Jinty and Lindy 1 January 1977

Contents in this issue:

• Go On, Hate Me! (artist Keith Robson, writer Len Wenn)
• Gertie Grit, the Hateful Brit! (artist Paul White)
• Sceptre of the Toltecs (artist Cándido Ruiz Pueyo/Emilia Prieto)
• The Stars’ New Year Resolutions (feature)
• Made-Up Mandy (artist Audrey Fawley)
• Sue’s Fantastic Fun-Bag! (artist Hugh Thornton Jones)
• The Big Cat (artist Ana Rodriguez)
• The Mystery of Martine (artist Trini Tinturé)
• Alley Cat (artist Rob Lee)
• Is This Your Story?
• Daisy Drudge and Milady Maud – final episode (artist Ken Houghton)

Jinty’s New Year issue for 1977 was bang on New Year’s Day. Jinty says “make it a great New Year – with us!” Indeed, in my opinion 1977 was the year Jinty hit her stride. In 1977 she cast off the Lindy logo that had stayed with her throughout 1976. But what really defined 1977 as the year Jinty hit her stride was fully establishing her trademark science fiction and jauntiness with strips like the quirky “Fran’ll Fix It!” and her “smash hit” story of 1977, “Land of No Tears”. In the same year, Jinty added her resident spooky storyteller, Gypsy Rose. It was also in 1977 that Jinty added Guy Peeters and the unknown Concrete Surfer to her team, who would go on to draw some of her biggest classics.

Oddly, although Gypsy Rose did not appear in Jinty until 29 January 1977, there is a horoscope in this issue saying, “Gypsy Rose looks at the stars”. Readers must have been wondering, “Who the heck is Gypsy Rose?” The horoscope appears on the same page as the blurb for a new story, “Mark of the Witch!”, so perhaps it was meant as a foreshadowing for Gypsy Rose too. If so, it is an odd one, because it gives no hint of who Gypsy Rose is supposed to be. Is it the pen name of the astrologer who writes the horoscope or something?

The cover itself is a beautiful one, with its ingenious use of blues, yellows and reds. The white space lightens things up and does not make the cover too heavy. The seasons look a bit mixed. Mandy’s water-skiing panel hints at summer, while the holly the poor old druid is about to sit on implies winter. The rock Gertie puts the holly on makes it reminiscent of a Christmas pudding, which further adds to the winter theme. While Mandy and Gertie look happy on the cover, we get the opposite with Ruth and Ayesha, who are on the wrong end of a farmer’s gun.

Of course we have New Year features. There is a page where pop stars like Paul McCartney and Paul Nicholas list their resolutions for 1977. In “Sue’s Fantastic Fun-Bag!” Henrietta mishears the word “resolution” as “revolution” and enchants everyone at school into a revolution instead of making resolutions. Alley Cat starts off New Year doing what he does best – annoying the Muchloots. In this case it’s raiding their larder for a New Year feast. Gertie triggers a series of events that establishes Stonehenge – its purpose being a tourist attraction – and its opening has New Year celebrations included.

Now, on to the other stories:

“Daisy Drudge and Milady Maud” is the first of Jinty’s stories to end in 1977, with the mixed-up identities of the skivvy and the high-class girl being sorted out once they finally find each other. This also marks the end of Jinty’s serials with 19^th century settings, which had been introduced when Lindy merged into Jinty way back in November 1975. Its replacement next week is Phil Townsend’s first 1977 story, “Mark of the Witch!”

So far there is no end for Hetty King’s ordeal. Hetty is lumbered with looking after Jo, but Jo hates Hetty because she wrongly blames Hetty for her sister’s death. Hetty manages to secure a job as a temporary PE teacher at her new locality after Jo’s hatred forced her out of her old one, but she faces an uphill battle to win respect from the pupils. And how long before Jo’s hatred interferes with everything?

Mandy applies makeup to adopt a new persona, “Bubbles”, and goes water-skiing. But really – wearing a wig while water-skiing? No wonder the episode ends with Mandy’s secret in danger.

Martine’s odd behaviour is getting worse and worse. Tessa can’t figure out what the hell is going on, except that Martine seems to be acting like the crazed woman she plays onstage.

As already mentioned on the cover, Ruth and Ayesha have a scary moment with a farmer. Fortunately he turns friendly after Ayesha saves his life. But then a shoplifter makes Ruth the scapegoat for her crimes, taking advantage of the prejudice against gypsies.

In “Is This Your Story?”, Lynn Carter feels her family don’t appreciate her and she envies her friend Mary for being an only child. But when both girls end up in hospital, right next to each other, Lynn learns that some people may not be as enviable as she thinks and she draws closer to her family.

In “Sceptre of the Toltecs”, both Clare and a class bully begin to suspect that Malincha, the mystery girl from Mexico, has strange powers. The blurb for next week says there will be more evidence of this.

Jinty and Lindy 29 January 1977

Stories in this issue:

• The Ring of Death – first Gypsy Rose tale (artist Jim Baikie)
• Sue’s Fantastic Fun-Bag! (artist Hugh Thornton-Jones)
• Sceptre of the Toltecs (artist Cándido Ruiz Pueyo / Emilia Prieto)
• Starsky and Hutch, the best of mates! (feature)
• Made-Up Mandy (artist Audrey Fawley)
• Freda, False Friend (artist Phil Gascoine)
• The Big Cat (artist Ana Rodriguez)
• The Mystery of Martine (artist Trini Tinturé)
• Alley Cat (artist Rob Lee)
• Mark of the Witch! (artist Phil Townsend)

This issue gives us the first of a long line of Gypsy Rose stories – a spooky storyteller series which gives the Jinty editors the flexibility of commissioning a number of different artists and writers and running the resulting stories as they suit best. Most of the stories include Gypsy Rose as an active participant in the tale and helping to resolve the mystery; but later on a number of spooky stories from other titles had a panel of Gypsy Rose art pasted over the other storyteller so that it could be rebranded as a Jinty-style story. I have uploaded “The Ring of Death” into the Gypsy Rose summary post, so do head over to that to read it. You will notice some art that is repeated in subsequent Gypsy Rose stories, such as the image of her seated figure, displaying her patchwork skirt to best advantage.

Malincha’s wicked uncle Telqotl is plotting ways to trap her and to steal the golden sceptre. The two girls manage to give him the slip at the museum but they are soon trapped in a department store and he has managed to put out all the lights by mystic means!

Mandy Mason, the humble caretaker at an elegant beauty salon, ends up going to a posh safari park by accident and has a chance to turn herself into Raquel, the fearless white huntress. But at the end of this episode she is trapped in a cage with two adult lions running towards her as she holds a cub in her arms! Audrey Fawley draws lovely human figures but sadly the lions just look like round bouncy creatures who aren’t very convincing to my eyes.

It is also the first episode of “Freda, False Friend”. Freda’s father is a police officer; he seems to have suddenly got a promotion as the family move to a posh big house and start driving in a swanky new car. It all turns out to be a ruse though – he wants her to make friends with Gail, the girl next door, because the police have suspicions about Gail’s father. Very unpleasantly for Freda, she is being made into a spy against her will!

In “The Big Cat” Ruth saves a stag from being hunted by the local staghounds, but for her pains she is driven off from the village that she has been working in. It was a very unfriendly village, with people who hated to see strangers come along, but still it was a depressing thing to have happen.

Martine is claiming that the ballet school is her house, even though it was sold to Miss Bond some time previously. The worry of what is happening to her sister causes Tessa’s ballet dancing to suffer, and her relationships with her classmates are also suffering. But the most dangerous thing is the chance it gives her jealous rival, to score over her!

Emma Fielding is torn between believing in Alice’s attempts to be friends, and her father’s bitter denouncing of those attempts as just charity. The spiteful local girls look like they want to make it all go wrong for Emma, too.

Jinty 18 June 1977

• Creepy Crawley – artist Trini Tinturé
• Sue’s Fantastic Fun-Bag! – artist Hugh Thornton-Jones
• The Sable Knight (Gypsy Rose story) – artist Keith Robson
• Curtain of Silence – artist Terry Aspin
• Alley Cat – artist Rob Lee
• Meet the Modest Star… Richard Beckinsale – feature
• The Robot Who Cried – artist Rodrigo Comos, writer Malcolm Shaw
• The Darkening Journey – artist José Casanovas
• Kerry in the Clouds (final episode) – artist Cándido Ruiz Pueyo/Emilia Prieto, writer Alan Davidson
• Spell of the Spinning Wheel – artist Jim Baikie, writer Alison Christie
• Memento of a Memorable Year! – feature

It’s the final episode of “Kerry in the Clouds”. There are hard lessons learned for both Kerry (the dreamer with her head in the clouds) and Gail (who took advantage of this to get revenge on a film producer) before the happy ending. “A Boy Like Bobby” takes its place next week.

“The Spell of the Spinning Wheel” is coming to an end too. This week Rowan is let down by a man who seemed to believe her, but it turns out he was a student psychiatrist who thought she was a nut case, and Dad shows him the door. Fortunately the final episode is next week, so something is finally going to help. Meanwhile, Rowan is outracing the spell of the spinning wheel to get medical help for her injured mother.

“Creepy Crawley” is beginning to approach its conclusion as well. The invasion of insects continues at Jean’s school, but Mandy, the only one who can stop it, is finally on her way. However, Mandy is not sure she will be able to stop the invasion because it requires her to forgive the very girl who did so many horrible things to her…

Madam Kapelski takes Yvonne on a special tour of the dreaded State Home for Children of Dissidents to bring her into line. Afterwards Yvonne decides to cooperate with Kapelski, but secretly isn’t giving up on escape.

The Darkening Journey takes an even darker turn when Thumper falls foul of a cruel man who abuses him. It gets worse when a fire breaks out, but Thumper can’t escape because he is chained up!

Katy has stunned everyone with her turn of speed at racing, but then it looks like she’s developing a malfunction.

In this week’s Gypsy Rose story, Prue Preston has trouble from two evil, cruel men at a jousting tournament. One is alive and one is long dead – but his ghost comes out in full armour to join the fun!

Henrietta uses her magic to help a street artist, but her spells aren’t working out as she hoped, which leads to hijinks. Of course everything turns out happily in the end.

Jinty 11 June 1977

• Creepy Crawley – artist Trini Tinturé
• Sue’s Fantastic Fun-Bag! – artist Hugh Thornton-Jones
• The Marble Heart (Gypsy Rose story) – artist Carlos Freixas
• Curtain of Silence – artist Terry Aspin
• Rinty ‘n’ Jinty
• Jubilee Week competition
• Alley Cat – artist Rob Lee
• Silver Spoon Stars (Barry Sheene) – feature
• The Robot Who Cried – artist Rodrigo Comos, writer Malcolm Shaw
• The Darkening Journey – artist José Casanovas
• Kerry in the Clouds – artist Cándido Ruiz Pueyo/Emilia Prieto, writer Alan Davidson
• Spell of the Spinning Wheel – artist Jim Baikie, writer Alison Christie
• Memento of a Memorable Year! – feature

Jinty commemorates the Queen’s Silver Jubilee, and “Sue’s Fantastic Fun-Bag!”, Rinty ‘n’ Jinty and Alley Cat all celebrate it, and of course there is a competition to go with it. Not to mention a feature on how to make your own commemorative mug. In keeping with the silver theme Jinty is turning the spotlight on celebrities born with silver spoons in their mouths, starting with Barry Sheene. Sue and Henrietta are already planning ahead to the Golden Jubilee. I wonder Jinty had any anticipation that the Queen would make it to her Diamond Jubilee as well?

What “Curtain of Silence” has been building up for in the early episodes finally happens: Madam Kapelski takes advantage of Yvonne’s striking resemblance to Olga to kidnap her and force her to take the now-dead Olga’s place. Yvonne has lost her voice, so she can’t tell anyone. Olga’s cousin Tanya figures it out, but Madam threatens her with the dreaded State Home for Children of Dissidents to keep her silent.

Carlos Freixas has been absent from Jinty since “The Valley of Shining Mist”, but this week he’s back for a one-off with the Gypsy Rose story. A Greek girl was turned into a statue as a punishment when she unwittingly causes the death of her lover through the cruel way she treated him. She continues to serve as a warning to other girls not to be cruel to their lovers. Unfortunately the warning comes too late for Patsy, who gets dumped by her boyfriend for the cruel way she treated him.

In Creepy Crawley the evil scarab gets the insect invasion underway. A plague of locusts traps everyone in the school and Jean warns them it’s just the beginning. And there’s no end either, because Mandy, the only person who can stop it, is absent.

Susan is getting more suspicious of Katy, especially after the professor’s goon grabs her because he mistook her for Katy. But Katy is not confiding in her.

The Darkening Journey continues, with Thumper and Beaky on the run from a vet, of all things.

Kerry in the Clouds has been heading for a fall for a long time because Gail Terson is taking advantage of her for some purpose. Now it finally comes when Kerry gets a contract for the starring role in a film – and then realises she can’t act! Terson had known that all along, and now the truth is out she’s looking like the cat that got the cream. But why?

Rowan survives a road accident and now she’s got an offer of help from a hiker about dealing with the evil spinning wheel. But next week’s blurb hints that his offer is not what it seems.

Kerry in the Clouds (1977)

Sample Images

Published: 16 April 1977 – 18 June 1977

Episodes: 10

Artist: Cándido Ruiz Pueyo/Emilia Prieto

Writer: Alan Davidson

Translations/reprints: Klaartje in de wolken [Klaartje in the clouds] in Tina 1978

Plot

Kerry Langland has just left school. Her nickname is “Kerry in the Clouds”, partly because she lives so high in an apartment block that clouds settle over it sometimes. But it’s mostly because she always has her head in the clouds with dreams of being a famous actress. She loves to dress up and go out on the balcony, imagining that she is an actress, and getting away from the apartment block she hates living in. Her former classmates have always teased her over her dreaming. They say her dreams are all castles in the air and she doesn’t have what it takes to be an actress. Kerry’s parents share the same view and fix her up with a dead-end factory job, saying she can’t expect better because she wasted her schooling on dreaming.

So Kerry writes to her idol, the famous actress Gail Terson, for help. Much to Kerry’s surprise, Terson shows up in person to see her and agrees to help, saying Kerry has the talent to make it as an actress. She gives Kerry a complete makeover to make her glamorous, takes her around the high life, gives her plenty of media exposure, and fixes her up with an agent for a soft drink ad that will be circulated nationwide. As people see Kerry’s ad on the billboard, the teasing stops and nobody calls her “Kerry in the Clouds” anymore.

Kerry’s parents warn her it’s all too good to be true and she shouldn’t buy into it because there must be a catch somewhere. They are right: Terson is just taking advantage of Kerry and her head always being in the clouds, but just what Terson wants Kerry for is not clear. Kerry’s own suspicions begin to grow after seeing Terson use a dress that looks suspiciously like the one she bought for Kerry in a shopping expedition. But Terson pulls the wool over Kerry’s eyes by saying the dress is all part of an acting role she has got for Kerry.

So Kerry goes back to living the high life. Her picture is getting in all the papers, her parents are astonished at the whole new glamorous wardrobe Terson has bought for her, her pay cheque for the poster ad is far bigger than anything she would have earned at the factory, and the press say she is tipped as a girl who is going places. Kerry even finds herself being mobbed by autograph fans, including the two girls who used to tease her at school.

Kerry realises her makeovers and new wardrobes have been designed to build her up for the starring role in a film called “The Buttercup”, the role Terson plays in the stage version. Then Kerry learns that Terson had wanted the same part in the film, but film producer Mel Simpson turned her down because he considered her old and stale while the public wanted someone new. Kerry wonders why Terson helped her to get the role that she wanted so badly.

Crunch time comes when shooting starts, and all of a sudden Kerry realises she can’t do the role because she can’t act at all! Which is precisely what Terson had known all along. She had known from the first that Kerry was just a dreamer and had no real acting talent – which is what the parents and schoolgirls had always said to Kerry. She had just been stringing Kerry along to get her revenge on Simpson by lumbering him with a talentless girl in the leading role and being stuck with her because of the contract.

Kerry is distraught at being played for such a fool and realises her parents had been right all along. She releases Simpson from the contract and disappears, and the papers are full of it. Once Terson reads about Kerry’s disappearance she is struck by remorse and goes after Kerry, whom she finds on the roof of the apartment block. She apologises to Kerry, saying she never considered Kerry’s feelings while plotting revenge against Simpson. Kerry says the experience has made her grow up and realise how her constant dreaming was so unrealistic, so she bears no grudges. Terson offers Kerry a job as a personal assistant, and Kerry accepts.

Thoughts

This story is not one of Jinty’s more memorable stories. But recently it has attracted comment on the Jinty blog for two reasons. First, we have been provided with a glimpse of the script for part one, which still exists and came to light in writer Alan Davidson’s files. Second, there is some controversy over the identity of the artist. Is the artist’s name Cándido Ruiz Pueyo or Emilia Prieto? It is Pueyo, but for a while he worked under the pseudonym Emilia Prieto, and a panel in the final episode of this story is signed with his pseudonym.

Although the story is not one of Jinty’s classics, it certainly breaks some moulds in the Cinderella and “dream fulfilment” formats. It does not end up with the heroine realising her dream of becoming an actress and having the last laugh on the parents and schoolgirls who said she was just a silly dreamer. Instead, it is revealed they were right all along, and Kerry is made to realise it when she is forced to act for the first time in her life and discovers she can’t. In all those years she dreamed of being an actress, she clearly made no serious attempt to realise her ambitions by, say, pursuing drama clubs and school plays to get experience. If she had, she would have realised long ago that she was no actress. Instead, she just indulged herself with dreaming while not doing anything serious to fulfil her dreams until she writes to Terson.

The story is also a cautionary tale in that old adage “If it sounds too good to be true, it usually is”. Kerry was very fortunate in that the woman who took advantage of her eventually found her conscience and made amends by offering Kerry a high-paying job that would still get Kerry into the acting world, of sorts. So Kerry would not be stuck in dead-end factory jobs like Dad and continue to live in the graffiti-smeared apartment block she hated so much. There are many sleaze bags out there waiting to prey upon the dreams of innocent, naive girls to take advantage of them.

Jinty 28 May 1977

• Creepy Crawley – artist Trini Tinturé
• Sue’s Fantastic Fun-Bag! – artist Hugh Thornton-Jones
• Tell Us – problem page
• Rinty ‘n’ Jinty
• The Face at the Window (Gypsy Rose story) – artist Phil Townsend
• Curtain of Silence – artist Terry Aspin
• Play the Game ! – feature
• Alley Cat – artist Rob Lee
• The Dead End Kids are Going Places! – feature
• The Robot Who Cried – artist Rodrigo Comos, writer Malcolm Shaw
• The Darkening Journey – artist José Casanovas
• Kerry in the Clouds – artist Cándido Ruiz Pueyo/Emilia Prieto, writer Alan Davidson
• Spell of the Spinning Wheel – artist Jim Baikie, writer Alison Christie

Creepy Crawley’s plan to get Mandy expelled succeeds, and she has even manipulated things so Mandy thinks poor Sheila was the one who framed her! But there is a new ray of hope – Sheila recalls seeing another copy of the book that would explain everything about the evil scarab. Including, we hope, the way to stop the scarab.

A bully teacher in “Sue’s Fantastic Fun-Bag!” thinks the sound of birds singing is for the birds. Naturally, that is an open invitation for the fun-bag to teach her a lesson.

Sandra Frazer thinks she has photographed a ghost at a run-down cottage, and even Gypsy Rose is a bit stumped for an answer. But then they discover the photograph is of a missing girl who is trapped in the cottage. A ghost from the future, would you believe!

Yvonne is relegated to reserve for bad behaviour and does not realise look-alike Olga is stringing her along. The gypsy woman still warns Yvonne to get out of Mavronia, but we know Yvonne won’t heed that advice.

Rowan thought she had a respite from the spinning wheel because it was broken. But now she’s falling asleep from humming noises again, and Mum is bringing back the spinning wheel. Looks like it’s been fixed, so its curse is back in action, worst luck!

Beaky and Thumper are in big danger this week from a violent storm and floods, and end up separated. Will they ever be together again?

Kerry is soaring higher than ever. A flash new wardrobe, autograph fans, a huge pay cheque, and the starring role in a movie, all courtesy of Gail Terson. Oh, why do we get the feeling the fall is coming for Kerry?

Jinty 21 May 1977

• Creepy Crawley – artist Trini Tinturé
• Sue’s Fantastic Fun-Bag! – artist Hugh Thornton-Jones
• Rinty ‘n’ Jinty
• The Warning Windbells (Gypsy Rose story) – artist Christine Ellingham
• Curtain of Silence – artist Terry Aspin
• Home-Made Refreshers for Hot Days! – feature
• Alley Cat – artist Rob Lee
• Cheeky Cheggers Chats to You! – feature
• The Robot Who Cried – artist Rodrigo Comos, writer Malcolm Shaw
• The Darkening Journey – artist José Casanovas
• Kerry in the Clouds – artist Cándido Ruiz Pueyo/Emilia Prieto, writer Alan Davidson
• Spell of the Spinning Wheel – artist Jim Baikie, writer Alison Christie

Creepy Crawley hopes to stop her campaign against Mandy now – but will the scarab let her? Of course not. She obviously didn’t pay more attention to the book’s warning that nobody would be safe from the scarab, even after it defeated the rival. Sheila has discovered Jean’s secret, but now Jean is blackmailing her into doing everything she says, so can Sheila do anything to stop the scarab? We will have to wait and see.

Rowan’s attempt to switch the evil spinning wheel with a harmless replacement fails and she almost gets killed too. Then the spinning wheel reveals a weakness when it gets broken: its curse does not work while it is out of action. So Rowan is free of the curse for the time being, but Mum intends to get the spinning wheel fixed. If she does, it’s back to square one.

Yvonne and Olga are struck by how alike they look. But Yvonne has no idea how their lives are such a contrast. Olga is the virtual slave of a slave-driving coach whose mere threat of the dreaded Home for Children of Dissidents keeps Olga in line; Yvonne is swelling up her big head with dreams of becoming a cycling star, much to her team mates’ annoyance.

Gail Terson is giving Kerry a complete makeover and giving her everything to become a star: money, glamour, publicity and fans. Then Kerry begins to feel that it is a bit too good to be true – which means it usually is.

A well-meaning fortune-teller helps Beaky and Thumper escape and they’re back on the road. Unfortunately she did not foresee what would mean Dad missing his chance to find them and bring them to Julie.

When a carpet seller has a nasty encounter with a bully, Henrietta turns one of the carpets into a flying carpet to teach the bully a lesson and trick him into buying a carpet from the seller at well above the price it was selling for.

Anna Wong tells Gypsy Rose the story of the family’s Chinese windbells, which only chime when there is impending danger. Unfortunately not everyone receives or heeds their warning but Anna does, and they help save her life in a fire.

Katy doesn’t know her own strength in this episode, which is causing mayhem on a bus. And her lack of understanding about human ways is not making her popular in school.

Cándido Ruiz Pueyo

Cándido Ruiz Pueyo (1931 – 1982) has given us a few puzzles on this blog. First of all, I was puzzled by the attribution of this name to a couple of stories which clearly were signed ‘Prieto’. When David Roach showed me a portfolio sample labelled “Emilia Prieto” then the signature matched up with the name we were able to attribute, but the very close resemblance of art styles between Cándido Ruiz Pueyo and Emilia Prieto was still a puzzle, as I wrote about recently. The mysteries are now cleared up, with the following information from his daughter, Elisabet Ruiz Prieto – as you can imagine this was very gratefully received!

Here are her own words, followed by my further questions and her replies.

“Indeed, my father was Cándido Ruiz Pueyo. He died in 1982, when I was two years old, because of a serious illness. I still have his original drawings and I would be happy to help you with everything you need. Emilia Prieto is the name of my mother. She is retired and lives in Menorca but she isn’t an artist.

Due to the political situation in Spain in 70’s he had to use a pseudonym for some of his publications. I know that he worked for a German magazine called Bunty [this refers to the well-known British title] as well as Jinty. He drew a series of Buffalo Bill, Fix and Foxy and when he died he was working on a commission for Walt Disney.”

In reply I asked:

“I would love to know more about your father, and to publish it in the blog so that others who also are interested in your father’s work can know more about it and about him. I was wondering in particular if he used the pseudonym ‘Emilia Prieto’ only for the stories published in girls comics, or perhaps only for some girls comics and not for others?
Bunty is a British girls comic published by D C Thomson in Scotland – there is a blog dedicated to that publisher, called Girls Comics of Yesterday, and it has some stories that are tagged Cándido Ruiz Pueyo and others tagged Emilia Prieto. I would love to know more about his life and any scans of original drawings!”

Elisabet’s reply:

“My mother told me that when they first met, he was only working for Spanish publishers, especially for Editorial Bruguera. He draw series for them like Buffalo Bill, and Ivanhoe in the series “Colección novelas históricas” [Collection of historical novels], and some terror and motorist stories. He also published a comic book called Tarzan’s Son.

But my father really liked to draw love stories. My mother encouraged him to submit his romantic drawings on foreign publishers ( she even served as a model for some of his female characters) because in Spain it was almost impossible. My father sent his drawings to several girl-magazines but all rejected him. At that time it was not normal for a man to draw romantic stories, so he re-sent them with my mother’s name, Emilia Prieto, and several publishers accepted.

My mother said me that he was published in a German magazine called Lucky, another Swedish magazine called Starlet, and Bunty. When he got sick, he was preparing a story about Donald Duck to work with the Walt Disney company because one of his dreams was to work there.”

I was very grateful to hear back from Elisabet about her father’s work, and also to be sent so many images too. It was particularly interesting to me to see so much of his work for Bunty and girls comics, including artwork from the Picture Library series – I hadn’t realised that it was often drawn as an original story, rather than featuring re-used material. Here is “Trixie’s Taxi” from Bunty, along with an interior image from the published book. There is also another sketch of a page that is clearly intended for another Picture Library, by its size and layout.

‘Por Prieto’ / by Prieto

Finally, I also include some published artwork from three British girls titles – the first one is from Bunty but I am not yet sure of the others.

Further updates: his Tebeosfera entry has now been updated to reflect the above information. Also, Colin Noble has posted some pictures on Facebook of Commando artwork thought to be by Pueyo.

Emilia Prieto

Thanks to a find by David Roach of a set of art samples, we are changing the attributions on this blog for two Jinty stories, from Cándido Ruiz Pueyo to Emilia Prieto.

• Sceptre of the Toltecs (1976-77)
• Kerry In the Clouds (1977)

Emilia Prieto is a mysterious artist; I cannot find out anything about her online. There is a Costa Rican artist and political caricaturist by the same name but nothing on the Spanish artist resource, Tebeosfera. She could be real but just not recorded anywhere – perhaps because of a short career or similar – or this name could be a pseudonym. If so then Cándido Ruiz Pueyo is a plausible candidate – looking on his Comiclopedia entry the style that the girls shoes are done in, and the way the signature is designed, are very similar.

See also previous discussion on this subject.

Emilia Prieto only drew two stories for Jinty and I do not know of others for other girls comics. (Please let me know if you have more information!) “Sceptre of the Toltecs”, the first story, is rather too stiff for my taste, but in “Kerry in the Clouds” Prieto is much more in the swing of things, I think. I love the hairstyles and the attention to the details of textiles and clothing, and the faces have got lots of energy.

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“Women Making Girls Comics” – talk at the House of Illustration, 16 April 2016

Along with Dr Mel Gibson, David Roach, and a good-sized audience, on Saturday I took part in a lively and high-quality discussion about female creators of girls comics and many other related topics. It was organized as part of the Comix Creatrix exhibition of female comics artists; a great subject for an exhibition (particularly timely in the light of the kerfuffle at the Angouleme festival this year). As tends to be the case, UK children’s comics didn’t get much of a look-in at the exhibition, though there is a page of Evelyn Flinders pencil art and an incomplete piece of Shirley Bellwood unpublished Misty art both on display. The exhibition is focused on mature readers on purpose – hence the ‘x’ in the word ‘comix’ – but the gap in the coverage of UK girls comics was pretty palpable following discussions on co-organizer Paul Gravett’s facebook page. And lo, it came to pass that some months later the three of us named above were convened at the House of Illustration, near King’s Cross.

Paul Gravett introduced us all to kick off the proceedings, and Mel gave a more in-depth introduction of our various areas of specialities. Phoenix has described the event from his perspective, over on the Comics UK Forum, and there are some other posts on social media by attendees, with further description and photos. The talk was some two hours long (until shortly before it started I’d assumed it would be just 1 hour or so, but there was so much to talk about it never dragged!) and included time for questions as we went along, and afterwards too.

I can’t at this point cover everything that we discussed, partly because I was obviously not in a position to take notes, and partly because of lack of time. I understand that the venue is supposed to have been recording the discussion, and assuming that is forthcoming I will update with details of how to listen to the recording. There are a couple of immediate points of ‘breaking news’ arising from the event, though – David Roach has dug out a set of samples by Emilia Prieto, who is clearly the artist on “Sceptre of the Toltecs” and “Kerry In The Clouds” – both art and signature match. It’s not very clear to me right now as to how the original misattribution could have happened, but the signatures of both artists are very similar, and of course there is always the question of whether a pseudonym was used at any point. I shall nevertheless be amending this blog’s references to specify “Emilia Prieto” instead.

NB artist signature was seen on a different piece of art that I did not photograph

David also clarified some outstanding questions about the artist on “The Cult of the Cat”, credited on this blog as “H. Romeu” or “Honiera Romeu”. The artist’s pen name for many years was “Homero”, riffing off the Homer of antiquity (and ‘Honiera’ must therefore simply be a typo that crept in somewhere along the line). From the end of the 1970s or the beginning of the 1980s he reverted to his real surname (he was a Catalan, and in the Franco era it was forbidden to use Catalan surnames – people had to use the Castilian equivalent) for all purposes. So his real name, which I will change all the references on this blog to use, is “Jaume Rumeu”. However, as his penname during the relevant period was still Homero, I will include this as reference too. It may take a little time to apply this change consistently so do bear with me.

click thru

One of the discussions points that I was particularly intrigued to hear was the fact that David catalogued some 40,000 pages of Amalgamated Press / Fleetway artwork, and had sight of the payment books from the relevant times – between the 1940s and 1960s I think he said. Between that and the fact that he has information originating from Barry Coker’s agency which dealt directly with many Spanish artists, David clearly has a huge amount of knowledge that is not only derived from long experience of analysing art, but also from actual records and archives. Watch this space for a future email interview with him, therefore!