Bijli: The Rescue (By Denise Wackrill) – text story
Bessie Bunter
Sindy’s Scene: Her Diary and Club Page
Showdate Shirley tells The Wonderful Beatrix Potter Story
Lucky’s Living Doll (artist Robert MacGillivray)
Wicked Lady Melissa – the Strange Story (artist Shirley Bellwood)
My Brother’s a Nut!
Orphans Alone (artist Tom Kerr?)
Star Special – feature
Leading off the 2020 entries on the Jinty Resource Site is another entry on older girls’ titles. This time it is June and School Friend. This issue dates from when June was going through a merger with School Friend, which brought the Storyteller and Bessie Bunter to June and later to Tammy.
Many of the Gypsy Rose stories in Jinty were repackaged Strange Stories from June and Tammy, substituting Gypsy Rose for the Storyteller. This issue contains the original print of a Strange Story that was repackaged as a Gypsy Rose story in Jinty 4 November 1978: “Wicked Lady Melissa”. As the title suggests, Lady Melissa was known for her wickedness and some even said she was possessed by the Devil. Anthea Gordon is cast as Lady Melissa in a pageant but can’t really get into the part. Then Anthea is given Lady Melissa’s whip and…what was that people said about being possessed by the Devil? The original print appears below for the interest of Jinty readers, not to mention the beautiful Shirley Bellwood art.
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Owing to time constraints, potted summaries of the stories have been eschewed in favour of art samples from the stories. This is also to give more insight into what some of our Jinty artists got up to in June before they moved over to Jinty. One is Jim Baikie, who is illustrating Gymnast Jinty. I can never go past this one without wondering if Gymnast Jinty was where Jinty the comic got her name from. Phil Townsend’s artwork appears as the illustrator of Sindy (based on the doll). Other artists here did not appear in Jinty, but featured elsewhere, such as Tammy.
The Twin She Couldn’t Trust! (artist Phil Gascoine)
My Family, My Foes! (artist Carlos Freixas)
The Shepherd Boy (text story)
Lucky’s Living Doll (artist Robert MacGillivray)
Dark Destiny (artist A.E. Allen)
The Sea Urchins (artist Audrey Fawley, writer Linda Blake) – text story
Poochy – cartoon
Sylvie on a String (artist Tony Higham)
Tell Us about It! (letters page)
Swim to Safety! (artist Phil Townsend)
Tilly’s Magic Tranny (artist Jim Baikie)
Are You a Sparkler? (quiz)
A Christmas Miracle (artist Jim Baikie) – complete story
School for Sports (artist Dudley Wynne)
Bessie Bunter
He’s Grown Up! (Neil Reid)
Christmas is coming, so we continue our tour of older titles with the June Christmas issue from 1973. This was the last Christmas issue June ever published. On 22 June 1974 she merged into Tammy. Several of the June artists would also join the Jinty team as regulars when it started in May 1974: Jim Baikie, Phil Gascoine and Phil Townsend. Carlos Freixas, Audrey Fawley and Robert MacGillivray, who were also regulars on the June team, would also feature on the Jinty team, but not as regulars. These artists were Jinty’s biggest legacy from June. Jinty would also inherit a number of reprints from June as well, such as Strange Stories repackaged as Gypsy Rose stories and Barracuda Bay.
June, who would go through a merger in six months’ time, is still going through her current merger with Pixie. Mini Ha-Ha, a cartoon about a Red Indian girl, is one that really carried over from Pixie, but would not join the Tammy & June merger. Bessie Bunter, who came from the School Friend merger, would continue in the merger with Tammy. So would The Strangest Stories Ever Told, though currently it is not running in June.
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Although the Storyteller is not running, the Christmas issue does have a spooky Christmas story by Jim Baikie. It is reproduced here for the benefit of Jim Baikie fans. Also reproduced here is the Bessie Bunter Christmas story, about a giant Christmas pudding. So giant you could fit people into it. And what’s this with goblins? It’s Christmas, not Halloween.
Also celebrating Christmas are Lucky’s Living Doll, two text stories and a quiz: Are You a Sparkler? The artist illustrating the quiz is the same artist who illustrated a number of Jinty’s quizzes.
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Rather than give the usual potted summaries of the picture stories in the issue, I have chosen to feature panels from them. This is to give an indication what our Jinty artists got up to in June before they joined the Jinty team five months later, a month before June folded.
Bessie Bunter (artist Arthur Martin, writer Ron Clark)
Pony Trek Penny – text story (artist Jim Baikie, writer Linda Blake)
The Grays Fight Back! (artist Robert MacGillivray)
Showdate Shirley Reports on Arthur Lowe (of Dad’s Army)
Sindy and Her Friends in: Operation Ugly Duckling (artist Phil Townsend)
Sindy’s Scene: Her Diary and Club News
Nature’s Wonderful Ways (artist Helen Haywood)
Lucky’s Living Doll (artist Robert MacGillivray)
The Champions (Karen Muir) – first episode
Animal World
The Curse of Witch Wood – Strange Story
Dotty Doogood (cartoon)
Orphans Alone (artist Tom Kerr)
Call Me Cupid! (artist Bill Baker)
In this issue “The Champions” begin, a feature that profiles a sports champion each week. Starting off the series is Karen Muir, a South African swimming star who retired at 18. At the time, Muir was distinguished for being the youngest world breaker holder at the age of 12.
This week’s Strange Story is about a ship’s head that has a curse on it. It turns out this is because the tree used to make the ship’s head was taken from Witch Wood without planting an acorn to replace it. If there is no acorn to replace a cut-down tree in that wood, the witches curse anything made from the tree’s wood. Sounds like very ecological witches.
Tinker tries to help a boy whose lion costume lacks roar – but it works too well. Tinker manages to put it right, and the boy has no memory of what happened, thank goodness. But she now has to face her Fairy House-Mother over the matter, so don’t you go giggling at me as well, she says to readers.
We didn’t know Jinty was brilliant at tennis as well as gymnastics, but it turns out she is. She is helping out Louise, who has her heart set on Wimbledon. But it looks like an arm injury could put an end to that.
Bessie is trying to hide a dog at Cliff House for the sake of its owner, who can’t afford to keep it. But the dog’s a huge bumbling menace whose appetite rivals Bessie’s own. Eventually the school pitches in so the owner can keep the dog.
The Grays are out on the street after their horrible landlord threw them out (at least they’re well rid of that landlord), and they’re not having much luck finding anything suitable. Worse, their mum is fit to come home now – but there is no home for her to come home to. So they have to find one, and fast!
Sindy has the task of turning the ugly duckling daughter Melinda of the Mayor-elect into a swan, um mayoress, with a makeover. Melinda hasn’t been cooperative until she discovers her cousin Angela is playing dirty tricks to replace her. And lack of confidence is now proving to be a problem too, but everything works out splendidly – except for Angela, of course.
Tina is doing spring-cleaning. But it turns into disaster when a kitten interferes, followed by a dog that Lucky tried to use to dry the washing. Maybe leave it to Lucky next time eh, Tina?
“Orphans Alone” try their luck with a theatrical company, and they handle rubbish-throwing hecklers like troupers. But it turns out that wretched beadle is in the audience, so they’re back on the run.
This week “Call Me Cupid!” tells the story of how her efforts to help Cherry went so badly wrong that she got a row from the folks that just about broke her eardrums, lost her pocket money and has to do washing up every night. But she isn’t giving up on finding the man for Cherry.
In “Wild Girl of the Hills” Naomi has been wrongly accused of theft while the real thieves have tied up Jean on the moor – and a wildcat is threatening her!
Slaves of the Sleeping Ones (artist Juan Solé) – final episode
Animal World – feature
Angela Barrie: Trim ‘n’ Slim! (feature)
Gymnast Jinty (artist Jim Baikie)
The Mystery of the Seal of Babylon – text story (artist Jim Baikie, writer Jean Theydon)
Bessie Bunter (writer Ron Clark)
Shirley’s Showdate: New Girl in Five C
Sindy and Her Friends in: Fight for Francesca! (artist Phil Townsend)
Sindy’s Scene: Her Diary and Club Page
The Champions: Ann Packer
Lucky’s Living Doll (artist Robert MacGillivray)
Rock of Destiny – Strange Story (artist Rodrigo Comos)
Nature’s Wonderful Ways – feature (artist Helen Haywood)
Orphans Alone (artist Tom Kerr)
Dottie Doogood (cartoon)
Wild Girl of the Hills (artist Carlos Freixas)
The bullying Cathy suffers at school puts her friend Lynn in danger, yet it still continues. Cathy loses her job because she is too upset over the whole affair to do it right. Her new job is proving too much for her, but she continues because her parents need the money. Everything is just piling up on our heroine!
Tinker tries to help out a sheep that has fallen down a crevice. As usual, she can’t get it right, and the sheep even takes a trip to Fairyland! At least the sheep enjoyed the trip.
It’s the final episode of “Slaves of the Sleeping Ones”. Defeating the Zurons turns out to be a matter of pressing the green button instead of the red one on their spaceship, which sends their spaceship off back into outer space. The Zurons themselves just disintegrate.
Gymnast Jinty has been secretly training Janice Stokes. Janice’s father is so opposed to her doing gymnastics that he locked her in on the day of the “Three Towns” athletic meeting. He even nailed the window shut to stop her climbing out! Jinty manages to get Janice out in time for the event. She also gives Janice’s father a good talking-to about how miserable he has made Janice by making her do things his way. Eventually Dad comes around, especially when he’s pressed to have his photo taken with his triumphant daughter.
Bessie is in a gymkhana this week. It turns out her mount is as big a food lover as she is, so she knows what to do to get him to win at every event – dangle food in front of him. What a pair!
Sindy suspects the prince her friend Francesca is set to marry is a creep, and her inquiries prove her right. The prince is a cad who squanders the family fortune and piles up debts, so it is obvious he’s out to marry Francesca for her money and squander that too. Sindy tries to show the prince up for what he is in front of Francesca, but it looks like the prince has foiled her. Fortunately the blurb for next week says that Sindy is not beaten yet.
In Lucky’s Living Doll, classmates are playing jokes with a trick spider. They get annoyed when Lucky refuses to joke someone with the spider. To keep the peace with them, Lucky pulls the joke on the teacher and cops lines.
“Orphans Alone” have a narrow escape when they get trapped at the foot of a cliff and the tide is coming in. This week’s Strange Story also has a perilous water escape, where Annie Simpson has a strange dream of a girl being kidnapped by pirates. She escapes the pirates by seizing control of the ship’s wheel and wrecking it against the Steeple Rock. The dream has Annie prepared when criminals kidnap her in the same manner, and she pulls the same stunt to escape.
Kidnapping and escaping are also the order of the day in “The Mystery of the Seal of Babylon”. The villainous Krebens has kidnapped Liza in order to force her father to reveal the whereabouts of the Seal of Babylon, a priceless relic. Liza manages an escape that would make Gymnast Jinty proud, but then a strong hand grips her. Has she been recaptured or is it something else?
In “Wild Girl of the Hills”, the mystery of Naomi’s bracelet deepens. Two gypsies know the truth, so our protagonists decide to tail them in the hope of uncovering it.
Ann’s South Sea Adventure (artist Dudley Pout, writer Jason Alan)
Emma In The Shade (artist Juan Solé)
Bijli in the Dark (text story)
Bessie Bunter (writer Ron Clark)
Shirley’s Showdate – feature on Ian Carmichael
Sindy and her Friends in Boomerang! (artist Phil Townsend)
The Champions: sports feature on Emma ‘Maid Marian’ Gapchenko
Lucky’s Living Doll (artist Robert MacGillivray)
Nature’s Wonderful Ways (artist Helen Haywood)
Strange Story: The Island of Mystery (attributed to artist Shirley Bellwood)
My Brother’s a Nut!
Dottie Doogood (gag strip)
Double for Danger (artist Leslie Otway)
Star Special “The Darwin Adventure”
For this last issue of June & School Friend of the three that I acquired, I looked through the credits listed on Catawiki to be able to list artists (and even some writers) that I didn’t otherwise know. I am very grateful to that site for its detailed information. I was rather surprised to see Shirley Bellwood credited with the art on the Strange Story (The Island of Mystery, which was reprinted as a Gypsy Rose story in the Jinty Annual for 1980) as it looks much scrappier than Bellwood’s normal lovely art, but I have gone with this attribution rather than doubting it.
[By request, here is the Strange Story – click through for large, more readable pages]
“Gymnast Jinty” has escaped the confines of the school environment and is into thrilling spy-story stuff. Jinty is on a modelling assignment on a tropical island during a coup d’état; she gets embroiled in a rebellion against this wrongdoing. In this episode we see her scattering two thousand leaflets across the capital city – during a parachute drop! But we are promised that next week, she is thrown in jail. An exciting story!
“Oh, Tinker!” this week is a fun story about a magpie who stole an engagement ring from a young woman whose fiancé is very angry about it – the ring is returned in time for it to be clear that it wasn’t from carelessness that it was lost, but due to the thieving magpie. The best bit though is when the young lady in question gives her fiancé the heave-ho for having been such a git about it all.
[By request, here is the Tinker story – click through for large, more readable pages]
“Oh, Tinker!”1
“Oh, Tinker!” 2
We have a single page of what looks art-wise like a rather earlier story: “Ann’s South Sea Adventure”. Ann Pilgrim travels to the South Sea Islands. Lots of action and danger with natives who speak broken English, hmm.
This is a much later episode of “Emma In The Shade” – her and her mother are living in poverty on a barge and just scraping by. Her mother is failing to make a living at painting, until an accident transforms one of her naturalistic paintings into a modernist success. (A well-worn joke that seems to have been used several times as the basis of an episode of one or other comic story.) She also makes a success of singing in a talent contest, once she takes Emma’s advice to not make the songs too ‘highbrow’.
The Sindy story features a fire at the sheep station where she is staying in Australia – and a secret that the daughter of the house is hiding from her father. It is simply that she is a talented violinist, but her father disapproves.
I reproduce here the page of “Nature’s Wonderful Ways”, which was often reprinted in Jinty issues and annuals. There is a signature at the bottom of the page, so we are able to credit it to Helen Haywood.
“Double for Danger” is the dramatic story of the issue. Gail Dawson is asked to become a body double for ballet soloist Karen Grant – a request which seems innocent enough, just embarrassing if she is found out. I suspect it will end up as rather more than it seems, though! I like the way the logo is done in one large vertical panel that runs from top to bottom of the page: it is shaded as if it might have been intended for colour reproduction originally.
I notice some differences between this title and the way things worked a bit later in Jinty‘s day. Primarily it’s rather longer – this issue is 36 pages rather than the 32 I am used to seeing – but looking at Catawiki I see that this figure is down from 44 pages in around 1968. I also see that the lettering in the stories is not done via typewriting as in Jinty et al – it’s hand-lettered throughout, sometimes more neatly than others, so presumably it was not done in house by a central resource. Interesting! Often the lettering was very nicely done too.
Angela Barrie Presents Her Choice for a Pattern for Summer (feature)
Gymnast Jinty (artist Jim Baikie)
The Mystery of the Seal of Babylon – text story (artist Jim Baikie, writer Jean Theydon)
Nature’s Wonderful Ways (artist Helen Haywood)
Bessie Bunter (writer Ron Clark)
The Windmill – text story (artist Jim Baikie, writer 11-year-old Susan Bloomer)
Sindy and Her Friends in: The Great Poodle Puzzle! (artist Phil Townsend)
Sindy’s Scene: Her Diary and Club Page
Lucky’s Living Doll (artist Robert MacGillivray)
The Champions: Sally-Anne Stapleford
The Weather Decider – Strange Story
Animal World: It’s a Dog’s Life (feature)
Dotty Doogood (cartoon)
Orphans Alone (artist Tom Kerr)
Wild Girl of the Hills (artist Carlos Freixas)
Comixminx has been putting up entries on the odd June & School Friends she has acquired, so I will do the same.
It is the first episode of “They Call Me a Coward!”, a story that has its own entry on this blog because of the parallels it shares with the Jinty story “Waves of Fear” in which the protagonist is bullied for cowardice after she fails to come to a girl’s rescue. This story will hold the cover spot for the duration of its run.
This week’s Strange Story has a definite “don’t mess with Mother Nature” message. Sara James acquires a strange device called “Jeremiah Bagshaw’s Weather Decider”. You think it will be great to decide the weather you want? Sara thinks so until she tries the decider out. The ruddy dial keeps slipping to the extreme of whatever weather Sara sets it to: “gale” when she sets it to “breezy”, “tropical heat” when she sets it to “sunny”, and “torrential downpour” when she sets it to “rain”. In the end, Sara smashes the decider.
Lucky the Living Doll uses Punch and Judy props to take on a girl who uses the “Punch, punch, first day of the month and no return!” game to bully other girls. It works better than expected – the bully ends up with 500 lines.
“Speed” is Stackers’ order of the day in this week’s Bessie Bunter episode. It’s a motto that Bessie latches onto as an excuse to cause her usual mischief and even take the school governor roller-skating. Fortunately it all works out well when Bessie foils a car thief with her antics.
The Sleeping Ones in “Slaves of the Sleeping Ones” are now revealed to be aliens called Zurons. The Zurons want their slaves to dig something up for them. But Pat, our protagonist, is detected before she can find out what, and now the slaves are out to kill her!
Tinker tries to save a puppy from the doghouse when it chews up a man’s boot. Of course things don’t smoothly with her mixed-up magic, but at least it does help the puppy get away with it. Meanwhile, Sindy & Co are trying to help another dog, which has gone missing. They think they have spotted him at the circus, but it looks like a dead end.
Gymnast Jinty is trying to organise an aqua-show. Nothing has gone right so far, but can everything come together in the final episode this week?
“Orphans Alone” were all set to be adopted by the kindly Mr Maple – but then the workhouse authorities turn up, all ready to drag them back. So the orphans are on the run again. They end up in London with the aid of a barge woman and spot a vacancy. How will it go next week?
Naomi in “Wild Girl of the Hills” is not so lucky. The authorities have put her into an institution and Jean is trying to get her out.
The Champions – Lillian Board (sports personality feature)
Lucky’s Living Doll (artist Robert MacGillivray)
Strange Story: “Phantoms of the Old Chateau” (artist Phil Townsend)
My Brother’s a Nut! – sparkling new family story begins today
Adam’s Got What he Wants – feature on Adam Faith
Orphans Alone (artist Tom Kerr)
Another one of my slightly-randomly-acquired issues of June and School Friend. As I said in the comments on the last post, we will look to cover more titles beyond Jinty on this blog in the future.
“Emma In The Shade” is a nicely-drawn tale of parental angst. As with the other stories in June & SF, it feels very short at only 2 pages long per episode but other than that it could certainly fit in the pages of Jinty. Emma is the only child of brilliant parents, who expect her to excel likewise. But she doesn’t feel that she has any talents, and her mother in particular is very hard on her as a result. Of course when there is an accident that deprives her of one parent, it is the unsympathetic one that she is left with…
Little fairy Tinker is trying to help a young boy who is having no luck fishing – through a series of happy accidents she ends up dragging the whole jetty he is standing on off to the deep sea, which at least means that he ends up with an impressive catch!
Angie West is in trouble. While trying to find out what happened to a china angel belonging to her old friend, she has got mixed up in something which results in her being accused of robbery. She is cleared by the end of the episode because luckily she sketched a man that she saw in pirate costume in the location of the robbery – and that turned out to be the perpetrator, so all was well.
Gymnast Jinty is faced with a dilemma – the school she works at is due to be merged with another, and she and the games teacher at the other school must compete for their jobs. I’m not that interested in the story resolution but Jim Baikie does such lovely art even in the background details – Jinty invents a game to get the school girls practicing hard, by hitting tennis balls against ‘space monsters’ she has set up dangling from the ceiling of the gym. They are lovely little details. I include it here for others to enjoy.
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The text story is a three-pager, as with the earlier issue I posted about. This is not so much a serial as a series of linked stories about the same protagonists, seemingly the little curious mongoose in particular. There is also a one-page “Nature’s Wonderful Ways” illustrated feature on interesting animals and their play-time habits.
Bessie Bunter is up to her usual tricks, but so is her brother, who is her rival in the quest to obtain a feast from a school hamper! But the two chumps, sorry chums, end up pinching a basket of cacti for the flower show instead, alas for them.
Sindy’s pal Tim dashes into a stable when a fire breaks out, and they discover a tale of drugged and sabotaged horses. Very Dick Francis.
The feature about a sports personality is on Lillian Board, a very fast runner I’d never heard of. She sadly died of cervical cancer at the very early age of 22: the feature just refers to ‘her killer disease’ without going into any further details and I needed to look her up to find out anything more.
Robert MacGillivray delivers his usual fun as Lucky and her living doll try to enjoy the sunshine without too many slapstick sillies.
The Strange Story is drawn by Phil Townsend, meaning we really have a good lot of Jinty stalwarts featured in this issue. It is about a girl in the French Resistance, who is guided to find an important package which has landed in the middle of a maze. Her guides are the ghosts of previous inhabitants who followed the path to escape from revolutionaries long ago.
“My Brother’s A Nut” is rather sloppily drawn I would say. Jilly Carter’s family is all very normal and ordinary, apart from her brother, who often takes it into to try out new ideas. This week he’s trying to get Jilly to form a band with him and some friends, as the drummer – but of course she has never done any drumming before.
The artist on “Orphans Alone” is familiar but I don’t know his/her name [edited to add – Catawiki tells me this is Tom Kerr]. Beth and Tim are orphans who have run away from the workhouse and are struggling to make a living. When Tim buys her a bottle at a fair, they seem to be dogged by bad luck afterwards, but it turns out to be all because of a scam that a nasty trickster is trying to play on the two. I assume there are further episodic tales of these two orphans to come, until eventually they find their last home or long-lost parents or similar.
It’s Easter Week! (crafts feature by Angela Barrie)
Gymnast Jinty (artist Jim Baikie)
Bessie Bunter
Pony Trek Penny (writer Linda Blake) – prose serial
Call Me Cupid! (artist Bill Baker)
“I Talk To Basil Brush” – Showdate (feature)
Sindy and her friends in The Haunted Theatre (artist Phil Townsend)
Sindy’s Scene – her Diary and Club News (feature)
Animal World (feature)
Lucky’s Living Doll (artist Robert MacGillivray)
Hobby Time – Rambling (feature)
“The Elsa Story” (true story feature)
“The Shadow of Success” – Strange Story (artist Robert MacGillivray)
The Grays Fight Back! (artist Robert MacGillivray)
Secret of Bell Mountain
Some months ago I bought three copies of June and School Friend, slightly on a whim. They are very readable, and also interesting for the light they shed on how IPC girls comics developed over the years. There are a lot of different comics stories included – 10 in total – but these are shorter than in Jinty or the like, as they are pretty much all only 2 pages long each. That leaves more room for text items, including a three page serialised prose story, which is something that never happened in Jinty and only rarely in Tammy. I will write detailed posts on all three of them, as we do for Jinty issues, but I know fewer of the artists to be able to credit their work.
“Oh, Tinker!” looks rather like a story from a nursery-title: drawn by Trini Tinturé, it features a sweet little fairy who can cast up to 3 spells a day and often gets things mixed up. Of course in the end everything always works out ok.
The “Wild Girl of the Hills” is Naomi, a gypsy girl who lives alone in a cave and is friends with wild creatures. Her only friend is Jean Ross, whose father is the head game-keeper locally; the two girls are drawn together by their love of animals. This is a theme that occurs in other stories; Freixas’ lovely art makes it worth a look.
“Gymnast Jinty” was occasionally seen in as a reprint in an annual; it’s interesting to see this story, which I assume may have lead to the idea behind naming Jinty itself. Jinty Lewis is a popular young gym mistress at Sandbury School; she has to deal with emotional troubles from her pupil Gail.
Bessie Bunter is always a fun strip, if very silly indeed, and of course old-fashioned. Bessie does some shopping and scarfs as many free samples as she can – but what with one thing and another still ends up as the hero of the day when she inadvertently catches a shoplifter.
“Pony Trek Penny” is credited to Linda Blake, who is also credited with a text story printed in the 1975 Jinty annual. I suspect that means either that the story in the annual is a June &SF reprint, or that Mavis Miller kept Ms Blake on the creative books during the initial while that Jinty was getting established. She is not a name that seems to appear in subsequent pages of Jinty though.
“Call Me Cupid!” starts this week – a humorous story about a girl whose older sister breaks up with her fiancé when he fails to turn up to the church in time – he got his dates mixed up! Cue match-making from the younger sister, to stop her older sister from moaning so much.
There is a comic with a difference in the middle of the issue – ‘by arrangement with the manufacturers of Pedigree Dolls’, it features Sindy and her friends. Here it is, partly so you can enjoy the lovely Phil Townsend art.
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There is a two-page episode of “Lucky’s Living Doll” which lets us enjoy Robert MacGillivray’s art, but then we are very well off for his art in this issue, as the Strange Story also is drawn by him. The Strange Story is 3 pages long – the only comics story in the issue which is as long as that. A girl borrows a tennis racket from an old champion and it seems to encourage her to heights of dedication and ruthlessness, which starts to make her unhappy. And MacGillivray also draws “The Greys Fight Back!” about a family rallying round their father, who is in a wheelchair following an accident and is depressed about it. Normally this sort of role would be fulfilled by a girl protagonist so this is a different twist. It has a humorous angle rather than dealing strongly with negative emotions like anger or despair.
In the letters page we see an example of a reader who is interested in the creators behind the stories: she asks “why don’t you print something about the different artists who draw the stories”. A particular favourite of hers is Trini Tinturé, who is given a name in the reply and described as “a Spanish girl… who lives in Barcelona – and has her record player going to keep her company while she’s working!” We are promised more of Trini in a later issue. I wonder if she was in a feature?
The last story of the issue is “Secret of Bell Mountain”, a thriller which ends with the brave girl protagonist being held up at gun point by the villain of the piece.
Robert MacGillivray (1913 – 1986) was the artist on only one ongoing Jinty story, though his art also appeared in a number of annuals (often in reprints from other older titles such as June), and so he was more familiar to the Jinty reader than other artists who did only a single strip or two. He had a classic comedy style, with big noses and bizarre contrivances seen in strips such as “Jeannie and her Uncle Meanie”, “Lucky’s Living Doll”, and “The Flights of Flopear”. Jinty‘s “Desert Island Daisy” was a strip done in this ‘big nose’ style too, but Jinty readers also saw some more realistic stories on occasion.
Stories published in Jinty:
“Desert Island Daisy” (1974)
“Desert Island Daisy” individual stories in the Jinty Annuals for 1975 and 1976
“The Spoof of St Elma’s” in the Jinty Holiday Special 1979
“They Always Know” – Gypsy Rose story in the Jinty Holiday Special 1981
“Boo to the Goose!” in the Jinty Annual 1981
“The Lady of the Manor” in the Jinty Annual 1985
The post about the June book from 1970 includes mention of MacGillivray, where he used a slightly more realistic style. I am using that as the example page for this artist, to show a little of his range.
The Girls Comics of Yesterday site includes a tag for Robert MacGillivray, so do check there to see what stories he drew for DC Thomson.
Likewise the Tammy Project includes “Maisie’s Magic Eye“, drawn by MacGillivray and published in Sally (reprinted in Tammy). He also drew “Wee Sue” at points in this long-running character’s life; these are mentioned in the posts on this site about the Tammy annuals in 1984, 1985, and 1986.
The Comics UK forum includes a discussion thread specifically about MacGillivray, with much information about early work of this prolific artist.
Return of the Silver Mare – Strange Story (artist Veronica Weir)
Fun Spot
Wot’s Wot?
Spitter the Career Cat – text story
Tuck into Tucktonia! – feature
Box Clever – feature
Wonders of Nature
Bessie Bunter
The Strangest Alliance – feature
Disco Dancer – Strange Story (artist Tony Coleman)
Join the Nit-Wits! Feature
Could You Be a Tough Goody? – quiz
Fun Spot
Getting to Know You – feature
Bessie Bunter
Dairy Delicious – feature
Pictures of Matchstick Men – Strange Story (artist Angeles Felices)
Weather: The Rhyme and the Reason – feature (artist Joe Collins)
Bessie Bunter
What Age Are You? – quiz
The Phobia – Strange Story (artist Jim Baikie)
Bessie’s Tuck Shop – feature
Going with the Wind – feature
The Spirit of the Mary Rose – Strange Story (artist Eduardo Feito)
Half-Term in the Kitchen – text story
Lucky’s Living Doll – artist John Richardson
Fun Spot
In continuation with Comixminx’s entries on June, I now analyse the only June annual I still have, the one from 1982. This may have been the last June annual produced – I haven’t confirmed it.
The cover is a lively Christmas shopping scene from Jim Baikie and is more fluid and modern than the stiffer older style from June annuals of previous decades. But the annual has been reduced to 78 pages instead of the 126 that say, the Jinty annual of the same year has. This may be why it does not reprint any serial. Instead, we have Strange Stories (some of which I recognise from Tammy), reprints of Bessie Bunter and Lucky’s Living Doll, and two text stories. The two quizzes inside are strong. “Are You a Tough Goody?” tests to see if you have what it takes to be a Charlie’s Angel type or whether you should stay behind the desk like Bosley. “What Age Are You?” has nothing to do with how old you are – it tests to see whether you should have been born in ancient Rome, the Middle Ages or Victorian times.
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Lucky’s Living Doll is the first thing we see when we open the annual. It is reprinted from the era when John Richardson had taken over from Robert MacGillivray, and there has been feeling among June collectors that this marked a decline in the Living Doll series. But the story is strong; Lucky and Tina encounter a clown who has fallen on hard times but still spends far more than he can afford to keep his daughter Stella in school. He even goes to lengths such as going without food and stealing money to pay for her schooling! And he just can’t tell her what is going on, even when he collapses. Lucky and Tina decide Stella must be told, and if he won’t, they will. But are they doing the right thing?
Lucky’s Living Doll is also the last thing we read in the annual. Alarm bells go off when Cousin Matilda tells the family she is going to send “an absolute pet of a boa” to them! Tina’s imagination goes overtime as she pictures herself being eaten by a boa.
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The last June annuals also took to having one Strange Story in colour. In this case it is “The Phobia”. Other Strange Stories in the annual were in the old black-and-white. We get some good features, such as “Going with the Wind” (about windmills) and Bessie’s Tuck Shop, in which she provides recipes on how to make the Cliff House goodies in her tuck shop (though we have to wonder how they stayed around long enough to sell with Bessie in charge!). The presence of Poochy is a surprise; he did not appear in the regular strip.
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One text story “Spitter the Career Cat”, is an unusual and delightful one. It is a story about cats who go on the run, as told from one of the cats. But they don’t just run away – our narrator has his eye on getting into the high life and leading a life of luxury. It doesn’t quite go that way, of course. Eventually they settle on being travelling acting cats and take to theatre barges. “Half-Term in the Kitchen” leads to a half-term holiday leading to a battle with uncooperative wallpaper during redecorating and our heroine just about giving up before family cooperation turns things around.
It is not surprising that the June annuals had fallen into reprints by the 1980s, and they were reprints of shorter material because the reduced number of pages meant no room for reprinted serials. But the quality in this June annual is still good and I find it a delight to read.
A Resource on Jinty: Artists, Writers, Stories 