, “Guardian of White Horse Hill” (you’ve previously thought this is likely to be Malcolm’s too).

Pat Mills: No, none of those are mine.

2) I appreciate that it’s harder to remember which stories were written by other people, if you even knew these details at the time. If there are any stories that you know the writers of, we are always up for adding to our store of attributions! We know that co-workers of yours such as John Wagner, Gerry Finley-Day, Malcolm Shaw, Charles Herring wrote for girls comics, in case that helps to trigger any memories. Did you also perhaps know Jay Over, Ian Mennell, Benita Brown, Maureen Spurgeon? (Some of those names are listed in the era when Tammy printed creator credits between 1982 and 1984, meaning we do have some story credits already in hand for that time.)

Pat Mills: Charles Herring was great – Ella and similar stories.  Pat and Alan Davidson wrote stories like Little Miss Nothing – Sandie and the equivalent in Tammy. They were top writers and that style of ‘Cinderella” story was hugely popular, but I don’t think they ever worked for Mavis. [In fact we do know that Alan Davidson wrote for Jinty, though Pat Davidson did not.]

John Wagner created and wrote “Jeanie and her Uncle Meanie” for Sandie, I think.  John was an editor on Sandie, but Gerry was the founding editor.

I wrote “Captives of Madam Karma” in Sandie.

John Wagner and I wrote “School of No Escape” in Sandie. (That was not bad) And “The Incredible Miss Birch” for Sandie. (Not our finest hour!) And I must have written at least one other story of this kind for Sandie.

I also wrote “Sugar Jones” and other stories for Pink, and “9 to 4” for Girl.

3) In Steve MacManus’ new book on his time in IPC / Fleetway, he talks about stories being measured in terms of the number of panels in the story: so for instance at one point he refers to a ‘twenty-two picture episode’ and at other points to a ‘thirty-picture script’. Is this something that you too remember from your time at IPC Fleetway? Did it happen at DCThomson too? I was interested in this because it seemed like a surprising way to think about comics, rather than in terms of page count.

Pat Mills: Yes. Steve is spot on. It’s a big subject. A thirty picture story in girls comics would theoretically deliver a lot of story. But it would be crammed and old fashioned. So I changed all that on 2000AD with less images on the page and started to apply it to Misty.

4) You’ve talked before about girls comics working differently from boys comics, and Steve MacManus recalls you saying that in a girls story the heroine would beat a bully, ride in a gymkhana, and still get back home in time to make her motherless family a hearty tea. Clearly girls comics were very full of plot! And you were a big part of rewriting a bunch of boys stories to make them fit the girls comics model more closely. Can you talk in a bit more detail about how this worked, in other words, what the mechanism was, more exactly? Is it a case of using fewer action sequences, more surprise reveals, lots of scene changes…?

Pat Mills: The big principle of girls comics that I applied to boys comics was “emotion”. Sometimes this worked well, but it needed applying in a different way. More “cool”, perhaps. Some girls principles didn’t adapt well:  jealousy for instance. Girls loved stories involving jealousy – boys didn’t. Hence “Green’s Grudge War” in Action wasn’t a hit.  Similarly, mystery stories work well in girls comics, boys didn’t give a damn about mystery. Hence my “Terror Beyond the Bamboo Curtain” in Battle, boys didn’t care what the terror was. It wasn’t a failure, but not the hit we hoped for.

However, where girls comics scored ENORMOUSLY was in having realistic stories that didn’t talk down to the reader. My “Charley’s War” is really a girls comic in disguise. Its popularity lies in it applying girls comic principles NOT boys comic principles – e.g. emotion is allowable in the context of World War One.

I was never that sold on “girls adventure” where there wasn’t a strong “kitchen sink”/Grange Hill factor. I think when Jinty went in for science fiction adventure it led the field, but not so sure about regular adventure which could seem “old school” – to me, at least. This was a factor everyone battled with on girls and boys comics, avoiding “old school” and creating stories that were “cool”.  Thus I would describe “Cat Girl” in Sally as uncool and old fashioned. Some of the Misty stories fell into that category – historical stories, for example.

Many thanks again to Pat Mills for his time, and for his memories and thoughts on this.

Jinty 11 November 1978

Stories in this issue:

• The Girl Who Never Was (artist Terry Aspin)
• Sue’s Fantastic Fun-Bag (artist Hugh Thornton-Jones)
• Somewhere over the Rainbow (artist Phil Townsend, writer Alison Christie)
• No Cheers for Cherry (artist Phil Gascoine)
• Jinty’s “Fireside Book”
• She Shall Have Music (artist Ron Smith)
• Sea-Sister (artist Peter Wilkes)
• Fran’ll Fix It! (artist Jim Baikie)
• The Human Zoo (artist Guy Peeters)

The exciting special issue mentioned on the topline and cover image is alerting readers to the Fireside Book four-page pullout. I generally read these pullouts while leaving them in the comic itself: did other readers pull them out? They mostly felt like just a part of the comic to me.

Tina in “The Girl Who Never Was” is playing hockey at school, and gets caught up in a trial by magic.

In “Somewhere Over The Rainbow” Dorrie and Max have been staying with an army pal of their father’s. He has sorted out a lift up north for them, with a lorry-driving friend of his – luckily for the lorry driver, really, because an accident happens on their journey and the lorry plunges into icy water! Dorrie pushes Max out of the window and urges him to go for help, while she stays in the cab to hold Fred’s head above the water. Will Max return in time?

Cherry Campbell is slaving in a hotel kitchen while feeling quite ill with a bad cold: but it all seems worth it when she sees recording star Eena Blair coming to the hotel for a meal. It is so exciting it makes her break into a song-and-dance routine, which leads to disaster and a sacking for Cherry! She is undeterred and does more singing and dancing next to her uncle and aunt’s barge – upon which she bumps into Eena Blair once more. It might be a lucky break for her…

Lisa Carstairs is still being obsessive in her pursuit of a piano for her to play. Maybe her old school will remember her talent and let her in? Not likely – “It would lower to the tone of the place, having a bankrupt‘s daughter here!”

New story “Sea-Sister” starts. Jane Bush has been travelling the world with her parents, who are artists, but now they have a settled home, finally. Unfortunately for them, the father uses a block of stone from a sunken village to mend a hole in the wall – and a girl rises from the deep to come and get it back! That girl is Helen, who has to get the stone from the wall before she can return to her ocean home – by whatever method, even if it means destroying the house that Jane has only just moved into.

Fran is stuck with looking after a race horse to save it from being nobbled by a couple of crooks – partly roped into it because owner of the horse is the darling nephew of Fran’s headmistress.

Finally in “The Human Zoo”, the Outlanders (humans living on the alien planet) have been led to a hidden paradise by a vision that Shona experienced. She sees some more visions, of her sister in a laboratory in the alien city. One of the other people in that laboratory is the father of Likuda, the Outlander who has befriended Shona. Dare they go in search of their captive loved ones?

Jinty 8 July 1978

Stories in this issue:

• Dance into Darkness (artist Christine Ellingham unknown artist Concrete Surfer)
• Sue’s Fantastic Fun-Bag! (artist Hugh Thornton-Jones)
• Somewhere over the Rainbow (artist Phil Townsend, writer Alison Christie)
• Alley Cat (artist Rob Lee)
• Knight and Day
• The Zodiac Prince (artist Trini Tinturé)
• Clancy on Trial (artist Ron Lumsden)
• Slave of the Swan (artist Guy Peeters)
• Cathy’s Casebook (artist Terry Aspin)

The cover image isn’t taken from an image inside this week’s episode of “Dance Into Darkness” – I am not sure without checking whether it is actually from next week’s episode, though I think it must be. It makes a fine spooky, gothic cover, and I love the little black cats winding their way around Della’s ankles.

Della Benson is starting to find out where her mysterious dancing skills have come from – along with her love of the dark and of the creatures of the night, such as the cats. What secret does the strange lady and her daughter hold?

Dorrie and Max run away from the grim chidren’s homes they have been placed in – they have found out that there is a place called “Rainbow’s End”, in Scotland, and they think it must be a sign that they will find their happiness there. It’s a rainy start, but they feel sure they can manage the long trek north.

“Knight and Day” is one of the grimmest, most realistic stories ever printed in Jinty. Pat Day was fostered to a loving couple but when her mother tried to get her back then she had to go – even though it all turned out to be a scam. Her mother and stepfather are abusive and uncaring, and Pat’s new stepsister is a bully and a thief.

“The Zodiac Prince” is a rare strip featuring a male lead character – though you could argue that his friend and sidekick Shrimp is the real lead, in some ways. It’s a light-hearted romp but it is coming to an end – this is the penultimate episode and Shrimp is nearly due to find out who the Prince really is and where he comes from.

In “Clancy on Trial”, Clancy has enrolled herself in the local comprehensive school, to force her grandfather to see that she can live as independent a life as possible without relying on him and his money. The schoolkids are not that friendly though.

“Slave of the Swan” is a pretty nasty slave story – Katrina Vale has lost her memory and is being very badly treated by Miss Kachinsky, who hated Katrina’s mother with great passion. Katrina is now in great danger as Miss Kachinsky tries to cover her tracks!

“Cathy’s Casebook” has doctor’s daughter Cathy cure Diana of her nerves when riding a particular horse she’d started to get afraid of. Next on Cathy’s list is wild runaway Denis. Will she find out what ails him, too?

—

Following my recent post on “The Mighty One”, where Steve MacManus mentioned the fact that editors of the time often thought in terms of stories filling a certain number of panels / frames / pictures, I thought I would count up the number of panels in a sample issue of Misty and one of Jinty, for comparison. (If I can also do the same for a typical issue of 2000AD from the time then I will, but right now it’s hard for me to dig out my old copies of other titles.)

Of the stories in this issue, this is how the panel count breaks down:

• Dance Into Darkness – pg 1 8 panels, pg 2 8 panels, pg 3 9 panels (25 panels)
• Sue’s Fantastic Fun-Bag! – pg 1 8 panels, pg 2 9 panels (17 panels)
• Somewhere Over the Rainbow – pg 1 7 panels, pg 2 10 panels, pg 3 7 panels (24 panels)
• Alley Cat – pg 1 12 panels (12 panels)
• Knight and Day – pg 1 8 panels, pg 2 9 panels, pg 3 8 panels (25 panels)
• The Zodiac Prince – pg 1 8 panels, pg 2 9 panels, pg 3 9 panels (26 panels)
• Clancy on Trial – pg 1 6 panels, pg 2 10 panels, pg 3 10 panels (26 panels)
• Slave of the Swan – pg 1 7 panels, pg 2 9 panels, pg 3 9 panels (25 panels)
• Cathy’s Casebook – pg 1 6 panels, pg 2 9 panels, pg 3 9 panels (24 panels)
• = 24 pages of comics, 9 stories. Minimum number of panels = 6, max = 10 on a serial or 12 on a gag strip

I know this is not a huge sample to use, but I have compared to the issue of Misty with the same cover date of 8 July 1978

• The Four Faces of Eve… – pg 1 3 panels, pg 2 6 panels, pg 3 7 panels, pg 4 10 panels (serial) (25 panels)
• Nightmare – ‘Master-Stroke’ pg 1 3 panels, pg 2 8 panels, pg 3 7 panels, pg 4 2 panels (complete story) (20 panels)
• Journey Into Fear – pg 1 4 panels, pg 2 7 panels, pg 3 8 panels, pg 4 6 panels (serial) (25 panels)
• Wrong Station – pg 1 4 panels, pg 2 7 panels,  pg 3 7 panels, pg 4 7 panels (complete) (25 panels)
• Beasts – ‘Where There’s a Will…’ – pg 1 4 panels, pg 2 8 panels, pg 3 7 panels, pg 4 7 panels (complete) (26 panels)
• The Black Widow – pg 1 2 panels, pg 2 8 panels, pg 3 8 panels, pg 4 8 panels (serial) (26 panels)
• = 24 pages of comics, 6 stories. Minimum number of panels = 2, max = 10

All the stories in Misty, whether they are serials or complete stories, are 4 pages long rather than just 3. There are fewer stories but it adds up to the same number of pages of comics. Each story has pretty much the same number of panels whether it is a 3 page Jinty story or a 4 page Misty one (though in Jinty the single page gag strip and the two page complete stories are certainly shorter in panel count). And the pattern in Misty is pretty striking and consistent, in this issue at least – the first page of each story has a considerably reduced panel count (so that the panels that are left can be large and visually striking) whereas subsequent pages are only very slightly shorter than a typical Jinty page in terms of the average number of panels used (and therefore the size of each one).

Face the Music, Flo! (1975)

Sample Images

Published: 19 April 1975 – 30 August 1975 (20 episodes)

Artist: Jim Baikie

Translations/reprints: None known

Plot

Twins Greg and Flo Carroll have looked after each other since their parents died (from Dad’s reckless driving). Trouble is, Flo acts like Greg’s mother when it comes to running his life. She keeps telling him to carry on with his plumbing course at the technical college, as it will guarantee a job for life. But Greg clearly does not like plumbing (just whose idea was it to pursue it in the first place?). His heart is in showbiz and he wants to pursue a career in pop music. Flo doesn’t approve of this because their late father’s showbiz career was a disaster and drove the family into debt. So before Mum died, she made Flo promise to see to it that Greg pursued a career that guaranteed more job security than showbiz.

Nonetheless, pop music is what Greg begins to pursue, and he is soon on the rise as a pop star. Flo still does not approve and this begins to drive a wedge between the twins. Flo does not like this change in their relationship either, as she and Greg have always been close; but as Greg’s career develops, he begins to drift apart from Flo. He also neglects his plumbing studies and eventually leaves the course. This horrifies Flo as she believes Greg is throwing away a steady job for the sake of an uncertain dream. Moreover, Greg’s manager Vince Telfer has a very sleazy look about him. Telfer encourages Greg to pursue his music career and he takes an active hand in widening the gulf between Flo and Greg.

Still, as far as Greg is concerned, his career is everything his father’s was not – success, fame, loads of money, and gifts he proceeds to shower Flo with. So why can’t Flo get past the tragedy of her father’s failed showbiz career? He is living proof that just because Dad’s career was a flop, it doesn’t mean his own will be. He (rightly) warns Flo that if she carries on being so difficult about his new career they will end up hating each other. However, Flo still thinks it is not the right path for Greg and also feels she failed Mum and the promise she made to her. So the gulf widens even more. And wider still when Flo cleans Greg’s guitar. She accidentally messes up the controls, which turns Greg’s performance into a disaster. When Greg finds out what happened, he thinks Flo did it on purpose because of her attitude, and walks out on her altogether. Telfer keeps feeding this false assumption of Greg’s for all it’s worth: “She’ll do anything to wreck your career, Greg – you know that!” And Greg won’t listen to Flo when she says it was unintentional.

Flo decides the only way to get anywhere near Greg is to disguise herself as one of the fans who keep mobbing him at every turn. She wins a prize draw to an evening with Greg. Telfer sees through Flo’s disguise and causes more trouble for her right in front of the press. Greg really is poisoned against Flo after this, which is all part of Telfer’s ploy to stop Flo getting Greg out of his clutches. Flo soon finds out why Telfer wants to turn Greg against her – Telfer has been fleecing Greg (yes, we thought he looked sleazy!). Telfer is now out to pocket 80% of Greg’s fee on his upcoming provincial tour. However, Flo can’t convince Greg of this and he goes off on his tour.

However, Flo follows him secretly. This means renting a shabby flat and taking a job as a waitress at the gig Greg is playing at. But Flo gets discovered, which causes intense embarrassment for Greg and turns the audience against him. Telfer, of course, takes advantage to widen the rift between the twins and says Flo did that on purpose too. Flo gets sacked and also hurt her wrist during the incident. The only one who notices her injury is Pip, Greg’s kind-hearted drummer. Pip takes Flo to hospital for treatment, and the doctor asks if Greg could perform a charity concert in the children’s ward.

Unfortunately Flo thinks the answer will be no because she is under the impression success is making Greg hard and selfish. A misunderstanding where she thinks Greg has turned down the doctor’s request cements that view. So she impersonates Greg to throw a concert for the kids. However, the press find her and take photos for “Big-Hearted Pop Star Entertains Sick Kids” story. Flo dreads Greg’s reaction when he reads the story, but it has surprising ramifications: a television producer was so impressed that he wants to do a television programme with Greg. Flo and Greg also clear up their misunderstanding, but disaster strikes when the TV producer sees the shabby digs Flo is renting and thinks Greg is to blame.

Now Greg has seen how Flo is living he puts her in more posh accommodation. He also spruces her up in luxury, saying that as a sister of a pop star she must have the look for it. But Flo soon finds the high life isn’t as fulfilling as it first seemed and wants to go back to being useful. Unfortunately this leads to a series of mishaps that widen the gulf between her and Greg again. First, Flo finds a sick maid and she offers to finish her duties for her. When Greg and the TV producer find Flo at it, it’s another embarrassment. And then there’s another embarrassment when Greg acts as judge at a fete but Flo gets horribly messed up from cleaning up a dog. When Greg and his high-rise friends come to Flo’s suite with caviar and champagne, he is really shown up when he finds Flo enjoying kippers and cocoa with Uncle Eddie and Aunt Mabel: “Why can’t you be a credit to me, instead of slumming with a couple of old deadbeats you picked up off the street?”

Uncle Eddie and Aunt Mabel agree with Flo that success is changing Greg for the worse. Then Flo finds Greg has left flowers on their parents’ graves and the twins start hugging each other. She wonders if she has judged him too harshly, but then thinks it was all a publicity stunt when the press photograph them (it was, but Telfer arranged it behind Greg’s back). After this, Flo heads back to their old home in London. She bumps into Greg again at one his open-air concerts and they proceed to make up. But Telfer does his best to come between them again – and so do mobs of fans. Flo is also feeling neglected because Greg’s getting too busy with his pop career to devote any time to her and the only place she can see him these days is on television.

Then Flo realises Telfer is driving Greg too hard and he’s beginning to fall ill from exhaustion. When she and Pip try to speak to Telfer, he sacks Pip and throws them both out. Undaunted, they smuggle Greg out in a drum and take him on holiday. While on holiday, Greg takes delight in throwing concerts for the villager. Flo has come to realise that Greg has show business in his blood.

But then Telfer comes along with a bombshell – Greg’s holiday has caused him to miss an opportunity for an American tour! Following this, Flo decides to just let Greg pursue his pop career and goes back to her old life. Six months pass without even seeing Greg, but painful reminders of him are everywhere. Greg sends Flo regular cheques, which she puts into the bank. While at the bank, Pip and a bunch of would-be pop musicians put on a performance. They hope the bank manager will back them for their road musical, which he does not.

Now it’s Flo’s birthday and she hopes Greg will make the effort to come and celebrate it. But all he does is send her flowers, as he can’t make the time to come. Then Flo finds out Greg is off on an American tour, so now he will be even more distanced from her. She is so upset she stumbles into the road and gets hit by a truck.

Flo’s condition is critical and she needs Greg urgently. Greg has a horrible sense of foreboding and feels he should check on Flo. However, Telfer does not want Greg to find out about Flo’s accident as he wants him on the plane for his American tour. Pip rushes to the airport to inform Greg, but Telfer locks him up. By the time Pip gets out, the plane is flying. In hospital, Flo senses Greg departing and her condition worsens.

Then the plane suddenly returns to the airport because of mechanical problems. This time Pip manages to tell Greg about Flo’s accident and how Telfer tried to stop him finding out. Greg goes to the hospital, and tells Telfer to shove it when he tries to get him back on the plane or lose the American contract. Greg’s arrival turns Flo around, and Greg says the shock has opened his eyes to what his true priorities in life are. So when Telfer arrives, Greg angrily breaks contract with him (which has Telfer pocket all of Greg’s money) and ends his pop career. Greg turns to a new line in showbiz – getting Pip’s show on the road. They have no money because of Telfer, but Flo can finance them with the money Greg sent her before. The show is a huge success and makes Flo and Greg joint stars.

Thoughts

This story starts with a premise that is so familiar in girls’ comics, except that it is turned on its head and given a whole new take. The protagonist is frustrated in pursuing her (or in this case his) choice of career by interfering relatives because they got burned by some family tragedy associated with it. The protagonist gets pushed down a career path of the relative’s choice, and the relative cannot accept that the protagonist does not want it and may not have the aptitude for it either. Examples in Jinty include “The Goose Girl”, where Glenda Noble’s mother keeps pushing her into fashion design instead of the ornithology where Glenda’s heart really lies.

But instead of a parent/guardian pushing a daughter in this way it’s a sister pushing her brother. It’s a bit unclear as to just how Greg came to study plumbing, for it does not look like he would choose it himself. It is a bit hard to believe that Flo would be able to press him into taking up plumbing, though she could have. The parents have been dead for several years, so there could not have been any pressure from them either. Perhaps Greg just took the course to please his sister. However it happened, Flo carries on Greg’s mother in the way she keeps pushing him to be a plumber because in her view it would guarantee a good, steady job while showbiz is too uncertain for that. She does not stop to think whether it is something Greg really wants or would be happy doing. One has to applaud Greg when he decides, in effect “screw you – I’m going to pursue a career in showbiz, whether you like it or not!” – and follows his heart into showbiz.

Flo’s bad reaction to this and difficulty in accepting it means she must take at least some of the blame for the widening rift with her brother. If she had been more respectful of her brother’s feelings it would have made things far easier for them both. Eventually Flo does come to accept that showbiz, however much trouble it caused for the family in the past, is in her brother’s blood. But she can’t accept this at first and is too badly prejudiced by the bad legacy of their father’s failed showbiz career to agree with Greg pursuing it. It is ironic that Flo ends up going full circle from disapproving of a showbiz career to sharing it with Greg at the end of the story.

Flo’s doubts about whether the pop career will bring Greg true happiness prove to be more prophetic than her disapproval about him pursuing showbiz. This is particular so considering the type of manager Greg has ended up with. Vince Telfer is a greedy, crooked and ruthless man who clearly took advantage of Greg’s greenness in signing him up. Greg can’t see that Telfer is just using him as a means to line his own pockets by hook or by crook and he does not care about his wellbeing one bit. Even when Telfer starts driving Greg so hard that he is on the brink of collapse, Greg does not wake up. It takes a horrible shock to make Greg see Telfer for what he is. Sadly, it looks like Telfer gets away with all that fleecing he did on Greg. He even pockets all of Greg’s money after he breaks contract. Clearly, Greg overlooked some fine print that shifty Telfer inserted about breach of contract.

Even without Telfer’s cheating, Greg’s pop career soon takes a course that proves Flo right – it is not bringing him happiness. As Greg’s pop career progresses the story shifts towards “the price of fame” premise where fame, success and fortune come at the cost of family and personal life. Flo feels increasingly isolated and distanced from the twin brother she was once so close to and feels neglected. Greg also discovers the pitfalls of being a pop star, such as becoming public property, being constantly hounded by fans, and having no time for family (or himself, probably). Eventually he decides a career that makes him turn his back on his family is the wrong one, but he takes a long time to realise it and it takes a shock to do the trick. Greg is too blinded by his success and the bad influence of his dodgy manager, who pulls every trick he can to keep Greg under his thumb and line his pockets. Fame is clearly having a bad effect on Greg. It never goes completely to Greg’s head and he becomes conceited or unbearable. But he is showing signs of snobbery and selfishness and losing sight of the warm-heartedness he used to have. By contrast, once Flo has a taste of Greg’s high life she does not like it; she wants a down-to-earth life where she helps people.

The story is also unusual for giving male protagonists more attention. Usually, boys were kept on the periphery in girls’ comics during the 1960s–1970s. There is Greg, of course, but there is also Pip the drummer. Pip is a humble, kind, good-natured boy whose own pursuit of showbiz is an uplifting and delightful contrast to the glamour and glitz of Greg’s pop career that comes at the price of happiness. Pip is also a tremendous help to both Flo and Greg in getting through their difficulties with Telfer and Greg’s pop career until they break free of it and start working together on their own gig. Had this story appeared in the late 1980s we have a strong suspicion Pip and Flo would have started dating. However, this was still not allowed in girls’ comics at the time of publication.

‘The Mighty One’ by Steve MacManus (2016)

This is a review (of sorts) of Steve MacManus’s autobiography “The Mighty One”, in which he covers his time working at Fleetway / IPC between 1973 and 1991. It’s not your usual review though, as it is also intended as a way to highlight some material mentioned in the book that either gives us new information on how the comics publishing of the time actually worked, or re-confirms information we already knew (but which it’s always good to have from more than one source.) (Some write-ups that are more ‘review’-y can be found here: GNFAR, Colin Noble at Down The Tubes, Lew Stringer.)

MacManus started work at Fleetway Publications in 1973, as a sub-editor on Valiant, which was part of the Juvenile Group of comics and magazines aimed at young people. He was part of a team of four people: an editor and a sub-editor, an art editor and an art assistant (often referred to as a bodger). He subsequently worked on Battle Picture Weekly, and although he wasn’t part of the core team working on Action he got involved in some elements of that title too. Starlord was his next step and when that merged with 2000AD he went to that title, eventually becoming Editor in 1979. In 1986 he moved sideways and relinquished the editorship to stay involved with the Judge Dredd universe, with the creation of titles for a more mature audience – Crisis (in 1988), the short-lived but beautiful Revolver, and the much longer-lasting Judge Dredd the Megazine. The book ends in 1991 with the collapse of the Maxwell Communication Corporation (which had bought IPC’s remaining comics line in 1987) and the subsequent sale of the titles to Gutenbergus (later Egmont), though the last chapter of the book, effectively an epilogue, races through the aftermath of the subsequent years through to 2011.

During this book he talks about working with key staff contacts such as art editor Doug Church, editor Dave Hunt, art editor Jan Shepheard; and with well-known freelancers like Pat Mills, Alan Grant, John Wagner, Tom Tully. The names we are familiar with from girls comics publishing – Mavis Miller, Wilf Prigmore, Terence Magee – mostly don’t get a look-in but there are certainly some folks mentioned who crossed over that significant divide as we will see – Gerry Finley-Day, Jim Baikie, and of course Pat Mills again (who seems to get everywhere). If you want to read anecdotes of those days, or find out how a boys’ comic of the time was conceived, written, drawn, put together, printed, and marketed then you couldn’t ask for a better book than this, and a fun read to boot. I’m sure it will get people digging out their old issues of the comics mentioned, or looking out for reprints of stories they missed (it’s certainly had that effect on me!).

My interest in getting the book in the first place, however, was to see what light it might shed on the creation and publishing of Fleetway / IPC’s girls comics. It did not disappoint. As mentioned above, some of the information in the book is material that we already know or had a good idea was the case, but it’s good to have it corroborated in a printed source that can be referenced in the future. Some of the information, however, is stuff I’d never dreamed of, and which has got me thinking of new things to look at and analyse in Jinty and other comics.

What did we already know that is corroborated here?

• There are some basic facts that are repeated here about things like the target age of the readership (8-12 years), and the sales figures of the time (around 80,000 copies per week normally, with 2000AD achieving noticeably strong sales of 100,000 copies per week, but still being out-sold by Tammy which was selling 200,000 copies a week).
• The expectation was that any given child would be reading the comic for a maximum of four years before going on to other things (it states in the book that a boy might give up his weekly comic in order to save up for something bigger and more grown up). So the rule of thumb, as we’ve heard before from Mistyfan, was that stories from a specific title could be reprinted in that title after some 5 years had passed.
• The normal format of a comic was 32 pages, which included 3 pages of editorial material or features (intro page, letters page, back cover) and the front cover – so 28 pages of comics, normally divided up into 8 stories of three or four pages each. The book doesn’t say specifically, but presumably as with Jinty there would normally be a couple of single-page strips to make up the 28 pages of comics.
• It was pretty clear beforehand that comics at the time were fairly blokey. Of course MacManus was talking about working on boys comics, but almost all the names he mentions were of men, apart from Jan Shepheard. The office staff, the colleagues he socialised with, the management – just about everyone he mentions was male. The magazine publishing side was more mixed, with columnists such as Julie Burchill coming in for a mention alongside female editorial staff on titles.

There were some points mentioned that weren’t totally new to me, or to other readers of this blog, but which have had new light shed on them:

• The Juvenile Group had separate departments for boys’ comics, girls’ comics, nursery comics, and humour comics. It’s clear from this book that these departments were a lot more separate from each other in terms of culture and networking than we might have imagined. The girls comics and the boys comics were very much separated from each other – they were located on separate floors, for instance – and there is little evidence in MacManus’ book of much fraternization between the two. (Gerry Finley-Day was one of the exceptions – he was the deputy managing editor of the girls’ comics line at the same time as he was writing stories for the initial line up of Battle.) So much so that when talking about Jim Baikie coming aboard to 2000AD wagon (for “Skizz” in 1982), MacManus was seemingly totally unaware of Baikie’s background in drawing girls comics, knowing him only as a Look-In artist! I asked MacManus via Facebook whether he really had been entirely unaware of the crossing-over from girls comics to boys comics that Baikie, Ron Smith, and Phil Gascoine had done, and he confirmed that he didn’t think he knew it then and was surprised to hear it now. At the same time, there must have been some awareness of what was happening in the other area, as MacManus appreciated the notable successes that were happening with Tammy and Jinty.
• The running order of the stories in each 32 page issue was closely tied to the popularity of the stories in question. In Valiant, the most popular story appeared at the front of the comic, and the second most popular one at the back, which makes sense. But MacManus also says that the least-liked heroes would be marked for the chop in ‘an end-of-term edition in which all the current serials concluded’, which surprised me! I don’t remember noticing that lots of stories normally came to an end at the same time, in Jinty at least – but I will certainly look at the story list by date to see if there are patterns for when stories tend to end or start.
• Not really known beforehand but not surprising as such: MacManus gives us a little bit of detail about the taglines at the top of each cover – ‘the pithy phrases known as toplines’. These were apparently produced ahead of time – ‘several of these to last us the next few issues’.
• I knew that there was quite a lot of active creative work required of those working as in-house staff at IPC (no doubt the same was true of DC Thomson too): we hear of Gerry Finley-Day writing umpteen stories at the same time as being a staffer, and we know about the script conferences held in the editorial offices of the comics. I was surprised, though, to understand quite how hands-on those creative processes were at all levels of the publishing process. MacManus was required to do quite a lot of writing as a normal part of his job, and he talks about the specific encouragement to write scripts and features. Art duties likewise were an important part of the in-house staff work: the bodger or art assistant would redraw elements that had been perhaps misunderstood by the main artist, or which needed amending for other reasons (such as to tone down a shocking scene, or to touch up old artwork that was to be reprinted in a different format). The art editor was responsible for the overall look and feel of the comic; we’ve heard elsewhere about how much of an effect Jan Shepheard had on early 2000AD for instance. A high level of creative endeavour was expected and required: MacManus’ interview with IPC turned at least partly on his ability to spell, and everyone on staff knew that there were a lot of parental and media eyes focused on the comics, ready to spot any errors or grammatical flaws. But at a basic level of comics publishing, too, the editorial role included the creative element of subbing the dialogue written by the author so that it fitted into the space left by the artist, while continuing to respect ‘the dramatic “beat” of the pictures so that the story flowed seamlessly for the reader’.
• We’ve heard before from Pat Mills that women were generally uninterested in working on the comics because they wanted to work on the women’s titles, as proper journalists. I’m sure that was a real thing, but what Pat’s narrative doesn’t include is the fact that other people working on the comics also wanted to be ‘proper journalists’ too – MacManus recounts the attraction of the idea of working on a magazine and holding your head up in the queue for the staff lunch! It was also an area of the business with a lot more budget to play around with. Between this relatively greater respect accorded to journalists working on consumer magazines, and the blokey background of many parts of the publishing company, it’s perhaps not that surprising that many women may have been a bit uninterested in working on the comics.
• It’s clear from MacManus that Scottish rival DC Thomson were immensely important not only in providing a competitor to race against, but also in the transfer of knowledge and methods to the better-paying London publisher. MacManus attended an in-house training course on scripting picture strips for girls, run by John Purdie, the managing editor of the girls’ department and an import from DCT. Writers Pat Mills and John Wagner, were similarly trained in the DCT writing style – but with particular expertise in writing girls comics, which was described by Pat Mills as being particularly plot-driven, with four sizeable things happening in the space of a single 22-panel episode. This brought in a professionalism and strength into IPC’s boys’ comics writing by explicitly teaching staffers how to write and edit tightly. MacManus contrasts this with the common technique of starting an episode with last week’s cliffhanger, resolving it, doling out a smidgen of plot development, before ending on another, often spurious, cliffhanger.
• MacManus talks about the dummy issue of Battle being produced six weeks ahead of the first issue going on sale, and this six-week lead time crops up at other points in this book. (Amongst other things it means that ‘For a new weekly title the soonest you could end a strip was around issue twelve’.) Of course there would have to be some sort of publication lead time but it’s nice to have it nailed down fairly specifically. I’d like to have heard exactly how far in advance the advance copies were printed – we’ve heard elsewhere that there are around 30 ultra-rare copies of the issue of Action printed just before the order came to stop the presses and re-jig the level of violence in the title. Does that mean that an advance copy of Tammy‘s last issue, with the final episode of “Cora Can’t Lose”, might have been produced or even printed? You’d think someone would have mentioned it by now, but who knows… Or if not a printed copy of the issue, could there be any remaining scrap of the ‘make-up book,which listed the status of scripts and artwork for each issue going forward’?

And then there were some points that surprised me quite a lot:

• MacManus says right at the beginning that when he joined Valiant in 1973 he was surprised to see the same characters he’d followed a decade earlier, when he read it as a boy. Captain Hurricane, The Wild Wonders, The House of Dolmann, Raven on the Wing, Kelly’s Eye, Jason Hyde, The Steel Claw: that’s a lot of ongoing characters! I don’t know Valiant enough to have a feel for how many of those were really long-running but clearly a number of them were – many more than was the case in Jinty or even Tammy. Jinty only had one or at maximum two ongoing characters at a time, while Tammy had the long-running Bella and Molly Mills of course. But neither girls’ title was chock-full of long-running stories in the way that MacManus sees as the norm in boys’ comics.
• MacManus talks a few times about stories being measured in terms of the number of panels in the story. At one point he refers to a ‘twenty-two picture episode’ and at other points to a ‘thirty-picture script’. There are two things that surprise me about this. One is the terminology, using ‘pictures’ or ‘frames’ instead of panels (likewise he uses ‘speech bubbles’ instead of ‘word balloons’). it’s subtly different from the terminology I’m used to – I suppose my vocabulary for this has been influenced by US comics, and I’d never noticed the small differences. It makes sense of the many references to ‘picture-stories’ instead of ‘comics’ though, I guess.
• But the thing that surprises me most about this is the idea of measuring stories in pictures or frames, rather than in what I would never have questioned as the key unit of a story – the page. Of course, the page has to still be considered a very important unit – you have to fill up 32 pages in each issue, and the physical page is what the reader turns over to see something surprising that has been hidden from them until that page turn. The real lightbulb moment associated with this, for me, was when MacManus explained the thinking behind running only five stories in the early 2000AD – he credits Pat Mills with the notion of leaving out the most-unpopular two or three stories out of eight, and going straight to only printing five stories in each issue, with more pages allocated. MacManus specifically says ‘Each story still had the usual number of pictures, but the extra pages allowed the pictures to be drawn larger’. Wow! Yes, this is clearly what is happening, not only in 2000AD but also to a certain extent in Misty.

Available from Rebellion £9.99 for the print edition (ISBN 978-1-78108-475-5).

Slave of the Mirror (1974-5)

Sample Images

Slave of the Mirror

Slave of the Mirror

Slave of the Mirror

Published: 9 November 1974 – 12 April 1975 (20 episodes)

Artist: Carlos Freixas

Translations/ reprints: De spiegel met de slangen [The Snakes Mirror] (in Tina 1976); translated into Greek in Manina.

Plot

In Cornwall, Mia Blake’s sister Janet has bought a run-down old 18^th century house built by one Captain Scully and transformed part of it into a boarding house, “Scully House Private Hotel” (other parts are still shut up). There is a portrait of Scully on the wall, and he does not look very nice. Oh dear, could Mia and Janet be asking for trouble there?

Mia is expected to help out, but she is discontented and disgruntled at doing so. She feels Janet treats her like a dogsbody and does not even pay her, though she has the grace to understand that Janet would not mean it. She does not appreciate that the guesthouse is understaffed and Janet can’t afford more help until business takes off. Too bad Mia has those feelings, because they could have made her susceptible to what follows.

When Janet sends Mia up to the attic on an errand, she makes a discovery that proves fateful – an old mirror. The face that appears in it is not Mia’s reflection but the face of a young, beautiful woman. The woman’s identity and origins are as yet unknown, but she soon makes it clear she has powers to hypnotise Mia into playing dirty tricks that are aimed at driving off guests and giving the hotel a bad name. And the mirror also forces Mia to do things that are far worse than that, such as attempting to drown a dog in a well, drown a couple by scuttling their boat, stealing money from a guest, and ruining the Major’s reputation by forging a letter from him saying he cheated in a boat race. There are times when Mia does break free of the mirror’s control. For example, she stops herself killing the dog in time. The same goes for stealing the money, but Mia gets caught anyway, and so it’s another angry guest and another black mark on Scully Hotel. Mia scuttles the boat, but rescues the couple later.

Or perhaps it is because the mirror may have relented sometimes? There is a surprise when Mia realises what she did to the Major and confronts the mirror over it. The face in the mirror starts crying and helps her find a way to clear the Major. Could it be that the spirit is not as evil as it seemed? Whatever brought on the crying, though, it does not last. Soon the mirror is back to its usual tricks.

As only Mia can see the face in the mirror, she cannot convince Janet of what’s going on. Janet thinks her sister is turning delinquent or going crazy or something. Trying to dispose of the mirror or destroying it does not work either – the mirror always comes back. Janet’s losing guests and money because of all the trouble, and she is coming to the end of her tether with Mia. In the end, Mia is put in hospital because of her odd behaviour. Strangely, while Mia is in hospital two men spot her and they say she has what it takes to become a model. Afterwards they have her enter a beauty contest.

Mia’s on the verge of winning the contest when Janet comes up in a huff and yanks her out: “how dare you flaunt yourself in public like this!” Is Janet a prude or something? As Mia says, what’s the harm in a beauty contest? Janet won’t hear of Mia becoming a model either, saying she’s needed at the hotel. This time, Mia has more justification for feeling resentment towards Janet and slogging at the hotel for nothing in return – and that’s bound to increase the mirror’s hold over her.

Sure enough, Mia’s rage has her stealing money from another guest to enrol at modelling school because Janet won’t allow her the money for it. Fortunately she gets a free enrolment as a consolation prize from the contest, which means she can quietly return the money.

The mirror seems to be feeding and amplifying Mia’s own feelings of resentment. She perceives everybody being against her and Janet still treating her like a servant. Mia feels the mirror is sympathising with her there. Now Mia calls upon the mirror to help her with her own revenge against all the people she resents. She grows more violent and starts lashing out. When this happens in her modelling class, Mia is told that if it happens again she will be expelled.

Mia goes home still under the influence, which puts her in a black rage. This culminates in her slashing the portrait of Scully and screaming how much she hates him “you slave driver!” Hmm, could there be a clue there?

Meanwhile, Janet has hired a Spanish student named Inez to help with the guesthouse and take some of the pressure off Mia. Perhaps she thinks Mia has snapped under too much pressure and that’s why she’s acting out of character.

As it turns out, Inez is just the person to help Mia. Inez notices Mia’s odd behaviour when she stares into the mirror and begins to suspect the truth. Inez checks out the mirror with an antique dealer and they discover a note hidden inside it. It reveals that the mirror belonged to Isabella, an ancestress of Inez. In 1770 Isabella worked as a servant for Captain Scully. Sure enough, Scully was a horrible man. He treated Isabella very badly and when she fell ill, she was left to die of fever and neglect in her attic room. Before Isabella died, she wrote the note describing her treatment, how full of hate she is for the house and everyone who lives there, and made an oath to return from beyond the grave to have her revenge.

Now Mia knows the truth, she sympathises with Isabella and tries to tell Janet what’s been going on. But of course Janet doesn’t believe it. She sends Mia to her room. Instead, Mia goes to the attic where Isabella died, and the mirror and note are on her lap. Mia falls asleep where she starts reliving how Isabella suffered at the hands of Scully and was left to die from his neglect. She is full of rage and pity for Isabella. It is small wonder that when Mia wakes up, Isabella’s power is so strong that she has Mia set fire to the attic!

Inez finds Mia in her hypnotic state, which Mia snaps out of. Janet does not believe Mia’s story about being hypnotised and throws her out of the house. While Janet and Inez tackle the fire, Inez draws Janet’s attention to the mirror. Previously only Mia could see Isabella’s face in the mirror – but now both Inez and Janet can see it! And Isabella is crying. It seems Isabella has now repented to the point where she is showing herself to clear Mia’s name.

Meanwhile, Mia is guided towards Isabella’s grave. It just says “Isabella 1752–1770”. Inez follows Mia to the grave and suggests they pray for Isabella. Their prayers include pleas for Isabella to leave Mia alone and find peace. A ray of sun breaks through pouring rain and shines on Isabella’s grave. They take it as a sign that Isabella is happy now she has people who care for her at last.

Mia and Inez return to the house, where Janet says she now understands and asks Mia’s forgiveness. The face of Isabella in the mirror gives a loving smile, and then disappears from the mirror forever.

After the haunting stops, life becomes so good for everyone. Mia’s modelling career is now in full swing. She still works at the hotel, but now finds it enjoyable and works very happily with Inez and Janet. Isabella’s grave gets regular fresh flowers. The mirror is still around, but Mia is so happy that the only face she sees in it now is her own. The hotel is still called Scully House though – shouldn’t they change the name in light of what happened?

Thoughts

This serial has drawn comments that the acts Mia commits under the mirror’s influence are veiled excuses for delinquent behaviour. Still, the same could be said for any protagonist who falls under the power of an evil (or angry) force and is forced to do nasty things. One such victim, in Suzy’s “The Curse of Carmina” is actually sent away to a home for problem children because of the terrible things the evil object (in this case a puppet) is forcing her to do. Janet does not go this far, fortunately; the nearest is putting Mia in hospital.

There are strong similarities between this story and another malignant mirror story that appeared in Jinty several years later, “The Venetian Looking Glass”. It could well be the same writer. The protagonist, Lucy Craven finds a mirror that is haunted by an angry, vengeful spirit also named Lucy Craven, and Lucy Craven Snr hypnotises her into unleashing that revenge. Both stories climax with the protagonist being hypnotised into nearly burning the place down.

However, there are differences between how the two mirrors carry out their mayhem. The key one is that the Lucy Craven spirit can talk through her mirror but Isabella can’t speak through hers at all. As the Lucy Craven mirror can speak, it rapidly becomes established what the spirit wants and why. Lucy keeps trying to plead with her that she is hurting innocent people who have nothing to do with the ancient wrong. By contrast, Isabella can’t talk to Mia at all, so her identity and motives remain a mystery until near the end of the story. Furthermore, Mia can’t reason with Isabella that the people she is hurting have nothing to do with what Captain Scully did. All she can do is try to plead with the spirit not to force her to do things against her will. But most of the time they fall on deaf ears until near the end. Perhaps part of it was Janet bringing out the portrait of Captain Scully and calling the hotel Scully House. In Isabella’s eyes, this must have looked like a tribute to the very man who treated her so badly.

When the motives of the two respective spirits are established, one emerges as a far more sympathetic character than the other. Lucy Craven Snr brought the trouble on herself by being – to put it very bluntly – a bad-tempered bitch. By contrast, Isabella arouses sympathy because she was treated so badly by Captain Scully and her desire for revenge was understandable. Anyone decent would feel sorry for Isabella there. It is this sympathy that finally has Isabella resting in peace. Once she sees there are now people who care for her, something finally gets through to her.

Once Isabella’s motives are revealed it is also easier to understand the odd fluctuations of the spirit looking evil most times and then looking like it is having second thoughts now and then. The same thing has been seen over and over in “revenge” serials. In these serials there are moments when things go too far and innocents get hurt. These moments have the protagonist stop and think and maybe feel some remorse. Sometimes this is what turns her around. Other times the pause doesn’t last because the thirst for revenge resurfaces. Often the desire for revenge clouds their judgement and they do thoughtless, reckless and even dangerous things in the name of revenge. They do not stop think about the damage they are doing or the rights and wrongs of it all. Eventually, though, they learn their lesson.

Mia undergoes a whole new appreciation of life after the ordeal ends. In the beginning she’s completely negative in her outlook, discontented at working at the hotel and feels she’s being used as a servant. These negative attitudes could be why the mirror opened up to her in the first place and why she succumbed to its power. No doubt it is one reason why the mirror’s influence gets so powerful. It amplifies Mia’s bad feelings to the point of insanity; it has similar feelings, so it would empathise with Mia. At the end Mia has a positive attitude and really enjoys working in the hotel with Inez to help out. Being a successful model almost seems redundant. Even without the modelling job we feel Mia would be much happier at the hotel after the haunting ceases. After all, now she’s seen a real dogsbody at the hotel who was treated like a real slave, she would appreciate how lucky she is. She also comes away looking far smarter and more beautiful now that she is a full-fledged model.

Jinty & Penny 10 May 1980

Stories in this issue

• Pam of Pond Hill (writer Jay Over, artist Bob Harvey)
• Gaye’s Gloomy Ghost (artist Hugh Thornton-Jones)
• Snoopa (artist Joe Collins)
• Tearaway Trisha (artist Andrew Wilson)
• Rinty ‘n Jinty
• Seulah the Seal (artist Veronica Weir)
• Lost in Time!  – final part (Game)
• The Venetian Looking Glass (artist Phil Gascoine)
• Tansy of Jubilee Street (artist Ken Houghton)
• Val Robinson – sports feature
• Winning Ways 12 – Keeping Goal (writer Benita Brown)
• Minnow (artist Peter Wilkes)
• Blind Faith (artist Phil Townsend)

It’s part three of a pull-out game, “Lost in Time!” Players have to make their way around the ages, including the future where the TV prints out the 5000th issue of Jinty & Penny. Sadly, Jinty never got to that issue number (and shouldn’t Jinty have dropped Penny years ago?).

The banjo is a real bone of contention in “Pam of Pond Hill”. It caused a feud between Goofy’s mother and grandfather that has not healed, despite the passage of years. Now it threatens to erupt again as Goofy discovers his own talent for the banjo – and then his lost grandfather.

“Gaye’s Gloomy Ghost” takes a hand in helping a plump teacher stick to her sponsored slim when she doesn’t stick to it herself. He says it’s all in a good cause – but we do notice that the gluttonous ghost seems to be taking opportunities to grab the teacher’s food for himself…

Trisha’s first show to raise money for Fran’s operation is a great success. Finally, something’s gone right for Trisha. Oh dear, perhaps we spoke too soon – Fran’s throwing it all in Trisha’s face because she thinks the operation won’t work. And next week’s blurb says it’s going to get worse, because Fran is running away!

Things look up for Seulah when he finds a friend in the form of a kindly tramp. But then things look down again when the seal is cornered by a bunch of sealers out to club him for his fur.

In “The Venetian Looking Glass”, Lucy saves the stables from burning down – but then realises the ghost of Lucy Craven made her set fire to them in the first place. It’s all part of the ghost’s revenge, and next week’s blurb says we are going to find out what her revenge is about.

Dad’s got a ticket for a pop concert, but Simon and Tansy have to decide who gets it. Yikes, this can only mean one thing with a brother like Simon – dirty tricks to get the ticket!

Minnow’s taken a bad fright after a strange panic attack in the pool. The teacher has to put extra coaching into restoring her confidence, which succeeds. And in “Blind Faith”, Clare is making headway in training her blind horse to show jump while keeping him hidden from the authorities. But her mind gets full of doubts as to whether she’s doing the right thing.

Story theme: Redemption narratives

I recently wrote summary posts about two stories that I called ‘redemption narratives’: “The Girl Who Never Was” and “She Shall Have Music“. That’s a kind of story theme that we can all recognize as being fairly common in girls comics generally: in Jinty there are a number of other examples.  But how does this sort of story work?

Take those two stories as an initial guide: the protagonist is a difficult or disagreeable, probably dislikeable, girl who has some personal failing or issue that drives the story. It’s because of that failing that the story progresses; it may not have been due to something that was her fault that the story started off in the first place, but it is because of her moral or social problem that it continues and develops the way it does. Tina Williams lands in the alternate universe where magic works because of her conceited and annoying ways; Lisa Carstairs’s father doesn’t lose his money because of her, but if she wasn’t so obsessed with continuing her piano playing exactly as before, then she wouldn’t find herself in the same difficulties. It’s not just what happens to the protagonist (or how she is challenged in the story) but how she reacts to it. She has to be ‘the architect of her own misfortunes’, as Mistyfan puts it in her post about another redemption story, “Black Sheep of the Bartons“.

Does the story have to feature some sort of disagreeableness, some sort of outright nastiness or callousness on the part of the protagonist? No: I’d say that you could certainly include ‘guilt’ stories such as “Stefa’s Heart of Stone” and “I’ll Make Up For Mary”. The protagonist here  suffers huge pangs of guilt and despair because of the loss of a loved one – a best friend or a sister in the case of these two stories, but in other cases it can be a parent – a very natural feeling, but the failing here is that she lets those emotions overwhelm her and distort her common sense. The guilty feelings of the protagonist drive the story forward, but this guilt is portrayed throughout as excessive, as an indulgence that the main character should resist. It’s the lengths that their grief drives them to that causes their difficulties in their separate stories.

Also, it’s not just about having an objectionable main character who is nicer by the end of the story. “Curtain of Silence” and “Land of No Tears” are not what I would call redemption narratives, despite having protagonists who start off pretty disagreeable and end up much improved. (Likewise “Battle of the Wills” is not, nor I think “Pandora’s Box”, but sports story “Black Sheep of the Bartons” is one I would class as such: Bev Barton isn’t horrible so much as thoughtless and reckless, but her carelessness nearly brings tragedy to her family.) Why don’t “Curtain of Silence” and “Land of No Tears” count? Because when the girl main characters are swept into their initial circumstances – enslaved by a dictatorial coach, forced into third-class citizenship in a future world – their thoughts are not primarily about how they can continue to maintain their status quo ante but about how they can defeat their antagonist. Yvonne and Cassy aren’t just trying to get back to where they were at the beginning: their story is about a positive rebellion, not a futile rejection of the truth that the outside world is telling them. They end up much nicer than they started out being, but that’s not the whole reason for having the story in the first place – it’s because they have faced extraordinary circumstances which would change anyone by making them realise that some things are bigger than individual concerns.

Does the character who ends up being redeemed have to be the protagonist, or could they be the antagonist or villain? Overall I would say it has to be the protagonist, as the main character that you are supposed to sympathise with and want things to turn out well for, but maybe one counter-example is “Wanda Whiter Than White“. Wanda is not the main character of the story and she makes Susie Foster’s life a misery with her sanctimonious ways. At the end, it is revealed, as Mistyfan explains in her story post, that ‘Wanda’s own past is not as white as she would have us believe. In fact, she is on probation after being caught stealing.’ Rather than this reveal being painted as purely a victory for the main character, it ends up with Wanda being ‘truly redeemed when she tells a white lie to help Susie in return for Susie saving her life’. The reader wasn’t rooting for Wanda’s redemption all along, but it is a satisfying ending nevertheless.

What choices could the writer make that would move the story out of the category of being a redemption narrative? Let’s take Lisa Carstairs’ story as an example. As with the OuBaPo exercises, thinking about how a story could work differently will give us a view on how the stories actually do work.

• Imagine Lisa’s parents still losing everything at the beginning of the story, and Lisa still losing her piano. The story could then have taken a different turn: rather than being about Lisa’s misguided piano obsession and selfishness, it could have been another kind of story entirely, for instance a mystery story where Lisa finds out that her father’s business partner was a crook who needs to be brought to justice. Perhaps Lisa’s piano playing could help her to find the clues she needs, and her obsession with it could be turned to a good cause in that way, so that she needs no redemption.
• Or let’s say the story stays as being about Lisa’s obsession with playing piano but it’s portrayed as something not to be frowned on, rather as something acceptable or allowable. How would a story work where she can continue to be focused on playing piano to the exclusion of everything else, including her family? Perhaps her family would have to be a nasty, uncaring one, to make her disinterest acceptable.
• Or perhaps the story could proceed more or less as it does, but with an unhappy ending where Lisa gets her comeuppance. This would make her into a more of an anti-heroine than normal but would not be unheard of.

Here are the examples I would identify as fitting most neatly into the category of ‘redemption narrative’ (core examples) and as being closely related to this category without necessarily definitely being classed as such (edge cases).

Core examples

• “Dance Into Darkness” – Della just wants to live her life down at the disco with no regard for other people, but when her wish is granted she eventually discovers there is indeed more to life than her own self-interest.
• There are a number of stories that are driven by a bereavement: the main character makes poor decisions as a result of her strong emotions of grief and anger because she is afraid of being hurt again. “The Ghost Dancer” is one of these, as is “Nothing to Sing About”, but of course “Stefa’s Heart of Stone” and “I’ll Make Up For Mary” are the strongest examples.
• “The Girl Who Never Was” – discussed above
• “She Shall Have Music” – discussed above
• I said above that I thought that it needs to be the protagonist who is redeemed, not one of the other characters. In “Go On, Hate Me!” the antagonist is driven by grief into bullying the protagonist but in the end all is cleared and the antagonist is redeemed, so I would be tempted to class this alongside “Wanda Whiter Than White” as a clear example of this kind.
• “Jackie’s Two Lives” is more about the perils of wish-fulfilment, but Jackie’s snobbishness and the fact she is ashamed of her own family is definitely a character flaw that drives the story and she is cured of it at the end.
• “Left-Out Linda” develops the redemption pretty well by recognizing that you can’t usually turn around your life by yourself: you have to have some help.
• “Paula’s Puppets”: Paula has to learn to forgive her enemies rather than attacking them via the magical help she has been given.
• “Tearaway Trisha”: Trisha’s recklessness has caused a serious accident; she tries to make amends but has to change her own character in order to do so.
• “Valley of Shining Mist” has a clearly didactic message about the improving aspect of high culture: by playing the violin, Debbie will transcend the impact of her abusive family, who are low-class in their lack of culture and their morality.
• In “Who’s That In My Mirror?” the protagonist’s selfish nature is made very literally visible and becomes more and more so until finally she is driven to renouncing it.
• “Worlds Apart” is the ultimate morality tale – one by one, six girls are shown the worst outcomes possible for each of their specific character flaws, and they have a chance to repent. The psychological development is minimal but the impact of the story was very dramatic.

Edge cases

• “Fancy Free “- I know the main character is so independent that this may well be characterised as a fault, but I don’t really quite remember enough about the story to say whether it is the main thing that drives the whole plot.
• “The Four Footed Friends” – arguably another case where someone other than the protagonist ends up being redeemed, though it all feels a little sudden. “Hettie High-and-Mighty” likewise features a fairly sudden change of heart on the part of an antagonist who has mostly been about making  the protagonist’s life a misery until that point. I don’t think “The Kat And Mouse Game” quite counts, either: Kat may perhaps have realised the error of her ways at the end of the story, but will her change of heart actually stick?
• I haven’t really made my mind up about “Gwen’s Stolen Glory” – it feels like it is mostly a story about deception, though clearly once Gwen owns up to the big lie this is a kind of redemption of her former deception.
• In “Kerry In The Clouds”, Kerry is a day-dreamer imposed upon by a woman motivated by her own unfriendly concerns. Kerry’s day-dreaming nature is cured by the end of the story, but I don’t feel the main driver of the narrative was to improve her character.
• The main character in “Mark of the Witch!” is hot-tempered and angry at all around her, and she comes to seek a more peaceful set of emotions by the end of the story. However, so much of her story is about the persecution and abuse that her neighbours visit on her that I don’t see her story being primarily about her renouncing her hot-headed ways.
• I’m not sure about “Pandora’s Box” and whether it counts or not. Pandora’s witchy aunt does chide her at the beginning about being too cock-sure about her talents and says that she will need to use magic sooner or later, and this is all true: but I’m not sure what sort of morality story that adds up to – not a conventional one at any rate! The main nod in this story to more conventional morality is the fact that Pandora goes from disinterest in the pet she is stuck with (her black cat familiar, Scruffy) to loving him dearly and giving up her heart’s desire in order to save his life.

One last question struck me when thinking about this. What sort of things might the protagonist have done that means she needs to go through this process of redemption in the first place? Clearly it must be something negative: the story has a moral imperative of some sort, warning readers against some kinds of behaviour. But at the same time, some things would be beyond the pale of course, and would mean that any character doing that would be irredeemable. (There might therefore be some useful comparisons made with story villains: what does their villainy consist of?) If a character killed or seriously hurt someone on purpose then that would be beyond the pale: there are a number of villains who have gone this far, sometimes with a laugh on their cruel lips, but it would be hard to imagine that a girl protagonist could do this and still recover the moral high ground at the end of the story.

In the stories above it looks like the sort of wrong-doing that needs castigating but is still redeemable is often about emotional warmth and consideration for others – it’s not about ambition (by itself) or cleverness (by itself) for instance. An arrogant protagonist can still be the heroine, but if she is cold, selfish, or inconsiderate then that’s a good signal that this is a character marked down for improvement – by whatever means necessary. Preferably it will be a Shakespearean denouement, whereby her own moral failing brings about such a huge disaster that she has no option but to change her ways! And being too afraid to risk emotional commitment comes in for a bit of a kicking too, via the guilt / grief stories. The obvious next question: is this moral imperative specific to British girls comics? Do UK boys comics have redemption narratives too? Or those in other countries? My pal Lee Brimmicombe-Wood reckons that Japan’s flourishing manga industry has many stories about mavericks who insist on going their own ways – but in that industry’s story constraints, the mavericks are always right and never forced to realise that actually, there was a reason why everyone was telling them they were going about things the wrong way…

Bet Gets the Bird! (1975)

Sample Images

“Bet Gets the Bird!” Jinty 22 March 1975

“Bet Gets the Bird!” Jinty 22 March 1975.

Published: 22 March 1975 – 31 May 1975 (11 episodes)

Artist: Phil Gascoine

Writer: Unknown

Translations/reprints: None known

Bet (short for Betty) has a long wait for a connecting train to take her to her boarding school, Forest Park School. To fill in time she visits old Mrs Carter, a friend of her grandmother. She finds Mrs Carter is going into a home and can’t take her beloved parrot, Rosy Posy, with her. Arrangements have been made for Mrs Carter’s nephew William to take Rosy Posy. However, when William arrives he strikes both Beth and Rosy Posy (but apparently not Mrs Carter) as a horrible man. Sure enough, he intends to strangle Rosy Posy at the first opportunity. Bet can’t let that happen, so she asks Mrs Carter to let her take Rosy Posy instead. Mrs Carter is worried about what the boarding school will say, but is persuaded when Bet says she could find a home for Rosy Posy with one of the day girls.

What this really means, though, is breaking school rules by bringing the parrot to school. Things get even more complicated when Rosy Posy’s squawks get her mistakenly enrolled as one of the pupils. Worse, teacher Mrs Cook is a tartar, so she is unlikely to understand if she discovers the truth. Therefore Bet has to hide the parrot, with help from Patty and Mary who share her dormitory, and keep up the pretence of a pupil named Rosy Posy at the school. This creates its own unforeseen problems, such as how to cover the homework that is supposed to be Rosy Posy’s. Bet finds herself doing double homework to cover up – and the first time she does it, the parrot messes up the homework book! So poor Bet has to do it again.

And of course there are the hijinks from the parrot. Rosy Posy is a very intelligent bird and whatever she says often seems to indicate she understands what’s going on. Other times what she says is well meaning but either comes out at an awkward moment or is misconstrued, which can lead to trouble. For example, one time Rosy Posy gets loose and ends up talking down the gardener’s telephone about “what a little pickle!” and “this is a nice kettle of fish! Help!” The telephone operator thinks there is some sort of emergency, and the gardener is surprised to find a policeman on his doorstep!

Other times the antics of Rosy Posy bring people their just desserts. For example, Patty’s grandparents celebrate their golden wedding anniversary but they have a most unsavoury guest – an old grouch who starts spoiling everything with his grumbling. But he’s allergic to feathers, and what with Bet having to bring the parrot because there’s nowhere else to keep her – plus more hijinks when Rosy Posy escapes from her cage – the day is saved for the grandparents.

It all makes for a very complicated situation that has lots of fun, humour, and animal appeal. But there is always the underlying element of risk and threat of discovery. Mrs Cook never finds out about the parrot, but there is one bully, Prissy, who does and starts blackmailing Bet and her friends over it. It is Rosy Posy herself who stops the blackmail, but Prissy tries to get revenge by poisoning Rosy Posy. Fortunately Bet finds out and then pulls a trick on Prissy that gets her removed from the school.

This story lasted 11 episodes, which is a fairly average length for a serial but rather short by the standards of Jinty’s humour strips. Why did Bet not last longer than 11 episodes? There was potential to spin it out further. Did Jinty want to move on to other things and decided to end Bet to make the room? Or did she want to free up Phil Gascoine to start on “The Green People” the following week? Whatever the reason, the story ended on a regular episode, but with a strong note. When Rosy Posy makes a good recovery from an accident, Bet tells Rosy how much she has missed her “even though you do get me into trouble sometimes!”

Esther Y Su Mundo, vols 1 & 15

I have recently been to Madrid and saw two relevant comics items when I was out there. One was a free item, sponsored by Telefonica, about Paralympic swimmer Teresa Perales. (Digital version available via this link.) It’s a very interesting and well-done comic overall, although as an anthology there are abrupt transitions in style from the serious to the humorous to the positively silly. The overall tone is pretty serious in that it recounts Perales’ achievements and tribulations as a Paralympic athlete, but it also has plenty of time for humorous and revelatory asides on on the difficulties as a wheelchair user of making one’s way through a world designed for able-bodied people.

The first story in the comic was by Purita Campos, the very popular artist on Patty’s World. This caught my attention and got me to look twice at the free comic in the first place, but it also meant that I had Campos and her popular creation in mind when I went into a bookshop a day or two later, at which point I asked if there was a collected edition of the Spanish edition of Patty’s World – “Esther Y Su Mundo”. Indeed there was – a handsome reissue of at least 15 volumes of the story, advertised as “One of the great classics of Spanish comics in a new re-coloured edition”. I bought volumes 1 and 15, so as to be able to get a sense of how the comic has developed over the years since its first pages were published in 1971. I am not sure what year of original publication Vol 15 relates to, ie how long a time-span is represented in my two selected volumes; certainly a number of years, but I suspect not the full original publication span of 1971 – 1988.

They are solid, substantial-feeling editions: 96 pages long, which is slightly less than the 114 pages of the Rebellion Misty reprint (and substantially less than the 192 page whopper reprint of Monster), but the hardback binding, handsome red cloth covering of the spine, and the full colour cover and insides, make for a very enticing package. The price is pretty comparable to the UK reprints I mention above – around £15 – £16, with fluctuations depending on the exchange rate with the Euro. The end papers are a greyscale montage of images from the various years covered in the volumes, and showcase Purita Campos’ beautiful art very nicely.

“Patty’s World” is not something I knew anything at all about until quite recently, and I hadn’t ever read any of it either in the original version or in translation. The first volume starts with Patty Lucas (or Esther Lucas as I will now think of her, having only read the Spanish version!) just turning thirteen. Lots happens to her in the pages of the comic – the pace is quite different from the 14 – 18 episodes of what I think of as a typical girls comic story. This story doesn’t build up and up to a dramatic finale – in this first volume, Esther fights with her family and her best friend and then makes up again, gets into trouble when someone thinks she is shoplifting, worries about her mother getting remarried, pines after a boy from her school, and has a mutual hate society going on with nasty Doreen. It’s all down to earth and (more or less) realistic, apart from the frenetic pace that it all goes at.

It’s not the sort of story that I normally go for very much; and for me the first volume was more of a curiosity item than something that hooked me. However, Volume 15 felt like it would do more for me – it develop story arcs a little more slowly and gives them more time to breathe. I think the stories are also actually better, too: the first arc in the book is genuinely amusing (Esther and her friend Rita swop lives for a day and it gets very silly). It also clearly has more of an edge, though this is really an extension of what we saw right at the beginning. One of the things going on in Esther’s life at thirteen is that her father died some years previously and her mother is considering remarrying, with all the adjustment that this brings. And in Volume 15 Rita’s mother is shown to have died in a previous volume, and her father has since remarried – the stepmother role is shown in a positive light even though tempers can flare. It’s all very human and warm. I think the focus on boy-chasing would put me off if I was embarking on a prolonged read, but overall I can certainly see how readers could end up living in this world and greatly enjoying the characters and the stories.

Of course for many people the draw will also be the art. Purita Campos is great at fluid, expressive characters of all ages, but her protagonists as they move from being girls to young women are her particular focus of course – and she imbues everyone with their own distinctive looks and ways of being, from flirty Rita and annoying Doreen to girl-next-door Esther. The girls are sassy and sexy without crossing a line, the boys are rather cute, and it’s all fun.

Will we ever see a UK reprint edition? The title that it originally appeared in, Princess Tina, started to be published before the 1971 cutoff date that places it outside of Rebellion’s ownership, but the story and the character was published after 1 January 1971. The fact that the Spanish edition has gone through numerous reprintings and new editions clearly indicates that those rights must be clearly established by someone, even if the UK rights have historically been somewhat tangled. The Spanish readership seem to have an ongoing love for this character: the back cover blurb acclaims the comic as a ‘great classic of Spanish comics’ which has been loved by ‘three generations of readers both male and female’. The UK doesn’t have anything like as strong a memory or feeling about this story, though there will certainly be many with fond memories of it in this country. But if this story and this character – which after all is actually set in the UK, with right-hand drive cars, British bobbies, and double-decker buses! – is so popular in Spain with a general audience, it has perhaps the strongest chance to break into that teen market than any of the other Rebellion content acquisition. That is, so long as this is even part of that purchase…

Esther Y Su Mundo volume 1 and volume 15. 96 pp, 17.95 EUR (around the £15 – £16 mark at current exchange rates). Story by Phillip Douglas, art by Purita Campos