Jinty 17 December 1977

Come Into My Parlour – artist Douglas Perry

Sue’s Fantastic Fun-Bag! – artist Hugh Thornton-Jones

A Jinty Christmas Poem: The Story of the Mince Pie

Two Mothers for Maggie – Jim Baikie

My Favourite Thing! – Competition results

Guardian of White Horse Hill – artist Julian Vivas, writer Pat Mills

Stage Fright! (final episode) – artist Phil Townsend

“The Yew Walk” (Gypsy Rose story) – artist unknown

Land of No Tears – artist Guy Peeters, writer Pat Mills

Alley Cat – artist Rob Lee 

Race for a Fortune – artist Christine Ellingham

Fruity Sweets for Christmas – Feature 

Jinty’s gearing us all up for Christmas with Christmas covers, Christmas features, Christmas jokes, and a Christmas party story from Sue and her Fantastic Fun-Bag. 

There is a dash of Christmas with a yew tree walk in this week’s Gypsy Rose story, but definitely not in the Christmas spirit. New owners are warned not to cut down the yew trees or they will evoke a druid’s curse. Of course they do precisely that, and if they can’t find a way to lift the curse their very lives could be danger. 

“Race for a Fortune” also gives a hint of Christmas, because it’s party time this week. Katie drops in on the Larrup Stick Dance and takes the opportunity to give her cheating cousins some “stick” after that dirty trick they played on her in the last issue. 

It may not be Christmas in “Land of No Tears” – something we highly doubt is celebrated in that cold-hearted world where all emotion is banned. Still, it is as good as Christmas when Miranda’s mysterious mother offers to train the Gamma girls for the Golden Girl Award after Cassy takes a brunt to protect her and Miranda from being caught by the ruthless Perfecta. 

What about presents? Maggie gets presents, in the form of lovely dresses, from both her real mother and her TV mother. Unfortunately the presents are creating conflicting loyalties.

In Alley Cat it’s Christmas stockings. Spotty is unravelling people’s sweaters and pinching the wool right off their backs, in order to knit his own giant Christmas stocking. What a grinch! We can imagine what his stocking will be filled with on Christmas Day.

In the last episode of “Stage Fright!” it takes a fire and the loss of his mansion because of the deranged Lady Alice to make Lord Banbury realise all he had cared about was the acting trophy and not enough about his family. Granddaughter Melanie is not quite ready to forgive him, but the story ends on a hopeful note that a better relationship will build between them. 

Not much happens this week to advance the plot in “Come Into My Parlour”, except wait for the full moon in order to cast the spell to help unravel the mystery of the vanished Saxtons. But bullies get a surprise when the power of Mother Heggerty’s necklace enables Jody to give them a good walloping! 

So the mysterious white horse is a mare! After a time trip to the past, Janey realises the white horse is Epona, the horse goddess, and it is a power that has awakened in response to the threat of the motorway. She returns to her own time with the sword she has taken as a symbol of Epona’s strength and compassion, and finds Epona has gathered a horse army. Now what can Epona have in mind? Let’s not forget she’s a goddess, and not even bulldozers are a match for a goddess.

Jinty 10 December 1977

Come Into My Parlour  – artist Douglas Perry

Christmas Mobile part 4 – feature

Give a Victorian Party! Feature

Two Mothers for Maggie – Jim Baikie

Sue’s Fantastic Fun-Bag! – artist Hugh Thornton-Jones

Guardian of White Horse Hill – artist Julian Vivas, writer Pat Mills

Stage Fright! – artist Phil Townsend

Eddie Kidd – feature 

The Runaway Bride (Gypsy Rose’s Tales of Mystery and Magic) – artist Keith Robson

My Favourite Thing! – Competition results

Land of No Tears – artist Guy Peeters, writer Pat Mills

Alley Cat – artist Rob Lee 

Race for a Fortune – artist Christine Ellingham

Topping Ideas! – Feature 

It’s the final part of Jinty’s Christmas mobile. Jinty readers should be feeling more Christmassy now. 

In “Land of No Tears”, the mystery of Miranda’s mother deepens, but some things are unravelling about it. Cassy finds out Miranda and her mother are secretly meeting each other, an illegal thing in a world where all emotion and normal human contact are forbidden. One is reminded of the Orwellian “Imagine a boot stamping on the human face – forever.” But who is the woman anyway? Why does she turn up in disguise? And why can’t she come up with a better disguise than a ridiculous wig and heavy makeup that would immediately draw attention and put her secret even more at risk?

Sue asks Henrietta to put a stamp on it – meaning on a letter. But, as is so often the case, Henrietta misunderstands and gives Sue a foot that stamps on anything – and with the force of an elephant. 

Katie’s sneaky cousins pull the old signpost switch on her. This causes her to bump into a band of smugglers, and she has to find a way to escape from them. We are informed Katie will get revenge on her cousins next week. 

“Stage Fright!” reaches its penultimate episode. The deranged Lady Alice has been blocking Linda and Melanie from acting because she stands to gain Banbury Manor out of it. But upon hearing Linda has foiled her attempt to stop Melanie entering the acting trophy, she decides that if she can’t have the manor, nobody else will. She’s going to burn it down – with Linda locked inside!

In the Gypsy Rose story, Dee also falls foul of a deranged woman who locks her in. The nutty old woman thinks Dee’s her lost daughter Celia, who eloped to marry the man she loved, not the man her mother chose. She does not realise Celia died before she got the chance to reconcile with her. Fortunately, Celia’s ghost is on hand to help. 

Maggie’s first TV rehearsal is ruined because Mum lumbered her with babysitting. Miss Keyes, her TV mother, is the only bright spot in her life now. Why is it that the make-believe mother she has on the set is far more desirable than the real one who married an unsuitable stepfather?

Mother Heggerty forces Jody to search for the Saxton family she wants revenge on. The search leads Jody to the remains of their old home, and the next step is a spell cast there to find out what happened to them.

Janey goes time travelling to the time of the ancient Celts, where she becomes the chosen one of Epona the horse goddess. In this time period the villagers face a threat, just like the 20th century ones, though the threats are of very different sorts. Is this why Janey keeps seeing this white horse? Is she some sort of chosen one or a reincarnation?

Alley Cat makes a new home in a pipe after Spotty blows up his bin. Spotty sends it rolling downhill, and right where it foils a bank robbery. Alley Cat spends his reward money on a new home that Spotty can’t blow up. Foiled again, Spotty!

Jinty 19 November 1977

Cover: Christine Ellingham

Come Into My Parlour (first episode) – artist Douglas Perry

Christmas Mobile part 1 – feature

Give a Victorian Party! Feature

Two Mothers for Maggie (first episode) – Jim Baikie

Sue’s Fantastic Fun-Bag! – artist Hugh Thornton-Jones

Guardian of White Horse Hill – artist Julian Vivas, writer Pat Mills

Stage Fright! – artist Phil Townsend

The Secret World (Gypsy Rose’s Tales of Mystery and Magic) – artist Keith Robson

Patrick Duffy – feature 

Rinty ‘n’ Jinty – cartoon

Land of No Tears – artist Guy Peeters, writer Pat Mills

Race for a Fortune (first episode) – artist Christine Ellingham

Paper Flowers – Feature

In this issue, Jinty starts her buildup to Christmas with a four-part Christmas tree mobile. It’s got us thinking about Christmas already, eh? She also starts a four-part feature on how to throw original parties. The first is a Victorian-themed party.

Phil Gascoine’s artwork is taking a break from Jinty. It turns out to be an uncharacteristically long one that lasts well into the new year. His artwork is not seen again in Jinty until July 1978, with “The Changeling“. Now this is puzzling, given that periods between Gascoine serials were usually short in Jinty.

Three new stories start. The first is “Come Into My Parlour”, where Jody Sinclair falls under the spell of an evil witch, Mother Heggerty. The second is “Two Mothers for Maggie”, where Maggie Jones launches on an acting career after nothing but doing chores at home for her sleazy stepfather, only to find herself torn between her real mother and a make-believe mother on the set. The last is “Race for a Fortune”, where Katie McNab really has to get her skates on when her miserly Uncle Ebenezer’s will dictates that the first of his young relatives to reach Yuckiemuckle under their own steam and without money will inherit his fortune. Of course Katie’s rivals Rodney and Caroline are not playing fair or obeying the conditions of the will. 

In “Land of No Tears”, Cassy is learning – the hard way – more about the harshness of the dystopian world of the future she has landed in. Perfecta’s idea of teaching Cassy disclipine is to force her to stand under a sub-zero shower for 15 minutes, then says she does the same thing herself for 30 minutes each day. Then Cassy is shocked to see girls who are deemed rejects like herself and relegated to the “inferior” Gamma class to do slave work are not even disabled by our standards. Wearing glasses, having clumsy thumbs or bearing a scar from a childhood accident are enough. What can Cassy do about this? She’s already come up with something to show the Gammas the Alphas are not so perfect: a practical joke on Perfecta to make her lose her temper in front of the Gammas, something Perfecta is not supposed to do because Alphas have to repress their emotions. And boy, is Perfecta steaming! She definitely is not one to joke with. We know Perfecta will make Cassy suffer for this, but Cassy’s plan pay off?

Beryl is a pain in the neck who sometimes appears in “Sue’s Fantastic Fun-Bag!”. This week she’s a tattle-tale with a superior attitude. She boasts she always tells the truth. Henrietta decides to take Beryl at her word and put a spell on her to make her always tell the truth – literally. This soon reveals that Beryl is not as perfect or honest as she likes to have everyone think.

The moral of this week’s Gypsy Rose story is to listen if you’re warned about dangers. Kay disobeys her brother Bruce’s warning not to attempt a piece of pot-holing that’s too tricky and advanced for her, and naturally she runs into big trouble. Then she is surprised to get help from the Little People. An additional moral might be to do some research about pot-holing, as none of the pot-holers are wearing helmets.

Janey discovers the council has plans to bulldoze the village and part of White Horse Hill for a motorway. Could this have something to do with why she keeps seeing that white horse when nobody else can? 

In “Stage Fright!”, Linda is teaching mute Melanie to be a mime, and she’s got a real talent for it. Then she discovers the frosty Lady Alice is out to crush Melanie’s talent, and she’s done a really good job of turning Melanie against her. But why is Lady Alice doing this anyway? Another mystery to unravel about the Banbury family. 

Jinty 8 October 1977

Destiny Brown (artist Rodrigo Comos)

Sue’s Fantastic Fun-Bag! (artist Hugh Thornton-Jones)

Guardian of White Horse Hill (artist Julian Vivas, writer Pat Mills)

Alley Cat (artist Rob Lee)

The Goose Girl (artist Keith Robson, writer Alison Christie)

Rinty ‘n’ Jinty (cartoon)

Berni in the Big Time (Berni Flint feature)

Stage Fright! (artist Phil Townsend)

Flight Home – Gypsy Rose Story

Fran’ll Fix It! (artist Jim Baikie)

Cursed to be a Coward! (artist Mario Capaldi, writer Alison Christie)

I Spy, with My Beady Eye! (feature)

In this issue one of Jinty’s most enduring stories, “Guardian of White Horse Hill”, starts. Janey still gets nightmares of her parents’ death and clings to her teddy. This makes things difficult when she gets fostered out and she gets off to a bad start. Things look up when a beautiful white horse appears and Janey offers it an apple. Then it just seems to disappear…like a ghost. There’s not a trace of it or hoofmarks.

Alley Cat is pursuing apples too, from Spotty Muchloot’s orchard. Spotty goes to extreme measures to deal with Alley Cat – chop down the apple trees. Dad is very angry to find his entire orchard has been felled. 

This week’s Gypsy Rose story is a weird one to make sense of, and the protagonist in the story is clearly having a hard time making sense of it too. She’s an air stewardess who has a vision of an Indian boy named Rajan walking right off the plane in mid-flight. Nobody has any record of Rajan even being on board, yet she has a carved elephant he gave her. She asks Gypsy Rose for help, and they find Rajan was in hospital at the time of the flight. But yes, that’s definitely the carved elephant he made in woodwork class. He was going to give it to her on the flight. He thought it got lost in the fire that put him in hospital, but there it is in her possession. Okay, you confused yet? Nobody but Gypsy Rose seems to understand it. 

Destiny Brown has seventh sight, yet she never seems to foresee how to keep out of trouble. She has gone in search of her father, who has been accused of bank robbery. She camps out for the night at a funfair but gets caught. What are they going to do with her?

Sue’s got problems with seeing through a microscope and calls on Henrietta for help with a “see through” spell. Unfortunately the spell gets skewed because Henrietta wasn’t on the ball, with hilarious hijinks. Fortunately everything works out in the end for all those who got caught up in it.

Goose girl Glenda enters a wildlife poster competition, using her beloved goose as a model. Bird-hating Mum foils her again, but Glenda’s not wasting the poster – she’s using it to demonstrate against the local goose-hunting. However, she is not getting any support – except for the geese behind her. 

In “Stage Fright!”, Linda finds out why someone is gunning for her – Lord Banbury is leaving his mansion to her on condition she win the acting trophy that has been in the Banbury family for three generations. Everything points to Lady Alice being her enemy – but is she? Then Linda gets locked in. Her enemy again?

“Fran’ll Fix It” fixes a burglar posing as a policeman. But she could do something to fix things up for the poor gardener – she keeps accidentally dropping plaster casts on his head. 

In “Cursed to be a Coward!”, the crazed Madam Leo almost drowns Marnie and gets away with it because the police won’t listen to Marnie. Cousin Babs suggests confrontation time with Madam Leo, so she and Marnie go together. There’s a real face-off starting. How will it work out?

Jinty 15 October 1977

• Destiny Brown (artist Rodrigo Comos)
• Sue’s Fantastic Fun-Bag! (artist Hugh Thornton-Jones)
• Guardian of White Horse Hill (artist Julian Vivas)
• Alley Cat
• The Goose Girl (artist Keith Robson; writer Alison Christie)
• So What’s New with David Essex? (feature)
• Rinty ‘n’ Jinty
• Stage Fright! (artist Phil Townsend)
• Lilies for the Bride – Gypsy Rose story (artist Christine Ellingham)
• Fran’ll Fix It! (artist Jim Baikie)
• Cursed to be a Coward! (artist Mario Capaldi; writer Alison Christie)
• Autumn Treasures! (craft feature)

If you’ve read Mistyfan’s superb, thorough rundown of the cover styles that Jinty had over the years, you may remember this issue being noted as the last one which had a separate blue background behind the logo. (Following issues had the logo incorporated into the body of the cover design itself.) However, we had not yet posted about the issue itself, which I am remedying here.

Destiny Brown is trapped in a number of ways – having run away to find her father, her purse was stolen and she had to sleep rough. Not surprisingly she was quickly set up to be exploited by some rough types, especially once they realize they may have struck gold, if she really can predict the future with her second sight. Poor old Destiny – dragged away by these dodgy geezers, just as she has bumped into her father, who is likewise being dragged away by – who is *he* trapped by? It looks like the police, but is it really so? The art, by Rodrigo Comos, is clear and classy, if perhaps slightly old-fashioned looking for the time.

The letters page includes a list of the winners of a recent competition: the first ten correct entries won a KODAK Instamatic camera, while the 60 runners up won a giant full-colour poster of Starsky and Hutch. Looking at the names of the winners carefully, most of them are, unsurprisingly, traditional English, Irish, or Scottish girls names; but there are one or two less usual entrants hidden in the mix, indicating some small diversity of the readership. Pushpa Hallan is one of the ten winners of the main prize, and C. Thiyagalingam is one of the 60 winners of the runner-up prize. Perhaps even less expectedly, there is also one boy’s name included: Adrian King.

Orphan Janey is adapting to being fostered by the Carters – but when she sees a beautiful white horse, they think she is making up stories to impress them. What Janey doesn’t yet realize is that no-one else can see the horse apart from her – and nor will any photos of the horse show it, either! It’s all tied up with the local beauty spot, White Horse Hill, which is threatened by the destructive plans to build a motorway.

Brenda Noble is a bird-lover who is campaigning against the local sport of goose shooting in the village she lives in with her mother. Her mother hates birds as she blames them for her husband’s death – and soon she enacts her plans to take the two of them to Edinburgh away from the wee ‘backwater’ village.

“Stage Fright” is an odd mystery story: stylishly drawn by Phil Townsend, the protagonist Linda is being made by Lord Banbury to train as an actor in order to win an acting trophy that has been in his family for generations. But who is locking her into places, stealing her costume, and watching her from afar?

The Gypsy Rose story this week is drawn by Christine Ellingham, who until recently we were only able to list as the ‘unknown artist of Concrete Surfer’. What a pleasure to be able to correctly credit this lovely art! Delphine is a lively girl who works in a florist’s shop. She has an irrational fear of lilies, but the rich customer who falls for her wants a centrepiece of those same flowers, to be put together with her very own hands. Not only that – once he proposes to her, Delphine finds out that his mother’s name is Lily, and she is due to sleep in the lily room. All omens that tell her that soon she will meet the spirit of the lily – in death.

The evil fortune teller who is the villain of “Cursed To Be A Coward!” manages to get Marnie Miles thrown into a rickety old boat in the middle of a pond – luckily she gets fished out but the fortune teller’s determination to make sure that blue water will get her yet is pretty sinister.

The craft suggested for this week is to collect up ‘autumn treasures’ such as the heads of cow parsley, twigs with berries, or pretty leaves, and to make dried arrangements of them in vases, or pictures, or perhaps even jewellery of the tougher seedpods of ash keys or beech nut cases. The pictures accompanying the feature make it all look rather pretty, but I would assume that beech nut cases in particular would be rather scratchy to turn into jewellery!

Pat Mills: Interview

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

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

Known stories (Jinty)

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

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

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

Tammy

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

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

Misty

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

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

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

Pat Mills: No, none of those are mine.

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

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

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

I wrote “Captives of Madam Karma” in Sandie.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Jinty 26 November 1977

• Come into My Parlour (artist Douglas Perry)
• Christmas mobile part 2 – feature
• Two Mothers for Maggie (artist Jim Baikie)
• Sue’s Fantastic Fun-Bag! (artist Hugh Thornton-Jones)
• Guardian of White Horse Hill (artist Julian Vivas)
• Stage Fright! (artist Phil Townsend)
• Jinty Pops the Question! (quiz)
• The Scarecrow of Dread – Gypsy Rose story (artist Terry Aspin)
• Land of No Tears (artist Guy Peeters, writer Pat Mills)
• Race for a Fortune (artist Christine Ellingham unknown Concrete Surfer artist)
• More Flowery Fun (feature)

Jinty is gearing up for Christmas with her Christmas mobiles. And things gear up elsewhere in the issue as well. In Land of No Tears, Cassy’s getting her ideas together to liberate the Gamma girls. And her plan is to train them up to win a top sports award. In part two of Race for a Fortune, Katie has to get her thinking cap on to raise money because under the terms of her Uncle’s will, both she and her scheming cousins had to set off without money. In Stage Fright, a doctor is called in and Linda tries to get him to help Melanie. Can he help Melanie to remember her past and break her free from the scheming Lady Alice? Janey learns that her Guardian of White Horse Hill was a Celtic goddess! And in Two Mothers for Maggie, step-dad still thinks acting is a waste of time for Maggie, and he gets abusive when he finds out she has gotten a job on television.

Douglas Perry is drawing his first serial for Jinty, Come into My Parlour, about an evil witch who enslaves a girl with a spider-like necklace. It’s strange that both serials Perry drew for Jinty had witch themes. The first features the typical evil crone who is out to cause trouble with her evil magic, while the pendulum swings to the other end with the second, Shadow on the Fen, which depicts witches as they really were – wise women who helped people with folk magic and the real evil lay with the people who persecuted them. Maybe it’s Perry’s style that made him the choice for drawing these serials?

Although Halloween was a month ago, there is a distinctive Halloween flavour with this week’s Gypsy Rose story. A terrifying scarecrow and horrible turnip faces are scaring Oonah Jack at the farm she is trying to run. Fortunately for her, she has Gypsy Rose for company.

Stories translated into Dutch

Following up on the previous post on European Translations, Sleuth from Catawiki has kindly sent me a list she has prepared of Jinty stories which were translated into Dutch. (See also some comments from her in that post, about Dutch translations.) They were mostly published in the weekly comic Tina and/or in the reprint album format Tina Topstrip. The list below shows the original title, followed by the title in the Dutch translation, with a literal translation in [square brackets] where appropriate, and then the details of the publication that the translation appeared in. It is ordered by date of original publication.

• Gwen’s Stolen Glory (1974): De droom van een ander [Someone else’s dream] (in: Tina Club 1975-2)
• Dora Dogsbody (1974-76): Hilda Hondemoppie (in: Tina 1974)
• Gail’s Indian Necklace (1974): Anak-Har-Li [the name of the Indian deity on the necklace] (in: Tina Club 1975-01)
• Always Together (1974): Voor altijd samen (in: Tina 1985/86)
• Wild Horse Summer (1974): De zomer van het witte paard [White Horse Summer] (in: Tina 1976, Tina Topstrip 15 (1980))
• Left-Out Linda (1974): Linda (in: Tina 1975/76)
• Wenna the Witch (1974): Wenna de heks (in: Tina 1976, Tina Topstrip 34, 1981)
• Slave of the Mirror (1975): De spiegel met de slangen [The Snakes Mirror] (in: Tina 1976)
• The Kat and Mouse Game (1975): Als kat en muis [Like cat and mouse] (in: Tina 1985)
• Tricia’s Tragedy (1975): Tineke – Strijd om de Lankman-trofee [Tineke – Fighting for the Lankman Trophy] (in: Tina 1975/76, Tina Topstrip 18 (1980)).
• The Valley of the Shining Mist (1975): Het dal van de glanzende nevel (in: Tina 1977)
• Barracuda Bay (1975): Susan Stevens – Barracudabaai (in: Tina 1971); reprint from June & School Friend 1970.
• The Haunting of Hazel: Hazel en haar berggeest [Hazel and her Mountain Ghost] (in: Tina 1976/77, Tina Topstrip 27 (1981))
• For Peter’s Sake! (1976): De opdracht van Josefien [Josephine’s Assignment] (in: Tina Boelboek 5 (1985))
• The Slave of Form 3B (1976): In de ban van Isabel [Under Isabel’s Spell] (in: Groot Tina Zomerboek 1984-2)
• Then there were 3 … (1976): Toen waren er nog maar drie (in: Groot Tina Lenteboek 1982-1
• Horse from the Sea (1976): De legende van het witte paard [The Legend of the White Horse] (in: Tina 1985)
• Snobby Shirl the Shoeshine Girl! (1976): Freule Frederique [Lady Frederique] (in: Tina 1979)
• Stefa’s Heart of Stone (1976): Steffie’s hart van steen (in: Tina 1986). Reprint in Tammy 1984
• Girl in a Bubble (1976): Gevangen in een luchtbel [Prisoner in a Bubble] (in: Tina 1977, Tina Topstrip 29, 1981).
• Sceptre of the Toltecs (1977): De scepter van de Tolteken (in: Tina 1978; Tina Topstrip 44, 1982)
• The Mystery of Martine (1976-77): De dubbelrol van Martine [Martine’s Double Role] (in: Tina 1978).
• Mark of the Witch! (1977): Het teken van de heks (in: Tina 1982/83)
• Freda, False Friend (1977): Frieda, de valse vriendin (in: Tina 1978/79)
• Spell of the Spinning Wheel (1977): De betovering van het spinnewiel (in: Tina 1978; Tina Topstrip 42, 1982)
• The Darkening Journey (1977): Samen door het duister [Through the Darkness Together] (in: Tina 1981/82)
• Creepy Crawley (1977): In de macht/ban van een broche [Under the Spell of a Brooch] (In: Tina 1979; Tina Topstrip 60, 1984)
• Kerry in the Clouds (1977): Klaartje in de wolken (in: Tina 1978)
• The Robot Who Cried (1977): Robot L4A ontsnapt! [Robot Elvira Gets Away] (in: Tina 1985/86).
• Curtain of Silence (1977): Achter het stille gordijn [Behind the Silent Curtain] (in: Tina 1978/79, Tina Topstrip 52, 1983)
• Fran’ll Fix it! (1977; 1978-79): short story 3/4; Annabel versiert ‘t wel [Annabel will fix it]; episodes in Tina from 1983 till 1994; there were also “Dutch” episodes written by Bas van der Horst and drawn by Comos, and there is an episode in 1994 written by Ian Mennell and drawn by Comos.
• Who’s That in My Mirror? (1977): Het spookbeeld in de spiegel [The Ghost in the Mirror] (in: Tina 1980)
• Cursed to be a Coward! (1977): Zoals de waarzegster voorspelde [Like the Fortune-Teller Predicted] (in: Tina 1979, Tina Topstrip 49, 1983)
• Destiny Brown (1977): De vreemde visioenen van Seventa Smit [Seventa Smit’s Strange Visions] (in: Tina 1980)
• The Goose Girl (1977): not translated directly but the storyline was probably used for Maartje, het ganzenmeisje [Marge, the Goose Girl] in Tina 1979, art by Piet Wijn; Tina Topstrip 40, 1982).
• Stage Fright! (1977): De gevangene van Valckensteyn [Prisoner of Valckensteyn/Falconstone] (in: Tina 1981)
• Guardian of White Horse Hill (1977): Epona, wachter van de paardenvallei [Epona, Guardian of the Horse Valley] (in: Tina 1978; Tina Topstrip 37, 1982)
• Land of No Tears (1977-78): Wereld zonder tranen [World of No Tears] (in: Groot Tina Lenteboek 1983-1)
• Come into My Parlour (1977-78): Kom maar in mijn web [Just Come into My Web] (in: Groot Tina Boek 1981-3)
• Race for a Fortune (1977-78): Om het fortuin van oom Archibald [Race for Uncle Archibald’s Fortune] (in: Tina 1980)
• Concrete Surfer (1977-78): Ik heb altijd m’n skateboard nog! [At least I’ve still got my skateboard] (in: Tina 1980)
• Paula’s Puppets (1978): De poppen van Petra [Petra’s Puppets] (in: Tina 1979, Tina Topstrip 54, 1983). Perhaps they changed the name because there was a Stewardess Paula strip in Tina at the time.
• Slave of the Swan (1978): De wraak van de Zwaan [Revenge of the Swan] (in: Tina 1980)
• The Birds (1978): De vogels (in: Groot Tina Boek 1978 winter).
• Clancy on Trial (1978): Nancy op proef [Nancy on Trial – the name Clancy is highly unusual in the Netherlands] (in: Tina 1979)
• Wild Rose (1978): Waar hoor ik thuis? [Where do I belong?] (in: Tina 1980)
• 7 Steps to the Sisterhood (1978): Gevaar loert op Lansdael [Danger at Lansdael] (in: Tina 1980)
• The Human Zoo (1978): Als beesten in een kooi [Like Animals in a Cage] (in: Tina 1986). Reprint in Tammy 1982.
• No Cheers for Cherry (1978): Geen applaus voor Sandra [No Applause for Sandra] (in: Groot Tina Zomerboek 1983-2)
• The Girl Who Never Was (1979): De verbanning van Irma Ijsinga [Irma Ijsinga’s Banishment] (in: Tina 1981)
• Sea-Sister (1979): Gevangene van de zee [Prisoner of the Sea] (in: Tina 1989)
• The Forbidden Garden (1979): De verboden tuin (in: Tina 1982/83). Reprint in Tammy 1984
• Bizzie Bet and the Easies (1979): Dina Doe douwt door [Dinah Do Pushes Through] (just one episode, in: Groot Tina Lenteboek 1982-1).
• Almost Human (1979): De verloren planeet [The Lost Planet] (in: Tina 1984)
• Village of Fame (1979): Het dorp waar nooit ‘ns iets gebeurde [The Village Where Nothing Ever Happened] (in: Tina 1982)
• Combing Her Golden Hair (1979): Kirsten, kam je gouden lokken [Kirsten, Comb Your Golden Locks] (in: Tina 1981, Tina Topstrip 64, 1985: Kam je gouden lokken)
• Waves of Fear (1979): In een golf van angst [In a Wave of Fear] (in: Tina 1983)
• White Water (1979-80): Wild Water [Wild Water] (in: Tina 1984)
• When Statues Walk… (1979-80): De wachters van Thor [Thor’s Guardians] (in: Tina 1981/82, Tina Topstrip 71, 1985)
• The Venetian Looking Glass (1980): Het gezicht in de spiegel [The Face in the Mirror] (in: Tina 1983)
• Seulah the Seal (1979-80): Sjoela de zeehond (in: Tina 1980/81, little booklets in black and white that came as a free gift, stapled in the middle of a Tina).
• A Spell of Trouble (1980): Anne Tanne Toverheks [Anne Tanne Sorceress, a sort of nursery rhyme name] (in: Tina 1984/85)
• Girl the World Forgot (1980): Door iedereen vergeten [Forgotten by everyone] (in: Tina 1987)
• The Ghost Dancer (1981): Dansen in het maanlicht [Dancing in the Moonlight] (in: Tina 1983)
• Holiday Hideaway (1981): Wie niet weg is, is gezien [If you’re not gone, you’re seen – a sentence children use in hide-and-seek] (in: Tina 1982)
• Freda’s Fortune (1981): Could be: Fortuin voor Floortje [A Fortune for Florrie] (in: Groot Tina Herfstboek 1983-3)
• Airgirl Emma’s Adventure (reprint from June 1969, in Jinty Holiday Special 1975): Short story 16; Emma zoekt het hogerop [Emma takes it higher up] (in: Tina 1970)

Various of the stories translated in Tina were also reprinted in the Indonesian title Nina (of course Indonesia is a former Dutch colony, making for a clear link). These will be listed on a new reference page for Translations into Indonesian.

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This long list enables us to see how very popular some creators were – for instance, a large number of Jim Baikie and Phil Gascoine stories are included (though not all, by any means). Of course, these were also the most prolific of Jinty artists too.

Many stories were translated very shortly after initial publication, and then reprinted in album form some time later. There was also a ‘second round’ of translation work done after Jinty ceased publication, to go back and pick some of the earlier stories that had not been selected earlier. This was the case with “Always Together” and “The Kat and Mouse Game”, for instance.

Many but by no means all of the story titles were translated fairly literally or exactly, though the main character’s name was almost invariably exchanged for another one. Some titles ended up particularly poetical or neat in translation: “A Spell of Trouble” and “Holiday Hideaway” perhaps benefit most from their translated titles. Of course, there are also some losers: I think “The Human Zoo” and “The Girl Who Never Was” ended up with less resonant titles through the process.

A wide range of stories were translated: spooky stories, humour stories, science fiction, adventure, sports stories. There are some omissions that I’m surprised by, though of course the editors had to pick and choose from so much that was available. “Fran of the Floods” was probably too long (see Marc’s comment about the length of stories selected for translation). No Gypsy Rose stories were selected – maybe they didn’t want a storyteller, ‘grab-bag’ approach? I am however quite surprised at the omission of the excellent “Children of Edenford” (1979). Could it have been too subversive a story, with its underlying theme of adults undermining their position of trust by hypnotizing children in order to control their moral development? The similarly-themed “Prisoner of the Bell” was also not translated. Of course this is rather a guess! At the end of the day I’m sure there were just more stories to choose from than there were spaces for publication.

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For reference, I also include a complete list of stories published in the album format Tina Topstrip (71 albums in total). This gives us a view of how many of the reprinted stories deemed worthy of collection came from which original title. Note that some of the stories in this album format were themselves originally written in Dutch as they are credited to a Dutch writer. (NB I will add this to the new page created for Translations into Dutch)

1. Becky Never Saw The Ball
2. Twinkle, Twinkle, Daisy Star
3. Wee Sue
4. Het geheim van oom Robert (original story in Dutch)
5. Kimmy op de modetoer (original title unknown)
6. Marcella het circuskind (original title unknown)
7. Moses and Me
8. Peggy en Jeroen (Patty’s World story)
9. Anja – Dorp in gevaar (original title unknown)
10. Het lied van de rivier (Patty and the Big Silver Bull Band story, original in Dutch)
11. Sonja en de mysterieuze zwemcoach (I suspect this is a translation as no writer is given)
12. De man in het koetshuis (original story in Dutch)
13. Linda’s verdriet (original title unknown, from Tammy)
14. Het circus komt (original story in Dutch)
15. Wild Horse Summer
16. Noortje (original story in Dutch)
17. Ruzie om Jeroen (Patty’s World story)
18. Tricia’s Tragedy
19. Het lied van de angst (Patty and the Big Silver Bull Band story, original in Dutch)
20. Silver Is A Star (from Sandie)

Jinty 3 December 1977

Stories in this issue:

• Come Into My Parlour (artist Douglas Perry)
• Two Mothers for Maggie (artist Jim Baikie)
• Sue’s Fantastic Fun-Bag! (artist Hugh Thornton-Jones)
• Guardian of White Horse Hill (artist Julian Vivas)
• Stage Fright! (artist Phil Townsend)
• Gypsy Rose: A Picture of the Past (artist and writer Keith Robson)
• Alley Cat
• Land of No Tears (artist Guy Peeters, writer Pat Mills)
• Race for a Fortune

I got this issue out to scan the Gypsy Rose story for the Keith Robson interview, as it is the first script he wrote as well as being drawn by him. It’s a cool time-travel story with a twist, and one that I found memorable; it came to mind many years later when I visited Lacock Abbey where the inventor of photography, Fox Talbot, lived.

“Come Into My Parlour” is spooky: I find Douglas Perry’s artwork very atmospheric for this sort of thing. Evil old Mother Heggerty is proper creepy! She forces Jody Sinclair to be her slave, her literal cat’s-paw, to get revenge on a family called Saxton – and when Jody tries to rebel, she is reminded of how under the spell she is as she can’t even take off the cat’s-paw necklace that binds her to the old witch…

“Two Mothers for Maggie” contrasts Maggie Jones’ glamorous role in a tv soap opera with her humdrum life in a house full of poverty and hard work: she tries to do her homework and instead has to help the kids with breakfast while her slobby stepfather gobbles down his full English. The whole story is Maggie being tugged between her family – especially her mother, who she dearly loves – and her exciting life in tv and the luxury of her telly mother’s home.

“Guardian of White Horse Hill” has runaway Janey finding out that her mysterious white horse is actually Epona, the Celtic horse goddess! No wonder when she gets on the horse’s back she is invisible – an easy task for a goddess presumably. Powerful beings like that have a habit of wanting something in return, and Janey starts to find out more as she is dragged back into Celtic times…

“Stage Fright!” is a thriller mystery based around a girl with amnesia and another girl who is being made to win an acting trophy, otherwise her father will lose his job. (Of course this sort of blackmail is hardly unusual in girls’ comics, as you have gathered by now!) Protagonist Linda has taken her new friend Melanie to be hypotised, hoping it will bring back her memory and even the voice that she lost in the same accident that made her amnesiac. It works, but reveals a greater threat at the house they both live in: Melanie’s aunt is a scheming murderess who caused the death of Melanie’s father and mother in a boating accident – yes, it’s rather melodramatic as a plot item but the scene is drawn beautifully by Phil Townsend. Can the two girls secretly work against the aunt?

“Land of No Tears” is still at an early stage at this point, but Cassie already has a plan to get back at the bitchy Alpha girls in the dystopian world she has landed in: she will lead her pack of Gamma girls to win the Golden Girl trophy! It would be a hopeless task except that one of them turns out to be superb at gymnastics. Hmm, now what secret is Miranda hiding?

“Race for a Fortune” is a light-weight amusing comedy story with a scruffs-vs-snobs theme: Katie is up against her two posh cousins in a race to get to the Scottish ancestral land of their late grandfather, starting off with nothing in their pockets. Katie is clearly far more resourceful than the two poshos; it doesn’t always work out for her but this week she manages to get her cousins stuck in a medical research facility, being well-paid to help science by trying to catch a cold! And of course in the meantime Katie gets a few days’ head start, grinning as she goes… This is drawn by the same unknown artist who drew one of my favourite stories, “Concrete Surfer“.

European Translations

In the couple of days since the interview with Alison Christie was published, we have had some particularly interesting information sent in. Candela, who writes about girls’ comics in Spain, tells us that Alison’s ‘story “Over the Rainbow” was very popular in Spain and reprinted in two different girl’s magazines, and of course all the stories under the Gypsy Rose head, which in Spain sometimes were reprinted under the Uncle Pete’s stories.’ Likewise, Peggy from Greece wrote in to say ‘I was really touched to discover after 40 years the writer of one of the stories (“My Name is Nobody”) that I loved in my early youth! It is such a lovely story about the power of friendship’. She was even able to send in some scans of the Greek translation of this story, shown here with many thanks to her (see below for the first and last episodes). She also says that ‘”My Name Is Nobody” was selected to be among the stories to be included in the first issues of the Greek magazine Manina (issue 9), something that shows the significance of the story itself! Just for your information, the other stories of the first issues were “The Cat Girl” (from Sally),  “Molly Mills” (from Tammy), “Lucky’s Living Doll” (from June &  Schoolfriend), “Jackie & the Wild Boys” (from Princess Tina)” and “Bessie Bunter” (from June & Schoolfriend).’

Greek translation of “Nobody Knows My Name” (originally published in June & Schoolfriend, 1971)

click thru for first episode

click thru for last episode

The work done by writers and artists in comics like Jinty was typically on a work-for-hire basis, with a flat fee being paid and no expectation of earning royalties on reprints or translations and so forth. The artwork was owned by the publishing company and not sent back to the artist. A lot of the communication we’d perhaps expect to be happening was just not on the cards: for instance it does not seem that Alison was very aware of the extent of her stories’ popularity, and certainly she was not aware that “Stefa’s Heart of Stone” was reprinted in Princess in 1984. (Indeed, in a reply to a reader’s 1981 letter, this story was described as one of Jinty‘s most popular stories.) Translations into another language were presumably something that creators were unaware of the existence of, except as a vague possibility.

(In a separate email, Alison says ‘I did know that DC Thomsons had a room with magazine journalists seconded to doing this, syndicating picture stories for European countries. As the payment slips freelancers like myself got always had at the foot, “All copyright for all purposes”; this meant they could do what they liked with picture stories etc, once they had paid the writer and artist a one-off payment. However, I had no idea that IPC did this as well – but I didn’t keep any payslips from them, and I can’t remember what was written on them. It must have been on these lines.’ From my own personal knowledge, I was involved with the SSI – the Society of Strip Illustrators – in the early 1990s and there was much talk at the time about work-for-hire contracts and the rather brutal agreements in place. There was little or nothing in the way of a formal contract, and instead as Alison says, your actual payment slip confirmed that this was in consideration of all your creators rights. There would have been no way round this if you wanted to be paid! At the time I was involved in these areas, there was a lot of work being done to change this situation, but at one time it was very normal and not even questioned by many.)

However, it is clear that there was a lot of this translation going on over the years, in many directions. The Dutch auction site Catawiki is an invaluable resource for many British comics but particularly so for this question; although details are not all complete in every cases it lists stories by issue, artist, writer, and original title. Many stories were reprinted in the Tina series Tina Topstrip, as albums collecting the whole story with a new cover. Usually the protagonist was also renamed to something locally suitable (so the protagonist of “Becky Never Saw The Ball” turned into “Eefje”). There was also a monthly magazine, Tina Club, which reprinted stories in an anthology format with what looks like a couple of stories in each one. For instance, “Gwen’s Stolen Glory” was translated as “De droom van een ander / The Dream of Another” in 1975.

Some of the individual Tina Topstrips I have looked at on Catawiki are listed below.

• “Girl In A Bubble” was translated as “Gevangen in een luchtbel / Caught in a bubble” in 1981 with a new cover
• “The Haunting of Hazel” was translated as “Hazel en haar berggeest / Hazel and her mountain spirit” in 1981
• “Spell of the Spinning Wheel” was translated as “De betovering van het spinnewiel / The magic of the spinning wheel” in 1982
• “When Statues Walk” was translated as “De wachters van Thor / The guardians of Thor” in 1985
• “Combing Her Golden Hair” was translated as “Kirstin, Kam je gouden lokken / Kirsten, comb your golden hair” in 1985
• Also in Tina Topstrips:
  • Creepy Crawley, Cursed To Be A Coward!, Curtain of Silence, Guardian of White Horse Hill, Paula’s Puppets, Sceptre of the Toltecs, Tricia’s Tragedy, Wenna The Witch, Wild Horse Summer

As can be seen from the above list, a number of the Jinty creators were represented in these Dutch translations – prolific artists Phil Gascoine, Jim Baikie, and Phil Townsend were all published in this series, and popular writer Alison Christie is represented too, along with Pat Mills. Nowadays the flow of material will presumably be more likely to go the other way, if at all (Trini Tinturé has recently had original Dutch material being republished in UK magazine Girls & Co).

I’m not in the best position to check, but I would love to know more about the details of these translated editions. How faithfully was the translation done? What changed, apart from names and covers – were story lines ever abridged or even amended? Were credits given to artists and writers in any cases? (I do have one or two of the Tina Topstrips and don’t believe anyone was created apart from the local artist who drew the new cover.)

I would also love to know whether this was limited to Europe or not? Once you’ve translated material into Spanish or Portuguese then Latin America becomes available as a market, but it is a lot further away for connections to be made and that may well just not have happened. I know that Brazil and Mexico have their own local comics publishing traditions, as does Argentina (I don’t know about the other Latin American countries), with quite a different feel from the British weekly comic. Certainly in Brazil and Mexico if you see a foreign translation then it is very likely to consist of American reprinted material: Disney material such as the Donald Duck stories, and the Harvey comics such as Little Lulu and Richie Rich. Marvel and DC also make a strong showing in those markets, but the sort of emotional long-running story seen in British girls comics is not very prevalent as far as I know. They would match well with the interest in telenovelas (soap operas) but perhaps this connection is one that was never made?

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Further information from Sleuth of Catawiki:

I have never closely looked at the translations done in the Netherlands. My impression is that stories are usually complete and properly translated, although the names are often changed (“Patty’s World” is translated as “Peggy’s wereldje”, probably because there already was a “Patty” strip in Tina at the time). Having said that, I should compare “Gail’s Indian Necklace” to the translation: reading the story in Jinty I found an episode in London with Gail travelling the tube that might have been taken out as it seemed new to me. Perhaps too outlandish! They always tried to make it look like the stories took place in Holland. That did not work for the school stories with all the uniformed girls of course (no uniforms at school here). I read somewhere that a girl had even asked her parents to send her to boarding school because of the stories in Tina. She did not like it very much when she got there. Boarding schools here are for children whose parents are travelling or for children with behaviour problems or illnesses which cannot be taken care of at home. Another story that I should compare one of these days is “Maartje het ganzenmeisje” (Marge the goose girl). The story very much resembles the story of “The Goose Girl”, but the story takes place in Holland and is drawn by Dutch artist Piet Wijn.