Girl II #151, 31 December 1983

• Splat! (photostory)
• Animal Poem (feature)
• Fun Fashion: Going in Disguise (feature)
• Tippy’s Special Pool (artist Eduardo Feito)
• A Special Friend – text story (artist Jenny Gable)
• Beauty Resolutions: I Promise… (feature)
• The Kitty Café Cats (artist Joe Collins)
• The Secret Society of St. Nicola’s (photostory)
• Flower’s First Days (feature)
• Patty’s World (artist Purita Campos)
• Slaves of the Nightmare Factory (photostory)
• Help Me! (problem page)
• Police pinup (feature)

This issue of Girl II was published on New Year’s Eve 1983, so it is not surprising there is a New Year’s resolutions feature. The Kitty Cats are also having a dispute over their New Year’s resolutions – the first one of which turns out to be “We promise not to argue”. Meanwhile, Patty hasn’t even got up to Christmas Day yet, and Christmas Eve is anything but merry because Patty’s stepfather has fallen foul of a road accident.

Splat the alien needs a food called “blengrens” in his alien language – which turn out to be peas – in order to remain a convenient doll size and not his usual 10 metres. But he might have been better off growing back to 10 metres after all because he’s now been kidnapped by Rita Harrison and Thelma Crow, the worst enemies of his friend Wendy Collins.

Nobody realises “Tippy’s Special Pool” is being used for dumping chemical waste, which has now poisoned Tippy the otter and his friend Frances. Can it all be cleaned up in the final episode next week?

“The Secret Society of St. Nicola’s” swears to help a new pupil when the headmistress does not allow her to keep her pet at the school. Still, the headmistress’s position is understandable when you consider the pet is a crocodile!

The plight of the “Slaves of the Nightmare Factory” grows even bleaker after escapee Ellen Crawley dies in suspicious circumstances. In punishment for her escape, the girls are given even higher dress quotas to meet. At least the toady is punished too, by losing her privileges and having to share the girls’ rotten diet. Then Natalie falls dangerously ill, but the crooks’ only response is to shut her in the Punishment Box because she was too ill to meet her quota. Amanda is shut in there too. On the other hand, this enables Amanda to discover that fate has played a cruel trick on the man who is the mastermind of it all, and it could cause everything to explode in the crooks’ faces.

Girl and Tammy 25 August 1984

• The Return of Splat! (photo story) – first episode
• Animal Poem – competition
• Olly Decides! (artist Trini Tinturé) – complete story
• Let’s Go Pop! Regular feature
• The Kitty Café Cats – cartoon (artist Joe Collins)
• Wham Pinup – feature
• Village of Shame (photo story)
• Patty’s World (artist Purita Campos, writer Phillip Douglas)
• The Final Curtain (photo story) – last episode
• Help Me! – problem page

We continue exploring the context of Jinty’s family tree with Girl. IPC published Girl from 14 February 1981 to 1990. Later IPC published the Best of Girl Monthly, which reprinted stories from the original comic.

This was the second series called Girl; the first was a comic that ran from 1951 to 1964. Another photo story/picture story comic, Dreamer, merged with Girl in 1982. Tammy was scheduled to merge with Girl in 1984 but was instead dropped after a strike, leaving her stories unfinished. None of the Tammy stories carried on in Girl. Only the Tammy logo made it, mysteriously appearing on Girl’s cover (as is the case here), some time after Tammy disappeared with no explanation. It appears about the time Tammy was originally scheduled to be cancelled, so it was probably meant as a token gesture. All the same, Girl readers must have been puzzled by the sudden appearance of the Tammy logo. In 1990, Girl merged into My Guy.

Note: As Tammy came out Monday and Girl Thursday, my theory is that Tammy, being originally meant to be cancelled in late August, was set for cancellation 22 August and readers instructed to pick up the week’s issue of Girl on Thursday 25 August.

Girl II was largely a photo story comic, but always included two picture stories. One was the regular, “Patty’s World”, which made its way into Girl after going through several other titles. The other picture story was a serial or complete story. The photo stories were in black-and-white. Strips included “Nine to Four” (written by Pat Mills), “The Haunting of Uncle Gideon”, “No Mother for Marty”, “The Pink Flamingo”, “Slaves of the Nightmare Factory“, “The Evil Mirror”, “Wish of a Witch”, “The Runaway Bridesmaid”, “The Perfect Pest” and “To Catch a Thief”.

Most of the photo stories were about school, boyfriends, horse riders, gymnasts, theatre and ballerinas. But some photo stories did have a supernatural theme, such as “Wish of a Witch”, where a girl is given a ring that can grant seven wishes. But she gets greedy and also wastes several wishes because she is not using the power thoughtfully. “Splat” and its sequel, which starts in this issue, are among the few Girl photo stories to delve into science fiction. Occasionally the photo stories used the theme of tortured and abused heroines as well. One, “Slaves of the Nightmare Factory”, was about a racket where girls are abducted and used as slave labour in a dress factory – in the 1980s.

The early Girl annuals are noteworthy in that they reprinted serials from Tammy, Jinty and Misty. These include “Tricia’s Tragedy”, “Secret of the Skulls” and “Journey into Fear…” – which was a badly abridged reprint, with about half of the material cut out. The annual would have done better to use a shorter serial or one that lent itself more readily to abridging.

And now we turn to the issue that has been chosen to represent Girl. In this issue, we see the start of a sequel to an earlier Girl story, “Splat!”, about a space alien. Splat returns in response to a call for help from his Earth friend Wendy. But another alien has landed too. Is it friend or foe?

It is the final episode of “The Final Curtain”. It is the final curtain in more ways than one because Julian Berridge, who has been giving Sherry Martin acting lessons, dies on stage after helping her give the performance of her life.

In “Village of Shame” the Walker family are on holiday at a fishing village – only to find it mysteriously empty. Except for some bank robbers who are now holding them hostage! But the bank robbers could be in trouble too if there is some supernatural force responsible for the empty village. And it’s not much of a holiday for Patty either – she has discovered the holiday chalet her family booked got destroyed in a cliff collapse! And the place they do end up in delivers another whammy – Patty’s arch enemy Doreen Snyder is there too!

“Olly Decides!” is a complete story, where a dog has to end up choosing between the girl who has taken him over and loves him, and his previous owners who have suddenly turned up to claim him.

References

http://ukcomics.wikia.com/wiki/Girl_(1981-1990)

http://britishcomics.wikia.com/wiki/Patty’s_World

http://britishcomics.wikia.com/wiki/Girl_(IPC)