Jinty 4 February 1978

Come Into My Parlour – artist Douglas Perry

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

Two Mothers for Maggie – Jim Baikie

Alley Cat – artist Rob Lee

Waking Nightmare– Phil Townsend

Concrete Surfer – artist Christine Ellingham, writer Pat Mills

The Jam – feature 

Rinty ‘n’ Jinty – cartoon

Paula’s Puppets (first episode) – artist Julian Vivas

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

Darling Clementine – artist Richard Neillands, writer Alison Christie

You Really Take the Biscuit! – feature

In this issue, two stories are clearly on their penultimate episodes: “Come Into My Parlour” and “Land of No Tears”.

In the former, Mother Heggerty’s spell forces Jody to set fire to the Kings’ store. But she’s been caught in the act. She could be facing criminal charges, but the blurb for next week says fire will strike at something else other than the store. Maybe someone is going to burn the old witch at the stake or something?

In the latter, Cassy comes close to losing the vital swimming marathon the Gamma Girls need to win because of a forced bargain with the ruthless Perfecta. Fortunately Perfecta injures herself from over-exertion in the race and drops out, freeing Cassy from all that and enabling her to catch up in the nick of time. Everyone is cheering her on, much to the villainous Hive Inspector’s chagrin. His response to secret helper Miss Norm’s delight in Cassy catching up – “What do you mean, Miss Norm? It’s a disgrace!” – cracks me up every time. Now Cassy is duking out the final length with two others and it’s so close. Everyone except the Hive Inspector and Perfecta is on the edge of their seats to see if Cassy will win. 

“Two Mothers for Maggie” looks like it could be nearing its end as well. Mum is critically ill. It looks like the crisis has actually aroused a bit of conscience in Maggie’s horrible stepfather, but he’s not treating Maggie any better because of it. 

A new story starts, “Paula’s Puppets”. Paula Richards is a spoiled, selfish girl whose rocky road to redemption starts when her father’s toy factory burns down and he is arrested for it. Her life turns upside-down while he protests his innocence. We believe him though nobody else does, but we know the poor bloke’s going to go down for it. Meanwhile, Paula finds some weird puppets at the burned-out factory, which seem to possess some kind of power. 

People should really watch what they say with Sue’s Fantastic Fun-Bag around. Two pitying women whisper what an “absolute dragon” poor Jenny’s got for an aunt and she needs a knight in shining armour. Henrietta obliges, but she has taken it a bit literally and hijinks ensue. But of course it sorts out the old dragon.

Ella is not making much progress with her training for the waterskiing event she wants to win for her family, nor with convincing others she was not to blame for her cousin Clem’s accident. Then Ella makes progress with something else – finding the girl who really caused Clem’s accident. But when she confronts the girl, the miscreant makes it clear she is not going to own up and clear Ella’s name. 

Alley Cat gets freebies from the sausage factory, but trust Spotty Muchloot to make trouble. Fortunately it all turns to the advantage of the factory and Alley Cat is rewarded, much to Spotty’s consternation.

Phil is trying to work out how break into Hardacre House, where she believes Carol is being held prisoner. It’s still very odd that Carol’s family clam up about it. It gets even odder when Phil learns Hardacre House and its owners are very mysterious, and she does not like the look of them when she sees them. After an accident with a tractor she is finally inside. The blurb for next week hints she will not like the look of what she finds there either.

Skateboarding is the only thing that gives Concrete Surfer Jean Everidge the upper hand over her smarmy cousin Carol. Jean’s about to start her new school with Carol, but the leadup to it is not going well, and Jean senses Carol is behind it. 

Jinty 14 January 1978

Come Into My Parlour – artist Douglas Perry

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

Two Mothers for Maggie – Jim Baikie

Alley Cat – artist Rob Lee

Waking Nightmare – Phil Townsend

Willy de Ville – feature 

Rinty ‘n’ Jinty – cartoon

Darling Clementine – artist Richard Neillands, writer Alison Christie

Susanna’s Snowstorm (Gypsy Rose story) – artist Keith Robson 

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

Race for a Fortune – artist Christine Ellingham

The Wild Horse – feature 

Jody has become evil thanks to an additional spell from the witch Mother Heggerty. She now believes she is capable of anything, regardless of how terrible it is, and is loving every minute of it. How is she going to break free of Mother Heggerty’s power when right now she doesn’t even want to?

Cassy gets even more of a taste of how totalitarian this Land of No Tears is. She learns the Hive Inspector, who’s about to pay a visit, has powers to take you away: “No one knows where to, but you never return!” Shades of the Gestapo! Miranda is terrified she will meet this fate if the Inspector finds out she is secretly seeing her mother, and she breaks off with Cassy. Meanwhile, the ruthless Perfecta breaks off with her own friend to train every waking hour for the Golden Girl Award. Cassy is shocked to see the former bosom pals “walking away from each other like robots!” 

Ella bravely sets out to learn to waterski to win the competition for Clem, in the face of everyone who’s against her because they think she deliberately caused Clem’s accident. But her first attempt at waterskiing is such a disaster she’s lucky she didn’t hurt herself.

The same can also be said for sneaky cousin Rodney when he steals Katie’s roller skates to overtake her in the “Race for a Fortune”. But he soon finds he’s nowhere near as good on them as she is. He goes careering down a hill and lands on the back of a rodeo steer with her! Roller skating is back in the hands of the expert by the end of the episode. Thanks to his little stunt she has taken the lead again, and she’s gotten a lot of money out of it as well. 

In “Sue’s Fantastic Fun-Bag!”, a thief breaks into the school, his first attempt at crime. But his remark that he could become the world’s leading cat burglar really is asking for it with Henrietta around, especially when she’s the first thing he tries to steal. Needless to say, his first attempt at crime is his last by the end of the episode.

In the Gypsy Rose story, Susanna is given a snowstorm and finds it has a tale to tell, with each instalment appearing every time she shakes it. The trouble is, the tale is scaring her to death. Gypsy Rose tells Susanna that she must either follow it through to know how the tale ended or put the snowstorm away. Susanna decides to follow through because she must know (not to mention us readers) what the ending is, but what will the final shake of the snowstorm reveal?

Maggie’s sleazy stepfather shows what an abuser he is when he gets so mad he locks her in the coal shed without food or water. Then he refuses to let her see her TV debut, so she has to go to a TV shop in pouring rain to see it. Maggie has a good mind to tell Miss Keyes about the abuse, but she’s staying quiet because Mum doesn’t want word to get around.

Alley Cat is back. Arch-enemy Spotty Muchloot picks on him for first aid practice, and now poor Alley Cat looks like an oversized cocoon. But can he still turn things around?

Phil finds out the girl she saw being bundled off in the middle of the night is named Carol, and her mother is clearly not telling the truth about things. Phil manages to wheedle Carol’s current address out of the mother, enabling her to write to Carol. Carol’s reply is a coded message for help. The plot thickens!

Jinty 7 January 1978

Come Into My Parlour – artist Douglas Perry

Darling Clementine – artist Richard Neillands, writer Alison Christie

Two Mothers for Maggie – Jim Baikie

Waking Nightmare (first episode) – Phil Townsend

Superstars ‘78 – feature 

Calendar 1978 – feature 

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

Mark Hamill of “Star Wars” – feature 

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

Rinty ‘n’ Jinty – cartoon

Race for a Fortune – artist Christine Ellingham

A Box of Silken Flowers – feature

This is Jinty’s first issue for 1978. It’s not her New Year issue, which took the odd turn of being on the last day of the old year 1977, but there are still New Year themes. We also get a delightful feature about Mark Hamill of Star Wars.

Jinty starts her first story for 1978, “Waking Nightmare”. The nightmare begins when Phil Carey is woken up by toothache and sees a girl being dragged off in the middle of the night. Her parents don’t believe her, and at the house where Phil saw the girl being taken, the mother denies everything – but she does make odd remarks about a secret and trouble she hoped to leave behind. We’re suspicious already.

Sue’s new year’s resolution is to be extra-nice to people, and she urges her fun-bag to hold her to it. But she soon finds her excessive niceness is turning her into a nuisance and now she’s in trouble with a lot of people. We suggest your resolution should just be yourself, Sue. 

On the subject of niceness, Mother Heggerty has found the Saxtons and wants revenge on them, but she finds her slave Jody is too nice for that. So she casts an additional spell to make Jody evil. Now why the silly old witch couldn’t have picked an evil girl like Stacey from Jinty’s Slave of Form 3B in the first place we’ll never know, but we’re deeply worried. The spell is bound to make Jody far more evil than any genuinely bad girl we’ve seen in Jinty.

In the Land of No Tears, the cold-hearted residents get a real surprise when the “reject” Gamma Girls beat the odds and are through to the finals of the Golden Girl Award. It should be a victory celebration for Cassy, but security have put the damper on everything by saying they will be sending the Hive Inspector over to make enquiries. And judging from the way Miranda’s mystery mother is reacting, this Inspector is kind of like the Gestapo.

In part two of “Darling Clementine”, Clementine (Clem) is in a coma after some horrible girl knocks her into the river. Worse, her cousin Ella is being accused of it instead, and everyone, including her own Uncle, turns against her. Poor Ella is not even allowed to visit Clem in hospital. Not knowing what else to do, Ella bravely decides to train herself up for the water-ski event that Clem was going to enter.

“Race for a Fortune” takes a spooky turn, but a hilarious one. Katie thinks her cousins’ latest trick is to play Roman ghosts on her at an old barn. So when a pair of glowing Romans does appear, she thinks it’s a huge joke and plays along with it. But she learns later that the glowing Romans weren’t her cousins. In fact, they scared those cheating cousins off. Unfortunately, not right back to the beginning of the race. 

The strife over “Two Mothers for Maggie” takes a very bad turn this week. Mum forbade Maggie to go to Miss Keyes’ party, where she could be on the rise as a star. Maggie goes there anyway and soon she is on the rise after saving Miss Keyes’ dog. Then Mum comes along in a terrible temper and drags her out in front of everyone. How embarrassing! And it’s not over. Poor Maggie has to face the wrath of her unfit guardian stepfather next week. 

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: Land of No Tears! and The Human Zoo review by Olivia Hicks

Guest post: many thanks to Olivia Hicks for reviewing the Rebellion reprint edition of Land of No Tears and The Human Zoo

I have a somewhat fond, nostalgic relationship with Jinty, considering how little of it I have read. I had never (prior to this volume) read a complete Jinty story, and the real reason that Jinty occupies such a place in my heart is because it was the favourite comic of my mum, back when she was buying comics. So I was excited to see Jinty back in print, even if, on paper, neither of the stories particularly appealed to me. Land of No Tears! Uhm, ok. The Human Zoo? If we must. This was not, on the surface, the bizarre cruel science fiction that Jinty, through word of mouth and internet blog culture, had been distilled into for me. I wanted a Worlds Apart reprinting!

I had read about half of Land of No Tears! in the British Library, and had found it semi-engaging. The Human Zoo I had deliberately avoided. From the brief blurbs I had read, I had no interest in the story. So I settled down with my copy of the new Rebellion reprint, with my expectations quite muted. Warning: major spoilers for both stories follow (although I assume most of you have either read the stories or are aware of the plot!).

Land of No Tears! is written by Pat Mills and has art by Guy Peeters, and is about Cassy Shaw. She was born with one leg shorter than the other, and she uses her disability to manipulate those around her.  One day, whilst undergoing an operation to lengthen her leg (which Cassy is dreading, because she will no longer be able to use her disability to get what she wants), the anaesthesia somehow sends her through time to a future where humanity has achieved physical perfection and a lack of emotion, and those like Cassy (with Grade One Deformities) are forced to work as slaves for the benefit of the Alphas.

The story is in many ways quite typical; there is, of course, a mystery to be solved (what is the secret of Cassy’s new friend Miranda, and her mother), a lesson to be learned (with hard work you can overcome), and a problem which can, conveniently, be solved with sports; in this case, winning a sports championship will result in the complete overhaul of an entire society’s social structure! Cassy is an interesting main character because she resists the ‘victim-heroine’ coding of many girls’ comics characters. In fact, at the beginning, Mills goes out of the way to make her cynical and quite unsympathetic. This is, of course, to make her character arc more striking; the selfish, cynical, bratty lone wolf has to become an inspirational team leader and motivator who works and trains hard, and thus redeems herself. I’ve read quite a few girls’ comics stories now where villainous characters are shown using disability as a cover for their actions, so there seems to be a thread of problematic treatment of disability running throughout these comics, which Land of No Tears! falls into. The idea of a society divided by physical and emotional ability is a solid science fiction trope, but I think it is telling that the only disabilities Mills shows are: wearing glasses, being overweight and having a bald patch. The comic really skirts over disability (apart from in the beginning, when we see Cassy monopolising it for her own benefit; something which Teresa May and her cronies in the Department of Work and Pensions already think is widespread). ‘But Olivia!’ you say, ‘It’s a comic from the 1970s, how in depth can it be?’ Well, when you consider what Malcom Shaw achieves with the topic of animals rights in the accompanying tale, I think it’s fair to critique Mills for not really engaging with how society demonises disability.

Upon rereading (and finishing) Land of No Tears! in this collection, my favourite bit was definitely the passage where we see how Miranda lost her hair. The image of the robot nurse singing to the screaming baby who is being burned was pretty affecting and grim, and definitely will stay with me. It was an excellent example of horror being utilised in girls’ comics.

I also enjoyed the character arc of Perfecta. Her battle with those dreaded emotions was quite well done. I felt the ending, where Perfecta damaged her spine was a bit too literal and on the nose as punishment for her actions within the text. I also felt that the central mystery of Miranda and her mother was quite an easy one to solve, but then I’m in my mid-twenties, so definitely not the target audience of a youngster reading it week to week!

Whilst I enjoyed both stories, I definitely preferred The Human Zoo to Land of No Tears! This one was a cracker! Written by Shaw, with art again by Peeters, The Human Zoo is about twins Shona and Jenny, who are abducted by aliens. Jenny is experimented on in an allegory of animal testing, and Shona is sent to a zoo with some other captives. There is more than a little ‘Planet of the Apes’ vibe in this comic, and the way Shaw explored human nature in this story was exceptional. At one point Shona becomes a pet for alien girl Tamsha, but is sent back to the zoo for being too rebellious. Tamsha then replaces her with a more ‘docile’ human, another school girl who is more than happy to ‘act the pet’ in order to secure a cushy life. Another excellent scene was when the aliens starve the humans in order have the equivalent of a Chimpanzee’s Tea Party. Shaw’s central message, that we ‘dehumanize’ animals in order to profit off them and entertain ourselves, was, yes, preachy, but he dramatized it so skilfully that it worked. He also showed tension well, by allowing us to understand both the aliens and the humans, but never letting them understand each other.

The Human Zoo crammed quite a lot into its sixty pages: animal testing, animals rights activists, the morality of having pets, the morality of zoos, religion, forgiveness; all this and more gets thrown into the blender, and some of the threads (such as when Shona inadvertently becomes a god to the humans who have escaped captivity) are a little underdeveloped. There’s also a suggestion that the aliens are responsible for such mysterious mass disappearances as the Mary Celeste, which was interesting but I would have liked worked out just a bit more.

Both stories end with a ‘was it a dream….?’ resolution. In Land of No Tears!, Cassy learns from her mistakes and takes her lessons forward into her old life. However, much more poignantly, Shaw has Shona and Jenny completely forget their adventures, erasing their character growth and dooming them to continue in their ways. I’m a bit of a Shaw fan, as this review evidences!

To conclude, I was sceptical at first about the two stories, but ended up thoroughly enjoying them: I think this tells us that girls’ comics are far more than the sum of their plot synopsises! Malcolm Shaw was a top tier talent; I’m glad that the Rebellion reprints are reintroducing people to his work. The volume itself is quite beautiful, and the use of blue and yellow spot colouring on the back cover is effective (although I wish they had kept the original trippy colours for the cover of Jinty #1). My minor gripe is that it towers over both my 2000 AD and Misty trade paper backs. The sight of a single Jinty volume peeking over all the others irritated me enough that I had to relocate Jinty and Misty to a new section of my bookshelf. Such is the price of bookshelf perfection.

Jinty and Penny 7 March 1981

• Pam of Pond Hill (artist Bob Harvey, writer Jay Over)
• The Ghost Dancer (artist Phil Townsend)
• Farah’s Three Wishes (artist Hugo D’Adderio) – Gypsy Rose story
• Just the Job – feature with Leo Sayers and Rod Stewart – first episode
• Gaye’s Gloomy Ghost (artist Hugh Thornton-Jones)
• Tansy of Jubilee Street (artist Peter Wilkes)
• Land of No Tears (artist Guy Peeters, writer Pat Mills)
• No Medals for Marie (artist Phil Gascoine, writer Alison Christie)
• Winning Ways 47 (writer Benita Brown)
• Life’s a Ball for Nadine (artist Mario Capaldi)
• Alley Cat (artist Rob Lee)

This week’s sports cover has Mario Capaldi drawing gymnastics, a sport we seldom see him depicting in girls’ comics. “Just the Job” replaces “Behind the Screen” this week, and its job is to inform us what’s behind the world of pop music. Alley Cat takes the spot as the humour cartoon this time. Snoopa must have been on holiday.

The Gypsy Rose story is another recycled Strange Story, and it’s a morality tale in “be careful what you wish for”. A genie grants Persian girl Farah three wishes – but warns her to think carefully before making a wish because he can only grant exactly what she asks for. This means granting her wishes literally, as Farah finds out when she blows her first two wishes because she jumped the gun and did not heed the genie’s warning. Will she think carefully about the third wish and make it the right one? Or will she end up wasting three perfectly good wishes – and maybe have an even deeper regret than that?

Ferne’s plan to help Jolie get over her dancing block is to dress up in her mother’s Firebird costume and pass herself off as “The Ghost Dancer”, which the girls all think is haunting the school. The plan does help Jolie’s dancing – but then blabbermouth Jolie tells everyone, so now the ghost rumour is worse than ever.

In “Land of No Tears”, the Gamma girls beat the odds and make it through the preliminary rounds in the Golden Girl award. Unfortunately there’s now a lot of heat on them, especially as the authorities are astonished to find no record of Cassy in their computer (well, there wouldn’t be as she’s an unwitting time traveller from the 20^th century!). The dreaded Hive Inspector is being called in, and Perfecta is on the trail of the Gamma girls’ secret trainer.

Miss Simon – after a taste of what asthmatic Paul goes through – agrees to Marie’s request to let her have Simon Hall a year earlier because Paul is deteriorating so badly. Even so, it’s still nine months off. Will Paul last the distance?

Pam’s still stuck on the school magazine and Miss Peeble tries to help, but not very successfully. Miss Larks is definitely not under arrest, but she is on leave, and it’s linked to what Pam thinks is a blackmailer. She spots someone in Miss Larks’ apartment who could be the miscreant and gets the gang organised to catch him.

Sir Roger answers a “ghost for hire” ad. Sounds reminiscent of the old “Rent-a-ghost” strip from Buster. Tansy tries all sorts of nutty tactics to avoid “Dismal Dee” – but she’s the one who ends up dismal, because it cost her the chance of a concert ticket to see her current favourite pop group.

As well as having to fend off the cheating Syreeta and Selena, who are out to cheat her out of a disco contest (Syreeta) and netball match (Selena), Nadine now has to choose between the two events. For the first time she shows team spirit and chooses netball over disco. Stuffy Betty has had a change of heart too, and she wants to help Nadine against the two cheats.

Jinty and Penny 28 February 1981

• Pam of Pond Hill (artist Bob Harvey, writer Jay Over)
• The Ghost Dancer (artist Phil Townsend)
• The Golden Touch (artist Peter Wilkes) – Gypsy Rose story
• Behind the Screen – Worzel Gummidge
• Gaye’s Gloomy Ghost (artist Hugh Thornton-Jones)
• Tansy of Jubilee Street (artist Peter Wilkes)
• Land of No Tears (artist Guy Peeters, writer Pat Mills)
• No Medals for Marie (artist Phil Gascoine, writer Alison Christie)
• Snoopa (artist Joe Collins)
• Life’s a Ball for Nadine (artist Mario Capaldi)

There is no “Winning Ways” this issue, but we have Snoopa back. The letter column reveals another covert male Jinty reader, and this time it’s a dad. Dad let his secret slip when he suddenly asked his daughter if Roz got rid of her guardian angel and she realised he was referring to “Her Guardian Angel”. He was a bit embarrassed to be caught out in having had a sneaky peek into his daughter’s Jintys.

In the stories, Pam is still struggling to get the school newspaper together while the headmaster is nagging her about its progress. Meanwhile, the mystery about what’s bothering Miss Larks really deepens when Pam and Trace overhear her saying on the phone that she could be in trouble for aiding and abetting – and then the police actually take her away! Good grief, could she actually be under arrest?

Jolie is actually calling upon the ghost of Ferne’s mother for help with her dancing. After realising what is wrong with Jolie’s dancing, Ferne hatches a plan to help her. However, it looks like it’s going to play on the rumour Ferne accidentally started that her mother’s ghost is haunting the school. Unwise move – even if the plan does help Jolie, it is certainly going to fuel the rumour even more.

Marie snaps at Miss Simon (about time!) when she assumes Miss Simon has sent her chauffeur to keep tabs on her and make sure she wins no medals. But then she discovers that she was mistaken and the chauffeur was there for a different reason. Has she blown her chance of Simon Hall for her sick brother?

Talk about fighting fire on two fronts! Nadine discovers there are two cheating sisters (Selena and Syreeta) out to nobble her at both a disco competition and a netball match. And they are succeeding in putting a lot of nasty bruises into her legs to make her unfit for both.

Things get off to a very bad start for the Gamma girls because of the hostile spectators booing at them – who are then taken by surprise when Cassy beats the Alpha girls at the swimming event. Then there’s a shock for Cassy when she’s disqualified – but why?

This week, Tansy and Simon are revealed to be so terrified of going to the dentist that Mum and Dad resort to underhand tactics to make sure the appointment is kept. The folks tell Tansy they want her help to get Simon to the dentist – but Simon seems to be under the impression that the folks want his help to get her there…

Sir Roger conjures a potion that makes Gaye invisible, but he’s the one who ends up needing invisibility when she discovers the trick he played on her – withholding the secret to making her visible again.

It’s another recycled Strange Story, from Ireland, for Gypsy Rose this week. Sheena Murphy and her grandmother are so badly hit by crop failure that they need a crock of gold from the leprechauns. Knowing the leprechauns, even getting that wish could have a lot of impish humour attached.

Jinty and Penny 21 February 1981

Cover artist: Mario Capaldi

• Pam of Pond Hill (artist Bob Harvey, writer Jay Over)
• The Ghost Dancer (artist Phil Townsend)
• Zebras of Zendobo (artist Peter Wilkes) – Gypsy Rose story
• Behind the Screen – Peter Davidson
• Gaye’s Gloomy Ghost (artist Hugh Thornton-Jones)
• Tansy of Jubilee Street (artist Peter Wilkes)
• Land of No Tears (artist Guy Peeters, writer Pat Mills)
• No Medals for Marie (artist Phil Gascoine, writer Alison Christie)
• Winning Ways 46: Table Tennis – service (writer Benita Brown)
• Life’s a Ball for Nadine (artist Mario Capaldi)

I have the issues out, so here is a round of 1981 issues we have not yet covered.

In this issue, Peter Wilkes takes over from Ken Houghton as the Tansy of Jubilee Street artist. Wilkes is also the artist of this week’s Gypsy Rose story, so we get a double helping of Peter Wilkes art. In the former, a stray dog follows Tansy home and she has to find a home for it because Dad won’t allow dogs. But wouldn’t you know it – the same dog later follows Dad home and he decides to keep it! In the latter, grandfather’s sacrilege over shooting two sacred African zebras awakens when his granddaughter Billie opens his trunk and decides to use the zebra skins for her bed. Of course she does not get a peaceful night’s sleep for that and gets increasingly terrifying night visitations from the zebras, but she is reluctant to take advice that the skins are better off in a local exhibition on Africa. The story is one of the few 1981 Gypsy Rose stories that is an original and not a recycled reprint from Strange Stories.

In Pam of Pond Hill, something is on Miss Larks’ mind, and so much that her domestic science classes are turning to custard. Pam thinks Miss Larks is being blackmailed, but it remains to be seen if Pam’s right. Meanwhile, Pam is still having trouble getting the upcoming school newspaper together and clearly needs serious help.

In “Land of No Tears”, the Gamma girls begin to discover the full extent of the opposition towards them as they begin to compete for the Golden Girl Award. Their Alpha girls have been taunting them for days about it, but that’s nothing to what they get from the spectators, who boo and hiss at them on all sides. This does not bode well for their performance.

The rumours Ferne has unwittingly started about her mother haunting the school are really snowballing now. The girls are trying to contact the ghost by Ouija board and one pupil, Jolie, is calling upon the ghost for help because lack of confidence is affecting her dancing, which she tries to cover by goofing off in class.

This week, conceited Sir Roger meets his match in a bratty kid who’s a real horror and not at all scared of him. Readers will have to decide where their sympathies lie.

Marie decides to go against Miss Simon’s “no-medals” blackmail to some extent and come out on top in exams for her sick father’s sake. It is just the tonic he needs, but then Miss Simon’s blackmail indirectly puts Marie’s life in danger – for the second time in this story.

For the first time since Nadine’s story began so many episodes ago, she is up against a real enemy – Selena on a rival netball team who keeps trying to foul her, and doing it in crafty ways so the umpire doesn’t notice. And why is Selena so interested in Nadine entering the disco dancing competition? That has nothing to do with netball.