Jinty & Lindy 3 January 1976

• Slaves of the Candle (artist Roy Newby)
• The Jinx from St Jonah’s (artist Mario Capaldi)
• Friends of the Forest (unknown artist – Merry – “B Jackson”)
• Golden Dolly, Death Dust! (artist Phil Gascoine)
• Ping-Pong Paula (artist Jim Baikie)
• Too Old to Cry! (artist Trini Tinturé unknown)
• Wanda Whiter than White (artist Ana Rodriguez)
• The Haunting of Hazel (artist Santiago Hernandez unknown)
• Song of the Fir Tree (artist Phil Townsend)
• Do-It-Yourself Dot

This post is inspired by a number of creator attribution discussions from recent months, not all of which have made it onto the blog yet (and some of which are hot off the press!). Yesterday I had a lovely, fun meetup with the daughter of Trini Tinturé, who is very delightfully based in the same city as me for at least some of her working time. I dug out some old issues to show Maris Tinturé some of her mother’s Jinty stories in situ, and this was the first one where I spotted a story attributed to Trini.

Maris leafed through it once, twice, and couldn’t find any art of her mother’s. Was it just too much of a skim-read to spot it after all this time? No – I pointed out the specific story I had in mind, “Too Old to Cry!”, and the immediate reaction was, ‘but that’s not hers!’ – and a quick cameraphone piccy and email confirmed it. This story looks enough like Trini’s art for me to never have questioned the attribution that came handed down to me, probably from David Roach originally, but to the most familiar of eyes it is as unlike her art as one face is like another. Below is the episode of the story from this issue – compare it to a piece of definite Trini artwork like the sample pages of Creepy Crawley. (But I think that you will be likely to have to look very closely to be sure, unless you are very familiar with her artwork.) [Edited to add – Trini now says that this story is hers after all! This is upon reflection and, especially, her review of the second and third pages of the story. Here are her own words about it (translated by her daughter Maris): “I would much rather say that this bad work is not mine, and it would be easier for me to do so. But, unfortunately, I have to admit it is. Shame, shame! It looks like the main character had to have a ‘special’ feel, and special indeed I made her! She looks horribly tuberculose. I don’t remember the story or the characters at all. (And at the bottom of the last page the texts points to the continuation in the following week, meaning it’s a serial: no clue at all.) But there are traits in the other characters that give me away mercilessly. Nobody can copy certain kinds of folding and line… The way of drawing stones, the backgrounds… the older people… (Or maybe it was a cooperation between me and Dracula, who knows!)

But the date 1976 certainly does not fit. It is quite possible that they originally put aside the story and only published it years later, who knows why. There was a lot of entanglement [with] publishers. These bad pages smack of my earliest works for Scotland’s schoolgirl series, for example. Fortunately my style changed very soon.

There’s nothing more I can add. It is bad work, but it is mine.”]

 

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This issue also includes an episode of “The Haunting of Hazel” which we have likewise previously attributed to Santiago Hernandez. However, on looking at the 2017 post on “Santiago Hernandez or José Ariza” Trini has this to say: “Barracuda Bay” is definitely Hernandez. “Golden Shark” possibly, but much earlier work perhaps. “The Haunting of Hazel” is unlikely to be Hernandez.” So I have likewise changed the attribution of that story on this post, in order not to confidently show it as being by Santiago Hernandez.

Finally, one other story in this issue is from an artist that we have long referred to as unknown – the unknown artist who drew “Merry at Misery House”. A sighting by “Goof” on the UK Comics Forum gave us a valuable reference to the name “B Jackson” as the artist credit accompanying the illustration for a text story in the ‘Daily Mirror Book for Girls” 1971. Further detective work by David Slinn (a contact of David Roach’s) and by David Roach has given a long list of stories and titles that “B Jackson” seems to have worked on. This will follow as a blog post on this site, with apologies for the delay in getting to this denouement.

But will the attribution of B Jackson prove long lasting, or could it be falsified or proved inaccurate in some way? All that I’ve seen on the blog so far goes to show that there is no 100% guarantee of anything – the word of an expert is very valuable but there’s nothing to compare with a direct line from the creator themselves, if at all possible.

On sources and resources

I have recently added a couple of new links on the links sidebar; it seems to me that there are some relevant points worth airing and asking about, in the area of attribution of work.

I’ve written before about the difficulty of attributing work to artists in the absence of proper printed story credits (how much harder to attribute work to writers! but that’s another post). On this blog many of the names of artists have come from information supplied by experts such as David Roach, or from internet links written by others who are particularly keen on one or other artist themselves. How to verify these different sources, when even experts can make mistakes or have their attributions occasionally mistyped?

Take Angela’s Angels, for instance; which has been consistently attributed to Alberto Cuyas on this blog. It now seems clear to me that we should have been listing him as Manuel Cuyàs all along, as this set of links on Spanish-language blog Deskartesmil shows. I got to that information via a link on the Comics UK Forum while looking for another artist, Stanley Houghton. Now Stanley Houghton is someone who is a possible candidate to be credited with the art on “The Hostess With The Mostess“; I have been pointed at a very useful reference site, Catawiki, which lists him as the artist on one issue of “Hostess” but not all of them. I will have to go back to my issues and see if the artist on this strip differs in different weeks, particularly as the Stanley Houghton art I have seen on links is very nice and I don’t remember the “Hostess” art being as nice as that.

So at this rate I have at least two sets of changes to make, one of which is more uncertain than the other.

Another name I have come across on Catawiki is Leo Davy, who is credited with the art on “Angela’s Angels” (see how it comes full circle!). There is little on the internet about this artist, but new-to-me blog ‘Out of This World’ has a post that includes the fact that Girl credited artists and writers, at least on the annual that is discussed. There are some pages of Leo Davy art posted there (it’s a long post, so search for “The Red Pennant” which is the story that Leo Davy drew). Based on this, I don’t agree with Catawiki’s attribution of “Angela’s Angels” to Leo Davy, but I am sure that Davy drew other stories I have come across.

Anyway, I have now linked to Catawiki and to ‘Out of This World’; the Comics UK Forum was already on the sidebar of links and has provided much useful information (and indeed scans) before now. I think the only conclusion that can be drawn is that attribution of artists is hard! The scans on sites such as Lambiek’s Comiclopedia, which I also use as reference, are often quite small and show the variety of styles that an artist can work in, which is great, but I think the best way to identify an artist is often a specific ‘tic’ – the way they draw hands, or mouths, or even shoes – and for that you need a good-size scan so that you can really focus on those details.

Later on I will update this post with some images from the various artists in question, and some “Angela’s Angels” artwork, as a direct comparison!

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Images for comparison

Angela’s Angels artwork from first episode

Quite a nice range of faces, and a good couple of active moments in those first panels, meaning we should hopefully have enough to go on.

This is the art credited to Manuel Cuyàs, on a specialist Spanish blog. Some similarities to the “Angela’s Angels” art but also some differences there I think, in the faces and linework. (The same blog credits Manuel Cuyàs with “Angela’s Angels” but without attaching any art examples.) On the basis of these examples, I am tempted to retract the assignment of Cuyàs to “Angela’s Angels”, in fact – though I definitely have another Jinty story (in an annual) that I would be confident of saying is by Cuyàs.

This is the Leo Davy art, credited clearly in the Girl Annual posted about on the ‘Out of this World’ blog. Of course “Angela’s Angels” isn’t in this more painted style. Again, there are similarities but I am not clear that this is the artist either.

So reader, what do you think?