Jinty 7 January 1978

Come Into My Parlour – artist Douglas Perry

Darling Clementine – artist Richard Neillands, writer Alison Christie

Two Mothers for Maggie – Jim Baikie

Waking Nightmare (first episode) – Phil Townsend

Superstars ‘78 – feature 

Calendar 1978 – feature 

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

Mark Hamill of “Star Wars” – feature 

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

Rinty ‘n’ Jinty – cartoon

Race for a Fortune – artist Christine Ellingham

A Box of Silken Flowers – feature

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tammy 5 January 1980

Cover artist: John Richardson

Cindy of Swan Lake – artist Ana Rodriguez

Sister in the Shadows (first episode) – artist Giorgio Giorgetti

Daughter of the Desert – artist Mario Capaldi

Edie the Ed’s Niece – artist Joe Collins

Ring the Changes (Strange Story) – artist unknown

Bessie Bunter

Molly Mills and the Promotion (first episode) – artist Douglas Perry, writer Maureen Spurgeon

Wee Sue – artist Robert MacGillivray

Make Headlines, Hannah! – artist Tony Coleman

Turn of the Year (Strange Story) – artist Peter Wilkes

Tuck-In with Tammy – feature 

For New Year we bring you Tammy’s New Year issue from 1980. This is the last New Year issue to use the Cover Girls. If they had known they would be dropped in October that year, we don’t think it would have been a very Happy New Year for them. It was a common in-joke for a Cover Girls cover to show someone holding a Tammy with the same cover or a tie-in cover. In this case, old year 1979 looks like he’s got the Tammy with the cover showing new year 1980 on it.

As it turned out, new year 1980 was a big one for Tammy. Just two weeks after this issue came out, Misty merged with Tammy, and the effect resonated for several years. 

The issue is chock-a-block with New Year-themed stories from the regulars. Wee Sue, Bessie Bunter, Edie, and the Storyteller with a double helping of Strange Stories are all in on the act. So is Molly, with her new story, “The Promotion”. Sadly, it’s not a good start for the New Year for her. Ironically, it’s because of something that should be very happy for her – she is chosen for the staff promotion. But the other servants don’t look happy about it, and neither is Molly. She isn’t one of the gang anymore because of the promotion. 

New Year was a popular time for girls’ comics to start new stories, and two stories start in this issue. The first is Molly’s new story. The other is “Sister in the Shadows”. Wendy Weekes is off to a new start at her new school, but it’s already off to a bad start because everyone expects her to live up to the success of her older sister Stella. As if this weren’t bad enough, it’s also making Wendy unpopular with the other girls and a prime target for bullying.

In the old stories, things are finally looking up for Hannah Hilton, who is trying to become a success after nothing but failure, in the form of her nasty sisters who keep trying to sabotage her. Hannah is about to revive an old attraction at the fair. The mayor, who had been requesting it for years, is all agog, and so are the reporters. Seems nothing can go wrong this time – but then there’s a policeman at the door. Is it Hannah’s sisters again or something far more serious?

In “Cindy of Swan Lake”, Cindy Grey goes on tour. It should be a great experience, but, as usual, she’s lumbered with the company of her jealous rival Zoe Martin, who is also out to sabotage her. Zoe’s sabotage takes the form of head games, playing on Cindy being worried sick about her beloved swans, who are being poisoned by pollution.

And in “Daughter of the Desert”, the mysterious Arab figure who seems connected to a strange series of desert-related incidents at a boarding school, leads our heroines into a trap – of quicksand!

Jinty and Lindy 1 January 1977

Contents in this issue:

• Go On, Hate Me! (artist Keith Robson, writer Len Wenn)
• Gertie Grit, the Hateful Brit! (artist Paul White)
• Sceptre of the Toltecs (artist Cándido Ruiz Pueyo/Emilia Prieto)
• The Stars’ New Year Resolutions (feature)
• Made-Up Mandy (artist Audrey Fawley)
• Sue’s Fantastic Fun-Bag! (artist Hugh Thornton Jones)
• The Big Cat (artist Ana Rodriguez)
• The Mystery of Martine (artist Trini Tinturé)
• Alley Cat (artist Rob Lee)
• Is This Your Story?
• Daisy Drudge and Milady Maud – final episode (artist Ken Houghton)

Jinty’s New Year issue for 1977 was bang on New Year’s Day. Jinty says “make it a great New Year – with us!” Indeed, in my opinion 1977 was the year Jinty hit her stride. In 1977 she cast off the Lindy logo that had stayed with her throughout 1976. But what really defined 1977 as the year Jinty hit her stride was fully establishing her trademark science fiction and jauntiness with strips like the quirky “Fran’ll Fix It!” and her “smash hit” story of 1977, “Land of No Tears”. In the same year, Jinty added her resident spooky storyteller, Gypsy Rose. It was also in 1977 that Jinty added Guy Peeters and the unknown Concrete Surfer to her team, who would go on to draw some of her biggest classics.

Oddly, although Gypsy Rose did not appear in Jinty until 29 January 1977, there is a horoscope in this issue saying, “Gypsy Rose looks at the stars”. Readers must have been wondering, “Who the heck is Gypsy Rose?” The horoscope appears on the same page as the blurb for a new story, “Mark of the Witch!”, so perhaps it was meant as a foreshadowing for Gypsy Rose too. If so, it is an odd one, because it gives no hint of who Gypsy Rose is supposed to be. Is it the pen name of the astrologer who writes the horoscope or something?

The cover itself is a beautiful one, with its ingenious use of blues, yellows and reds. The white space lightens things up and does not make the cover too heavy. The seasons look a bit mixed. Mandy’s water-skiing panel hints at summer, while the holly the poor old druid is about to sit on implies winter. The rock Gertie puts the holly on makes it reminiscent of a Christmas pudding, which further adds to the winter theme. While Mandy and Gertie look happy on the cover, we get the opposite with Ruth and Ayesha, who are on the wrong end of a farmer’s gun.

Of course we have New Year features. There is a page where pop stars like Paul McCartney and Paul Nicholas list their resolutions for 1977. In “Sue’s Fantastic Fun-Bag!” Henrietta mishears the word “resolution” as “revolution” and enchants everyone at school into a revolution instead of making resolutions. Alley Cat starts off New Year doing what he does best – annoying the Muchloots. In this case it’s raiding their larder for a New Year feast. Gertie triggers a series of events that establishes Stonehenge – its purpose being a tourist attraction – and its opening has New Year celebrations included.

Now, on to the other stories:

“Daisy Drudge and Milady Maud” is the first of Jinty’s stories to end in 1977, with the mixed-up identities of the skivvy and the high-class girl being sorted out once they finally find each other. This also marks the end of Jinty’s serials with 19^th century settings, which had been introduced when Lindy merged into Jinty way back in November 1975. Its replacement next week is Phil Townsend’s first 1977 story, “Mark of the Witch!”

So far there is no end for Hetty King’s ordeal. Hetty is lumbered with looking after Jo, but Jo hates Hetty because she wrongly blames Hetty for her sister’s death. Hetty manages to secure a job as a temporary PE teacher at her new locality after Jo’s hatred forced her out of her old one, but she faces an uphill battle to win respect from the pupils. And how long before Jo’s hatred interferes with everything?

Mandy applies makeup to adopt a new persona, “Bubbles”, and goes water-skiing. But really – wearing a wig while water-skiing? No wonder the episode ends with Mandy’s secret in danger.

Martine’s odd behaviour is getting worse and worse. Tessa can’t figure out what the hell is going on, except that Martine seems to be acting like the crazed woman she plays onstage.

As already mentioned on the cover, Ruth and Ayesha have a scary moment with a farmer. Fortunately he turns friendly after Ayesha saves his life. But then a shoplifter makes Ruth the scapegoat for her crimes, taking advantage of the prejudice against gypsies.

In “Is This Your Story?”, Lynn Carter feels her family don’t appreciate her and she envies her friend Mary for being an only child. But when both girls end up in hospital, right next to each other, Lynn learns that some people may not be as enviable as she thinks and she draws closer to her family.

In “Sceptre of the Toltecs”, both Clare and a class bully begin to suspect that Malincha, the mystery girl from Mexico, has strange powers. The blurb for next week says there will be more evidence of this.

Girl II #151, 31 December 1983

• Splat! (photostory)
• Animal Poem (feature)
• Fun Fashion: Going in Disguise (feature)
• Tippy’s Special Pool (artist Eduardo Feito)
• A Special Friend – text story (artist Jenny Gable)
• Beauty Resolutions: I Promise… (feature)
• The Kitty Café Cats (artist Joe Collins)
• The Secret Society of St. Nicola’s (photostory)
• Flower’s First Days (feature)
• Patty’s World (artist Purita Campos)
• Slaves of the Nightmare Factory (photostory)
• Help Me! (problem page)
• Police pinup (feature)

This issue of Girl II was published on New Year’s Eve 1983, so it is not surprising there is a New Year’s resolutions feature. The Kitty Cats are also having a dispute over their New Year’s resolutions – the first one of which turns out to be “We promise not to argue”. Meanwhile, Patty hasn’t even got up to Christmas Day yet, and Christmas Eve is anything but merry because Patty’s stepfather has fallen foul of a road accident.

Splat the alien needs a food called “blengrens” in his alien language – which turn out to be peas – in order to remain a convenient doll size and not his usual 10 metres. But he might have been better off growing back to 10 metres after all because he’s now been kidnapped by Rita Harrison and Thelma Crow, the worst enemies of his friend Wendy Collins.

Nobody realises “Tippy’s Special Pool” is being used for dumping chemical waste, which has now poisoned Tippy the otter and his friend Frances. Can it all be cleaned up in the final episode next week?

“The Secret Society of St. Nicola’s” swears to help a new pupil when the headmistress does not allow her to keep her pet at the school. Still, the headmistress’s position is understandable when you consider the pet is a crocodile!

The plight of the “Slaves of the Nightmare Factory” grows even bleaker after escapee Ellen Crawley dies in suspicious circumstances. In punishment for her escape, the girls are given even higher dress quotas to meet. At least the toady is punished too, by losing her privileges and having to share the girls’ rotten diet. Then Natalie falls dangerously ill, but the crooks’ only response is to shut her in the Punishment Box because she was too ill to meet her quota. Amanda is shut in there too. On the other hand, this enables Amanda to discover that fate has played a cruel trick on the man who is the mastermind of it all, and it could cause everything to explode in the crooks’ faces.

Jinty 31 December 1977

• Come into My Parlour (artist Douglas Perry)
• Darling Clementine (artist Richard Neillands, writer Alison Christie)
• Two Mothers for Maggie (artist Jim Baikie)
• Guardian of White Horse Hill – final episode (artist Julian Vivas)
• Snowbound! Gypsy Rose tale (artist Keith Robson)
• Land of No Tears (artist Guy Peeters, writer Pat Mills)
• Alley Cat
• Race for a Fortune

It is the New Years issue, but not in the new year of 1978. As you can see from the date, Jinty is still on the old year of 1977.

New Year goodies include part one of a pull-out Jinty calendar, and it’s resolution time in Alley Cat. Spotty Muchloot resolves never to let Alley Cat give him the run-around again. He starts off his resolution by giving Alley Cat a bashing while wearing protective gear. But Alley Cat gets the last laugh on Spotty, as usual, and Spotty resolves never to make new year resolutions again. Sounds like a resolution that is more sensible and easier to keep!

The first (Phil Townsend) story for 1978 is Waking Nightmare. It starts in the next issue, replacing White Horse of Guardian Hill, the Jinty story to finish on the last day of 1977. But it will be a while yet before we see other new stories in 1978. The current ones are still going strong and Darling Clementine is only on its second episode.

 

Her Guardian Angel (1980-81)

Sample Images

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Publication: 6 December 1980 – 3 January 1981

Artist: Peter Wilkes

Writer: Unknown

Summary

Christmas is in the air, and people observe a shooting star streaking across the sky. It’s supposed to be lucky – but perhaps not so much in this case. The shooting star is really an angel, Gabbi (acronym for their motto “Guardian Angels Better Body Insurance”), sent out on practical experience. Gabbi has been put in charge of “Reckless” Roz Rogers, a girl who gets herself into lots of scrapes because she has a very irresponsible sense of danger. She laughs them off – but ironically, she does learn about danger with all the scrapes her supposed guardian angel gets her into.

But on with how Gabbi and Roz meet. Gabbi takes the form of a Christmas angel that Roz buys for the Christmas tree. She hopes it will soften her parents, who have been angry since her since she rode her Mum’s bike into the duck pond. No such luck – Roz leaves her roller skate on the front door, which causes Dad to have an accident. So they ban her from a Christmas party, but Roz sneaks out down the drainpipe – “Reckless Roz laughs at danger!” But even Reckless Roz has to stop laughing when her hands slip and she starts falling. And then she is surprised to find herself in the arms of Gabbi, the Christmas tree angel come to life! Gabbi then tells Roz what her mission is, and she is now Roz’s guardian angel – but only Roz can see and hear her.

Unfortunately Gabbi is way too overprotective, takes her work far too seriously, and goes to absurd lengths to protect Roz from danger or what she imagines to be danger. And in so doing, gets Roz into tons of trouble. These include fusing the disco equipment because Gabbi considers the noise and lights unhealthy and dangerous for Roz – as a result, Roz gets chased by an angry mob, and Gabbi has to rescue her. Gabbi refuses to let Roz ride bicycles, use skateboards, or watch television (which she fuses) because she says television is bad for Roz’s eyesight. Gabbi disapproves of Roz’s presents (pogo stick, rollerskates, monster mask, radio, chocolates) because she considers them dangerous or unhealthy. On Twelfth Night Gabbi pulls the ladder out from under Roz, who is taking down the Christmas decorations because she thinks the ladder is dangerous – and of course it causes Roz to fall down. Defeating your own purpose, aren’t you, Gabbi? And those are just some of the things.

But sometimes Gabbi does things right (maybe despite herself). We do have to cheer Gabbi when she throws Roz’s school dinner off the table: “We’re not having your delicate digestion assaulted by that-that muck!” And we cheer Gabbi even more when she puts the dustbin over the head of an ‘acid-tongued’ teacher who is nagging Roz: “Don’t shout at my Roz!”

And Gabbi just about needs a guardian angel herself by the time her practical experience is over. She has become so battered and her gown so torn by all the scrapes she has landed herself into with her experience with Roz that she is ashamed of the state she is in when the time comes for her to go back “Up There”. Upon hearing Gabbi is leaving, Roz finds herself not wanting Gabbi to go because she has gotten used to her. But it is Gabbi’s time to go (and it is the end of Christmas, so this Christmas story must end). Roz patches up Gabbi’s gown as best she can. Soon Mum is surprised to see the Christmas tree angel (actually, Gabbi’s celestial transporter) vanish from the tree, people are surprised to see a shooting star going upwards, and Gabbi gives Roz a halo to remember her by.

Thoughts

In her later years, Jinty tended to run short filler stories around the Christmas period – or, in the case of 1981, in her last seven issues before the merger. These were evidently used to fill in the gaps while Jinty sorted out her New Year line up, and it is not surprising that a number of such stories had Christmas themes. Of these, “Her Guardian Angel” is the last.

It is quite surprising to use an angel as a comical magical companion, as angels tend to be regarded more as holy beings than comical ones. And there are religious implications which could be uncomfortable. This is probably why angels were not seen as much as fairies, leprechauns or other magical creatures in girls’ comics. The only other angel-themed serial I know of appeared in Mandy. But then, it is Christmas, so the angel theme does blend in.

Gabbi comes from the long tradition of magical companions to heroines. They mean well, but they often end up causing unintentional trouble. This can be because things backfire, or they get mischievous, or they don’t understand the ways of humans very well. Other times they do things right and it all smiles for them and their human friend. However it goes, the heroine always loves her magical companion. And for us readers, it always means loads of laughs.

In this story, the laughs come from Gabbi’s over-protectiveness, and to a lesser extent, Roz’s recklessness, and the scrapes they both end up in. Gabbi has a more human side, such as when she gets constantly worn out by all her efforts to look after Roz, or takes a moment of gluttony to indulge in Christmas dinner.

And there is one further thing that I really like about this story. We have had loads of stories about over-protective or obsessive parents and the ridiculous lengths they go to protect their children from danger. But an over-protective angel? That’s different!

Jinty & Penny 3 January 1981

 

• Pam of Pond Hill (writer Jay Over, artist Bob Harvey)
• The Ghost Dancer – first episode (artist Phil Townsend)
• Her Guardian Angel – final episode (artist Peter Wilkes)
• Sue’s Daily Dozen – final episode (artist José Casanovas)
• Land of No Tears – reprint (writer Pat Mills, artist Guy Peeters)
• Gaye’s Gloomy Ghost (artist Hugh Thornton-Jones)
• Tansy of Jubilee Street (artist Ken Hougton)
• No Medals for Marie – first episode (artist Phil Gascoine)
• Life’s a Ball for Nadine (artist Mario Capaldi)

This was Jinty‘s New Year issue for 1981. As Jinty was cancelled later that year, 1981 probably was not all that happy for her. But in the meantime, Jinty had promised in her Christmas issue “that we’re kicking the [new] year off in style!” – and she does with the return of her “smash hit story from 1977” – Land of No Tears. This was brought back as a result of Pam’s Poll in 1980. Other new stories for the New Year were Phil Gascoine’s first Jinty story for 1981, “No Medals for Marie”, and what would be Jinty‘s last ballet story, “The Ghost Dancer”. This is the only story where I have seen Phil Townsend draw ballet, and he certainly proved with this one that he could draw ballet beautifully. If there are any other stories where Townsend drew ballet, I would like to know about them.

Readers expected more new material with the end of Jinty‘s 1980 Christmas story, “Her Guardian Angel” and “Sue’s Daily Dozen”. They are promised that Gypsy Rose will be back the following week. And being New Year, there is emphasis on New Year themes. This takes the form of Pam, Sir Roger and Tansy working on their respective New Year resolutions. Predictably, this has hilarious and unexpected results. Lastly, Jinty has a page of magic tricks for readers to do over the Christmas holidays.