Tammy & June 27 September 1975

Cover artist: John Richardson

Bella at the Bar – artist John Armstrong

Glenda’s Glossy Pages – artist Mario Capaldi, writer Pat Mills

Wee Sue – artist John Richardson

Backhand Billie – artist unknown

Bessie Bunter

Molly Mills: A Cure for Claire – artist Tony Thewenetti, writer Maureen Spurgeon

Wheeler Delia – artist unknown

Have a Heart! – Competition

The Greatest Gift (Strange Story) – artist Douglas Perry

Serfs of the Swamps – artist Douglas Perry

Although this is a September issue, I am bringing it out for Christmas because the Strange Story has a dash of Christmas in it. The story sure is a warning not to take generosity – something to show more of at Christmas – to extremes or come before things that should take priority, like paying the bills. Some of you may wonder if the grandfather deserved the Strange Story rescue, even if he did seem to learn his lesson, and if something up there is going, “All right, this once, but if it happens again…” After all, Dickens frequently commented on the consequences and misery of debt in his stories, and “A Christmas Carol” itself was written to pay off debt. Well, judge for yourselves.

Douglas Perry is drawing this Strange Story while also drawing a serial, “Serfs of the Swamps”. The locals of a hamlet seem to be making Lynn Wake and her marooned classmates work like serfs – and now they are forced to dress like serfs too, in dreadful sack cloth garments. One rather gets the impression these people are out to use the girls as slave labour. 

Talking of serfs, Bella is, is usual, being underfed while forced to work like a serf for Aunt Gert and Uncle Jed, who show no mercy for the back injury Bella is trying to recover from. The lack of food makes Bella black out while she’s doing swimming therapy, and because she’s in the water, that’s now put her in terrible danger. 

Assistant manager Mrs Mallis isn’t making “Wheeler Delia” work like a serf at the rollerdrome where she works although she dislikes her. Instead, she’s gotten Delia sacked, and when Delia is reinstated she reports Delia to the orphanage for breaking bounds. This prompts Delia to run away from the orphanage and take refuge at the pier, but someone has caught her. And it looks like…guess.

Bessie is always coming up with screwy schemes to get out of schoolwork and exams because she hopeless at schoolwork. This week she pretends her eyesight is ailing. Predictably, food being the sight to behold for Bessie is her undoing and soon everyone “sees” through her. 

An Indian doctor claims to have the power to make Mistress Claire walk again – but the moment Claire starts walking, Molly suddenly loses the power of her own legs. Now she’s the one in the wheelchair and Mistress Claire is wheeling her around. What a turnabout! What’s going on? A legal rep believes this weird doctor is behind it and offers to help Molly sue for damages. Lord Stanton’s response is to sack Molly. At least there’s a bright side to this episode: Pickering gets a bite on the nose from a parrot!

Backhand Billie wants to become a top tennis player under her own steam and not because she’s the daughter of a tennis star. Okay, but she has been going about it the wrong way: John McEnroe tactics, nasty tricks, and not being a good loser. She’s now having second thoughts about this, but the damage she’s done is not easy to reverse and she still doesn’t like losing. Miss Ball the academy head now offers to help, with CCTV post mortems of Billie’s playing, but how ready is Billie to take things on board?

Wee Sue goes to a mini-market for cheap sports gear, only to discover the reason it’s so cheap is that the man is a crook who cheats customers with rubbish goods. Ever heard of caveat emptor, Sue? Or if it is too good to be true, it usually is? And get a load of the name of the crook’s mini-market: “Honest Pat Mills’ Mini-Market”! Wonder what Pat Mills thought of the in-joke.

Glenda is now convinced the glossy pages really can work magic after she gets a flash bicycle out of them and her snooty arch-enemy Hillary is seething. But then Mum starts a fire in the fireplace where Glenda has hidden the glossy pages – and all of a sudden the bicycle catches fire. Yikes, what other magic is at work here? Is it that old adage, if it is too good to be true it usually is again?

Tammy 8 October 1983

• Lucky by Name… (artist Juliana Buch, writer Malcolm Shaw) – first episode
• The Button Box (artist Mario Capaldi, writer Alison Christie)
• Pam of Pond Hill (artist Bob Harvey, writer Jay Over)
• Run, Rabbit, Run! (artist Edmond Ripoll, writer Roy Preston)
• Glenda’s Glossy Pages (artist Mario Capaldi, writer Pat Mills) – first episode
• Bella (artist John Armstrong, writer Primrose Cumming)
• Room for Rosie (artist Santiago Hernandez, writer Alison Christie)
• Lonely Ballerina (artist Maria Barrera, writer Jay Over)
• The Crayzees (artist and writer Joe Collins)

Two stories start this issue: “Lucky by Name” (the second Tammy horse story with that title) and a repeat of “Glenda’s Glossy Pages” from 1975, with no announcement that it is a repeat. This is rather strange. When Tammy brings a story back by popular demand she says it was brought back by popular demand, but there’s nothing. So was it popular demand that brought Glenda back, or did they just bring it back as a filler or something?

In the former, a foal is born into a wild pony forest reserve. But there seems to be something strange about it, both in its appearance and in the way weird things seem to happen in its presence. In the latter, nice things are beyond Glenda Slade because of her mother’s low income. Then things begin to change when she receives a mail order catalogue. But maybe Glenda should remember the old saying: if it’s too good to be true, it usually is…

The Button Box story (below) is one of my favourites: the barrel button story. Bev tells the story as a lesson not to discount old barrels. Personally, though, I read the moral of the story as knowing a few basics about self defence and how to free yourself from bonds (check out the Internet) in the event of a home invasion/robbery.

(click thru)

In Pam of Pond Hill, Dad’s business is in trouble. A new supermarket is stealing his customers by undercutting his fruit & veg prices. Counter-measures to win back customers get outmanoeuvred every time and Pam suspects a leak. Tracy keeps insisting the spy is Pam’s new friend Meg, but Pam doesn’t believe it. Then, at the very end of the episode, Meg acts very strangely – she can’t get inside fast enough when Pam discovers where she lives. Hmm, does Meg have something to hide?

In the complete story, “Run, Rabbit, Run!”, Rae Betts is dubbed “rabbit” and gets bullied at school. The ringleader isn’t all that nice to her own rabbit either. Matters come to a head when the terrified rabbit runs away – right into a burning field. Strangely, a Misty story had the same title and a similar theme. The Tammy version was was written by Roy Preston, who was credited with writing plenty of spooky stories for Tammy. Did Preston write the Misty version too?

Bella has taken over as club coach because the two quarrelsome coaches have quit. They realise their mistake and come back, as it is the eve of a serious competition, but Bella is put out when the girls say no thanks because they’ve had enough of their arguing. Next week is the final episode, so we will see how this resolves.

In “Lonely Ballerina”, the ballet school has gone to pot because the principal, Mary Devine, has been missing for months. At last she is found – in the attic. Tanya Lane, who thought Mary’s sister Betty was holding her prisoner, is surprised to find Betty crying over her instead. All the same, Betty has some serious explaining to do.

Rosie’s in the school panto, serving as Sleeping Beauty’s cot. She becomes a panto star and takes curtain calls with the rest of the cast. Sadly, no home comes out of it for her.

In “The Crazyees”, the cat’s pining because Snoopa hasn’t appeared for ages. Miss T and Edie investigate and discover the lovesick cat is driving Snoopa to distraction, so he’s hiding from her. Miss T’s solution: make Snoopa human size.

 

 

Tammy 29 October 1983

• Lucky by Name… (artist Juliana Buch, writer Malcolm Shaw)
• Pam of Pond Hill (artist Bob Harvey, writer Jay Over)
• The Crayzees (artist Joe Collins)
• Glenda’s Glossy Pages (artist Mario Capaldi, writer Pat Mills)
• The Nightingale’s Song – complete story (artist Douglas Perry, writer Roy Preston)
• The Button Box (artist Mario Capaldi, sub-writer Linda Stephenson)
• Spell of Fog – first episode (artist Tony Coleman, writer Jake Adams)
• Room for Rosie (artist Santiago Hernandez, writer Alison Christie)
• Lonely Ballerina – final episode (artist Maria Barrera, writer Jay Over)
• Make a Mask for Halloween! – feature (writer Chris Lloyd)

Halloween is coming up. So I am bringing out the last Halloween issue Tammy ever published. The cover is very nice, and the girls look like Trick-or-Treaters or organising their Halloween party. Inside, we have instructions for making a Halloween mask and the Crayzees go to a Halloween fancy dress ball. Miss T and Edie are rather chagrined when the human-sized Snoopa wins first prize for dressing up as Miss T!

In last week’s issue, Tammy had a blurb about a spooky story starting this issue in commemoration of Halloween. It is “Spell of Fog”. A film crew arrives at the village of Wolfen to make a film about Alice Compton, a girl who was burned at the stake for witchcraft and rumoured to haunt the spot where her ashes were scattered.  So when the film producer announces his plans to do a historically inaccurate, sensationalised film where Alice is truly evil and an agent of the Devil instead of one of the hapless victims of witch hunts, it really is asking for trouble. Sure enough, a mist is soon arising on the spot where Alice is said to haunt, and it’s clearly blowing in the opposite direction of the wind…

Surprisingly, “Room for Rosie” is celebrating Guy Fawkes one week early and passing over Halloween altogether. Pauline Wheeler is trying to honour her dying gran’s last request to find a good home for her beloved pram, “Rosie”, but so far no luck. Meantime, Rosie is being put to more of the 101 uses that she was so famous for with Gran. This week it’s carrying the Guy for the penny-for-the-routine. Rosie does not do much to sort out the problem of the week, which is where to have the bonfire after the kids lose their regular lot for it.

You’d think there would be a Halloween story in the Button Box. Instead, it’s a story to reassure you that a representative will always be on hand to sort out any problems you may have when you are on holiday abroad.

The complete story is about a promising singer, Suzy Nightingale, who loses her power of speech and singing from the shock of her mother’s death. She nurses her namesake back to health when it is injured, and notices that the nightingale has remained silent all the while, just like her. But all of a sudden the nightingale regains its power of song, which prompts Suzy to regain hers.

“Lonely Ballerina” reunites the creative team from ballet story Slave of the Clock. This was the last ballet story Tammy ever published (not counting “I’m Her – She’s Me!”, although it does have ballet in it). Tanya Lane arrives at Mary Devine’s ballet school, only to find it’s nothing but a mess, she’s the only serious pupil there, and there is a mystery to unravel. The reveal (not very credible and does not make the story one of Tammy’s best) is that Mary’s sister Betty has been struggling to keep the ballet school going after an accident rendered Mary catatonic. This was a foolish thing to do, as Betty knows nothing about ballet. Even more unwisely, she tried to conceal Mary’s condition instead of explaining the situation, getting help, and keeping the school closed until her sister recovered. Mary did not do so until the final episode. In the meantime, the school fell apart, efforts to hide the secret from the governors have now failed, the story is all over the newspapers, and the school faces closure. But of course, being a girls’ story, things end happily.

“Lucky by Name” is a foal named Lucky who seems to have powers over other animals. Unfortunately more and more people are beginning to notice. Now Lucky has made two rich and powerful enemies over it, and they look like they are threatening serious trouble.

Glenda gets a really freaky sign that her “glossy pages” have supernatural powers that could be dangerous. Mum lights a fire where Glenda hid her glossy pages and elsewhere, the bike she got from them catches fire! Yet there’s not a trace of damage on the bike or glossy pages. Then there’s even more trouble when the police come around and demand to know where Glenda got that nice stuff that is way beyond her means, and are not going to believe it came from those glossy pages. What can Glenda do? Or, more to the point, what are those glossy pages going to do?

The latest Pam of Pond Hill story ends this week. Dad has been facing down a supermarket rival whose cut-price fruit & veg have been threatening his greengrocer business. But just when that problem looks all sorted out, the supermarket gets vandalised and Pam is suspect because of the recent bad blood between the two businesses and an item, which was given to her, was found at the scene of the crime.

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.