Tammy & Misty 21/28 June 1980

Cover artist: John Richardson

Bella (artist John Armstrong, writer Primrose Cumming)

Shadows on the Wall – Strange Story from the Mists

Tina’s Telly Mum (artist Giorgio Giorgetti, writer Alison Christie) – first episode

Wee Sue (artist John Richardson)

The Sea Witches (Mario Capaldi)

Lucky By Name (artist Julian Vivas)

Peggy in the Middle (artist Tony Coleman)

Edie and Miss T (artist Joe Collins)

Meet the Tammy Gymnast of the Month – Feature

Donna Ducks Out (artist Diane Gabbot(t))

Now we come to 1980 in our Tammy June month round. This particular June issue is unusual for having a double date (edited to amend), but this was due to the May strike. 

It’s been six months since Misty merged with Tammy. The merger changed the Tammy logo from having daisy flowers to solid letters. The Misty merger was a bit disappointing because Misty was underrepresented in the merger. Tammy had a higher ratio of content all the way through. Much of the problem must have been with Misty herself. She had no regulars except Miss T and Misty herself, and regulars are vital for carrying on in a merger. Also, Misty’s ratio of serials was not very high, while her number of complete stories was way too vast. Also, her stories used 4-page spreads while her sister comics used three, which also reduced the space for more serials to run. A lower ratio of complete stories, enabling more room for serials, would have created a better balance. It would have also created more scope for something from Misty’s serials to turn into a regular, or for a regular strip to have been created. Some of the spooky stories that appeared during the merger, such as “The Sea Witches”, do give the impression they were originally scripted for Misty. Unfortunately, if Misty was not writing that many serials to begin with, not many of them could be published in the merger. The ratio of Tammy serials was definitely higher than Misty’s in the merger. Misty made her presence felt more in the Strange Stories – now called Strange Stories from the Mists, and she alternated with the Storyteller as the presenter. 

Meanwhile, Tammy has a higher number of serials running, as she is not running her regulars so much. This was another key change when Misty joined. The ever-popular Bella has to continue of course, and Sue is still a weekly regular, but Bessie is now appearing off and on, and Molly is on hiatus. 

In the serials, “The Sea Witches” are striking back at an American air base, which is disturbing nesting grounds, and how far they will go is increasingly worrying. “Peggy in the Middle” is a bold move in exploring how messy divorce and custody battles can be. “Lucky By Name” reaches its climax, with Lucky running off with her beloved pony in the mistaken belief her father will sell him. “Donna Ducks Out” is now on its penultimate episode. A bathroom duck gives Donna the power to swim, but now it has been damaged. The final episode will clearly tell if Donna can now sink or swim without the duck. A new story, “Tina’s Telly Mum”, starts. Tina Mason persuades her recently widowed mother to take a glamorous TV announcer job to distract herself from grief. Unfortunately, there are ominous signs Tina is going to regret this. She has already been left behind as her mother leaves for her new job, and a most unsuitable woman has been put in charge of her – the sort that has us instantly thinking, “What the hell was Mum thinking when she hired her?”

Bella is making a bid for the Moscow Olympics, but got herself stranded in the US after winning a qualifying event and then lost her sponsorship. Now it’s becoming even more difficult to keep up her gymnastics, much less get to Moscow. Bella missed out on competing in the Olympics once before, and now history is threatening to repeat itself. Bella is also making her influence keenly felt in Tammy’s latest competition, “Meet the Tammy Gymnast of the Month”.

Tammy and Misty 5 July 1980

Cover artist: John Richardson

Bella (artist John Armstrong)

Donna Ducks Out (artist Diane Gabbot(t)) – final episode

Tina’s Telly Mum (artist Giorgio Giorgetti, writer Alison Christie)

The Sea Witches (artist Mario Capaldi)

Wee Sue (artist Robert MacGillivray)

Something in the Cellar (artist Tony Coleman) – Strange Story from the Mists in text

Peggy in the Middle (artist Tony Coleman)

Lucky by Name (artist Julian Vivas)

The Cover Girls are on a trip to the safari park, and for once the older girl has an upper hand over the younger one, with the aid of the monkeys. The monkey on the roof of the vehicle sure looks like he’s poking the Tammy logo with that stick!

Bella is trying to make her way to the Moscow Olympics, but her efforts aren’t meeting with much more success than her 1976 bid for the Olympics. She has got stranded (again), this time in the US. She has no way to get to Moscow or back to Britain, no equipment to train on, no money, and no coach. She has taken a job to help raise funds, but it’s in rhythmic gymnastics, which is not helping her usual gymnastics – and she’s entered a gymnastics tournament.

We sense there’s going to be a raft of new stories starting soon. One story finishes, one is about to, and another is reaching its climax. 

Donna Ducks Out is the one to end this week. A bathroom duck has somehow given Donna Desmond the power to swim, but she’s so dependent on the toy that she gets shot by duck hunters while trying to retrieve it when it is taken on holiday, and the duck has taken damage too. In this sorry state, she has to win a swimming championship with a sinking duck. It’s never quite clear whether the duck actually gave Donna the power to swim or just the confidence to do so, but ultimately she finds she no longer needs the duck and retains her ability to swim. The duck ends up in the hands of another non-swimmer who feels the same confidence rising. Donna will be replaced next week by the return of Molly Mills, who has been absent from the merger until now.

Lucky By Name is the one on its penultimate episode. Lucky Starr has run away with her beloved pony Fortune in the mistaken belief her father will sell him because of money troubles. Of course it doesn’t take long for the police to catch up, but there’s a bonus – it all leads to them foiling a couple of robbers and recovering stolen loot. Hmm, we smell a reward coming up that will solve everything!

The Sea Witches is reaching its climax. It looks like the witches have had enough of the American air-base interfering with their nesting grounds and they’re going to bring out their big guns. That can only mean something really bad now. Katie, the only one trying to help the situation, is being sent away at this crucial point, but we know she’ll be back to stop the witches somehow.

Tina’s Telly Mum is on part two. Tina Mason persuaded her grieving mother to take a television announcer job to take her mind off things, but now she’s beginning to regret it because it’s backfiring on her. Mum’s now too wrapped up in her job to think of anything else – including Tina, who’s been left behind, being neglected and missing Mum so much. Worse, Mum left the wrong person in charge of Tina: a nasty old bat who’s deliberately coming in between everything Tina has left of her mother or any respite Tina tries to seek. She even makes Tina do housework that she is being paid to do herself. What a cheek!

By popular demand, the Tammy & Misty merger revived the spooky text stories that Misty used to run, but it didn’t seem to last long. This week’s one is “Something in the Cellar”, about a cellar haunted by an Alsatian that got suffocated by a delivery of coal, poor thing. It leaves the babysitter so spooked she’s never going to babysit at that house again.

Peggy in the Middle is caught in a custody battle between her mother and her father and his new wife Mitzi. Peggy and Mum suspect they’re being watched as part of the custody battle, but discover the watchers were in fact burglars waiting for their moment to strike – and the burglars not only rob the place but totally trash it as well!

Miss Bigger reveals some Bigger family history in this week’s Wee Sue story. We learn the Bigger women (“dotty old birds”, “a rogue’s gallery” go Sue’s classmates) were ones for big ideas such as cycling up Mt Everest and civilising the American Indian nation (that one looks like it got a tomahawk in the head from behind). But their ideas clearly lacked common sense and invariably failed – just like the measures Miss Bigger takes to economise at school this week. Predictably, it’s all at the expense of the girls, but Miss Bigger loses out in the end, and Wee Sue puts things right.

Tammy 8 October 1983

• Lucky by Name… (artist Juliana Buch, writer Malcolm Shaw) – first episode
• The Button Box (artist Mario Capaldi, writer Alison Christie)
• Pam of Pond Hill (artist Bob Harvey, writer Jay Over)
• Run, Rabbit, Run! (artist Edmond Ripoll, writer Roy Preston)
• Glenda’s Glossy Pages (artist Mario Capaldi, writer Pat Mills) – first episode
• Bella (artist John Armstrong, writer Primrose Cumming)
• Room for Rosie (artist Santiago Hernandez, writer Alison Christie)
• Lonely Ballerina (artist Maria Barrera, writer Jay Over)
• The Crayzees (artist and writer Joe Collins)

Two stories start this issue: “Lucky by Name” (the second Tammy horse story with that title) and a repeat of “Glenda’s Glossy Pages” from 1975, with no announcement that it is a repeat. This is rather strange. When Tammy brings a story back by popular demand she says it was brought back by popular demand, but there’s nothing. So was it popular demand that brought Glenda back, or did they just bring it back as a filler or something?

In the former, a foal is born into a wild pony forest reserve. But there seems to be something strange about it, both in its appearance and in the way weird things seem to happen in its presence. In the latter, nice things are beyond Glenda Slade because of her mother’s low income. Then things begin to change when she receives a mail order catalogue. But maybe Glenda should remember the old saying: if it’s too good to be true, it usually is…

The Button Box story (below) is one of my favourites: the barrel button story. Bev tells the story as a lesson not to discount old barrels. Personally, though, I read the moral of the story as knowing a few basics about self defence and how to free yourself from bonds (check out the Internet) in the event of a home invasion/robbery.

(click thru)

In Pam of Pond Hill, Dad’s business is in trouble. A new supermarket is stealing his customers by undercutting his fruit & veg prices. Counter-measures to win back customers get outmanoeuvred every time and Pam suspects a leak. Tracy keeps insisting the spy is Pam’s new friend Meg, but Pam doesn’t believe it. Then, at the very end of the episode, Meg acts very strangely – she can’t get inside fast enough when Pam discovers where she lives. Hmm, does Meg have something to hide?

In the complete story, “Run, Rabbit, Run!”, Rae Betts is dubbed “rabbit” and gets bullied at school. The ringleader isn’t all that nice to her own rabbit either. Matters come to a head when the terrified rabbit runs away – right into a burning field. Strangely, a Misty story had the same title and a similar theme. The Tammy version was was written by Roy Preston, who was credited with writing plenty of spooky stories for Tammy. Did Preston write the Misty version too?

Bella has taken over as club coach because the two quarrelsome coaches have quit. They realise their mistake and come back, as it is the eve of a serious competition, but Bella is put out when the girls say no thanks because they’ve had enough of their arguing. Next week is the final episode, so we will see how this resolves.

In “Lonely Ballerina”, the ballet school has gone to pot because the principal, Mary Devine, has been missing for months. At last she is found – in the attic. Tanya Lane, who thought Mary’s sister Betty was holding her prisoner, is surprised to find Betty crying over her instead. All the same, Betty has some serious explaining to do.

Rosie’s in the school panto, serving as Sleeping Beauty’s cot. She becomes a panto star and takes curtain calls with the rest of the cast. Sadly, no home comes out of it for her.

In “The Crazyees”, the cat’s pining because Snoopa hasn’t appeared for ages. Miss T and Edie investigate and discover the lovesick cat is driving Snoopa to distraction, so he’s hiding from her. Miss T’s solution: make Snoopa human size.

 

 

Tammy 5 November 1983

• Lucky By Name… (artist Juliana Buch, writer Malcolm Shaw)
• Pam of Pond Hill (artist Bob Harvey, writer Jay Over)
• Glenda’s Glossy Pages (artist Tony Highmore, writer Pat Mills)
• Room for Rosie (artist Santiago Hernandez, writer Alison Christie)
• Remember November… (artist Len Flux, writer Maureen Spurgeon)
• The Button Box (artist Mario Capaldi, writer Alison Christie, sub-writer Ian Mennell)
• The Dawn Horse – a Pony Tale (artist Hugo D’Adderio, writer Chris Harris)
• Spell of Fog (artist Tony Coleman, writer Jake Adams)
• The Crayzees (artist Joe Collins)

This was the last Guy Fawkes issue Tammy ever published, and it is bang on 5 November. Tammy dropped Bessie and Wee Sue in 1982, so they are no longer able to provide any special stories for Guy Fawkes. We have a Guy Fawkes feature, “Remember November…” and in “The Crayzees” we learn Miss T does not like fireworks because they are so noisy. So what is in that mystery parcel she has ordered for 5 November? Joe Collins was always one for incorporating the Fireworks Code into his Tammy cartoons and this one is no exception. It is written all around the border of the full-page cartoon. We also have a recipe for a Bonfire cake in “Tammy’s Tasties”.

Room for Rosie had her Guy Fawkes story in the Halloween issue, but there is some carryover this week. Rosie has taken damage from the bonfire party, so her chances of a home have been reduced. Can Pauline find a way to restore her?

A new Pam of Pond Hill starts. It would have been nice if Jay Over had written a Pam of Pond Hill Guy Fawkes story, which is something Pam never had. Instead, Pam and her friends find themselves being roped into a cookery contest by Jenny Bates, who is using the excursion to see her favourite pop group, the Phonees. Moreover, Jenny has chosen them more for their good nature than their talent for cooking. They decide to go along with it because they are under the impression Jenny’s days are numbered and it’s her dying wish. Actually, it looks suspiciously like Jenny’s playing on their sympathy. Anyway, Jenny’s reason for entering them all in the contest is selfish and not giving any thought to winning for the school – which they don’t have much chance of.

In “Lucky By Name” everyone is now thinking Lucky the foal has some strange power over animals. Snobby Amanda and her father demand the foal be examined by a research institute but Lucky’s owners refuse because the institute has an unsavoury reputation for animal experimentation. Now someone is stealing Lucky, and we strongly suspect Amanda and her father are behind it. Lucky, if you really do have a power over animals, now might be a good time to use it…

This week’s episode of “Glenda’s Glossy Pages” was drawn by Tony Highmore instead of Mario Capaldi. Capaldi must have been unavailable for some reason, but he returns in the next episode. In the story, the power of the glossy pages drives off the police who think Glenda stole the items she mysteriously got from the catalogue, but they warn she hasn’t heard the last of them. Next, it looks like the catalogue is helping Glenda by giving her the confidence to swim against her arch-enemy Hillary. But when Hillary suddenly develops cramp, Glenda finds herself just swimming off instead of helping. What the hell has come over her? Well, it’s not hard to guess, especially as Glenda is at a loss to explain it herself but just can’t help it. We rather suspect the same thing is behind Hillary’s cramp too.

The Button Box gives us more Jackson family history this week. This time it’s a World War II story on how gran’s sister met her husband – all through one of the buttons in the box, of course.

This week’s pony tale is a sad one and based on fact. It discusses the last of the Tarpan horse breed in the Ukraine. Sonja and her father travel to the Ukraine in search of the Tarpan breed – only to find the Tarpans are on the brink of extinction and two parent Tarpans being shot by farmers pushes them over the edge.

In “Spell of Fog” Sally is convinced the mysterious rising mist is Alice Compton’s angry response to the sensationalised, historically inaccurate filming of her persecution for witchcraft. But the filming continues, so the mist intensifies. It’s got everyone scared and has even shattered a window.

Beforehand, we are introduced to Alice’s sad-looking self-portrait, the only one of her pictures to survive her burning at the stake. It seems her “extremely modern, natural style” was too far ahead of its time; people called it “the Devil’s likeness” and it sounds like this is one of the reasons why she was branded a witch. The self-portrait is clearly a plot thread to be followed up, but will it be in a way that tells us anything about the mist?

Tammy 29 October 1983

• Lucky by Name… (artist Juliana Buch, writer Malcolm Shaw)
• Pam of Pond Hill (artist Bob Harvey, writer Jay Over)
• The Crayzees (artist Joe Collins)
• Glenda’s Glossy Pages (artist Mario Capaldi, writer Pat Mills)
• The Nightingale’s Song – complete story (artist Douglas Perry, writer Roy Preston)
• The Button Box (artist Mario Capaldi, sub-writer Linda Stephenson)
• Spell of Fog – first episode (artist Tony Coleman, writer Jake Adams)
• Room for Rosie (artist Santiago Hernandez, writer Alison Christie)
• Lonely Ballerina – final episode (artist Maria Barrera, writer Jay Over)
• Make a Mask for Halloween! – feature (writer Chris Lloyd)

Halloween is coming up. So I am bringing out the last Halloween issue Tammy ever published. The cover is very nice, and the girls look like Trick-or-Treaters or organising their Halloween party. Inside, we have instructions for making a Halloween mask and the Crayzees go to a Halloween fancy dress ball. Miss T and Edie are rather chagrined when the human-sized Snoopa wins first prize for dressing up as Miss T!

In last week’s issue, Tammy had a blurb about a spooky story starting this issue in commemoration of Halloween. It is “Spell of Fog”. A film crew arrives at the village of Wolfen to make a film about Alice Compton, a girl who was burned at the stake for witchcraft and rumoured to haunt the spot where her ashes were scattered.  So when the film producer announces his plans to do a historically inaccurate, sensationalised film where Alice is truly evil and an agent of the Devil instead of one of the hapless victims of witch hunts, it really is asking for trouble. Sure enough, a mist is soon arising on the spot where Alice is said to haunt, and it’s clearly blowing in the opposite direction of the wind…

Surprisingly, “Room for Rosie” is celebrating Guy Fawkes one week early and passing over Halloween altogether. Pauline Wheeler is trying to honour her dying gran’s last request to find a good home for her beloved pram, “Rosie”, but so far no luck. Meantime, Rosie is being put to more of the 101 uses that she was so famous for with Gran. This week it’s carrying the Guy for the penny-for-the-routine. Rosie does not do much to sort out the problem of the week, which is where to have the bonfire after the kids lose their regular lot for it.

You’d think there would be a Halloween story in the Button Box. Instead, it’s a story to reassure you that a representative will always be on hand to sort out any problems you may have when you are on holiday abroad.

The complete story is about a promising singer, Suzy Nightingale, who loses her power of speech and singing from the shock of her mother’s death. She nurses her namesake back to health when it is injured, and notices that the nightingale has remained silent all the while, just like her. But all of a sudden the nightingale regains its power of song, which prompts Suzy to regain hers.

“Lonely Ballerina” reunites the creative team from ballet story Slave of the Clock. This was the last ballet story Tammy ever published (not counting “I’m Her – She’s Me!”, although it does have ballet in it). Tanya Lane arrives at Mary Devine’s ballet school, only to find it’s nothing but a mess, she’s the only serious pupil there, and there is a mystery to unravel. The reveal (not very credible and does not make the story one of Tammy’s best) is that Mary’s sister Betty has been struggling to keep the ballet school going after an accident rendered Mary catatonic. This was a foolish thing to do, as Betty knows nothing about ballet. Even more unwisely, she tried to conceal Mary’s condition instead of explaining the situation, getting help, and keeping the school closed until her sister recovered. Mary did not do so until the final episode. In the meantime, the school fell apart, efforts to hide the secret from the governors have now failed, the story is all over the newspapers, and the school faces closure. But of course, being a girls’ story, things end happily.

“Lucky by Name” is a foal named Lucky who seems to have powers over other animals. Unfortunately more and more people are beginning to notice. Now Lucky has made two rich and powerful enemies over it, and they look like they are threatening serious trouble.

Glenda gets a really freaky sign that her “glossy pages” have supernatural powers that could be dangerous. Mum lights a fire where Glenda hid her glossy pages and elsewhere, the bike she got from them catches fire! Yet there’s not a trace of damage on the bike or glossy pages. Then there’s even more trouble when the police come around and demand to know where Glenda got that nice stuff that is way beyond her means, and are not going to believe it came from those glossy pages. What can Glenda do? Or, more to the point, what are those glossy pages going to do?

The latest Pam of Pond Hill story ends this week. Dad has been facing down a supermarket rival whose cut-price fruit & veg have been threatening his greengrocer business. But just when that problem looks all sorted out, the supermarket gets vandalised and Pam is suspect because of the recent bad blood between the two businesses and an item, which was given to her, was found at the scene of the crime.