Jinty 21 September 1974

Stories in this issue:

• The Jinx From St Jonah’s (artist Mario Capaldi)
• Jackie’s Two Lives (artist Ana Rodriguez, writer Alan Davidson)
• Wenna the Witch (artist Carlos Freixas)
• Always Together… (artist Phil Townsend)
• Jinty Made It Herself… so can you! (craft feature)
• Do-It-Yourself Dot (artist Alf Saporito)
• Dora Dogsbody (artist José Casanovas)
• Bird-Girl Brenda (artist Phil Gascoine)
• The Hostess with the Mostest (artist Stanley Houghton)
• Left-Out Linda (artist Jim Baikie)
• Merry at Misery House (writer Terence Magee)
• Wild Horse Summer
• Angela’s Angels (artist Leo Davy)

I have been on a bit of a hiatus recently due to a very busy patch at work and some achy wrists from too much typing. Things have now settled down on both fronts so hopefully I will be able to ease myself back into blogging – and of course Mistyfan has been keeping things going on the blog with a recent focus on stories published in other titles and issues of other titles too.

This is issue 20 of Jinty and it feels quite thick and substantial – on counting the pages, it seems this was still running at a 40 page length at this point. There’s certainly quite a lot in it – the Katie Jinx story is a four-pager which continues a short story arc about Katie learning how to do hypnotism. She’s not quite as successful as she thinks she is being, because her school chums are fooling her by pretending to be hypnotized! But can she hypnotize a charging prize porker before it flattens her? I suspect not!

In “Jackie’s Two Lives“, Jackie meets Mrs Mandell for the first time. Of course she has to lie to her family in order to do that. That is only the tip of the iceberg, as Mrs Mandell starts to manipulate her further. It sounds so innocuous but it will all end badly, as we know.

Wenna is being persecuted as a witch – her local friends are being prevented from seeing her by their prejudiced parents. In fact the whole class of her year have been kept away from school – very cruel! Not surprisingly, Wenna takes this as a cue to run away.

The family in “Always Together…‘ are already runaways – elder sister Jilly is shocked to read in the paper that the water they have been using in cooking is polluted and likely to make them ill. Indeed, they all end up coming down with something. Jilly bravely keeps things going but once they are better there are the continuing challenges of before. How will they get enough money to eat and sustain themselves? Jilly’s talent for sketching will hopefully help but that might not be enough, because the little family are still not very strong and healthy.

In “Jinty Made It Herself” the reader is advised on how to adapt an old jumper into a different piece of clothing such as a tank top.

Linda is feeling very left-out in the story of the same name. Her mother has remarried and she has a step-sister, which rather spikes Linda’s plan of being expelled from school so that she can hang out with her mother and be as close as they were before everything changed. Step-sister Lorette seems rather nice and is certainly trying hard to be friends but Linda is having none of it. What’s more, when she does try to make amends by cooking tea, it all seems to go wrong and she is unhappier than ever.

Merry at Misery House is unhappy because her parents are suffering money troubles due to her father being taken ill. The other reformatory girls come up with a plan to earn a bit of cash that Merry can send off home. Unfortunately the way they earn it involves exposing themselves to illness, and soon the whole of Misery House starts to come down with virulent influenza. Yikes, that’s a real killer.

Daphne of “Wild Horse Summer” is made to go out picking sloes with the other orphanage children – everyone’s being very kind but all Daphne wants to do is to see the splendid white horse that she is secretly making friends with. On her ride, though, she spots that the farmhouse is on fire, with no-one left there to put it out! Her secret will be out but she has to alert everyone.

Finally, “Angela’s Angels” features a daring rescue from a crashed light plane – nurse Sharon rescues her hero, Neil Crosby, a tennis star. Fat lot of thanks she gets from him when he realises that he is paralysed and may never be able to walk again! There are lots of anguished faces in the beautiful art by Leo Davy.

Jinty 9 November 1974

Stories in this issue:

• The Jinx From St Jonah’s (artist Mike White)
• Jackie’s Two Lives (artist Ana Rodriguez)
• Merry at Misery House (writer Terence Magee)
• Left-Out Linda (artist Jim Baikie) – last episode
• Wild Horse Summer
• Dora Dogsbody (artist José Casanovas)
• Always Together… (artist Phil Townsend)
• Bird-Girl Brenda (artist Phil Gascoine)
• Slave of the Mirror (artist Carlos Freixas) – first episode
• Do-It-Yourself Dot (artist Alf Saporito)

I should have posted this one earlier in the month as a timely Guy Fawkes story, but never mind – Katie makes a sparkling guy herself, as she points out! She tries to help some local kids raise money for some fireworks and a bonfire, but in the end her jinxing gets the kids into a posh local bonfire party in an unexpected way. This is a one-off story but next week another serialised story arc will start up, about Katie’s sailor father returning from sea.

In “Jackie’s Two Lives”, Jackie Lester has promised to come along to her mother’s birthday get-together, but we know that she will make some excuse to get out of it. The alternative life that Mrs Mandell is offering her is just too tempting – this week it involves a flight to Paris to have a dress made for her… And the mystery deepens, as the couturier says he has been making clothes for Mrs Mandell’s daughter since she was a small child!

Merry is once more seeing the Warders of Misery House setting the inmates against each other. New joiner Violet initially lies to get Merry into trouble, leading Miss Ball to identify her as a potential monitor – but the stratagem applied by the wardens to get Viola to commit to them once and for all is a step too far, and Viola joins Merry’s pack in the end.

It’s the last episode of “Left-Out Linda”, and she is working hard – and hand-in-hand with her stepfather’s mother (‘Gran’ to you). It’s really nice to see the protagonist getting appropriate support to clear up the mess she has made – even if she still has to do a lot of the work herself, of course. It all ends happily, with Linda having the second chance she has come to want, and to deserve.

Daphne, who can’t talk, is trapped down a mine shaft; her only hope is the wild horse she has befriended. Will the white mare help to rescue her, next week?

“Always Together…” has the three Harvey kids struggling to avoid detection – this time by persuading some scouts that the cave they are living in is nothing but a ‘leaky hole’. The next challenge is that brother Johnny has to tackle his jealousy of boys who live in a real house; some neat psychology by eldest sister Jilly has things working more smoothly. It seems as if their lives can go along this track for a while, but will they get derailed some time?

It is the first episode of “Slave of the Mirror”, drawn by the stylish Freixas. Mia Blake is trapped by the mysterious mirror before she gets much further than the first page of the story; but then, she is already grumpy and resentful at being ‘a glorified skivvy’ in her sister’s boarding house, which hardly helps.

Jinty 2 November 1974

Stories in this issue:

• The Jinx From St Jonah’s (artist Mike White)
• Jackie’s Two Lives (artist Ana Rodriguez)
• The Hostess with the Mostest (artist Stanley Houghton)
• Merry at Misery House (writer Terence Magee)
• Left-Out Linda (artist Jim Baikie)
• Wild Horse Summer
• Dora Dogsbody (artist José Casanovas)
• Always Together… (artist Phil Townsend)
• Bird-Girl Brenda (artist Phil Gascoine)
• Wenna the Witch (artist Carlos Freixas) – last episode
• Do-It-Yourself Dot (artist Alf Saporito)

In “Merry at Misery House”, Merry is going out of her way to help new reformatory inmate Violet Smith, who in turn has gone out of her way to be unpleasant to all the other inmates… Merry is trying hard to prove that solidarity is the best way of dealing with the reformatory life, but will she be proved wrong by hard-nut Violet?

“Left-Out Linda” wasn’t a story I remembered from my original reading of Jinty as a kid, but the final few episodes of it work really well, in that unusually the resolution (the saving of spoiled, thoughtless Linda) is developed over a few weeks rather than given in just a few panels. Unlike in most stories of this ilk, Linda has a grown-up who is sufficiently practical and sensible that she can help her work through the problems caused by her own foolishness. Good for Mrs Grant, the mother of Linda’s exasperated step-father! As I mentioned previously, this story does end up exonerating the step-father more than I would like to see, but it is just so refreshing to see someone who is actually helping the protagonist fix her solution. It didn’t happen very often, did it? I have scanned the pages from this episode for you to enjoy, too; below. It is the last episode of “Wenna the Witch”, which stuck in my mind more than most of the other stories from this time, despite a fairly silly story-line in many ways. I think I must have remembered the lovely Carlos Freixas artwork…

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Jinty 19 October 1974

Stories in this issue:

• The Jinx From St Jonah’s (artist Mike White)
• Jackie’s Two Lives (artist Ana Rodriguez)
• The Hostess with the Mostest (artist Stanley Houghton)
• Merry at Misery House (writer Terence Magee)
• Left-Out Linda (artist Jim Baikie)
• Wild Horse Summer
• Dora Dogsbody (artist José Casanovas)
• Always Together… (artist Phil Townsend)
• Bird-Girl Brenda (artist Phil Gascoine)
• Wenna the Witch (artist Carlos Freixas)

The surprisingly-serious Jinx story ends with a pratfall, returning to its normal style. Jealous rival Bettina has been unmasked and Katie has been crowned swimming champ – before crowning others with the cup as she falls over!

In “Left-Out Linda”, the writer ups the ante – Linda’s new stepfather is so angry with her that he slaps her, saying that’s what she would have got sooner if he’d been her father all along! Quite rightly, the mother kicks the new husband out as a result. Also understandably, the mother is pretty cut-up about her new relationship going to the dogs and is not exactly happy with Linda either. Not a bad message all round really, though as the mother and step-father do end up back together again in the end, the domestic violence message is perhaps somewhat diluted subsequently.

Jinty 12 October 1974

Stories in this issue:

• The Jinx From St Jonah’s (artist Mike White)
• Jackie’s Two Lives (artist Ana Rodriguez)
• Merry at Misery House (writer Terence Magee)
• Left-Out Linda (artist Jim Baikie)
• Do-It-Yourself Dot (artist Alf Saporito)
• Angela’s Angels (artist Leo Davy) – last episode
• Dora Dogsbody (artist José Casanovas)
• Wild Horse Summer
• Always Together… (artist Phil Townsend)
• Wenna the Witch (artist Carlos Freixas)

A new Katie Jinks story started in the previous issue, all about her swimming ability – yes, klutzy Katie is also a swimming champion, which helps round out her character a bit. Poor girl, she also has a secret enemy, turning her reputation for clumsiness against her. Things all start looking much less humorous in this normally-silly strip.

In “Angela’s Angels”, tea-girl Crystal has been identified as the jealous enemy who played mean tricks on Jo – but a good turn that nurse Sharon does to wheelchair-bound tennis star Neil turns out well for both Neil and Crystal! And at this ‘all’s well that ends well’ point, the story ends – “Gosh, it’s hard work training to be a nurse, and we’ve got a long way to go yet – but it’s so rewarding!”

Jinty 28 September 1974

Stories in this issue:

• The Jinx From St Jonah’s (artist Mike White)
• Always Together… (artist Phil Townsend)
• Wenna the Witch (artist Carlos Freixas)
• Jackie’s Two Lives (artist Ana Rodriguez)
• Pony Parade: Loser Takes All! [text story]
• Do-It-Yourself Dot (artist Alf Saporito)
• Dora Dogsbody (artist José Casanovas)
• Bird-Girl Brenda (artist Phil Gascoine)
• The Hostess with the Mostest (artist Stanley Houghton)
• Merry at Misery House (writer Terence Magee)
• Left-Out Linda (artist Jim Baikie)
• Wild Horse Summer
• Angela’s Angels (artist Leo Davy)

I thought I would go back to the earliest issues I have and pick up from where I left off previously – a year ago and more now, when I was last looking at issues from this very early stage of Jinty.

Previously I’ve been a little harsh on the Jinx stories of this run, as they don’t feature the lovely Mario Capaldi art of other times. Mike White still does a very good serviceable job though, and it is very readable story-wise. This episode is relatively stand-alone: Katie has become convinced she has hypnotic powers, predictable hijinks ensue! I think the previous episode leads into her conviction about her powers so it’s not entirely self-contained, but reads absolutely fine without necessarily having that lead-in to hand.

“Always Together” is in full flight: the young Harvey family, who have vowed to always stay together despite being orphans, are being treated as gypsies even though they aren’t really. That’s bad when they are chased after by prejudiced bullies, but good when the Salvation Army looks after them and tries to help. It is their own wits and talents that are needed to get them out of their rough sleeping situation though – eldest girl Jill uses her artistic ability to try to earn money for the family.

“Wenna the Witch”, drawn by Carlos Freixas, continues the is-she isn’t-she theme of the earlier episodes – is Wenna a witch or just massively unlucky? And in “Jackie’s Two Lives“, the protagonist feels very lucky, with the riches and glamour that Mrs Mandell offers her, but we know that it will turn into something rather more sinister, especially as Mrs Mandell comes to Jackie’s mum and dad to offer – a proposition.

“Left-Out Linda” is one of those stories where the main character is emotionally screwed up and confused, meaning that she makes all sorts of bad choices. It can be quite excruciating to read, but the denouement of this story (still some way away here) is well done and much more psychologically realistic than many are. At this point however Linda is still screwing up massively, in a way that potentially has big financial repercussions for her family.

There’s plenty of misery in “Merry at Misery House” – all the inmates have caught some sort of very contagious disease – and even one of the warders is thrown into the same spartan quarantine, too! Merry is the only one left standing, and has her work cut out for her – but also, as she thinks, “If they can be so heartless to Miss Ball – what hope is there for the rest of us?”

“Wild Horse Summer” is so beautifully drawn. Can anyone identify the artist?

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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)

Jim Baikie

Jim Baikie (1940-2017) was one of the longest-running Jinty artists. While he was not in the very first issue, his starting story (“Left-Out Linda” in 1974) was done fairly early on in his career (he started in 1966); after he and Jinty parted ways, he went on to become well-known in his 2000AD work as well as in American comics. In recent years some news items have been posted on his Facebook page, where the news of his death was also posted by his family. (See also his Comiclopedia page.)

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My trajectory as a comics reader is such that pretty much alone amongst Jinty artists, Baikie is someone whose subsequent work I came across again and again. As well as reading Jinty, I also read American comics (primarily Marvel), and later on I read 2000AD as so many of my university peers did.  The short-lived comic Crisis was a must-read too, and that included an ongoing story drawn by Baikie (“The New Statesmen”). I don’t remember quite when I identified him as having been the artist on the memorable “The Forbidden Garden”, but I remember how it felt: excitement, surprise, and a mental ‘click’ as two disparate parts of my comics-reading life came together.

He drew a number of different kinds of story in Jinty: ones about troubled family relationships, spooky stories, a science fiction strip, a humour strip. The first great swathe of stories are nicely done, but nothing outstandingly different: they are well-observed and good to read, but only “Face The Music, Flo!” and “Ping-Pong Paula” made much impression on my memory at the time. “Spell of the Spinning Wheel” moves up a gear while still being an evil object story matching other ones (“Creepy Crawley” ran at precisely the same time, making it a great time for fans of spooky stories).

For me, both “The Forbidden Garden” and, rather differently, “Fran’ll Fix It!”, represent the peaks he reached in Jinty. Both are fairly unique within the set of stories he drew in this title: one science fiction story, one humour strip. We have previously seen a lot of repetition of a given writer & artist combination – Terence Magee stories being drawn again and again by the ‘Merry’ unknown artist – and I could well imagine that in the list below, ‘Linda’, ‘Kat’, ‘Flo’, and so many other stories might be written by a popular Jinty writer who produced a number of similar stories along the same themes. But ‘Fran’, in particular, strikes me as something that a writer-artist – or more precisely, a cartoonist – could well have produced. There are so many sight-gags in the background, such a zany feel to the whole story, that I am very tempted to think that Baikie is likely to have written the whole lot as well as drawn it – or at the very least, had a large creative hand in it.

We now know that there was at least one case of an artist writing their own strip, as Veronica Weir is known to have done this on “Girl The World Forgot“. Baikie is also known to have written his own material at subsequent points in his career, too (he wrote sequels to the Alan Moore science fiction strip “Skizz” amongst others). Might he even have written “The Forbidden Garden” as well? This striking story has a soulless future dystopia where the soil is poisoned and the people are oppressed, barely one step up from being robots: echoes of the Megacity that Baikie’s future colleagues were simultaneously creating in 2000AD. It could be said to parallel the other Jinty science fiction stories, but it doesn’t feel particularly close to any of them. This is probably my wishful thinking, though.

Leaving aside this speculation, you don’t have to think much about it to see why he was such a well-loved artist. The Gypsy Rose four-page story above has beautiful, energetic composition: the girl’s running foot in the first panel, the echo of the tree root in the forked lightning just below, the girl’s face forming the bottom section of the third page. It’s full of dynamism and individuality. Likewise, although he drew 14 stories plus various Gypsy Roses over the years, his characters are all clearly identifiable without blurring into each other. As one small example, ‘Linda’ and ‘Flo’ have similar hairstyles (though one dark, one blonde) – but their facial expressions are distinctively their own. There is no danger of mistaking one for the other, even if separated from their story context – but that’s something for a follow-up article sometime. (How did long-running artists manage to avoid visual repetition, indeed?)

List of Jinty stories attributable to Jim Baikie:

• Left-Out Linda (1974)
• The Kat and Mouse Game (1975)
• Face The Music, Flo! (1975)
• Ping-Pong Paula (1975)
• Miss No-Name (1976)
• Willa on Wheels (1976)
• Rose Among the Thornes (1976)
• Spell of the Spinning Wheel (1977)
• Fran’ll Fix It! (1977, 1979)
• Two Mothers for Maggie (1978)
• Wild Rose (1978)
• The Forbidden Garden (1979)
• Village of Fame (1979)
• White Water (1979-80)
• Gypsy Rose (various)

Edited to add: Baikie also appeared in other IPC girls’ comics.

• Our Big BIG Secret! (Sandie, 1972)

Jinty 26 October 1974

This is part of a short run of Jinx stories not drawn by Mario Capaldi, though he returns to the pages of Jinty shortly. Some of the figurework is similar enough to Capaldi’s style though that I do wonder whether he might have pencilled it for another artist to ink? And inside, the Carlos Freixas-penned story “Wenna the Witch” is nearing its dramatic height.

Stories in this issue:

• The Jinx From St Jonah’s (artist Mike White?)
• Jackie’s Two Lives (artist Ana Rodrigues)
• The Hostess with the Mostest (artist Stanley Houghton)
• Merry at Misery House (writer Terence Magee)
• Left-Out Linda (artist Jim Baikie)
• Wild Horse Summer
• Dora Dogsbody (artist José Casanovas)
• Do-It-Yourself Dot (artist Rafart)
• Always Together… (artist Phil Townsend)
• Bird-Girl Brenda (artist Phil Gascoine)
• Wenna the Witch (artist Carlos Freixas)

Jinty 7 September 1974

Exceptionally at this point, they have chosen a striking single panel design for this issue. It’s only done because of a one-off competition, which is a bit of a shame as I do think this sort of cover works very well.

This issue sees the first episode of a new wish-fulfillment story, “Jackie’s Two Lives”. The tag-line at the top of the first page is “the story of a poor girl’s blind ambition to be rich”, but while that might suggest that the story is about scheming or doing others down to get your own way, it actually goes into paranoid, odd, and almost spooky territory quite soon.

Stories in this issue:

• The Jinx From St Jonah’s (artist Mario Capaldi)
• Always Together… (artist Phil Townsend)
• Wenna the Witch (artist Carlos Freixas)
• Jackie’s Two Lives (artist Ana Rodrigues)
• Merry at Misery House (writer Terence Magee)
• Dora Dogsbody (artist José Casanovas)
• Do-It-Yourself Dot (artist Rafart)
• Bird-Girl Brenda (artist Phil Gascoine)
• Left-Out Linda (artist Jim Baikie)
• The Hostess with the Mostest
• Wild Horse Summer
• Angela’s Angels (artist Leo Davy)