Tammy 7 August 1976

Cover artist: John Richardson

Bella (artist John Armstrong)

Towne in the Country (artist John Armstrong)

The Good Old Days (artist Bill Baker) – Strange Story

Tag Along Tania (artist Giorgio Giorgetti)

Bessie Bunter (artist Arthur Martin)

Molly Mills and the General Strike (artist Tony Thewenetti, writer Maureen Spurgeon)

Wee Sue (artist John Richardson)

Drawn to Destiny (artist Tony Higham) – Strange Story serial

Odds on Patsy (artist Eduardo Feito)

We come to 1976 in our Tammy August month round, and the cover confirms what we always suspected – teachers took sneak reads of the comics (Tammy, Jinty, whatever) they confiscated, and they enjoyed them as much as the girls themselves. We have to wonder how many closet Molly, Bella or Jinx from St. Jonah’s fans were created that way. The sight of the teacher reading her Tammy must be worse than the lines for the poor Cover Girl. 

Parents also enjoyed reading their daughters’ copies of Tammy, as one letter to Tammy this week shows: “I have been reading Tammy for nearly five years now…I think it’s the best comic around and so does my mother who always insists on reading it…” 

The Olympics were huge in Tammy in 1976 because of Montreal, and the Bella story for that year used the theme. Bella is determined to reach Montreal although she can’t compete and has no passport. It got left behind when she fled from her cruel aunt and uncle, and her flight is leading to all sorts of misadventures in Continental Europe, with Montreal seeming to get further and further away each time. Right now, she’s stranded in France with a stage troupe who are taking advantage of her. Added to that, there are jealous girls in the troupe playing nasty tricks on her. Yes, it never rains but pours with our Bella. Later on in 1976, Tammy continued the theme of the Olympics with the classic “Olympia Jones”.

By popular demand, 1976 had a stab at publishing some Strange Story serials. The current one is “Drawn to Destiny”, where jealousy between twin sisters over artwork is leading to ever-frightening results. And this week’s Strange Story (below) may have you think twice about comparing the present to “the good old days”.

In “Towne in the Country”, Val discovers what necessity can drive you to do. She is scared at the thought of administering an injection or touching animals, and then she has to do both when her father’s life is endangered and it’s up to her to save his life. Yep, Tammy’s clearly out to toughen up this one all right.

Tania “Tag Along” Foster is trying to stand up to the girls she hangs out with and stop being their dogsbody, but they aren’t giving up their power over her that easily. They’re pulling dirty tricks to keep her as their doormat. It always backfires on them in the end, leaving Tania with the last laugh, but she still has a fight on her hands to win respect.

Tennis trouble for Stackers when she pushes Bessie onto the tennis court this week – she soon finds having Bessie try tennis is courting trouble of the Bessie blundering kind. At least everything ends happily when it’s refreshment time.

Sue is trying to help a pupil lose weight, which turns into a very weighty problem when Miss Bigger makes a bet with the Head over whether or not the girl can lose weight. So the hijinks ensue when Miss Bigger turns to dirty tricks to keep the weight on and Sue steps into foil them. 

Eduardo Feito is the artist who really brought horse stories to life in Tammy. He has a number of strong Tammy horse stories under his belt already, such as “Halves in a Horse”, “The Uxdale Urchins” and “Rona Rides Again”. His current horse story is “Odds on Patsy”, about a racehorse and a girl who wants to be a top jockey. Now that’s a nice change from stories about show jumping and gymkhanas.

Politics is an unusual topic in a girls’ comic, but here it is in Molly’s story, “The General Strike”. Lord Stanton dispatches Molly and Pickering to keep the buses running during a workers’ strike (something IPC knew a lot about), which is being conducted in sympathy for a miners’ strike against a wage cut. Readers must have enjoyed Molly and Pickering’s change of uniforms and jobs: Molly as the bus conductor and Pickering as the (hee, hee!) bus driver. Unfortunately, Lord Stanton’s move to keep the buses running during the strike is understandably pissing off the strikers and they’ve turned on him. Now Lord Stanton’s gone missing, and his car’s come a cropper in the quarry! Could it be connected with the strike?

Tammy 12 June 1976

Cover artist: John Richardson

Bella at the Bar (artist John Armstrong)

Secret of the Skulls (artist Mario Capaldi)

The First Mystery (artist John Armstrong) – origin of the Storyteller

Odds on Patsy (artist Eduardo Feito)

Bessie Bunter

Molly Mills and the Lucky Visitor – complete Molly story (artist Tony Thewenetti, writer Maureen Spurgeon)

Wee Sue (artist John Richardson)

The Sungod’s Golden Curse (artist Douglas Perry)

Lord of the Dance (artist Miguel Quesada)

We now come to Tammy’s June month in 1976. The Olympics were a strong feature in Tammy that year because of Montreal. That year, Tammy ran her Olympics classic, “Olympia Jones”.

Meanwhile, the Olympics logo has been added to the Bella logo. Bella, of course, is trying to reach Montreal. Jed and Gert have just returned to Bella after a much-deserved stint in prison (though not for the cruel way they’ve always treated her). They’ve now been released for good behaviour and say they’ve reformed and will help Bella all the way to Montreal. So far they’re treating Bella well, but they have a track record of phoney niceness to Bella when they believe it’s to their advantage (like getting out of prison, maybe?).

Molly has now switched from the title “No Tears for Molly” to individually titled storylines, most often “Molly Mills and the [name of the story].” Molly takes the unusual step of having a complete story this week. 

By popular demand, this week the Storyteller tells his origin story and how he became to be the Storyteller. The story appears below, and we also see the one and only appearance of his daughter. It seems a shame Tammy did not also take advantage of this popular demand to reprint the Storyteller’s very first story, “The Haunted Bank”, way back in his debut in June (the comic, not the month) on 30 January 1965, to show us how he started. Enough time had passed to allow for the reprint. 

In 1976, there was a definite ebb in the slave story/Cinderella story theme that had featured so much in the earlier Tammy. Other genres were gaining more currency. Animal stories were strong in the 1976 Tammy, such as “A Lead through Twilight”, “Towne in the Country”, the current “Odds on Patsy”, and the smash-hit Olympics-themed serial, “Olympia Jones”. The scary and the supernatural were strong that year too, and this issue has two alone: “The Sungod’s Golden Curse” (but is the curse real or a fraud?) and the macabre “Secret of the Skulls”.

The ballet story “Lord of the Dance” is the last Tammy serial drawn by Miguel Quesada, a Tammy stalwart since her early days. 

Tammy 14 August 1976

Cover artist: John Richardson

• Bella at the Bar (artist John Armstrong)
• Towne in the Country (artist Mario Capaldi)
• Storm over Jerra Island – Strange Story (artist Veronica Weir)
• Tag Along Tania (artist Giorgio Giorgetti)
• Bessie Bunter
• Molly Mills and the General Strike (artist Tony Thewenetti, writer Maureen Spurgeon)
• Wee Sue – artist John Armstrong
• Drawn to Destiny – Strange Story serial (artist Tony Higham)
• Odds on Patsy – final episode (artist Eduardo Feito)

The issue for 1976 in the Tammy round robin is 14 August 1976. The cover is one of my favourites. The Star Trek reference makes it particularly funny if you like Star Trek. It’s a change having a pesky kid brother (or is it a cousin?) instead of a kid sister for the Cover Girl to deal with. And there is another in-joke with the reference to Dan Dare, the famous space adventurer from Eagle. Tammy did not go for SF as much as Jinty – you see SF more often in the Strange Stories than Tammy’s serials – so it’s great to get an SF reference on the cover.

The Olympics featured heavily in Tammy in 1976, which was the year of the Montreal Olympics. Bella has an Olympics-themed story, complete with the Olympics rings being added to her logo. Bella is trying to reach the Montreal Olympics although she has no passport and was passed over for the British team thanks to Jed and Gert Barlow. Right now she is stranded in France with an acrobatics team. They are stringing her along with false promises of getting her to Montreal, and Bella has not yet realised their game. Moreover, her desperation to find gym equipment to train on has landed her in a sticky situation. Later the same year Tammy ran her Olympics-themed classic, Olympia Jones.

Another thing to run strongly in Tammy in 1976 was stories published at readers’ requests, by open invitation from Tammy. One starting next issue is “Dumbells Academy”, about a school run by the most incompetent staff in the world. This story appeared at the suggestion of one reader: “I’d like to see a story about a school where all the staff are really nutty.” It replaces “Odds on Patsy”, a horse story where Tammy opted for a story on horse racing and jockeys, which makes a nice change from show-jumping. Could the same writer have written “Gail at Windyridge”, another story on jockeying that appeared in Tammy later on?

Expanded Strange Stories also appeared at readers’ requests, which ran for several episodes. The current one is “Drawn to Destiny”, about Diane Hudson, a girl who is jealous of her twin sister Sylvia. And when Diane takes up drawing, her jealousy takes a sinister turn when whatever she draws seems to come true. It starts really scaring her and she doesn’t know what to think, but her jealousy is intensifying too.

Although we have a Strange Story serial, the regular Strange Story continues. This week’s mystery is how the villagers of Jerra Island managed to evacuate from a volcanic island in the 19^thcentury. According to legend, the pastor had a vision of it, but how did that happen? And how did Brenda’s church snowstorm souvenir get encased in lava for over 100 years near the site where the pastor saw the vision? She only bought it that day!

Girls’ serials did not often delve into politics, but Molly gets badly tangled in local politics when Lord Stanton has her and Pickering running a bus service during a nationwide strike in support of miners demanding better conditions. This does not please the strikers because it’s blacklegging. It is quite funny seeing the bully butler Pickering in a bus driver’s outfit though! However, Molly has worse problems now than the strike and blacklegging – she is trapped in a crumbling mine with Pickering and Lord Stanton.

Local politics are also a feature in Wee Sue. The council is building an old people’s centre but the oldies don’t want it because they don’t think it’s sound enough. Meanwhile, Sue and her friends would have loved the same site for a roller skating rink. Sue’s suggestion to the council: turn it into a community centre and convert the roof into a skating rink. Now everybody’s happy.

Tania Foster has always been the muggins and dumping ground of the gang of she hangs out with. Now she realises it, she is trying to stand up for herself. The trouble is, they keep finding ways to keep her put upon, including blackmail and dirty tricks. This week they push her into doing all their maths homework for them at the disco while they enjoy themselves and laugh at her. Too bad for them they forgot a noisy disco was not the best place for Tania to concentrate on maths and they end up in detention for “disgusting” homework. It is one of many instances where their treatment of Tania backfires. But Tania is still the muggins of the gang and finding a way to get them to treat her with respect is proving elusive.

“Towne in the Country” is a period story where All Creatures Great and Small meets “Cathy’s Casebook”. Valerie Towne and her vet father have moved to a new post in the country. Valerie soon realises she is going to be deeply involved in her father’s work, but she is not all that confident around animals. And there are other problems such as their vet’s clinic being a mess and queues of kids lining up with pets, expecting Valerie to cure them. And now Valerie and her father have a jumbo-sized problem – treating a sick circus elephant!

Bessie and her class go to the fair. After a series of mishaps, hijinks and getting messed up, everything ends happily for Bessie – with lots of food, of course.