Jinty 15 September 1979

Almost Human (artist Terry Aspin)

Bizzie Bet and the Easies (artist Richard Neillands)

Village of Fame (artist Jim Baikie)

Mike and Terry (artist Peter Wilkes)

Gwynne’s Quiz Show

Your Pet Hates – Results

Alley Cat (artist Rob Lee)

Rinty ‘n’ Jinty – cartoon

Combing Her Golden Hair (artist Phil Townsend)

Miss Make-Believe (artist “B. Jackson”) – first episode

Upsy Downsy Mascot – feature 

Pandora’s Box (artist Guy Peeters)

In this issue, Jinty publishes the results of a pet loves and hates competition, and there appears to be more emphasis on the hates. Pet peeves included squeaky chalk, mushy peas, bullies, vandalism, spiders, litter, glib expressions and coat hangers. Some of the replies about pet peeves were put into verse, which was very imaginative.

As we’ve got a pet peeve theme going, let’s look at other peeves in the issue.

In “Pandora’s Box”, everyone, including the headmistress, is peeved with Pandora for jumping queue on the audition for “Alice in Jazzland” when she had no right to even enter it. The girls have turned cold towards her. She uses a spell for “melting hearts of ice” to make them nice to her again. Pandora would have been better to cast that spell on herself; she had little regard for her cat Scruffy being peeved at having to sit on ice blocks and shivering while she cast the spell. Now poor Scruffy has caught a bad chill because of it.

In “Combing Her Golden Hair”, Gran’s peeves are vanity and Tamsin trying to swim. So Gran goes absolutely bonkers when Tasmin tries to swim in the new pool at a classmate’s party. Tamsin’s also suspicious at gran’s claims she isn’t allowed to swim because chlorine’s bad for her asthma, especially as there is no evidence to support this and Gran won’t even allow a doctor to look into it. So Tasmin’s delighted when a new teacher demands medical certification before any pupil can be excused swimming. Now gran’s claims will be put to the test. 

Spotty Muchloot’s pet peeve, as always, is Alley Cat. He goes to extreme lengths to keep Alley Car out of his house and away from his grub while his folks are away, but Alley Cat turns the tables, as usual.

We are informed that “Bizzie Bet and the Easies” will not appear next week. This week, Bizzie Bet and Kate Easie’s peeve is a school bully named Erica and both agree that something’s got to be done about her. They do it themselves – without realising – with Erica constantly getting on the wrong end of their respective Bizzie and Easie ways. Erica emerges bruised, battered, drenched, and given the fright of her life. And after all that, when they see the state Erica’s in, they think someone else has saved them the job of sorting her out. 

In “Miss Make-Believe”, the sequel to “Daughter of Dreams”, shy Sally Carter is peeved that everyone is treating her as courageous when she is not. It was her imaginary friend Pauline, come to life, who was behind it all, by entering Sally for a bravery-testing contest at Playne Towers. The test? A six-month safari. Meanwhile, Pauline discovers the servants are up to no good. Could this be the real test?

In “Village of Fame”, Sue’s peeves are Mr Grand and her inability to prove he’s up to no good in the name of TV ratings. This week, teacher Miss Pebblestone is accused of accidentally starting a fire at school. The evidence looks black against her, though Sue and Mandy suspect Mr Grand faked it, and poor Miss Pebblestone is forced to leave the village. Now Sue’s brother Jason goes missing, and Sue and Mandy suspect Mr Grand engineered it for yet more ratings.

In “Almost Human”, Xenia’s peeve is her alien touch, which is deadly to Earth life, so she can’t touch anything living on Earth. Some gypsies discover Xenia’s secret and are willing to let her stay after she saved them from a poisonous snake. But Xenia goes on the run again because of her alien touch. We are informed a thunderstrom is going to have “extraordinary effects” next week. Will this be good or bad for Xenia?

“Mike and Terry” must be peeved they failed to stop the Shadow again. He’s also after an escaped convict – who turns up in Mike and Terry’s car! The common denominator is a theatre show from 1976: the Shadow is kidnapping everyone involved in it. But why? Let’s hope the escaped convict can shed some light on the matter. 

Mainstay Jinty artist Phil Gascoine takes a holiday this issue, but he’s back next week with “Waves of Fear”. From the looks of the blurb, the protagonist is going to have worse things than peeves; she’s on “the crest of a wave…that was suddenly to smash her life into a thousand, terrifying pieces!”.

Jinty 8 September 1979

Almost Human (artist Terry Aspin)

Village of Fame (artist Jim Baikie)

Bizzie Bet and the Easies (artist Richard Neillands)

Mike and Terry (artist Peter Wilkes)

Gwynne’s Quiz Show

Super fun-time Competition!

Alley Cat (artist Rob Lee)

Horse and Rider Crossword

Combing Her Golden Hair (artist Phil Townsend)

Rinty ‘n’ Jinty

A Girl Called Gulliver (artist Phil Gascoine) – final episode

Pandora’s Box (artist Guy Peeters)

Pining for Something New? – craft feature

We continue our September theme with some September Jinty issues. This one from 8 September 1979 is a competition issue, with five stereo record players up for grabs as the grand prizes.

It’s the final episode of “A Girl Called Gulliver”. The Lilliputians take their leave of Gwenny, saying they’ve found a new home. Sadly, it was a white lie. The Lilliputians have realised the responsibility of looking after them was too heavy for Gwenny, so they will continue wandering on their own. Dad Lilliput is confident they will find a home soon anyway. Its replacement next week is “Miss Make-Believe”, a sequel to “Daughter of Dreams”.

In “Almost Human”, Xenia has fallen in with some friendly gypsy children, but her inability to touch them because her alien touch is deadly to Earth life is causing misunderstandings. Plus, she gets a taste of human prejudice against gypsies. She’s still with the gypsies, trudging onwards and hoping things will get better. 

In “Village of Fame”, Mandy helps her uncle Mr Grand with a trick on Sue Parker, but then he reneges on her, refusing to keep his end of the bargain. Now Mandy wants revenge and turns to Sue, but after that trick Mandy pulled, Sue is in no mood to be any ally with her. Mr Grand also has plans for teacher Miss Pebblestone – and it looks like making sure she’s blamed when the school gets partially burned down. 

Bizzie Bet tries to clean up the Easies’ garden, which the loafers have left to turn into a jungle. But then it has to be left intact after rare flora and fauna are discovered there. The Easies win again.

The trail of the Shadow, a criminal mastermind, has led Mike and Terry to a funfair, where the Shadow has plans to kidnap a trick cyclist named Dirk Dare (now what can he want with a trick cyclist?). Some very amusing hijinks ensue at the fair as Terry and Mike outwit the Shadow’s thugs. To make things even more complicated, Mike and Terry discover Dirk has swapped places with the human cannonball. Now, the Shadow doesn’t know about the switch, so could this lead to his thugs grabbing the wrong man?

Alley Cat’s annoyed to find Spotty Muchloot having a picnic all to himself, but Spotty has come prepared for any food snatching from Alley Cat. In the end, though, it backfires on Spotty and Alley Cat gets Spotty’s grub.

In “Combing Her Golden Hair”, Tamsin is surprised when Gran allows her to go to a party. But Gran won’t allow a party dress (no money, she says). Tamsin has to go in school uniform and still wear her hair in those awful plaits Gran always tells her to wear. Gran’s got a real thing about vanity, but this week she goes too far. She finds Tasmin combing her hair with that strange silver comb and goes so mad she almost cuts Tamsin’s hair off. Tamsin’s friend Ellen steps in to pretty her up for the party, and that strange comb is taking effect again. Now it is tempting Tamsin to go swimming, something her gran has always banned.

In “Pandora’s Box”, Pandora wins the audition for “Alice in Jazzland”, and for once she’s using stuff she’s learned instead of taking shortcuts with that box of witchcraft. But when she plans a surprise party to celebrate, it’s back to the box to get it set up quick and easy.

Jinty 30 June 1979

• Casey, Come Back! – final episode (unknown artist – Merry)
• The Forbidden Garden (artist Jim Baikie)
• Alley Cat (artist Rob Lee)
• A Girl Called Gulliver (artist Phil Gascoine)
• Nothing to Sing About (artist Phil Townsend, writer Alison Christie)
• Keep Your Fingers Crossed! (feature)
• The Disappearing Dolphin (artist Trine Tinturé)
• The Hill that Cried – Gypsy Rose story (artist Shirley Bellwood)
• Some Scarecrow! (Michael Jackson feature)
• Rinty ‘n’ Jinty
• Pandora’s Box (artist Guy Peeters)
• Beauty on a Budget (feature)

This issue’s cover portrays two water scenes, but they are a complete contrast. In “The Forbidden Garden” it’s a life-or-death situation where Laika and Kara nearly drown in floodwaters, while in “Bizzie Bet and the Easies” it’s fun-and-sun by the sea. And for once Bet scores a final laugh over the Easies.

In “A Girl Called Gulliver” there’s water trouble too, as our last Lilliputians set themselves sailing down the river in an old tea kettle – only to find they forgot to check it was seaworthy first, and it isn’t!

It’s the last episode of “Casey, Come Back!”, one of the three-part stories that appeared in Jinty in 1979 but give the impression they could have done with more prolonged treatment. Next we see the start of the Jinty classic, “Almost Human”, and “Mike and Terry”, Jinty’s response to popular demand for a detective story.

Pandora’s difficulty with maths has forced her hand to use the witchcraft box. But she finds she won’t get her box to work unless she gets herself a familiar, which means swallowing her dislike of cats. So meet Scruffy, the cross-eyed cat who doesn’t like Pandora any more than she likes him.

“The Disappearing Dolphin” leads the scuba divers to exciting archaeological finds. But Mrs Ormerod-Keynes, who is trying to stop the expedition, is not impressed. Now why could that be?

Gypsy Rose is back this week, but it feels like a filler. Gypsy Rose all but disappeared in 1979, making intermittent appearances. She never achieved the long-standing regularity of the Storyteller in June/Tammy. The Gypsy Rose story this week is clearly another recycled Strange Story. A Cornish family are faced with selling their farm, but strange things start to happen when a hill starts crying and wailing…

Alley Cat artist Rob Lee breaks the fourth wall and presents Alley Cat with some tasty treats to cheer him up in the last panel after Alley Cat gets a bit of a disappointment with this week’s episode.

Linette’s actions to shut her father’s music out of her life is really hurting her schoolmates, who are still fans of it. This week she has to change schools as well, but her attitude is making the transition even more difficult.

Jinty 9 June 1979

Stories in this issue:

• Alice in a Strange Land (artist Terry Aspin) – last episode
• Rinty ‘N’ Jinty
• The Forbidden Garden (artist Jim Baikie)
• A Girl Called Gulliver (artist Phil Gascoine)
• Nothing To Sing About (artist Phil Townsend, writer Alison Christie) – first episode
• Dip into this! (recipe feature)
• Daughter of Dreams – last episode
• The Four-Footed Friends (artist Peter Wilkes, writer Alison Christie)
• Pandora’s Box (artist Guy Peeters) – first episode

This is a time when Jinty seems to be finishing some particularly good stories – “Alice In a Strange Land”, “Children of Edenford”. This issue sees the start of tear-jerker “Nothing to Sing About” – another heart-tugger created by the joint talents of Alison Christie and Phil Townsend – and of the amusing but fairly light-weight “Pandora’s Box”. Next week sees the first episodes of “Casey, Come Back!” – another tear-jerker, drawn by the unknown artist who drew “Merry at Misery House” – and “The Disappearing Dolphin”, a mystery story beautifully drawn by Trini Tinturé. All are good, but none quite match those immediate predecessors.

“Alice” ends with a four-page episode that takes Alice out from the crumbling rocks threatening to crush her, to a reunion with her friends and a reconciliation with her cousin Karen. “I’m proud to be your cousin, Alice! I hope you can forgive how badly I’ve treated you in the past and let me be your friend?” Karen’s parents still need to understand the changed relationship but eventually all is resolved. The tag line at the end tells us that “Alice has deserved her happy ending. Next week, meet ‘The Disappearing Dolphin’!” In fact, the subsequent cover mostly features that story but the lead spot at the front of the comic is taken by “Casey, Come Back!”.

“The Forbidden Garden” is picking up the pace: Laika is told that someone has reported her as being of superior intellect, which means she is saved from the Industrial Zone where the rest of her family will just rot away their lives. Her old friends can’t afford to stay friendly with her, because if Laika makes any complaint about them, they will be severely fined, even imprisoned! The only bright side is that she can get back to her garden and tend to her plants – but even they are a source of fear, because surely they are growing much too fast? There must be something strange about them!

“Nothing to Sing About” starts off with 12 year old Linette Davis following in the footsteps of her beloved, popular singer father. By the end of the first three-page episode, her father is dead, and Linette is cursing the fans who she blames for killing him, by crowding round him too much!

It is the last episode of “Daughter of Dreams”. In this four-pager, Sally realises she can be brave after all, when she has to act without thinking – and her imaginary friend Pauline has a hand in making everything come out right, too. We are promised another Pauline Starr story later, so it looks like this was intended to be a long-running character feature. In the end there were only two stories featuring this duo.

Laura and her mum have to go and visit the slums that Laura’s friend Josie used to live in – Laura thinks this will change her mum’s mind now that she has seen how badly folks need re-housing, but not a bit of it, of course. In fact Laura’s mum purposefully gets Josie’s dog Riley lost, leading him into danger with the dog catchers.

Finally, it is the first episode of “Pandora’s Box”. Pandora is stubborn and conceited, but in for a shock – it’s bad enough her aunt suddenly claiming to be be a witch and telling her that she has to follow the family tradition of learning the ‘wisdom of witchcraft’ but her aunt is also claiming she has no drama talent and won’t succeed without the witchcraft! Of course Pandora is determined to prove her aunt wrong – but can she resist the temptation to use magic to make her path smoother?

Jinty and Penny 6 September 1980

Stories in this issue:

(Cover artist: Mario Capaldi)

• Pam of Pond Hill (artist Bob Harvey, writer Jay Over)
• Girl the World Forgot (artist and Veronica Weir) – first episode
• Tears of a Clown (artist Phil Gascoine)
• The Swim For Life: A Jinty and Penny Special Story (artist John Armstrong)
• Tansy of Jubilee Street (artist Ken Houghton)
• Unscheduled Stop – Gypsy Rose story (artist John Armstrong)
• Mork ‘n’ Mindy: Behind The Screen (Feature)
• A Spell Of Trouble (artist Trini Tinturé)
• Child of the Rain (artist Phil Townsend) – first episode

Many thanks to Derek Marsden for the copy of this issue, which he kindly sent on to me.

Pam is on a roll – her ‘witch ball’ brings her luck or so she thinks, and indeed it seems to be the case. By returning it to its rightful owner, her school benefits from help to go on a school trip to France (which leads us on to a whole other set of stories).

“Girl The World Forgot” starts this issue. Initially it looks like an adventure story with a castaway plot, but later on it turns spooky. It is beautifully drawn by Veronica Weir, and through a comment on this blog we found out that it was also written by her too – one of only a very few cases where we know the artist and writer were the same person.

Kathy Clowne is bullied by Sandra Simkins, as so often in her time at school. This time Sandra paints Kathy’s face in greasepaint to make her up in clownface. Not realizing that this has happened, Kathy snaps when a teacher comments ‘What have you done to your face?’ and of course a punishment now looms – even though really it is all Sandra’s fault.

“The Swim For Life” is referred to as a ‘special story’ – it’s a complete two-page story that is presumably reprinted from an earlier title, but unusually it doesn’t fit into the mold of a Strange Story which was normally changed into a Gypsy Rose one. This one is a straightforward adventure story with a brave dog saving the brother and sister who went out in a speedboat and got into difficulties. There are no supernatural elements though, unlike in the Gypsy Rose story “The Unscheduled Stop” – which is likewise by John Armstrong. In this latter story, Jenny Shaw’s parents are arguing non-stop, until an unscheduled train stop shows her the reason in their earlier history for their bitterness, and a way to fix their future.

The letters page this week includes a letter from Sophie Jackson, a science fiction fan, who loved “Land of No Tears” and asked for more SF like that story and “The Human Zoo”. She also specifically said how much she liked the artist who drew both stories and also others such as “Black Sheep of the Bartons” and “Pandora’s Box”, and wanted more by that artist. Perhaps this was part of the reason why the Jinty editors commissioned “Worlds Apart”, also drawn by Guy Peeters?

(I also take this opportunity to comment on the fact that the form that you were supposed to send in with your letters, saying which your favourite stories were, has an issue number printed on it which is otherwise not shown elsewhere. This issue is number 320.)

Finally, it’s also the first episode of spooky-mysterious tennis story, “Child of the Rain”. Drawn by Phil Townsend, this story is flavoured with elements of the South American rainforest, which lends it particular interest in my eyes as I was living in South America at precisely this time. Despite this attraction, I have to admit it’s not the strongest story ever. Jemma West is a keen tennis player and hates the rain because it stops her playing – that is, until an accident in the rain forest, after which she starts to love the rain and to find it gives her extra strength and energy. It shares some similarities with “Spirit of the Lake” (mystery / supernatural elements, and sporting details) which we think is likely to have been written by Benita Brown – I wonder therefore if this story also might have been penned by the same writer.

Story theme: Redemption narratives

I recently wrote summary posts about two stories that I called ‘redemption narratives’: “The Girl Who Never Was” and “She Shall Have Music“. That’s a kind of story theme that we can all recognize as being fairly common in girls comics generally: in Jinty there are a number of other examples.  But how does this sort of story work?

Take those two stories as an initial guide: the protagonist is a difficult or disagreeable, probably dislikeable, girl who has some personal failing or issue that drives the story. It’s because of that failing that the story progresses; it may not have been due to something that was her fault that the story started off in the first place, but it is because of her moral or social problem that it continues and develops the way it does. Tina Williams lands in the alternate universe where magic works because of her conceited and annoying ways; Lisa Carstairs’s father doesn’t lose his money because of her, but if she wasn’t so obsessed with continuing her piano playing exactly as before, then she wouldn’t find herself in the same difficulties. It’s not just what happens to the protagonist (or how she is challenged in the story) but how she reacts to it. She has to be ‘the architect of her own misfortunes’, as Mistyfan puts it in her post about another redemption story, “Black Sheep of the Bartons“.

Does the story have to feature some sort of disagreeableness, some sort of outright nastiness or callousness on the part of the protagonist? No: I’d say that you could certainly include ‘guilt’ stories such as “Stefa’s Heart of Stone” and “I’ll Make Up For Mary”. The protagonist here  suffers huge pangs of guilt and despair because of the loss of a loved one – a best friend or a sister in the case of these two stories, but in other cases it can be a parent – a very natural feeling, but the failing here is that she lets those emotions overwhelm her and distort her common sense. The guilty feelings of the protagonist drive the story forward, but this guilt is portrayed throughout as excessive, as an indulgence that the main character should resist. It’s the lengths that their grief drives them to that causes their difficulties in their separate stories.

Also, it’s not just about having an objectionable main character who is nicer by the end of the story. “Curtain of Silence” and “Land of No Tears” are not what I would call redemption narratives, despite having protagonists who start off pretty disagreeable and end up much improved. (Likewise “Battle of the Wills” is not, nor I think “Pandora’s Box”, but sports story “Black Sheep of the Bartons” is one I would class as such: Bev Barton isn’t horrible so much as thoughtless and reckless, but her carelessness nearly brings tragedy to her family.) Why don’t “Curtain of Silence” and “Land of No Tears” count? Because when the girl main characters are swept into their initial circumstances – enslaved by a dictatorial coach, forced into third-class citizenship in a future world – their thoughts are not primarily about how they can continue to maintain their status quo ante but about how they can defeat their antagonist. Yvonne and Cassy aren’t just trying to get back to where they were at the beginning: their story is about a positive rebellion, not a futile rejection of the truth that the outside world is telling them. They end up much nicer than they started out being, but that’s not the whole reason for having the story in the first place – it’s because they have faced extraordinary circumstances which would change anyone by making them realise that some things are bigger than individual concerns.

Does the character who ends up being redeemed have to be the protagonist, or could they be the antagonist or villain? Overall I would say it has to be the protagonist, as the main character that you are supposed to sympathise with and want things to turn out well for, but maybe one counter-example is “Wanda Whiter Than White“. Wanda is not the main character of the story and she makes Susie Foster’s life a misery with her sanctimonious ways. At the end, it is revealed, as Mistyfan explains in her story post, that ‘Wanda’s own past is not as white as she would have us believe. In fact, she is on probation after being caught stealing.’ Rather than this reveal being painted as purely a victory for the main character, it ends up with Wanda being ‘truly redeemed when she tells a white lie to help Susie in return for Susie saving her life’. The reader wasn’t rooting for Wanda’s redemption all along, but it is a satisfying ending nevertheless.

What choices could the writer make that would move the story out of the category of being a redemption narrative? Let’s take Lisa Carstairs’ story as an example. As with the OuBaPo exercises, thinking about how a story could work differently will give us a view on how the stories actually do work.

• Imagine Lisa’s parents still losing everything at the beginning of the story, and Lisa still losing her piano. The story could then have taken a different turn: rather than being about Lisa’s misguided piano obsession and selfishness, it could have been another kind of story entirely, for instance a mystery story where Lisa finds out that her father’s business partner was a crook who needs to be brought to justice. Perhaps Lisa’s piano playing could help her to find the clues she needs, and her obsession with it could be turned to a good cause in that way, so that she needs no redemption.
• Or let’s say the story stays as being about Lisa’s obsession with playing piano but it’s portrayed as something not to be frowned on, rather as something acceptable or allowable. How would a story work where she can continue to be focused on playing piano to the exclusion of everything else, including her family? Perhaps her family would have to be a nasty, uncaring one, to make her disinterest acceptable.
• Or perhaps the story could proceed more or less as it does, but with an unhappy ending where Lisa gets her comeuppance. This would make her into a more of an anti-heroine than normal but would not be unheard of.

Here are the examples I would identify as fitting most neatly into the category of ‘redemption narrative’ (core examples) and as being closely related to this category without necessarily definitely being classed as such (edge cases).

Core examples

• “Dance Into Darkness” – Della just wants to live her life down at the disco with no regard for other people, but when her wish is granted she eventually discovers there is indeed more to life than her own self-interest.
• There are a number of stories that are driven by a bereavement: the main character makes poor decisions as a result of her strong emotions of grief and anger because she is afraid of being hurt again. “The Ghost Dancer” is one of these, as is “Nothing to Sing About”, but of course “Stefa’s Heart of Stone” and “I’ll Make Up For Mary” are the strongest examples.
• “The Girl Who Never Was” – discussed above
• “She Shall Have Music” – discussed above
• I said above that I thought that it needs to be the protagonist who is redeemed, not one of the other characters. In “Go On, Hate Me!” the antagonist is driven by grief into bullying the protagonist but in the end all is cleared and the antagonist is redeemed, so I would be tempted to class this alongside “Wanda Whiter Than White” as a clear example of this kind.
• “Jackie’s Two Lives” is more about the perils of wish-fulfilment, but Jackie’s snobbishness and the fact she is ashamed of her own family is definitely a character flaw that drives the story and she is cured of it at the end.
• “Left-Out Linda” develops the redemption pretty well by recognizing that you can’t usually turn around your life by yourself: you have to have some help.
• “Paula’s Puppets”: Paula has to learn to forgive her enemies rather than attacking them via the magical help she has been given.
• “Tearaway Trisha”: Trisha’s recklessness has caused a serious accident; she tries to make amends but has to change her own character in order to do so.
• “Valley of Shining Mist” has a clearly didactic message about the improving aspect of high culture: by playing the violin, Debbie will transcend the impact of her abusive family, who are low-class in their lack of culture and their morality.
• In “Who’s That In My Mirror?” the protagonist’s selfish nature is made very literally visible and becomes more and more so until finally she is driven to renouncing it.
• “Worlds Apart” is the ultimate morality tale – one by one, six girls are shown the worst outcomes possible for each of their specific character flaws, and they have a chance to repent. The psychological development is minimal but the impact of the story was very dramatic.

Edge cases

• “Fancy Free “- I know the main character is so independent that this may well be characterised as a fault, but I don’t really quite remember enough about the story to say whether it is the main thing that drives the whole plot.
• “The Four Footed Friends” – arguably another case where someone other than the protagonist ends up being redeemed, though it all feels a little sudden. “Hettie High-and-Mighty” likewise features a fairly sudden change of heart on the part of an antagonist who has mostly been about making  the protagonist’s life a misery until that point. I don’t think “The Kat And Mouse Game” quite counts, either: Kat may perhaps have realised the error of her ways at the end of the story, but will her change of heart actually stick?
• I haven’t really made my mind up about “Gwen’s Stolen Glory” – it feels like it is mostly a story about deception, though clearly once Gwen owns up to the big lie this is a kind of redemption of her former deception.
• In “Kerry In The Clouds”, Kerry is a day-dreamer imposed upon by a woman motivated by her own unfriendly concerns. Kerry’s day-dreaming nature is cured by the end of the story, but I don’t feel the main driver of the narrative was to improve her character.
• The main character in “Mark of the Witch!” is hot-tempered and angry at all around her, and she comes to seek a more peaceful set of emotions by the end of the story. However, so much of her story is about the persecution and abuse that her neighbours visit on her that I don’t see her story being primarily about her renouncing her hot-headed ways.
• I’m not sure about “Pandora’s Box” and whether it counts or not. Pandora’s witchy aunt does chide her at the beginning about being too cock-sure about her talents and says that she will need to use magic sooner or later, and this is all true: but I’m not sure what sort of morality story that adds up to – not a conventional one at any rate! The main nod in this story to more conventional morality is the fact that Pandora goes from disinterest in the pet she is stuck with (her black cat familiar, Scruffy) to loving him dearly and giving up her heart’s desire in order to save his life.

One last question struck me when thinking about this. What sort of things might the protagonist have done that means she needs to go through this process of redemption in the first place? Clearly it must be something negative: the story has a moral imperative of some sort, warning readers against some kinds of behaviour. But at the same time, some things would be beyond the pale of course, and would mean that any character doing that would be irredeemable. (There might therefore be some useful comparisons made with story villains: what does their villainy consist of?) If a character killed or seriously hurt someone on purpose then that would be beyond the pale: there are a number of villains who have gone this far, sometimes with a laugh on their cruel lips, but it would be hard to imagine that a girl protagonist could do this and still recover the moral high ground at the end of the story.

In the stories above it looks like the sort of wrong-doing that needs castigating but is still redeemable is often about emotional warmth and consideration for others – it’s not about ambition (by itself) or cleverness (by itself) for instance. An arrogant protagonist can still be the heroine, but if she is cold, selfish, or inconsiderate then that’s a good signal that this is a character marked down for improvement – by whatever means necessary. Preferably it will be a Shakespearean denouement, whereby her own moral failing brings about such a huge disaster that she has no option but to change her ways! And being too afraid to risk emotional commitment comes in for a bit of a kicking too, via the guilt / grief stories. The obvious next question: is this moral imperative specific to British girls comics? Do UK boys comics have redemption narratives too? Or those in other countries? My pal Lee Brimmicombe-Wood reckons that Japan’s flourishing manga industry has many stories about mavericks who insist on going their own ways – but in that industry’s story constraints, the mavericks are always right and never forced to realise that actually, there was a reason why everyone was telling them they were going about things the wrong way…

Jinty 28 July 1979

• Almost Human (artist Terry Aspin)
• Alley Cat
• The Forbidden Garden – final episode (artist Jim Baikie)
• The Long and the Short of It! – Competition
• Mike and Terry (artist Peter Wilkes)
• Hot But Happy! – Feature
• The Bizzie Bet Holiday Dice Game! – feature
• Picnic with Patti (artist Paul White)
  The Disappearing Dolphin (artist Trini Tinturé)
• Nothing to Sing About (artist Phil Townsend, writer Alison Christie)
• A Girl Called Gulliver (artist Phil Gascoine)
• Pandora’s Box (artist Guy Peeters)

The stories get pushed off the cover in favour of Jinty’s latest competition, which tests your skills in fashion design. The centre pages have a Bizzie Bet and the Easies dice game (below), which gives you an idea of all the work Bet piles on herself even when she’s not trying to change the Easies. But I have always wondered if anyone ever actually played those dice games that girls’ comics put out.

Xenia not being able to touch Earthlings without killing them gets her in another bind when she comes across a sick woman who needs help. Linette escapes the blackmailing landlady and found refuge with far nicer people. But they are fans of her father, which means more painful reminders of his death.

It’s the last episode of “The Forbidden Garden”. Laika hits on an extremely daring plan to help her dying sister. But she has to run the gauntlet with the police – and with armfuls of real flowers, which stick out like a sore thumb in a world where flora has been rendered extinct because of pollution! Another Baikie story, “Village of Fame”, replaces it next week.

Mike and Terry get caught in a trap set by the Shadow. They escape, but Mike’s adopted a rather weak disguise to get on the Shadow’s trail again – a ridiculous false beard.

Loads of laughs as the Lilliputians get rid of nosey parker Noreen. But fresh trouble is never far away of course, and at the end of the episode Minty has got stuck in a vending machine.

Briony’s got all the prefects ganging up on Pandora and picking on her for the most trivial thing. The box does have a spell for that sort of thing, of course. But Pandora has to choose between using the box to solve the bullying problem or making Scruffy a free cat again, which means no more witchcraft, because she can’t do both because of the timetable.

In “The Disappearing Dolphin” the girls find dirty work afoot with their expedition: their Roman artefact has been stolen and someone has messed around with their underwater samples. They’re off to do some investigating, but it looks like someone is on their trail…

 

 

Jinty 21 July 1979

• Almost Human (artist Terry Aspin)
• Alley Cat
• The Forbidden Garden (artist Jim Baikie)
• Mike and Terry (artist Peter Wilkes)
• Budding Genius…or Blooming Nuisance? – Quiz
• Cornucopia – recipes
• Picnic with Patti (artist Paul White)
  New from Old! – Feature
• The Disappearing Dolphin (artist Trini Tinturé)
• Nothing to Sing About (artist Phil Townsend, writer Alison Christie)
• A Girl Called Gulliver (artist Phil Gascoine)
• Pandora’s Box (artist Guy Peeters)

Xenia finds another runaway, but is forced to get police when he falls down floorboards and she can’t touch him to pull him out. He’s safe but very sour with her. Back on the road again…

It’s the penultimate episode of “The Forbidden Garden” and it’s taking an astounding twist – Laika suddenly finds her garden is now a lush tropical paradise! But what use is it with the police after her and now tipped off that she is in the Forbidden Zone, and still no flower or help for her dying sister?

Mike and Terry become bodyguards to a singer they suspect is a tempting target for the Shadow to kidnap. And talking of singers, Linette is forced to sing to raise money for food and is now being blackmailed and abused at the hostel she is staying at, by the landlady who has discovered she is a runaway. And Linette’s bringing it all on herself by blaming the fans for her father’s death.

Nosey parker Noreen is out to find the Lilliputians in “A Girl Called Gulliver” and wormed her way into Gwenny’s house to do so. But they’re onto her, and now they’re threatening to put a spoke in her wheel, um no, a fork in her foot!

Pandora tries a spell to make her hear better so she can overhear what teachers are saying about her. It works, but the spell starts rebounding when every single noise becomes unbearable and she can’t find a counter-spell. On the other hand, the spell enables Pandora to overhear she has an enemy in Briony, who is out to get rid of her. Don’t be too sure of that Briony, when Pandora is armed with her box!

In “The Disappearing Dolphin” the girls find a Roman artefact and they’re in the paper. But unforeseen consequences have Mrs Ormerod-Keynes and local fishermen up in arms.

 

 

Jinty 16 June 1979

• Casey, Come Back! – first episode (unknown artist – Merry)
• Bizzie Bet and the Easies (artist Richard Neillands)
• The Forbidden Garden (artist Jim Baikie)
• Rinty ‘n’ Jinty
• Alley Cat
• A Girl Called Gulliver (artist Phil Gascoine)
• Nothing to Sing About (artist Phil Townsend, writer Alison Christie)
• Take Your Pick! – General Knowledge Quiz
• The Disappearing Dolphin – first episode (artist Trini Tinturé)
• The Four-Footed Friends (artist Peter Wilkes, writer Alison Christie)
• Your Own Seaside Rock! (feature)
• Pandora’s Box (artist Guy Peeters)

As the cover announces, there are two new stories in this issue. And the moment we open up the issue, we see the first one: “Casey, Come Back!”. Josie Stanton lives a lonely life with her grandfather. While not downright cruel or abusive like some guardians we’ve seen in Jinty, grandfather does not show Josie any affection, takes her for granted, and just expects her to work hard on the farm. Casey the dog is the only friend Josie has. Then grandfather deprives Josie of even that when he sells Casey! Looks like he’s taken Josie for granted once too often.

The other story is another Trini Tinturé story, “The Disappearing Dolphin”. An underwater archaeological dig turns to mystery when a dolphin shows up and then disappears without explanation.

“The Four-Footed Friends” is now on its penultimate episode, so we will be seeing a new story pretty soon. Mrs Marshall finally pushes Laura too far with her ridiculous carry-on about germs and mixing with ‘common’ people. So now Laura is running away, with the dogs in tow!

In “The Forbidden Garden”, they have advanced the programmed rainfall, which puts Laika’s precious plants in danger of being ruined. Talk about “it never rains but it pours”!

In part two of “Nothing to Sing About”, Linette’s father dies. Linette blames the fans, despite her mother saying it was just a heart attack that could have struck at any time. Linette’s bitterness is making everyone suffer, and she’s vowed never to sing again. Hmm, that may be harder than you think, Linette!

Pandora has been confident that she can get by at stage school without her aunt’s box of witchcraft. But her confidence is shattered when she gets mixed feedback on why she was such a hit at her school show, with some saying that she is not all that good and just gets noticed because she is “so pushy” and a “big-head” (no arguments there). So she gives in to her aunt and accepts the box.

In “A Girl Called Gulliver”, Maloney snatches Gwenny’s bag to get his hands on the Lilliputians. But then a policeman gets his hands on Maloney! However, more trouble is soon brewing for the Lilliputians, in the form of a vacuum cleaner and then a cat, whom Minty is determined to fight.

Bizzie Bet hopes the Hobbies Fair will make the Easies more active. But of course they go for a hobby where they can still go easy. And it’s yoga. Maybe they should try meditation too.

Guy Peeters

Sample Images

Guy Peeters is a very popular, long-standing artist in girls’ comics. Regrettably, he has no entry at all at Lambiek Comiclopedia and no other information on him is currently available, except for a listing of his works on Catawiki. It is only due to the Tammy credits that his name is known, but it is possible that it was a pseudonym.

Peeters was a very prolific artist at DCT, with his artwork appearing in Nikki, Mandy, Judy and M&J among others. His best-known work at DCT is arguably Penny’s Place, which started in M&J and then moved to Bunty with a merger. An incomplete list of Peeters stories at DCT can be found here.

At IPC, Peeters made his strongest presence in Jinty, particularly in regard to her SF stories. SF was one of his strengths, and his style really brought several of Jinty’s SF classics to life, including “Land of No Tears” and “Worlds Apart”. Peeters also brought off sport well, but only did one sports story for Jinty, “Black Sheep of the Bartons”. It is rather surprising that he also drew a ballet story, “Slave of the Swan”, and also a complete story, “Forget-Me-Not at Christmas”, which contained period elements, as his style is less suited to ballet and period stories than other artists.

In Tammy, Peeters’ artwork appeared more intermittently. He drew nothing for Misty, despite his aptitude for SF. But he did draw one of Tammy’s best-remembered SF classics, “E.T. Estate”. This was during Tammy’s credit run, which gives a name to this hugely popular artist.

Guy Peeters Jinty stories

• Carnival of Flowers – Gypsy Rose story (1977)
• Land of No Tears (1977-78)
• Slave of the Swan (1978)
• The Human Zoo (1978-79)
• “I’ll Make Up for Mary” (1979)
• Pandora’s Box (1979)
• Black Sheep of the Bartons (1979)
• Forget-Me-Not at Christmas – complete story (1979)
• Worlds Apart (1981)

 

Credited Guy Peeters story in Tammy (click thru)