Jinty & Lindy 22 November 1975

Slaves of the Candle – artist Roy Newby

Golden Dolly, Death Dust! – Phil Gascoine

Finleg the Fox – artist Jim Eldridge

The Jinx from St. Jonah’s – artist Mario Capaldi

Ping-Pong Paula – artist Jim Baikie, writer Alison Christie

Tell Us – problem page

Poparound! – pop gossip

Barracuda Bay (final episode) – artist Santiago Hernandez

Do-It-Yourself Dot – artist Alf Saporito

Too Old to Cry! – artist Trini Tinturé

Hettie High and Mighty – artist “B. Jackson”, concept and partial writer Terence Magee

The Haunting of Hazel – artist Santiago Hernandez

Song of the Fir Tree – artist Phil Townsend

Barracuda Bay ends this week. The villainous Kane gets caught in his own explosion, and our heroes barely manage to escape the tidal wave caused by it. Susan, who had started her story all thirsting for adventure and getting out of the office, now decides she’s had more than enough adventure.

In Slaves of the Candle, Lyndy manages to stop Mrs Tallow spotting the evidence of an escape, but the cost is Mrs Tallow’s revenge for getting dye all over her clothes. This takes the form of forcing Lyndy to go into hives for beeswax and risking stings. What’s more, the bees are in a very nasty mood. Talk about killer bees!

Just when Janie thought she’d got rid of that horror Hettie High and Mighty – their parents take it into their heads to get married. Now Janie’s got Hettie for a stepsister. Arghh!

Talk about double disaster. Solveig and Per, freshly liberated from a Nazi concentration camp, are forced to take shelter in an abandoned one. Trouble is, their old enemy Sergeant Strang from their own camp has the same idea, and then Grendelsen catches up again. So now the children are up against both Grendelsen and Sergeant Strang! 

Ping-Pong Paula gets revenge on Myra Glegg, the spiteful girl who’s been playing tricks on her. She beats Myra in a table tennis tournament, and then Myra gets kicked out of the boarding house when the landlady catches her ripping up Paula’s photos. So that’s one problem less for Paula, but there is still the matter of how to sort out her quarrelling parents. So far that looks like achieving world peace – hopeless.

The next ingredient required for the antidote to Miss Marvell’s death dust is damask roses. As usual, Miss Marvell throws obstacles in the way of Yvette and Lucy, and she isn’t through when they finally reach the roses. There’s an angry bull bearing down on them!

In Finleg the Fox, the evidence is mounting up that the unpleasant Mr Dray was involved in a train robbery and the money Una found is the stash. Meanwhile, Dora hatches a nasty plan to poison Finleg!

Hazel’s mountaincraft course is in a real mess. She was so distracted by whatever’s haunting her that she left her mountain climbing party on the mountain. Ooops!

Katie the Jinx is the hobby horse in a Morris dancing charity event. She would find herself being chased by a showjumping horse who wants her toffee apple and end up straight in the lake. At least the hijinks are so hilarious they make a lot of money for the event. 

Nell’s search for the woman who might be her mother leads her to a beauty academy, but she is stuck on how to introduce herself. What’s more, she isn’t exactly a beauty. At least the horrible Mrs Arbuthnot doesn’t know she’s escaped from the orphanage and the police aren’t searching for her yet, but it can only a matter of time…

Dot’s back and trying her hand at juggling. She ends up as the one being juggled, by dolphins.

Jinty & Lindy 15 November 1975

Slaves of the Candle – artist Roy Newby

Golden Dolly, Death Dust! – Phil Gascoine

Finleg the Fox – artist Jim Eldridge

The Jinx from St. Jonah’s – artist Mario Capaldi

Ping-Pong Paula – artist Jim Baikie, writer Alison Christie

Great Fun Contest!

Poparound!

Barracuda Bay – artist Santiago Hernandez

Penny Crayon – cartoon

Too Old to Cry! – artist Trini Tinturé

Hettie High and Mighty – artist “B. Jackson”, concept and partial writer Terence Magee

The Haunting of Hazel – artist Santiago Hernandez

Song of the Fir Tree – artist Phil Townsend

The Jinty & Lindy merger is in its second week. Lyndy Lagtree is determined to escape from Mrs Tallow’s House of Candles despite being framed by her for theft and now the most wanted person in London. Her first attempt fails, but she picks up a vital clue about the racket. Unfortunately Mrs Tallow is on the verge of discovering this, so Lyndy has to think of something fast! Meanwhile, Nell’s escape from Mrs Arbuthnot’s horrible orphanage is more successful. So far, no problems, and she’s landed on her feet in a cake shop. Can Nell keep one step ahead Mrs Arbuthnot, the cruel matron who can lie her way out of anything?

In “Song of the Fir Tree”, Solveig and Per have made their way to a more savoury orphanage, but they are forced to go on the run again when Grendelsen catches up. Unfortunately this causes another missed opportunity to reunite with their father.

Hazel’s just about reached the end of her rope with her haunting, but now it’s taking another turn in a churchyard. Will it be for the better or worse?

Miss Marvell breaks the hearts of everyone in the community when she uses her death dust to destroy valuable trees that were memorials to fallen soldiers. The water lily is next on the list for the antidote to Miss Marvell’s death dust. Easy to find, but not easy to obtain with her around! 

In the two running stories that came over from Lindy, Hettie High and Mighty is proving herself just as slick as Mrs Arbuthnot. She is playing so foully on the hockey field that poor Janie has taken a nasty crack on the head. Then Janie finds out Hettie is doing it all on purpose after switching their names with the reporters watching the match. So she will get the blame for what Hettie did! In the other story, Finleg the Fox, Una finds a stash of money in his den. It could only be stolen money, but who stole it, and what does it have to do with the stranger who’s been found dead?

In “Barracuda Bay”, our heroes escape the villainous Kane’s underwater base thanks to a timely earthquake. But now they face a tidal wave set off by the explosives he set to destroy his base. This move has also rebounded on Kane, whose getaway submarine got jammed in the door from the quake.

Myra Glegg has been playing rotten tricks on Ping-Pong Paula, but at least Paula now knows why – Myra is her latest ping-pong rival. Showdown time. 

You would think babysitting a pot plant couldn’t be any trouble. Not when the damn thing is so big it reaches the ceiling, has very fussy demands, and the Jinx from St Jonah’s is in charge of it! 

Jinty & Lindy 3 January 1976

• Slaves of the Candle (artist Roy Newby)
• The Jinx from St Jonah’s (artist Mario Capaldi)
• Friends of the Forest (unknown artist – Merry – “B Jackson”)
• Golden Dolly, Death Dust! (artist Phil Gascoine)
• Ping-Pong Paula (artist Jim Baikie)
• Too Old to Cry! (artist Trini Tinturé unknown)
• Wanda Whiter than White (artist Ana Rodriguez)
• The Haunting of Hazel (artist Santiago Hernandez unknown)
• Song of the Fir Tree (artist Phil Townsend)
• Do-It-Yourself Dot

This post is inspired by a number of creator attribution discussions from recent months, not all of which have made it onto the blog yet (and some of which are hot off the press!). Yesterday I had a lovely, fun meetup with the daughter of Trini Tinturé, who is very delightfully based in the same city as me for at least some of her working time. I dug out some old issues to show Maris Tinturé some of her mother’s Jinty stories in situ, and this was the first one where I spotted a story attributed to Trini.

Maris leafed through it once, twice, and couldn’t find any art of her mother’s. Was it just too much of a skim-read to spot it after all this time? No – I pointed out the specific story I had in mind, “Too Old to Cry!”, and the immediate reaction was, ‘but that’s not hers!’ – and a quick cameraphone piccy and email confirmed it. This story looks enough like Trini’s art for me to never have questioned the attribution that came handed down to me, probably from David Roach originally, but to the most familiar of eyes it is as unlike her art as one face is like another. Below is the episode of the story from this issue – compare it to a piece of definite Trini artwork like the sample pages of Creepy Crawley. (But I think that you will be likely to have to look very closely to be sure, unless you are very familiar with her artwork.) [Edited to add – Trini now says that this story is hers after all! This is upon reflection and, especially, her review of the second and third pages of the story. Here are her own words about it (translated by her daughter Maris): “I would much rather say that this bad work is not mine, and it would be easier for me to do so. But, unfortunately, I have to admit it is. Shame, shame! It looks like the main character had to have a ‘special’ feel, and special indeed I made her! She looks horribly tuberculose. I don’t remember the story or the characters at all. (And at the bottom of the last page the texts points to the continuation in the following week, meaning it’s a serial: no clue at all.) But there are traits in the other characters that give me away mercilessly. Nobody can copy certain kinds of folding and line… The way of drawing stones, the backgrounds… the older people… (Or maybe it was a cooperation between me and Dracula, who knows!)

But the date 1976 certainly does not fit. It is quite possible that they originally put aside the story and only published it years later, who knows why. There was a lot of entanglement [with] publishers. These bad pages smack of my earliest works for Scotland’s schoolgirl series, for example. Fortunately my style changed very soon.

There’s nothing more I can add. It is bad work, but it is mine.”]

 

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This issue also includes an episode of “The Haunting of Hazel” which we have likewise previously attributed to Santiago Hernandez. However, on looking at the 2017 post on “Santiago Hernandez or José Ariza” Trini has this to say: “Barracuda Bay” is definitely Hernandez. “Golden Shark” possibly, but much earlier work perhaps. “The Haunting of Hazel” is unlikely to be Hernandez.” So I have likewise changed the attribution of that story on this post, in order not to confidently show it as being by Santiago Hernandez.

Finally, one other story in this issue is from an artist that we have long referred to as unknown – the unknown artist who drew “Merry at Misery House”. A sighting by “Goof” on the UK Comics Forum gave us a valuable reference to the name “B Jackson” as the artist credit accompanying the illustration for a text story in the ‘Daily Mirror Book for Girls” 1971. Further detective work by David Slinn (a contact of David Roach’s) and by David Roach has given a long list of stories and titles that “B Jackson” seems to have worked on. This will follow as a blog post on this site, with apologies for the delay in getting to this denouement.

But will the attribution of B Jackson prove long lasting, or could it be falsified or proved inaccurate in some way? All that I’ve seen on the blog so far goes to show that there is no 100% guarantee of anything – the word of an expert is very valuable but there’s nothing to compare with a direct line from the creator themselves, if at all possible.

Jinty 4 October 1975

Stories in this issue:

• The Jinx From St Jonah’s (artist Mario Capaldi)
• Blind Ballerina (artist Ana Rodriguez)
• Golden Dolly, Death Dust! (artist Phil Gascoine)
• Dora Dogsbody (artist José Casanovas)
• The Valley of Shining Mist (artist Carlos Freixas, writer Alan Davidson)
• Song of the Fir Tree (artist Phil Townsend)
• Do-It-Yourself Dot (artist Alf Saporito)
• “The Green People” (artist Phil Gascoine) – last episode
• Barracuda Bay (artist Santiago Hernandez)
• Ping-Pong Paula (artist Jim Baikie)

Katie Jinks’s school is competing against the nearby boys’ school, to see who does best at ‘gender-swapped’ tasks – so Katie and pals are making a concrete pathway for their school, and the boys are cooking a cordon bleu meal, which the victors get to eat! Of course, her equal-opportunity jinxing sees her ruining the chances of both groups equally – the boys win, but Katie’s antics end up with the boys locked in a store-room unable to eat their fine supper – so naturally the girls have to self-sacrificially eat it up… The tagline for upcoming stories advises readers that ‘there’s a long story starring Katie in the new Jinty Annual‘ (which turns out to be drawn by Audrey Fawley rather than Mario Capaldi).

Ballerina Barbie gets a shock as she is dancing before an audience – her sight returns and she can dance with more joy than ever! But she isn’t able to get to her sister quite in time to see the beloved face that she hasn’t seen for so many years.

Lucy and Yvette need to come up with a cunning plan to save Corn Dolly from the prison that Miss Marvell has put her in – the doll is powerless herself, surrounded as she is by black magic items in the local museum. But the brave and resourceful girls swop the doll for a very similar one that they have bought. Miss Marvell is fuming once she finds out of course, and threatens that ‘next time, there will be no half measures!’.

Debbie is stunned at the next request that Mrs Maynard makes – to bring her £100! A huge amount of money for the poor girl, of course, representing the entirety of her winnings at the talent contest. And she’s already spent her winnings, too! She sadly goes round returning the items she’d bought, but meanwhile her cruel family come up with ways to stop her from giving the money to Mrs Maynard. Will this mean that Debbie can never see her kind, if odd, mentor again?

Per and Solveig are still being pursued by Grendelsen, with much trekking through the woods. There’s natural dangers in the woods as well as Nazi stalkers though, as the kids are threatened by a wild boar and by a fierce dog too.

“The Green People” comes to an end this week. Moura’s aunt Zella has betrayed the peaceful underground people in a pact with the surface dwellers who want to build a motorway on the moor – but she finds that the dangerous monster Krakengerd is not as easy to control as she had thought. All ends well and the green people’s secret – and their lives – are safe.

“Barracuda Bay” sees Susan Stevens captured and trapped underwater, with her air running out. Will her partner Martin find and rescue her in time? This thriller is slightly old-fashioned in style and quite reminiscent of the Sandie story “The Golden Shark”, which also is a diving-based thriller with a female lead who has good hair. The art on “Barracuda Bay” is much tighter and more neatly-finished, though less obviously by the same artist as “The Haunting of Hazel” (which starts in the next issue). “The Golden Shark” gives a much clearer artistic link between the two stories that were reprinted in Jinty, which I was slightly surprised by.

Finally, “Ping-Pong Paula” has Paula suffering from lack of sleep, in the dodgy digs that her mother has dragged her to. Paula’s dad can support her table-tennis playing better, but of course her mother is bound to find out and to use it as more ammunition in the parental war.

Memories triggered

I have recently received a few 1975 issues of Jinty, which I will write individual issue posts about in due course as usual. Before that, I wanted to write a little bit about the memories triggered by seeing these issues again for the first time in many years.

I’ve seen the cover images on Catawiki or similar, and they didn’t particularly lead me to feel that I remembered what the contents were going to cover. Indeed, when starting to read issues 42 and 51, practically none of it triggered any memories from when I was little – “Tricia’s Tragedy”, “The Kat and Mouse Game”, and the end of “Bird-Girl Brenda” rang no bells at all. But looking inside the issue dated 26 July 1975 was a different matter: of course the  front cover with Katie Jinks’ antics was familiar, but so was the inside story of her circus exploits – I wouldn’t have been able to remember it in advance but looking at it again I felt I knew it well. The next story was “Blind Ballerina”, much more familiar to me than “Tricia’s Tragedy” – as I read each page it felt as if it was flooding back to me, not just the plot (which I could have got from Mistyfan’s post on this issue) but the individual panels and the dialogue boxes themselves, too.

Likewise with “The Valley of Shining Mist” – the very first panel of it gave me a shock of recognition, as ‘Dumbie Debbie’ stumbles tearfully away from the poetry reading competition she has been asked to take part in. It is like when Mistyfan sent me a scan of the episode of “Golden Dolly, Death Dust!” from the issue dated 1 November 1975, which I have also just received recently – but until she sent me that scan some months ago now, I hadn’t seen the episode since I was perhaps ten years old or so, and yet the snippet of dialogue where evil witch Miss Marvell poisons the buddleia in the school grounds has lived in my mind ever since then.

My six-year old daughter has taken to reading my old Jintys now (and Sandies, and anything else I leave lying around). She’s enjoying them greatly and can hardly be torn away from them for suppertime and the like. I hope for her sake that when she is my age, she will not just have vague fond memories of this childhood reading, but ingrained snapshots in her mind that are subtly longer-lasting than you could ever have expected – unless of course you hadn’t already had it happen to you.

Jinty & Lindy 6 December 1975

Stories in this issue:

• Slaves of the Candle (artist Roy Newby)
• The Jinx from St Jonah’s (artist Mario Capaldi)
• Win a Super Watch (competition)
• Finleg the Fox (artist Barrie Mitchell)
• Golden Dolly, Death Dust! (artist Phil Gascoine)
• Ping-Pong Paula (artist Jim Baikie)
• Too Old to Cry! (artist Trini Tinturé)
• Hettie High and Mighty (unknown artist – Merry; idea by Terence Magee)
• The Haunting of Hazel (artist Santiago Hernandez)
• Song of the Fir Tree (artist Phil Townsend)

 

Katie the Jinx had a break last week, but as the cover shows, she’s back now. This week she’s trying to sweep down a cobweb that’s in a difficult position to reach. She succeeds in the end, but leaves the place in a worse state than when she first started cleaning it. Typical Katie!

It’s not every day in girls’ comics we see an unsavoury girl being straightened out with a good spanking on the bottie. Yet that is the case here in “Hetty High-and-Mighty” here, and you’ve got to love it. Next, Hettie has got to help the school win the match or she will hear it from her stepmother again. Trouble is, can Hettie pull it off after a dog bite makes her go lame?

Lyndy and Lucy have broken out of the House of Candles, but things aren’t going smoothly. Mrs Tallow sets the Peelers on them, claiming they are thieves, and Lucy’s been injured! Moreover, Mrs Tallow is off on another robbery with her accomplice in the mystery coach. Fortunately Lyndy gets on the trail, but can she stop the robbery?

Una gets help for the sick Finleg. She soon realises he’s been poisoned by despicable Dora and swears vengeance. However, Una’s attitude changes when she realises Dora’s unknowingly put herself in danger when she finds the stolen money.

In “Golden Dolly, Death Dust!”, Miss Marvell’s bid to split up the girls has failed, but leaves Lucy’s mother a nervous wreck and she has to take a break in Cornwall. Mum’s lucky – soon everyone’s a nervous wreck when they see the latest damage the death dust has caused.

Mum’s pride gets worse for Ping-Pong Paula. They have to find new accommodation but silly old Mum would rather sleep in a field or – as it turns out – the night refuge shelter, than swallow her pride and go back to Dad. Even relatives are fed up with Mum’s stupidity. But worse is to follow – Paula gets news that Dad’s garage is failing!

Nell finds she’s being virtually blackmailed into staying at the academy and being turned into a refined young lady. She doesn’t make a good start either – she gets herself dreadfully dirty by cleaning filthy pots, not realising that they had only been put out to be disposed of and were not meant for cleaning. What an embarrassing start, but then things look up when she finds a friend.

More weird things happen on Black Crag, but Hazel is convinced explosives, not the curse of the mountain, are responsible. Whatever the cause, it’s not making things easy for her mountaineering group.

In “Song of the Fir Tree”, Dad’s a bit caught up with getting help for the injured Strang and getting information from him about his children to look for them at the moment. Meanwhile the children take refuge in a railway station, but Grendelsen isn’t far away, and now thieves are attacking the goods trains.

 

 

 

Jinty & Lindy 29 November 1975

Stories in this issue:

• Slaves of the Candle (artist Roy Newby)
• It’s a Gift – feature
• Finleg the Fox (artist Barrie Mitchell)
• Golden Dolly, Death Dust! (artist Phil Gascoine)
• Ping-Pong Paula (artist Jim Baikie)
• Too Old to Cry! (artist Trini Tinturé)
• Hettie High and Mighty (unknown artist – Merry; idea by Terence Magee)
• The Haunting of Hazel (artist Santiago Hernandez)
• Song of the Fir Tree (artist Phil Townsend)
• Do-It-Yourself Dot (artist Alf Saporito)

 

Katie the Jinx and Penny Crayon take a break this week. Jinty is thinking ahead to Christmas with this week’s feature on how to make Christmas gifts for the family. Dot is trying to make a gift for her mother too, although it’s a birthday gift.

Lyndy finds a safe way through Mrs Tallow’s punishment of forcing her to brave angry bees to get beeswax. Even Mrs Tallow is impressed with Lyndy for pulling it off without a single sting. Upon her return to the House of Candles, Lyndy commences with her breakout plan through the chimney. But this story is only four episodes in, which sounds too early for a fully successful breakout. Moreover, Mrs Tallow is snooping around, and if she discovers the dummies that have been left in place of her “Slaves of the Candle”, it’s all over…

In this week’s episode of “Song of the Fir Tree”, the children are not only up against their relentless adversary Grendelsen again but also their previous adversary, Sergeant Strang from their old concentration camp. Ironically, the battlefield is an abandoned concentration camp. It ends with comeuppance, injury and capture for Strang. Sadly, the children miss the boat with their father once again by jumping a train to elude Grendelsen.

Dora is laying poison for Finleg, and unfortunately she succeeds in poisoning him. Friend Una finds the poisoned Finleg, but has she found him in time to get help?

In “Golden Dolly, Death Dust!”, Miss Marvell is trying a different sort of poison this week – poisoning the girls’ parents against them by claiming they are behind all the strange goings-on with witchcraft. What a cheek!

Ping Pong Paula’s hoping a joint celebration for her victory will patch things up with her parents. But Mum’s snobbery, which started all the trouble, ruins everything again when she sees Dad still wearing garage boots (an oversight) with his dinner suit. Instead of seeing the funny side or turning a blind eye, she makes a huge exhibition in front of everyone over how he has shown her up in front of her high society friends.

In “Too Old To Cry!”, Mrs Arbuthnot, the evil matron of Nell’s old orphanage, catches up with the runaway. Surprisingly, instead of dragging Nell back to the orphanage she leaves Nell where she is – after telling the headmistress she is a “no-good thief and a troublemaker”.

Hettie High-and-Mighty finds out why Janie tolerated her in the hockey team – to win the trophy the school needs in order to stay open. So now she spites Janie by resigning and leaving them in the lurch.

People are losing confidence in Hazel because of her “haunting”, so she is determined to restore some by leading a mountaineering team on Black Crag. But on the mountain comes a big test – saving a girl whose rope is caught.

 

Jinty & Lindy 10 January 1976

• Slaves of the Candle
• The Jinx from St Jonah’s (artist Mario Capaldi)
• Friends of the Forest (unknown artist – Merry)
• Golden Dolly, Death Dust! (artist Phil Gascoine) – last episode
• Ping-Pong Paula (artist Jim Baikie)
• Too Old to Cry! (artist Trini Tinturé)
• Wanda Whiter than White (artist Ana Rodriguez)
• The Haunting of Hazel (artist Santiago Hernandez)
• Song of the Fir Tree (artist Phil Townsend)
• Penny Crayon

This is the last episode of “Golden Dolly, Death Dust”, so it is fitting that it should have a final appearance on the cover too. Next issue Phil Gascoine starts his new story, and the longest he ever drew for Jinty – “Fran of the Floods”. And although Nell’s story says she’s “Too Old to Cry”, the cover definitely shows her crying in this episode. I have always felt the title of this story was a bad one. Couldn’t they have chosen something more descriptive?

Elsewhere, Ping-Pong Paula has achieved her latest victory. But Mum spoils it with her pride and turns away because she was obliged to share Paula’s victory photograph for the paper with her estranged husband. We are told that it’s the climax for this story next week. Oh good – it’s about time those quarrelling parents were sorted out.

“Slaves of the Candle” is also approaching its climax, with Mrs Tallow threatening to burn down the House of Candles – with all Lyndy’s friends in it – if Lyndy tries to stop her stealing the Crown Jewels. At this, the long-fighting Lyndy finally gives in. But the blurb for next week tells us fate has a surprise in store. The artist has also changed for this story; Roy Newby has been replaced by a filler artist, whose name is not known. But Newby will be back to draw the story that replaces this one – “Bound for Botany Bay“.

In “Friends of the Forest” a new friend, Maya, emerges to help Sally against the nasty Walkers who treat her like a slave and want to sell her beloved deer to a circus. But it turns out that Maya is on the run, which is sure to cause even more problems.

Wanda, the biggest tattletale in the school, makes herself even more unpopular, and poor Sue cops some of the blame as well. And now Wanda’s been appointed a prefect, which means it’s bound to get worse. And it starts with Wanda accusing Sue of stealing!

Hazel’s beginning to understand why she’s being haunted, and she is defying orders to go home so she can investigate some more. And it looks like she’s going to get some help from Marnie, the old woman of the mountain.

And in “Song of the Fir Tree”, Solveig and Per have escaped Grendelsen’s latest attempt to kill them. Unfortunately their father thinks Grendelsen succeeded and is giving up the search for his children and heading home.

What makes a story work, pt 2?

Following on from my earlier post on how we can sensibly say that a story works (or doesn’t), I want to look at the elements that can add to, or detract from, how well a story works. These are elements that are mostly down to decisions made by the writer or the artist (or both), though editorial decisions can also be relevant. For each of the elements, therefore, I will consider what the balance of responsibilities tends to be, as well as discussing the nature of each of them.

• Plot. What actually happens? How well tied-together are the events of the story, and how naturally or consistently do they flow from earlier ones? Is it a very run-of-the-mill plot or does it have innovative elements? Is the plot simple or convoluted, full of sidelines or straightforward? In particular, does the ending follow well from the main part of the action or does it undercut the earlier events, for instance through by use of a deus ex machina to wrap everything up neatly and too-quickly?
  • This lies mostly in the writer’s corner, though the editorial department may make suggestions.
  • Stronger: “Concrete Surfer” is a tightly-plotted story where everything that happens drives the action forwards to the skate-off between rivals and the subsequent denouement. Not a moment of action is wasted and it all hangs together.
  • Weaker: in “Fran of the Floods” lots of things happen, but in a quite meandering structure with sub-plots that you can get lost in. The later happenings are not very tightly tied into the earlier events, though there is a wrap-up at the end of the story. This is a danger for road-trip sort of stories.
• Title. Is the title overly-explanatory or does it promise without revealing too much? Is it ho-hum or unusual?
  • As far as we know, coming up with the story’s title seems to have been part of the writer’s tasks. Sometimes it might have been changed by the editorial department either before publication or on reprint / translation.
  • Stronger: There are lots of really evocative story titles in Jinty. Examples like “Girl The World Forgot” or “Golden Dolly, Death Dust!” are suggestive without giving the whole game away.
  • Weaker: the formula girl’s name + descriptive reference was over-used in girls’ comics generally and feels hackneyed as a result. “Badgered Belinda”, “Angela Angel-Face”, “Diving Belle” are examples in Jinty, but looking at a single issue of Lindy the ratio of such titles seemed considerably higher so things could have been much worse!
• Theme. Is the theme a well-trodden one such as the Slave or Cinderella themes? Is it an intrinsically unlikely one such as the Exploited Amnesiac? In either case it probably needs something extra to make it stand out.
  • Again as far as we know the story theme was mostly under the control of the writer, though the editorial office would, according to Pat Mills, aim to have specific themes represented such as the two mentioned above. Some writers would focus preferentially on certain themes, so we know that Alison Christie wrote a number of heart-tugging stories with Runaways or Guilt Complexes. The art style (discussed in the next post) was probably chosen to match the theme as far as possible, though of course it is entirely possible that the availability of an artist was used to inspire a writer on occasion.
  • Stronger: I wouldn’t say it is that clear that one theme is stronger than another but there is a lot of personal preference that will govern whether a story works for an individual reader or not.
  • Weaker: as mentioned above, some themes such as the Exploited Amnesiac are so intrinsically unlikely and indeed rather melodramatic and silly that it means that the story is battling against something of a headwind.
• Pacing. Girls (and boys) comics of this era typically feature fast-paced stories, with cliff-hangers at the end of each episode. The conventions of this sort of story are rather different from Japanese manga, where the action tends to take place over a far greater number of pages. If a story is compressed more than usual for this genre it would feel confusing, or if it was too slow-paced likewise it could throw readers off.
  • This lies solidly in the remit of the writer, though the page layout and composition could have some effect too.
  • Stronger: “Concrete Surfer” has some of the best pacing I can immediately think of: it builds evenly and the momentum never stops. Every panel and page builds on the last.
  • Weaker: the pacing on “Freda’s Fortune” makes it an odd read, with much of the plot line of a normal horse & rival story compressed into two 6-page episodes.
• Tone. Is the story light and frothy, silly, adventurous, realistic, tear-jerking, hard, gritty, subversive, or even sadistic? The dialogue is a big part of what sets the tone so I am including it in this element, though others might prefer to separate it out.
  • The style set by the comic overall is very linked to the tone of the individual stories inside; whether this is mostly to do with editorial choices as to which stories to publish or writers to commission, clearly the editorial focus has a part to play. Pat Mills reckons that there is a big divide between working class comics (Tammy, Misty, Jinty, Pink, and most of Bunty) and middle-class, ‘safe’ comics, and that this divide was purposeful, to try to move past the ‘old hat’ style of the past. The individual writer is the prime mover of the tone of the story but the artist also has an important role to play as the writing and art must of course match. Additionally, the artist is in a position to add a lot of background detail in their art, to really bring things to life (John Armstrong draws graffiti in the background of “Moonchild”, and Jim Baikie draws details from the London Underground of the 70s or earlier in his recreation of the futuristic world of “The Forbidden Garden”.)
  • Stronger: Of course one tone is not in itself ‘better’ than another, but some are more unusual or more consistently applied throughout. “Knight and Day” is the epitome of a gritty and realistic story of physical and emotional abuse within a family, played seriously and with enough emotional effect to convince the reader.
  • Weaker: In the link above, Pat Mills says that light and frothy stories are ‘safe’ and boring to the reader. This is arguable, but certainly a light and frothy story such as “The Perfect Princess” is by its nature one that is easier to dismiss the more emotional or tear-jerking tales. Perhaps more fatal to a story is a sudden shift in tone, such as Lorrbot mentions having happened in “Balloon of Doom” in her comment on the last post.
• Resonance. I’m stretching a bit things here in using this term in this way. What I mean is whether the story has a certain mythic resonance, a re-use (in a purposeful way) of cultural material. Mermaids, spinning wheels, magic mirrors, wicked and cruel women: these all have resonance as they have been used in countless stories to tell us how to behave or what to be careful of. Re-use of a current successful story from a different medium also gives the comics narrative a chance to grab some resonance from elsewhere.
  • I am assuming this is mostly in the care of the writer, though of course the artist will be able to add in many visual elements that will strengthen the references.
  • Stronger: “Who’s That In My Mirror?” combines ideas of vanity, moral peril, and the idea that a mirror can hold a reflection of a kind of truth. It has echoes of “The Picture of Dorian Grey” and of the Andersen tale “The Shadow” – and its denouement is as spooky as anything in comics.
  • Weaker: There are so damned many stories of haunted mirrors that it’s very easy for the shine to wear off! For me, “The Venetian Looking-Glass” was just another one of many: the element of resonance had become repetition.

• Audacity. This is sort of the flip side of Resonance, and again I am stretching things a bit in using this term in this way. By this I mean the ‘WTF’ element where you can’t quite believe that anyone dared to put that on the page! It is the element of surprise and of novelty, but it is quite a delicate balancing act.
  • The written story bears a lot of the responsibility for this element but the art is key in making sure that the reader’s suspension of disbelief doesn’t flag. The editorial and publishing teams are the ones who would be on the bosses’ carpet if it all goes horribly wrong (as it did for boys’ comic Action after questions were asked in parliament), so they are part of the mix too.
  • Stronger: “Worlds Apart” is one of the most audacious stories in girls’ comics, with each protagonist having to die in grotesque and excessive ways in order for them to progress to the next scenario. “Children of Edenford” is also outrageous but a bit more quietly so as it criticises the shibboleth of social mobility ahead of the tide of Thatcherism and yuppiedom to come.
  • Weaker: When audacity tips the scales of suspension of disbelief, the wheels come off. For me, the cruelties at the end of “Slave of the Swan” and “The Slave of Form 3B” push it a step too far.

To follow in the next post, discussions on:

• Art quality
• Art style
• Character design
• Page layout / composition
• Art incidental details
• Design / font / lettering
• Format / edition

Story theme: the Magical Companion / Non-human companion

Stories of magic and the supernatural often include a companion who helps, guides, prods, or sometimes rather forcibly plonks the protagonist in the middle of adventure. The companion in question has his, her, or its own agenda and in that, it has some similarities to the evil object which takes over people’s lives: but unlike the evil object story, the magical guide does not coerce or remove free will. Generally speaking, the agenda of the companion is at least morally neutral, if not positively on the side of the protagonist’s best interests. The journey towards a happy ending, though, is not in itself happy all along: often the life of the main character is made decidedly more uncomfortable as the story unfolds.

Normally the companion is clearly magical, maybe right from the start: sometimes she (rarely he) or it seems outwardly normal at first but is found in the thick of things too often for it to be a coincidence. This perhaps is particularly the case where the companion is an animal, such as one of the three(!) examples of magnificent white horses that help protagonists in various ways.

Core examples

The example I think is one of Jinty‘s best for this theme is “Guardian of White Horse Hill”. Janey Summers is an orphan, with foster parents who she is hoping will go on to adopt her. However, life with her new family is not easy, partly because of mean snobbish girls in the local area, partly because of trauma she hasn’t yet got over (badly handled by the adults in question, as usual), and partly because, well, she sees a white horse that no-one else can see. Obviously people start questioning her sanity as well as her temperament, but the horse in question turns out to be Celtic horse goddess Epona. Epona takes Janey back in time more than once, to the Celtic settlement originally located where the modern village is. In the historical time, Janey finds herself in the body of a young priestess facing the peril of a Roman invasion; in the modern time of the story, the village is threatened by a road which is to be built through the village itself. At the priestess’s behest, the Celtic villagers saved themselves by a non-violent path, namely digging a white horse on the hillside; the earth left over from all the digging is swept into the path of the invaders by torrential rain. In parallel in modern times, the path that the villagers were going to take – giving up and giving in – is derailed by Epona, who through Janey’s actions reveals the historical white horse carved on the hill. The villagers are able to declare this a site of special interest and hold off the road-building that way.

Even before Epona takes Janey back in time, she clearly reveals her magic to the reader: no-one else can see the horse apart from Janey, and when she gets on the back of the horse she is invisible to those around her. Ultimately Epona’s actions are in Janey’s interest too: by saving the village, the livelihoods of Janey’s foster parents are secured, but also Janey’s role in bringing that salvation helps to secure her wish to have real, loving parents again. There are uncomfortable moments for Janey along the way: for instance when Epona makes her dismount (so that she can then be seen by anyone who can spot her) just before a big village meeting. Even more so, you could point to the basic fact that making yourself visible to just one person is in itself asking to lead them into trouble – and Epona, magic though she is, is not a talking horse and does not explain herself.

Clear examples of this story theme in Jinty are:

• “The Valley of Shining Mist” (1975) has a mysterious woman in a mysterious cottage in a mysterious valley – only when the mist fills the valley can the protagonist see the cottage as anything but an old ruin. Debbie is taught music by the woman in the cottage, but more than that, she also learns love and acceptance as Mrs Maynard helps her to change her life.
• Corn Dolly in “Golden Dolly, Death Dust!” (1975-76), who guides and protects the protagonists in their battles against the evil witch Miss Marvell.
• The eponymous horse in “Horse From The Sea” (1976) seems initially like a normal (magnificent, unbridled, appearing-out-of-the-blue) white horse, but a tale is recounted part-way through the story that makes it clear that this is the same mysterious horse that throughout centuries has defended the heir of the local estate from danger.
• The mysterious Malincha in “Sceptre of the Toltecs” (1976-77) is golden-eyed, and inhumanly strong and smart. She needs the help of protagonist Jenny Marlow to fulfill her quest; you could perhaps consider Malincha to be the protagonist herself, but she is so characterless and mysterious that it is hard to see her in that role.
• In “Sue’s Fantastic Fun-Bag” (1976-79), the magical companion is another inanimate object: well, I say inanimate – the bag in question is given expression by the creases in the leather, giving her a cheeky look. This one is played for laughs too, and as an ongoing humour strip there is less of a clear agenda on the part of Henrietta the hand-bag as there is less of an overall story. Henrietta often helps Sue and gets her out of a pickle, but equally she often lands her in one too.
• In “Daughter of Dreams” (1979), Sally Carter is a wall-flower until she makes up an imaginary friend, Pauline Starr. Her imagination is so strong she can see her new friend clearly – so clearly in fact that Pauline comes to life! Pauline helps to shake up Sally’s life, first of all by getting her to do more lively things so she can make more friends, and then in the sequel, “Miss Make-believe” (1979), defeating crooks in a stately house caper.
• Karen finds a ghostly skating instructor in the “Spirit of the Lake” (1979-80): appearing to her as an elegant woman, the spirit is friendly and helpful to Karen in a situation where the girl is otherwise not shown much love or friendship. The skating spirit seems to have little agenda of her own other than to help Karen become a skating champion.
• “Gaye’s Gloomy Ghost” (1979-81) has another ghostly companion but is an ongoing humour strip like “Sue’s Fantastic Fun-Bag” (and indeed is drawn by the same artist too).
• “Sue’s Daily Dozen” (1980) has an inanimate object as the magical companion, making it perhaps a slight stretch from the main theme of the category. Sue finds a book in the old cottage that she has moved into with her sister: the recipes in the book turn out to be more like magic spells, but very positive and homely ones intended to spread positive effects in the local community: sweets turn out to bring the childhood sense of fun back, and a love potion reconciles a quarreling couple. None of the spells are dramatically and clearly magic until the end of the story: the ambiguity of whether the odd effects are coincidental is maintained for quite a while, which is nice. In the end the book is reunited with the cauldron that Granny Hayden had also used, and both items disappear off to be found in the future by another lucky girl.
• Gabbi is the magical companion in “Her Guardian Angel” (1980-81); literally a guardian angel, this played-for-laughs story has her defending her charge from all sorts of things that are not in fact dangerous. Gabbi has her own agenda: she has to pass a test to earn her wings, and earthbound Roz must therefore temper her normal way of being in order to help this angel who has become a friend.

Not in Jinty: Mistyfan has pointed out the Tracy story Rhoda’s Robot, in which the companion is not magical in origin, but a robot. (It’s a little arguable in my mind as to whether the robot really should be counted as non-magical as she doesn’t behave anything like a ‘realistic’ robot, but still.)

Edge cases

As with the other themes, you can see examples that don’t fit quite as clearly in the category but still have a lot of overlap with it.

• “Wild Horse Summer” (1974) has (yet another) magnificent wild white horse which changes the protagonist’s life, but this horse really does seem to be a real-life horse who behaves reasonably realistically.
• “The Zodiac Prince” (1978) in question is definitely magical; he is more protagonist than companion.
• “Paula’s Puppets” (1978) is a little harder to categorise; I’d say it was a better match with the Evil Object / Supernatural Object theme as the puppets have a less clear agenda of their own, if any.
• In “Pandora’s Box” (1979) Pandora has a little black magical cat, Scruffy, but he acts like a typical witch’s familiar, not as a magical guide.
• “Sea-Sister” (1979) has a ghostly/magical character who again is more protagonist than guide or companion.

Related but different

• There are other stories with animal friends or antagonists – cats, dogs, horses, birds and so forth in stories such as “The Big Cat”, “The Birds”, “Blind Faith”, “The Disappearing Dolphin”, “Finleg the Fox”, “Friends of the Forest”. As with “Wild Horse Summer”, these are animals that are given a generally realistic treatment.
• Evil object / supernatural object, discussed separately.
• Mysterious helper: a story type where someone is mysteriously helping the main character, but in a naturalistic way. The particular example in Jinty would be “Diving Belle”, where the protagonist gets training in diving by a female instructor who appears mysteriously and does seem to have more-than-natural knowledge of what is needed (what with being a gypsy, as obviously psychic powers come with that). Nevertheless she is a human and interacts with the main character in a human way.
• Wish fulfilment: this can be magical/supernatural in nature (“Dance Into Darkness”) or through more naturalistic methods (“Jackie’s Two Lives”, “Kerry In The Clouds”). There is a trigger for the protagonist to have her wish fulfilled but that is not someone who accompanies her throughout the story guiding her.

Other thoughts

Bringing a magical companion into an otherwise ordinary girl’s life is always going to be a popular way to power a story; any reader could hold out a hope that just such a force could enter her own life and help her out with her difficulties. I guess it also makes sense that the writer can’t have the magical companion make things too straightforward for the protagonist as it’d be boring otherwise; the magical companion must therefore challenge or complicate the main character’s life as much as improving it.