Tammy 4 August 1979

Cover artist: John Richardson

Bella (artist John Armstrong)

The Stand-in (artist Giorgio Giorgetti)

Proud as Punch (artist Tony Coleman)

The Happiest Days (artist Mario Capaldi)

Bessie Bunter (artist Arthur Martin)

Molly Mills and the Charleston Contest (artist Douglas Perry, writer Maureen Spurgeon) – first episode

Pictures from the Past (artist Audrey Fawley) – Strange Story

Wee Sue (artist Robert MacGillivray)

The Wolf at Our Door (artist Bob Harvey)

Edie’s Hobbyhorse: Why Not Make a Shell Collage – feature 

For 1979 in our Tammy August month round, there is a particular reason for profiling this August issue. At times, Tammy made in-jokes about the Tammy team, and the cover makes reference to comic book artist Mario Capaldi coming from a family of ice-cream vendors. Is the ice-cream man on the cover Mario Capaldi? Maybe someone can enlighten us. At any rate, there is a resemblance to Mario the ice-cream man, drawn by Capaldi himself, in a “Life’s a Ball for Nadine” episode. The episode appeared Jinty 27 December 1980.

The cover also brings a seaside flavour to the issue. This ties in with the craft feature on the back cover (making a shell collage) and the Wee Sue story. Miss Bigger informs the class that “an important coastal company have appointed me as their chairman!” Translation: she’s taken an extra job as a deckchair attendant. Too bad for her Wee Sue was taking a holiday at the same beach. Hijinks ensue, of course, but things end happily for them both. Two serials, “Proud as Punch” and “The Stand-in”, also tie in with the seaside/holiday theme. Perhaps they were published for the very purpose.

We mentioned Mario Capaldi a moment ago, and his current Tammy serial is “The Happiest Days”. It’s an evil influence story, except it’s played for laughs instead of scares, which makes it different. A frightful portrait of a school founder casts such a pall over a school it’s the most miserable school in Britain. The school is due to close because of falling numbers, but how to recruit more pupils with that portrait around?

Molly Mills’ new story is actually the second Molly story titled “The Charleston Contest”. The first appeared in the Thewenetti era. In the first, Molly enters a Charleston Contest to win money for her family (with Betty and Kitty playing dirty tricks, but there’s a last minute surprise save from Pickering). This time, Molly’s doing the Charleston Contest for the crippled Miss Claire.

Bessie’s also being a performer this week, in honour of Stackers’ birthday. Her conjuring act is a real performance, with some things not going quite right, but in the end she pulls one out of her hat. Of course her best trick is making food disappear. 

The Bob Harvey story, “A Wolf at Our Door”, now hits its climax. Jenny discovers who is trying to help her with the wolf pack – the aristocratic Rowena Rufley – and why. It’s because of an ancient prophecy. And now it looks like the prophecy is coming true. 

This week’s Strange Story (below) has a modern photographer meet a Victorian one. The artwork is by the ever-popular Audrey Fawley.

Bella is being fostered by the rich Courtney-Pikes, and it’s nice to see her being spoiled and loved for a change. But when they try to turn her into a lady…well, Eliza Doolittle had nothing on Bella, especially as she can’t resist any opportunity to break into gymnastics!

Tammy 9 June 1979

Cover artist: John Armstrong

Bella (artist John Armstrong, writer Primrose Cumming)

The Happiest Days (artist Mario Capaldi) – first episode

100 Tammy Leotards To Be Won! – Contest 

Get Your Skates On, Katie (artist Diane Gabbot(t))

Karina and Khan (artist Jordi Franch)

Bessie Bunter (artist Arthur Martin)

Molly Mills and the Grim Governess (artist Douglas Perry, writer Maureen Spurgeon)

Wee Sue (artist Mike White)

The Peasant’s Prophesy (sic) (artist Carlos Freixas) – Strange Story

The Wolf at Our Door (artist Bob Harvey)

In our previous entry we discussed how Bella had become so powerful in Tammy that she sometimes ran Bella-inspired competitions. Here is another case, which appeared in 1979. Tammy is running a Bella-inspired contest with 100 Tammy leotards up for grabs. It’s a “spot the difference” contest, using a panel taken from the first episode of Bella’s current story. Also, Tammy announces that over the next four issues she will be running a pull-out Bella poster in four parts.  

And the Bella story itself? It’s one of Bella’s grimmest. It’s another unjust public disgrace story. After a complicated misunderstanding she can’t prove, Bella is wrongly convicted and sent to a remand home. Now she’s discovered the sensationalist treatment she’s getting from the press over it, and it’s really getting to her. 

Bessie Bunter dream sequences sometimes seem to be as thought-provoking as they are funny. This week, pollution is the theme. The episode has been posted up for you to judge how prescient it was in today’s climate (or might be in the future). 

After the status quo at Stanton Hall was restored to the Molly strip in 1978, there was a definite change. The excesses with Pickering were toned down, and the beatings and torture devices (particularly the lake, the stocks and the dungeon) were dropped, but he still remained the bully butler. In Molly’s latest story, Mistress Clare’s new governess is Pickering in female form. In fact, the servants suspect she’s Pickering’s secret wife! Heh, heh, unlikely, but they ought to get married – they’re a perfect match!

The new story, “The Happiest Days”, is an evil influence story with a difference. It could have been done the usual creepy way, but instead it’s done the funny way. Great Aunt Aggie’s frightful portrait casts such a pall over the school she founded that everyone is in a constant state of depression and weeping (yet they still make us laugh). Her descendant, Sunny Smyles, is the only one immune. Once Sunny realises what’s going on, it’s war between her and her grim ancestor, with sobriety versus cheerfulness.

Bob Harvey artwork began to appear in Tammy in 1978 with the Strange Stories, but now Harvey is drawing a serial, “The Wolf at Our Door”, a story that strongly hints the wolf is not as extinct in Britain as people think. A pack appears to have survived in a pocket environment, and it is threatening a budding kennel business. Bob Harvey artwork would become regular in Tammy when “Pam of Pond Hill” came over from Jinty near the end of 1981.

“Karina and Khan” brings some Jordi Franch artwork to Tammy. It’s essentially a horse story, with Karina fighting all odds to stay with her beloved horse, Khan, but the storyline also brings a dash of politics and the Iron Curtain with it. 

A magic pair of skates gives Katie the power to ice skate, as previous owner Katrina Freeman’s talent is channelling through her. Now, when the protagonist gains talent this way (which could be considered a form of cheating), the ending will have to show if she has gained enough from the power to do fine on her own, the power has brought out the talent she had all along and just needed confidence, or she has to quit because her talent is not genuine. A power that gives the protagonist the talent she wants is never allowed to last on a permanent basis.

Wee Sue is one strip that gets the most rotation of artwork in Tammy, and we don’t mind as she is one strip that can work well with a variety of artists who can do humour. Her current artist is Mike White. 

Carlos Freixas never drew a serial for Tammy, but his artwork appeared in the Strange Stories and, later on, in complete stories. This week he draws a Strange Story set in the French Revolution. The Duvalles rule their estate in a humane manner (unlike most French aristocrats), but this does not make them exempt from the threat of Madame La Guillotine. However, it makes people willing to help them escape, and one gives a prophecy. When the Duvalles flee, it looks like the prophecy can never be fulfilled – except for the strange thing that happened just before they did so.

Girl Picture Library

Girls’ picture libraries. The monthly Commando-style digests where girls could read a complete 64-page story every month as a supplement to their regular weekly comic. Thrillers, humour, drama, horror, supernatural, heart-breakers, fantasy or science fiction stories were told in a once-a-month, one-volume complete story.

The picture libraries also provided stories about favourite regulars such as The Four Marys, Wee Slavey and The Comp. Occasionally there were variations in the formula, such as a story being told over two picture libraries, or a picture library featuring several short stories instead of one complete one. One example was “Scream!” (not to be confused with the IPC comic of the same name), which told five scarey stories to make you scream.

Picture libraries were a long-running staple of four of DCT’s titles: Bunty, Judy, Mandy and Debbie. The Bunty picture libraries lasted 455 issues. This is not surprising as Bunty herself is the longest-running girls’ title in history. The Mandy books finished at the same time as the Bunty ones, but at 277 books. Judy produced 375 books and Debbie 197 books. Towards the end of the run reprints appeared although original stories continued.

In IPC the girls’ picture library had a more unusual and uneven history. June and Princess Tina were the only titles to produce any long-running ones. In fact, the June picture library eventually recycled the old Princess logo to become the wordy title, “June and School Friend and Princess Library Picture Library“. Maybe this was why “Picture Library” was dropped on the cover at some point after #458, though the spine continued to say “June and School Friend and Princess Picture Library” to the end of its run.

Tammy and Jinty were never given any picture libraries although they lasted the longest after June. Yet the photo-story comic, Girl (series 2) was given her own picture library. This lasted for just 30 books. Miniscule compared with the rich histories of the June picture library and its counterparts from DCT. But what gives Girl Picture Library its place on this blog is that although some of the libraries were original material, many of them also reprinted material from Jinty and Tammy.

Most of the reprints appeared under revised titles, some of which were awful and showed little thinking. For example, “Vision of Vanity Fayre” from Tammy was reprinted in Girl Picture Library #2 under the the extremely lame title of “Dear Diary”. Strangely, the last three Girl picture libraries reprinted Tammy stories under their original titles.

There were some oddities and even downright sloppiness in the run, which may indicate what sort of budget or editorship that the series was running to. For example, the cover of #16 (reprint of “My Heart Belongs to Buttons”) changes the appearance of the heroine. Readers must have been surprised or irritated when they opened the issue and found the brunette heroine inside bearing no resemblance to the girl on the cover. And the girl who appears on the cover of #25 (reprint of “Shadow on the Fen”, above) has the wrong hair colour – she is blonde on the cover but is a brunette in the story. The witchfinder too looks different – he looks younger and has a fuller face than the craggly gaunt face rendered by Douglas Perry. Still, it is a beautiful, haunting cover.

A more striking oddity was “Sue’s Daily Dozen” being reprinted over two volumes: “Spellbound” and “Bewitched”. But there was no indication in “Spellbound” to say “to be continued”. Readers must have wondered why the story suddenly stopped abruptly. The remaining pages are devoted to “Tiny Tina”, which is Wee Sue under a revised title. “Cathy’s Casebook” also appears in two volumes: “Cathy’s Crusade” and “Dr Cathy”. But the reprint is even odder in that “Dr Cathy” does not come immediately after “Cathy’s Crusade” – “The Old Mill” is in between them.

Naturally, some material and panels had to be cut or modified to make the reprints fit into 64-page pocket size volumes. For example, “Moments of Terror”, which reprints “Waves of Fear”, deletes Priscilla Heath and the orienteering club sequences. Both of these played a key role in the resolution of the story in its original run – realising that the panic Clare Harvey had while her friend was drowning in a cave was a claustrophobia attack and not the cowardice that has made her the most hated girl in town. The revelation is now made by Clare’s mother after Rachel tells her about the trick Jean pulled – playing on Clare’s claustrophobia – to get her expelled.

On the other hand, the editing also mercifully reduces some of Clare’s ordeal; for example, the hostility Clare receives from the townsfolk has been removed completely. Some of the bullying at school and the harsh treatment Clare gets from her parents has been deleted as well. The editing is pretty seamless, but there is one glitch: when Clare is pushed to the brink of suicide, she thinks the business at the club was the last straw. With the orienteering club deleted, readers must immediately have wondered “what club?” or “what’s missing here?”. They would know it’s been reprinted from somewhere else because there was always a caption saying “previously published” for the reprint material.

Cutting out material also had the unfortunate effect of removing key turning points in some plots. For example, the reprint of “Thursday’s Child” removes the scene where an evil flag forces a man to nearly saw his own hand off. Yes, it’s gruesome. But in the original run it was what made the villainess, Julie, who had been using the flag’s power to conduct a revenge campaign against her future mother, Thursday, come to her senses and realise the flag had to be destroyed.

Below is a list of the Girl Picture Libraries, along with their original titles and appearances. The only one that has not been identified is “Penny’s Best Friend” in #8. It could be that this was an original story as not all the Girl Picture Libraries carried reprints, but I need to confirm this.

1. Patty’s World – reprinted from Tina
2. Dear Diary – Vision of Vanity Fayre from Tammy
3. Patty’s World – reprinted from Tina
4. The Dolphin Mystery – The Disappearing Dolphin from Jinty
5. Cathy’s Crusade – Part 1 of Cathy’s Casebook from Jinty
6. The Old Mill – original
7. Dr Cathy – Part 2 of Cathy’s Casebook from Jinty
8. Penny’s Best Friend – contents unknown
9. Circus Waif – Wild Rose from Jinty
10. Stormy Seas – original
11. Moments of Terror – Waves of Fear from Jinty
12. The Shadow – Mike and Terry from Jinty
13. Princess Wanted! – The Perfect Princess from Jinty
14. The Black Sheep – Black Sheep of the Bartons from Jinty
15. I’ll Never Sing Again! – Nothing to Sing About from Jinty
16. A Second Chance – My Heart Belongs to Buttons from Jinty
17. Winner-Loser! – No Medals for Marie from Jinty
18. Spellbound! – Part 1 of Sue’s Daily Dozen from Jinty, plus A Wee Sue story from Tammy reprinted as Tiny Tina
19. Bewitched! – Part 2 of Sue’s Daily Dozen from Jinty, plus a Strange Story, “A Monumental Detective” reprinted as “The Crook Catchers”
20. The Inheritance – Race for a Fortune from Jinty
21. The Fortune-Teller – Cursed to be a Coward! Jinty
22. Tina’s Temper – Temper, Temper, Tina! from Tammy
23. Fame and Fortune – Make Headlines, Hannah! from Tammy
24. Wonder Girl – Betta to Lose from Tammy
25. The Witchfinder – Shadow on the Fen from Jinty
26. Sweet and Sour – The Sweet and Sour Rivals from Jinty
27. Carol in Camelot – Carol in Camelot St from Tammy
28. The Happiest Days – Tammy
29. Thursday’s Child – Tammy
30. A Girl Called Midnight – Tammy