Tammy 4 August 1973

Jumble Sale Jilly (artist Juliana Buch)

Aunt Aggie (artist J. Badesa, writer Pat Mills, creator Gerry Finley-Day)

The Cat’s Eye on Katy (artist Douglas Perry) – final episode

The Making of Mary (“Wild Horse Summer” artist from Jinty)

The Sea Spirit (artist Juan Escandell Torres)

A Special Tammy Portrait – Rod Stewart

Simple Simona (artist Julio Bosch?)

Tammy Competition

The Secret of the Stables (artist Reginald B. Davis)

No Love for Liza (artist Jaume Rumeu)

No Tears for Molly (artist Tony Thewenetti, writer Maureen Spurgeon) – new story

We now turn to 1973 in our Tammy August month round, and the letters from readers in the issue are insightful reading. Two letters indicate Tammy could have been overusing the misery-laden formulas she had been renowned for since her first issue and she still had to strike a better balance with complementary material:

“Nearly all your stories are sad, they’re about orphans and blackmail, cripples and cruel parents, beatings and imprisonments…I get enough horror at school. Can’t you help make the world a happier place by printing more stories like Aunt Aggie…”

“It seems you think all you require to hold us readers spellbound are heroines with not-so-well-off and exceedingly nasty parents and grandparents or guardians…I think you should take all these horrible people out of your comic, or send them to Stanton Hall and Mr. Pickering – for some of their own medicine!”

Eventually the horrible people and sad stories did fade from Tammy, but for now, they continue. Among them is Juliana Buch’s first story for Tammy, “Jumble Sale Jilly”. Jilly Burridge is struggling to be an artist in the face of a family who scorn such things and don’t treat her so well either. This week, it looks like the fairy godmother figure to help Jilly has arrived in her life. In “No Love for Liza”, Liza Bruce also battles to be an artist against the odds piled on by a nasty stepfamily. And we have yet another nasty family in “The Making of Mary”. Mary Regan is forced to live with her horrible Uncle Ernie, who wants to take over her grandfather’s business. To add insult to injury, Uncle Ernie has also framed her grandfather and now he’s in prison. Imagine having to live with the very man who set up your grandfather!

On the same page, there is more on the long-standing Molly Mills debate that made her the most polarising character in Tammy. Some readers liked her:

“I disagree…that Molly Mills is rubbish. She’s great. My Mum and I both read it every week and if you take her out we won’t buy Tammy anymore!”

And others didn’t:

“Is [Molly Mills] going to be in the paper forever? She drives me mad. Please do something about her!”

Meanwhile, the nasty Kitty and Betty have already done something about Molly in her new story this week – they’ve pulled a spiteful trick on her, and now poor Molly faces the sack! But such things are hardly new in Molly. She’s bound to bounce back in the end, and then there’ll be the next time.

Tammy started off lacking humour to help balance her dark material. Two years on, she is building up a stronger presence of humour with strips like “Aunt Aggie”, a rotten schemer acting as a sweet figure on TV who gets her comeuppance every week, and “Simple Simona”, a clueless girl who is always the victim of her scheming cousins without even realising it, but she always triumphs over them in the end – again without even realising it. 

Elsewhere, it’s the final episode of “The Cat’s Eye on Katy”, and the letters page indicates it was a popular, gripping story. The witch doctor’s curse is broken by the good ol’ amor vincit omnia (love conquers all), when Katy saves the life of the cat he bewitched into doing evil against her in revenge for his imprisonment. Though he’s thousands of miles away, he knows what’s happened, and he’s still stuck in prison, doing cursing of a different sort: “Cursed white magic has won! My power over cat beast is gone!”. “The Sea Spirit”, which started in the same issue as “The Cat’s Eye on Katy”, is now on its penultimate episode.

Girls love a good mystery story, and there’s a mystery about Silver Star, the horse at Penny Lane’s stable, which she is salvaging from neglect. The mystery deepens when Silver Star responds to a strange whistle, and in the middle of the night, Penny spots him galloping off. Is it that whistle again?

Tammy 2 June 1973

The Cat’s Eye on Katy (artist Douglas Perry) – first episode

School for Snobs (artist J. Badesa, writers Pat Mills/John Wagner)

Trina Drop-Out (artist Ana Rodriguez) – final episode

The Sea Spirit – (artist Juan Escandell Torres) – first episode

The Stranger in My Shoes (artist Miguel Quesada)

The Lonely Dancer (artist Candido Ruiz Pueyo)

Simple Simona

Get Shirty! (Competition)

The Girl in the Window (artist John Armstrong)

Dara into Danger (artist Juan Garcia Quiros)

No Tears for Molly (artist Tony Thewenetti, writer Maureen Spurgeon)

For the 1973 instalment of our Tammy June month round, we look at an issue that starts some new stories. They both have supernatural themes, one malicious and the other beneficial. In the former, an evil witch doctor bewitches a cat to get revenge on the policeman who imprisoned him. But his curse is not striking at the policeman directly – it’s striking at his daughter Katy miles away in England, with the cat doing the old “evil influence” gig on her. One has to wonder why the silly old witch doctor doesn’t use his powers to break out of prison instead – he’s got the superstitious prison guards scared enough of him for that, surely. But no, he’s just going to sit in prison and let the cat do its thing. In the latter, Sheena Barrett is a brilliant swimmer, but her fear of diving is a handicap. Then she meets Marina, a sea spirit who gives her the confidence to dive. 

There is also a third supernatural story, “The Girl in the Window”, where Dale befriends a shop dummy that can come to life. This is making for a lot of interesting moments, some awkward, some surprising, and some hilarious. Hilarity is also running high in a “School for Snobs” sequel and “Simple Simona”. 

Ballet stories have been the staple in Tammy from the first issue and cropped up frequently in her earlier years. This time it’s “The Lonely Dancer”, about a promising ballerina who is trying to find her missing mother.

As we now have a higher proportion of humour and the supernatural in Tammy, plus the ballet staple, there is less room for the dark tales laden with cruelty, misery and tortured heroines that the early Tammy was noted for. They are still going, but they are now balanced with more lightweight fare, which makes for a more varied mix in the comic. One, “Trina Drop-Out”, finishes this week, and the other is “Dara into Danger”, where a whole ski team is kidnapped and taken to the Antarctic. All except our protagonist Dara have been brainwashed by the mysterious Madame Jensen, but for what exactly hasn’t been established yet. And of course we still have Molly Mills to carry on the Tammy streak of cruelly used heroines.

Meanwhile, “The Stranger in My Shoes” features a heroine who is being tortured another way – her identity is forcibly switched with a delinquent and she is sent to borstal in the delinquent’s place. Is the story going to go with her suffering miseries at the borstal à la “Merry at Misery House” or go another route as she battles to prove her identity?

Aside from Molly Mills, Tammy was still not into “regular” strips to serve as her core. However, the return of “School for Snobs” and, pretty soon, “Aunt Aggie”, showed that semi-regulars were developing. 

Tammy 20 October 1973

• The Revenge of Edna Hack (artist Douglas Perry) – double final episode
• Mandy and the House of Models (artist Ana Rodriguez) – final episode
• Jumble Sale Jilly (artist Juliana Buch) – final episode
• The Power of the Indian’s Pipe (artist Candido Ruiz Pueyo) – final episode
• For Isabel with Love (artist Eduardo Feito) – double final episode
• Tammy Special Double Page Pin-Up (Anne-Marie David and Simon Turner)
• ‘A Mouse No More’ (artist Giorgio Giorgetti) – complete story
• No Tears for Molly (artist Tony Thewenetti, writer Maureen Spurgeon)

The previous entry was on the issue where Sandie merged with Tammy. This entry profiles the Tammy the week before the merger. Regrettably, I am not able to do the same with the final Sandie.

This was the last Tammy to have the “happy girl covers” who had been used on the cover from the first issue. The Cover Girls, drawn by John Richardson, take over with the merger issue. As everything starts new with the merger issue, everything currently running finishes this week, in two cases with double episode spreads. The announcement of the merger has a double page spread in the centre pages.

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One story to end with a double episode is “The Revenge of Edna Hack”. Like Mr Grand in “Village of Fame”, author Dame Edna Hack is going to extremes for TV ratings. In her case it is holding girls (in convict uniform costumes) on her island for her TV show “Captives of Thriller Island”, where viewers don’t realise that what they are watching are real captives trying to escape.

The other story to end with a double episode, “For Isabel with Love”, has an unusual ending: it ends on a cliffhanger and a sequel is promised. Now that will be something to see in the merger. The setup is, Jaki Holt wants to win a riding trophy for her friend Isabel Davey, who is in a coma, but she is having trouble persuading others to give her a chance. For one thing, she has a lame leg. In the final episode Jaki finally persuades the Colonel to give her that chance. But she hasn’t won yet!

“Jumble Sale Jilly” was Juliana Buch’s first story for Tammy. Jilly Burridge is in court, carrying the can for her horrible guardians who were stealing valuables. She hasn’t a hope – unless the only witness who can clear her, her natural mother, can get to the court in time.

In “Mandy and the House of Models”, student model Mandy Larkin is similarly carrying the can for a robbery, and her hunt for the real criminals has led her to Lowland Grange. But she’s been captured, tied up, and her attempts to escape are impeded by a sprained ankle and handcuffs. Talk about Houdini.

“The Power of the Indian’s Pipe” is a war between two brothers, one good, one bad, over a magic pipe. The pipe can be used for good – or evil – depending on which hands it falls into and what tune it plays. Angela, with the help of a similar pipe she has found, brings the war to an end and the pipe to safe hands.

Molly’s got a mystery on her hands to sort out: a baby, a desperate girl, and a whole mess of misunderstandings that are resulting in people being hurt. It all ends with Pickering being obliged to give the baby a kiss. Molly’s hopeful this is evidence of a soft spot in old misery guts.

Although Tammy is focused on finishing everything off and announcing the new spread in the merger, she still has room for a couple of fillers. We get a double-page pin-up and a reprint of a Strange Story (below). It must have come from the very early days of the Storyteller in June. It’s a surprise that the Storyteller had one appearance in Tammy that predates his arrival in the Tammy & June merger in 1974. The story is about a girl who is shy until she changes her appearance with a wig. All of a sudden she is confident and she is convinced it is the wig. Was it really the wig or did it just make her feel so different she discovered the confidence she didn’t realise she had? Whatever it is, she gets her future husband out of it. Aww…

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Tammy & Sandie 27 October 1973 – merger issue

Cover artist: John Richardson

• Two-Faced Teesha (artist José Casanovas) – first episode
• School for Snobs (artist J. Badesa) – first episode of sequel
• A New Leaf for Nancy (artist John Armstrong) – first episode
• Back-Stab Ballerina (artist Miguel Quesada) – first episode
• Wee Sue (artist Mario Capaldi) – first appearance
• Win a Winter Wardrobe (competition)
• The Girls of Grimley’s Grammer (artist Leo Baxendale) – first episode
• Jeannie and Her Uncle Meanie (artist Robert MacGillivray, writer John Wagner) – first appearance
• Granny’s Town (artist Douglas Perry, writer Pat Mills) – first episode
• No Tears for Molly (artist Tony Thewenetti, writer Maureen Spurgeon) – new story

This is the issue where Sandie merged with Tammy. The Sandie merger is one of the most pivotal in Tammy’s history. It is also one of the most far-reaching as it resonated for many years in Tammy.

First of all, it is the first appearance of The Cover Girl covers drawn by John Richardson. The Cover Girls would be a mainstay on Tammy’s cover right up until 11 October 1980, the same month they started way back in 1973.

Second, it is the first appearance of Wee Sue – and her arch-enemy Miss Bigger – in Tammy, and she would remain a popular Tammy regular until 1981. Wee Sue came over from Sandie, but Sandie readers must have been surprised at the way she appeared in Tammy. Her original Sandie story, drawn by Vicente Torregrosa Manrique, was a serial. Sue was a scholarship girl at exclusive Backhurst Academy, which had emphasis on sport, and she was trying to save it from closure. She also came up against other problems, such as prejudice over being a scholarship girl.

But here Sue is given a complete overhaul, from her location to her very appearance. Sue moves to the industrial town of Milltown, where she attends a comprehensive school. On her first day she meets new teacher Miss Bigger, who’s a bully teacher. And on the first day it is established how Wee Sue became the biggest bane of Miss Bigger, which would be the mainstay for the rest of Sue’s run in Tammy. Sue changes from a serial to a weekly regular played for light relief. Sue was always known for big brainstorms, and in this format she would use them to come up with ways to get out of various scrapes, foiling the meanness of Miss Bigger, or sorting out someone’s problem. Sue also acquires freckles and a spiky bob. Later the freckles disappear and her bob softens into the wavy one she retains for the rest of her run.

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Everything in the merger starts new or fresh. No half-finished or nearly finished serials here, which have often been the case with girls’ mergers and annoyed many readers. It’s a delight to have everything start on episode one.

Jeannie and Her Uncle Meanie have come over from Sandie as well, and they lasted in Tammy for two years. Like Sue, Uncle Meanie has been given some changes. He shifts from his castle in Scotland to a suburban house in England and is now married to Aunt Martha. We have to wonder why the heck she married him in the first place as she is constantly infuriated by his extreme penny-pinching. However, we are told why Uncle Meanie moved from Scotland although he misses it – his meanness made him so unpopular there. As if the same thing is not going to happen in his new neighbourhood and he’ll have a bad reputation in town. He’s as mean and scheming as ever and Jeannie constantly has to outwit him. Uncle Meanie still has his original nose from Sandie and has not yet acquired the big bulbous nose he would have later on. The same nose would later be given to Miss Bigger when MacGillivray drew her.

We have a new regular cartoon, “The Girls of Grimley’s Grammer” (shouldn’t that be “Grammar”?). Artist looks like Leo Baxendale, who drew “The Kids of Stalag 41” from Jet/Buster. The premise must have been borrowed from Stalag 41 as well: the girls of Grimley’s Grammer give their headmistress a terrible time, just as the Kids of Stalag 41 give their Kommandant “Schtinky” a terrible time. But from the looks of the first episode, the girls will not always come out on top each week as the Kids of Stalag 41 do. Now that’ll make the cartoon even more interesting!

Molly Mills continues from Tammy. Molly starts a spooky story in honour of Halloween, which the staff are gearing up for with carved pumpkins and a witch guy for Bonfire Night. Lord Stanton has unwisely developed a craze about psychics and invited a group over for seances. After they do so, unnerving stuff starts to happen, and a tarot reading predicts sadness and danger coming to the hall, with dark forces targeting bully butler Pickering in particular. It soon has the old misery running scared, though he would never admit it.

School for Snobs also returns from Tammy. Like Wee Sue, it shifts from serial format to regular “story of the week” format with loads of laughs for the readers. School for Snobs is a reform school designed to knock snobbery out of girls, and in the new format it shifts to a “snob of the week” where a new snob arrives each week to be cured by the end of the episode. Each snob and her form of snob are different each time, illustrating that snobbery comes in all shapes and sizes. First in for the treatment in the sequel is Lucille Hornsby-Grant, who attempts to have the school closed down. However, the inspector is so impressed he wants to send his own snobby daughter there to sort her out. After this, Lucille is beaten.

Maybe School for Snobs should be the place to send “Two-Faced Teesha”. Teesha Tate is a spiteful rich girl who has been removed from a string of schools for her nasty conduct. Instead, she and her father move to a new house, which Dad hopes will help to sort her out. Teesha does not like the down-to-earth people who reside there. However, she is looking forward to playing tricks on the daughter, Gail.

In “A New Leaf for Nancy”, Nancy Kay and her parents have to move to a rundown house, which they’re not happy about, because Dad has lost his job. School gets off to a bad start too. But things start looking up after Nancy hears a tree in her garden is said to have strange powers, and when a leaf gets caught in her hair, she gives a tough teacher a flash of brilliance that surprises even herself.

The new Douglas Perry story, “Granny’s Town”, might as well have been called “Revenge of the Grannies”. Jen Young is off to Crone-on-Sea for a holiday, where she comes across indications that the old ladies of the town have formed some sort of secret society that conducts vigilantism against those who insult or displease them. First to get the treatment are a bully businessman and a rude train conductor, who get tied to lamp posts with knitting wool during a night attack. The attackers leave a message embroidered on a cushion: “Get out of Granny’s Town!”

The lineup wouldn’t be complete without a ballet story, and there is no exception here. June Day and Rita Radley have been such close friends they are called “The Inseperables”, but starting ballet school changes that. Rita soon becomes June’s worst enemy and “Back-Stab Ballerina” because everyone says June is better than her.

No merger is complete without a competition. In this one, you are in to win a winter wardrobe if you can spot the differences between two story panels.

 

June & Pixie 22 December 1973

 

(Cover artist: Jim Baikie)

• The Twin She Couldn’t Trust! (artist Phil Gascoine)
• My Family, My Foes! (artist Carlos Freixas)
• The Shepherd Boy (text story)
• Lucky’s Living Doll (artist Robert MacGillivray)
• Dark Destiny (artist A.E. Allen)
• The Sea Urchins (artist Audrey Fawley, writer Linda Blake) – text story
• Poochy – cartoon
• Sylvie on a String (artist Tony Higham)
• Tell Us about It! (letters page)
• Swim to Safety! (artist Phil Townsend)
• Tilly’s Magic Tranny (artist Jim Baikie)
• Are You a Sparkler? (quiz)
• A Christmas Miracle (artist Jim Baikie) – complete story
• School for Sports (artist Dudley Wynne)
• Bessie Bunter
• He’s Grown Up! (Neil Reid)

 

Christmas is coming, so we continue our tour of older titles with the June Christmas issue from 1973. This was the last Christmas issue June ever published. On 22 June 1974 she merged into Tammy. Several of the June artists would also join the Jinty team as regulars when it started in May 1974: Jim Baikie, Phil Gascoine and Phil Townsend. Carlos Freixas, Audrey Fawley and Robert MacGillivray, who were also regulars on the June team, would also feature on the Jinty team, but not as regulars. These artists were Jinty’s biggest legacy from June. Jinty would also inherit a number of reprints from June as well, such as Strange Stories repackaged as Gypsy Rose stories and Barracuda Bay.

June, who would go through a merger in six months’ time, is still going through her current merger with Pixie. Mini Ha-Ha, a cartoon about a Red Indian girl, is one that really carried over from Pixie, but would not join the Tammy & June merger. Bessie Bunter, who came from the School Friend merger, would continue in the merger with Tammy. So would The Strangest Stories Ever Told, though currently it is not running in June.

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Although the Storyteller is not running, the Christmas issue does have a spooky Christmas story by Jim Baikie. It is reproduced here for the benefit of Jim Baikie fans. Also reproduced here is the Bessie Bunter Christmas story, about a giant Christmas pudding. So giant you could fit people into it. And what’s this with goblins? It’s Christmas, not Halloween.

Also celebrating Christmas are Lucky’s Living Doll, two text stories and a quiz: Are You a Sparkler? The artist illustrating the quiz is the same artist who illustrated a number of Jinty’s quizzes.

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Rather than give the usual potted summaries of the picture stories in the issue, I have chosen to feature panels from them. This is to give an indication what our Jinty artists got up to in June before they joined the Jinty team five months later, a month before June folded.

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Tammy & Sandie 10 November 1973

Cover artist: John Richardson

• Two-Faced Teesha (artist Jose Casanovas)
• Jeannie and Her Uncle Meanie (artist Robert MacGillivray)
• The Chain Gang Champions (artist Juan Garcia Quiros? writer Gerry Finley-Day?) – first episode
• A New Leaf for Nancy (artist John Armstrong)
• Back-Stab Ballerina (artist Miguel Quesada)
• School for Snobs (artist J. Badesa, writer Pat Mills)
• Wee Sue (artist Mario Capaldi)
• Granny’s Town (artist Douglas Perry, writer Pat Mills)
• No Tears for Molly (artist Tony Thewenetti, writer Maureen Spurgeon)

 

It’s part 3 of our Tammy round robin, and 10 November 1973 has been selected for 1973. It is three weeks into the Sandie merger. The happy, pretty girl covers Tammy had since her first issue have gone. In their place are the start of the humorous Cover Girl covers that would remain on the cover until late 1980. At the moment we only seem to have one Cover Girl. The cover gives the impression the Cover Girls are still in the early days compared to how they ran later on, but the cover is still funny with the joke of getting splashed by a dry cleaning company car.

Wee Sue was one of the stories to come over from Sandie. It is a surprising choice because the original Sue story finished a long time ago and no sequel appeared in Sandie. Moreover, Sue has had a complete overhaul, shifting from a posh academy as a scholarship girl to a comprehensive in an industrial town, Milltown. Bully teacher Miss Bigger is another change from the original, in which she didn’t appear at all.

In the Wee Sue episode, Sue has lost the freckles she had when she first debuted in the merger. Her spiky bob is starting to loosen a bit, but makes her look like an unmade bed. In the story, Miss Bigger thinks Wee Sue is encouraging the girls into hunger strike over school dinners and tries to stop it by force-feeding Sue! Then Sue runs amok in the canteen, smashing the dinners. What the heck’s gotten into her? Her nose has told her that there is an outbreak of food poisoning afoot, and the school is full of praises for Sue saving everyone. Well, nearly everyone. Miss Bigger ate some of the tainted food and now she’s in bed, and Sue besting her again is making her even sicker.

Jeannie and Her Uncle Meanie also came over from Sandie. Uncle Meanie still has his original nose from Sandie and has not yet acquired the bulbous nose that Robert MacGillivray will later give to Miss Bigger when he takes over the Wee Sue strip. Uncle Meanie now has a wife, Jeannie’s Aunt Martha, who really has to put up with his meanness. And in the story this week? Hoots! Uncle Meanie has been knocked off his perch as Britain’s Number 1 meanie! The title has been awarded to a Miss Pincher. When the family meet Miss Pincher, they are forced to admit she outstrips even Uncle Meanie for meanness. Uncle Meanie is not having that. He’s in shock and deeply jealous, but why is he all nice and gentlemanly to Miss Pincher? Is he taking it better than the family think – or is he plotting something to reclaim his title?

We have a new story this week, “The Chain Gang Champions”. Rella Aston is a promising athlete like her father before he was crippled. They haven’t the money for proper training or an operation to cure her father. A woman named Stein has overheard, and goes to “The Duchess”, who offers Rella the chance to join a group of British champions. Rella thinks it is a miracle, but from the looks of Stein and what she’s thinking, Rella should have remembered the old adage: “If it sounds too good to be true, it usually is.”

“Granny’s Town”, “Two-Faced Teesha”, “Back-Stab Ballerina” and “A New Leaf for Nancy” (reprinted Misty annual 1980) are new stories that began with the merger.

Two-faced Teesha is a devious, spiteful girl. She has just moved to the country. She surprises her father when she opts for the country school over a snob school, the type of school she used to attend in the past. Her reason? She has met some of the girls and thinks it will be easy to stir up trouble for them.

Nancy’s family have made a depressing move to a rundown house after Dad loses his job, but Nancy discovers a tree in the garden that has powers to make things better for her. The trouble is, its power does not seem to be reliable and sometimes makes things worse.

The “Back-Stab Ballerina” is Rita Radley, who secretly makes trouble for her old friend June Day when they go to ballet school. This week Rita gets June into trouble with the other girls because they have started sticking up for her.

In “Granny’s Town”, grannies rule and anyone who crosses them is soon forced to leave quickly. This week it’s the turn of the donkey man who won’t allow the grannies to enjoy themselves on the beach. Their response is to stake him out on the croquet lawn and leave him to roast under the sun. Jen Young, the only one who refuses to be intimidated, rescues him, but later gets a nasty warning from the grannies to back off. The blurb for next week warns she will have to watch out even more.

“School for Snobs” and “No Tears for Molly” are the Tammy stories that have continued into the merger. In the Molly story, something or someone is putting the wind up bully butler Pickering. He’s convinced it’s a ghost and he’s running scared. He even faints in the cellar!

“School for Snobs” is a special school designed to cure girls of snobbery. This week it is curing a snob who drives off servants with her bullying. After being served by Hermione Snoot, the headmistress of the school, the snob is wishing she hadn’t driven those servants off.

Sandie 28 July 1973

• Slaves of the Eye (artist Joan Boix)
• Cinderella – Superstar (artist Joan Boix?)
• Wyn and the Witch (artist A. E. Allen)
• Connie Courageous (artist “B. Jackson”) – last episode
• Sink or Swim, Sara! (artist Eduardo Feito)
• The Captives of Terror Island (artist Juan Escandell Torres, writer Terence Magee) – last episode
• Dancing to Danger (artist Tom Kerr)
• Bridie at the Fair (artist Leslie Otway)
• All Against Alice (artist Miguel Quesada?)
• Sisters in Sorrow (artist Desmond Walduck?)

“Slaves of the Eye” features another sinister teacher (Miss Krell) who exerts a strange, sinister influence over pupils, and it’s up to our protagonists (Kate Saunders and her friend Heather) to unravel how and why. Plus what lies under that veil Miss Krell always wears and what lurks in her laboratory. Kate has now discovered Miss Krell used a transmitter inside a netball to make the girls foul her during the match. Once she gets hold of the transmitter, it leads her and Heather to prison cells that were empty earlier but are now full of…whom?

 

“Cinderella Superstar” is an aspiring ballerina, Ellie Villiers whose road to her dreams is being blocked by uncooperative relatives who treat her like dirt. Now they’ve taken her gramophone to stop her dancing to her ballet music and given it away. But the blurb for next week says Ellie’s about to get some help.

 

Wyn is an ill-treated drudge at Pinchbeck Hall, but has a good friend in the form of the witch Grizelda “Grizzy” in the attic, whose magic helps Wyn get comeuppance on her horrible employers. This week Lord Pinchbeck is challenged to a duel but there’s a problem – Grizzy has turned him into a pig, so how the heck is he going to duel?

 

It’s the final episode of “Connie Courageous”. Connie Cartwright has jealous rivals in addition to learning to jump while being blind. And she needs the prize money to restore her sight, but her enemies have blocked the path to her getting to the event. Can she and her horse find a way to get there in time?

 

“The Captives of Terror Island” also ends this week. Madame Soong of Terror Island has kidnapped an entire hockey team in order to claim the National Hockey Championships for her country, and her training methods are “barbaric”. It looks like she has finally got what she wants and is a national heroine, until our heroine finally manages to expose her in front of the spectators. Madame Soong quite literally destroys herself – and Terror Island – with the very bomb she had set for her enemies.

 

In “Sink or Swim, Sara”, the two snobby headmistresses of St Agatha’s should have thought twice before making Sara Dale’s life so miserable. This caused her to change schools when they badly needed her to win an inter-school swimming gala. Now the same thing has resulted in two of Sara’s friends being expelled. Now they’ve transferred to Sara’s school and are happier – then Sara informs them that the expulsion is all part of some dirty trick the headmistresses are playing, which won’t be revealed until the final episode next week.

 

“Sisters in Sorrow” is also on its penultimate episode. Layla and her friend Pat have been forced to become thieves, but the story takes the unusual step of having an aristocrat, Lady Maggins, as the Fagin. They have been forced to impersonate two others in order to infiltrate a household so they can rob it. Layla manages to rescue the real McCoys, but they get cornered by Lady Maggins. Meanwhile, Pat has been exposed as an imposter, so they’re both in a corner now.

 

“Dancing to Danger” and “Bridie at the Fair” look like they have been reprinted from elsewhere, perhaps School Friend or June. In the former, Pat White uses ballet as her cover for undercover work against the Nazis in World War II. She manages to worm her way into Gestapo HQ to find information on a prisoner, Professor Duval, under pretext of her ballet troupe staging a performance there. However, her Nazi nemesis, Herr Staub, gets suspicious and is going to arrange a special watch on them. In the latter, Bridie Donovan has joined a fair in the hope of regaining her memory. But the fortune-teller Madame Rosa tells Bridie she can do anything she wants with her.

 

“All Against Alice” has been fostered out to a former Wimbledon champion who is coaching her in her beloved tennis, but shows her no affection. Then a Mr and Mrs Tyler claim to be Alice’s parents but lose the custody battle in the interim. Just as well, because they are clearly out to make money out of her, which they finally succeed in doing by destroying Alice’s amateur status through a dirty trick, and with it, her career.

Sandie 29 September 1973

• Angela Angel-Face (artist Rodrigo Comos)
• The House of Toys (artist Douglas Perry)
• Jeannie and her Uncle Meanie (artist Robert MacGillivray, writer John Wagner)
• Noelle’s Ark (artist “B. Jackson”)
• Cherry in Chains (artist Joan Boix)
• Sandie’s Pop Special – Geordie
• The Golden Shark (artist Santiago Hernandez)
• Dancing with Danger – last episode (artist Tom Kerr)
• Bridie at the Fair (artist Leslie Otway)
• Sister to a Star (artist Joan Boix?)
• Cinderella Superstar (artist Joan Boix?)

The issue begins with part two of the first print of the “Angela Angel-Face” story that will be reprinted in Jinty 1980 and Tammy 1984. It is generally agreed among Jinty readers that the less said about that one the better, so we move on to other things in the issue.

Sandie sure had a big thing for circus stories. There are not one but two of them running, plus one with a fairground theme. The first, “Cherry in Chains”, stars a heroine who’s an escape artist, which is a real delight to have. There are not many Houdinis in girls’ comics who can get themselves out of being tied up. There are many scenes I can recall in girls’ comics where they sure could have done with that. But Cherry’s unknown enemy is making her escapes even more dangerous and escape-proof than normal because he or she is using them to kill her. Who could be doing it? Everyone’s a suspect because everyone thinks Cherry’s father is a traitor. But there really can only be one person – the one who framed him.

In the other circus story, Mary Suza in “Sister to a Star” is a trapeze artist. She has defied her overstrict guardian in running away to the circus. In this episode she loses her nerve, gets it back, but the ageing trapeze star, Sue Suza, will have not have Mary in her act. No, she is not bloody well getting too old, she says! Meanwhile, the fortune teller sees tragedy in the cards, which will no doubt have bearing on the final episode next issue.

The fairground story, “Bridie at the Fair”, looks like it was reprinted from an earlier title, maybe School Friend. Amnesiac girl Bridie Donovan joins a travelling fair to find her true identity. Now Bridie has finally discovered her old nursemaid, Mrs Kerry – only to find the poor old woman was being taken advantage of by a nasty fortune teller. No wonder when it’s revealed that a nasty relative is out to steal Bridie’s estate, and then Bridie’s enemies, led by the fortune teller, close in to stop her claiming it!

“Dancing with Danger” also has the impression it was reprinted from an earlier title. Pat White is a ballerina who is in fact an undercover secret agent in occupied France. It’s the final episode and Pat has now earned a medal in addition to her bouquets, but that has to be kept secret until after the war. Right now, it’s more undercover work while dancing with those pointe shoes.

Sandie also had two ballet stories running at the same time. In the second ballet story, Ellie Villiers wants to be a ballerina, but her Aunt Stella and cousins do everything they can to stop her. It’s not just a matter of treating her like Cinderella. It’s also something to do with a locked room, which Ellie has found is full of tutus and other ballet paraphernalia, and they once belonged to a ballerina named Sylvia Coral. What’s more, Aunt Stella says weird things that sound like she thinks she’s being haunted by Sylvia’s ghost or something. Sylvia’s diary holds the answer, but Aunt Stella is trying to stop anyone from reading it.

“The Golden Shark” looks like another reprint from elsewhere as its lettering is not the same as Sandie’s. Perhaps it originally appeared in June. Like “Barracuda Bay” (a June reprint in Jinty), it’s an underwater sea adventure, and it’s got underwater exploration, pirates, a treasure hunt in a sunken galleon, and a giant octopus.

“The House of Toys” is “and then there were none” story. Jill Small and nine girl gymnasts have somehow found themselves on a mysterious island when they were headed for another, and the only house on it has nothing but strange toys. Now the girls are disappearing one by one. Even the food is disappearing into thin air, and we don’t mean eating. Is it because these toys have strange powers or is someone pulling a fast one on them? In this episode the girls discover there are definitely two people on the island, but now another girl vanishes!

Uncle Meanie is running for Parliament, would you believe? His campaign is to stop needless spending and save, save, save. In other words, he would issue tight-fisted McScrimp-style black budgets given half the chance. As nobody in their right mind would vote for him, he is turning to dirty tricks to sabotage the other candidates. And then his ideas begin to grow in popularity once he learns to appeal to the miser in people. Can Jeannie find a way to stop him?

Like “Fran of the Floods“, “Noelle’s Ark” was ahead of its time in anticipating rising sea levels and worldwide flooding. This week Noelle encounters a mystery boat that carries a deadly fungus. She manages to get rid of the fungus, but it’s had a weird effect on her – she’s turning so nasty she’s on the verge of pushing her friends overboard!

In “Slaves of the Sorcerer” Beth Williams finally gets the police onto Caspar. But when they arrive at the fairground there’s no sign of him. The lead they have been given is in fact another trap for Beth set by Caspar, and he’s waiting to pounce.

Boys are admitted to Wee Sue’s school. They get quite a shock when the titch they tease turns out to be brilliant at footy. Then Sue finds one of the football boys stuck on a ledge and climbs up to the rescue.

“Odd Mann Out” is now leading a demonstration against the tyrannical way things are run at her school. But why the hell is the headmistress smiling about it instead of looking worried?

Trudy loses Silver – to the rag-and-bone man. And everyone knows how cruel he is to animals. Can Trudy get him back?

In “Friends and Neighbours” Ann Friend and her family have moved into a new house. The neighours haven’t been friendly but now Anne believes they are worse than she thought – they are trying to scare her family out of the house with a ruse that it’s haunted. They deny it angrily and mean to prove it by sitting up with them.

Sandie: 12 February 1972 – 20 October 1973

Following the interview of John Wagner which ran on this blog a few days ago, I thought I would dig out my few issues of Sandie (only four, acquired somewhat at random). Because I have so few issues, and none of them are significant ones such as the first or last ones published, it didn’t seem worth reviewing them individually. Here therefore is something of an overview of this short-lived title – limited in scope by having so few originals to draw on directly, but I have tried to also bring together other relevant comments on this site and elsewhere, to give a wider context.

Let’s start with the contents of the four issues I do have:

Sandie 17 March 1973: Angela Angel-Face (artist Rodrigo Comos), Connie Courageous (unknown artist ‘Merry’), The Captives of Terror Island (artist Juan Escandell Torres, writer Terence Magee), Supergirl Sally (artist A. E. Allen), Isla and the Ice Maiden, Anna and the Circus, Brenda’s Brownies (artist and writer Mike Brown), Dawn at Dead-End Street (artist Bill Baker), Pop portrait: Paul Newman, Lindy and the last Lilliputians, The Nine Lives of Nat the Cat (artist José Casanovas), Quiz Kid Queenie (artist Luis Bermejo)

 

Sandie 28 July 1973: Slaves of the Eye (artist Joan Boix), Cinderella Superstar (artist ?Joan Boix), Wyn and the Witch (artist A. E. Allen), Connie Courageous (unknown artist ‘Merry’) – last episode, Sink or Swim, Sara! (artist Eduardo Feito), The Captives of Terror Island (artist Juan Escandell Torres, writer Terence Magee) – last episode, Dancing to Danger (artist Tom Kerr), Bridie at the Fair (artist Leslie Otway), All Against Alice, Sisters in Sorrow (artist Roy Newby)

Sandie 11 August 1973: The House of Toys (artist Douglas Perry), Noelle’s Ark (unknown artist ‘Merry’) – first episode, Wyn and the Witch (artist A. E. Allen), The Golden Shark (artist Santiago Hernandez), Cherry in Chains (artist Joan Boix), Slaves of the Eye (artist Joan Boix), Dancing to Danger, Bridie at the Fair (artist Leslie Otway), All Against Alice , Cinderella Superstar (artist ?Joan Boix)

 

Sandie 29 September 1973: Angela Angel-Face (artist Rodrigo Comos), The House of Toys (artist Douglas Perry), Jeannie and her Uncle Meanie (artist Robert MacGillivray, writer John Wagner), Noelle’s Ark (unknown artist ‘Merry’), Cherry in Chains (artist Joan Boix), The Golden Shark (artist Santiago Hernandez), Dancing to Danger – last episode, Bridie at the Fair (artist Leslie Otway), Sister to a Star, Cinderella Superstar (artist ?Joan Boix)

 

 

There’s lots of good stuff in these issues, though I did find the covers rather old-fashioned, with mostly very blocky designs. Some of the inside content is rather old-fashioned too, and/or show possible signs of being reprinted from elsewhere. “The Golden Shark” is hand-lettered, and “Dancing to Danger” and “Bridie At The Fair” are lettered using a different font or technique to the other strips. The latter two are also only two pages long per episode, and have a painted aspect to the title element – I take these to have been reprinted from much earlier titles where there may have been an option to use more sophisticated colour printing.

Some of my interest in this title is in how it might have influenced, or been influenced by, work that is more directly related to Jinty. For instance, “Isla and the Ice Maiden” has an orphaned girl learning how to ice skate as she is taught by a mysterious woman: both the basic plot set-up and the visual design of the mystery woman is quite reminiscent of the Jinty story “Spirit of the Lake”. Likewise, “Lindy and the Last Lilliputians” has some wee travellers from Lilliput travel to stay with Lindy, a descendant of Lemuel Gulliver – who they claim must look after them. It sounds like the story has quite a lot of differences from Jinty‘s “A Girl Called Gulliver”, but there are certainly some big overlaps too.

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In terms of the artists included, there is a fair amount of overlap with the slightly later titles I am more familiar with – with representation from José Casanovas, Rodrigo Comos, Douglas Perry, Santiago Hernandez, and the unknown artist who drew “Merry at Misery House” and so many other stories. Obviously there are many artists unknown to me, also: the very striking Joan Boix, who drew “The Slaves of the Eye”, is very well represented inside these pages. There are a couple of stories where it’s hard to decide if the art is by Joan Boix’s, or by Cándido Ruiz Pueyo’s. These are “Cinderella Superstar” and “All Against Alice”. I would be inclined to think these both contained Boix’s art if not for the fact that this would imply that there might be as many as four stories by the same artist in one issue! I suppose this is not impossible but still. On balance, I think that “Cinderella Superstar” is likely to be Boix’s work (though it is not signed in any of the issues I have, unlike “Cherry in Chains” and “Slaves of the Eye”). “All Against Alice” is not close enough for me to assign to Boix – it looks more like Pueyo’s work, though again not really definitively enough for me to say so for sure.

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On the post with the interview with John Wagner, I asked for people’s impressions of the title compared to others from that era. Mistyfan commented to say that “Sandie had more regulars than Tammy, particularly “Wee Sue”. She also had a lot of circus themed stories such as “Sister to a Star”, “Cherry in Chains” and “Slave of the Trapeze”. Far more than either Tammy or Jinty. She followed the in vein of Tammy in having Cinderella and slave stories.” I haven’t got enough issues to have much representation of regular strips – there’s the start of “Jeannie and her Uncle Meanie”; “Nat the Cat” was so long-running as to perhaps count; and I do have two separate Angela Angel-Face stories in this short sample.

The circus theme is absolutely inescapable even in just these few issues, though! “Anna and the Circus” is in the March issue above, and the August and September issues include “Cherry in Chains” and “Sister to a Star”. There are very few circus-themed stories in Jinty, and not many in Tammy either, so this feels like a real unique selling point for this title. Of course there are also plenty of cinderella stories, ballet stories, and the like – a lot of what’s in the pages wouldn’t look out of place in Jinty or Tammy (and indeed some was reprinted in annuals and summer specials).

Mistyfan also previously posted on this site about the launch of Sandie and about issue 7 of the title – representing the earlier issues of the title. But after the title came to an end it still continued to make something of an impact as stories had a life after death. Quite a few of the stories were translated into the Dutch market: for instance “Sandra Must Dance”,  “The Return of Rena”, “Lorna’s Lonely Days”, “Anna’s Forbidden Friend”, and “Peggy in the Middle”. Of course “Wee Sue” and “Jeannie and her Uncle Meanie” had an ongoing life in the pages of other comics titles thereafter, as did others (more briefly). “Angela Angel-Face” was reprinted in Jinty but generally reckoned to be a very weak offering in that title, and “School of No Escape” was reprinted in the Misty 1980 annual.

So Sandie feels a little old-fashioned to me, and a little quirky with its love of circus stories (quite why so many of them were used, I’m not sure – they make for a good story backdrop but aren’t quite as flexible a story theme as the sports or SF themes that Jinty readers liked, or of course the spooky tales of Misty). It has quite a bit of overlap of stories or of artists with the titles I am more familiar with, and some cracking content – I’d like to read more of the exciting “Noelle’s Ark” which I give below (and which again has some overlap with a classic Jinty story – “Fran of the Floods”). At this point it feels to me a bit like a fore-runner of the more fully-developed, stronger Jinty/Tammy/Misty stable – but at the same time, I know readers who have only found this title recently and have become real converts. I will seek out more…

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