Jinty 8 March 1975

Stories in this issue:

• The Jinx from St Jonah’s (artist Mike White)
• Tricia’s Tragedy (artist Ana Rodriguez)
• Merry at Misery House (writer Terry Magee)
• Do-It-Yourself Dot (artist Alf Saporito)
• The Kat and Mouse Game (artist Jim Baikie)
• Prisoners of Paradise Island (artist Trini Tinturé)
• Dora Dogsbody (artist José Casanovas)
• Bird-Girl Brenda (artist Phil Gascoine)
• Daddy’s Darling (artist Phil Townsend, writer Alison Christie) – first episode
• Jinty made it herself… (craft feature on how to make a dressing table tidy)
• Slave of the Mirror (artist Carlos Freixas)

Katie jinxes herself at the launderette this week – she spilt the water from her goldfish bowl over her eiderdown and it all comes apart when she tries drying it. The understandably tetchy manageress kicks her out unceremoniously and so she needs to hang things up at home. Her Heath Robinsonesque drying lines only succeed in giving the vicar a hot bum and a cold neck, but Katie’s mother is just as glad that the vicar was chased away by this odd combination as it saved her from having to say yes to the favour he was about to ask for. The grateful mum hauls out a ‘do it yourself continental quilt kit’ that Katie can make up and use that night – with the goldfish bowl set far away from the bedside this time! (DIY continental quilt sets – did they ever really exist I wonder?!)

In “Tricia’s Tragedy”, Tricia is blaming herself for her cousin Diana’s accident and subsequent blindness. She’s feeling so guilty that she is even going to withdraw from the important swimming trophy that they are both entered for. Her father is adamant that she shouldn’t do that, and even locks her in until the morning so that she can’t do something rash. That doesn’t stop her and she runs away to Diana’s house – though her father does get her to promise that at least she won’t actually withdraw from the Lloyd Trophy competition herself.

Merry realises what the mysterious joker has been up to over the past few weeks – trying to get Miss Ball sacked. Wardress Stropp (aptly named) turns out to be the mysterious figure behind it all, and soon she is sacked and Ball reinstated. Not that Ball is any more of a fan of Merry than she was before the reinstatement! But Merry doesn’t mind too much because she is inspired by something Miss Ball said – it has given her an idea for a potential escape plan!

Kat opens this episode by hesitating when asked to leap up onto a platform – because she has weakened it herself deliberately, so as to get Mouse to injure herself! Mouse guesses what is behind the hesitation, and it is the end of their friendship. For good? Probably – but Kat is very sneaky and can at least think of ways to turn everyone else against Mouse, even if she can’t get her willing wee slavey back again.

Sally Tuff thinks everything is going her way at last – her school sports mistress Miss Granley has come to find and save them from Paradise Island, so she thinks. But an overheard conversation between Miss Granley and Miss Lush makes Sally question who is on her side.

New story “Daddy’s Darling” starts in this week’s issue. Not many Jinty stories were set during WWII (one exception being “Somewhere Over The Rainbow” by the same creative team, and another being “Song of the Fir Tree“, also drawn by Phil Townsend but with no credited writer at present). Lee Simons is a poor little rich girl – her father is over-protective of her because of the tragic deaths of her older brother who was killed when riding his bike, and her mother who got ill and died rapidly thereafter. Five years later Lee is chauffered around and tutored at home; but the war is about to change things as Mr Simons can no longer arrange everything just as he wishes.

In “Slave of the Mirror” Mia Blake is dead set on getting enough money to pay for modelling classes. At first she tries it the straight way, by doing extra tasks at the boarding house and hoping her sister will give her more pocket money; but soon the sinister girl in the mirror has her going about things in a rather less straightforward way, by sneaking off to a bathing beauty contest that her sister is bound to be up in arms about. She is doing well in the contest too, but Janet is outraged and swears she will soon put a stop to that!

Jinty 15 February 1975

Stories in this issue:

• The Jinx from St Jonah’s (artist Mario Capaldi and Mike White)
• Tricia’s Tragedy – first episode (artist Ana Rodriguez)
• Merry at Misery House (unknown artist – Merry; writer Terence Magee)
• The Kat and Mouse Game (artist Jim Baikie)
• Prisoners of Paradise Island (artist Trini Tinturé)
• Dora Dogsbody (artist José Casanovas)
• Bird-Girl Brenda (artist Phil Gascoine)
• Always Together… (artist Phil Townsend, writer Alison Christie)
• Do-It-Yourself Dot (artist Alf Saporito)
• Slave of the Mirror (artist Carlos Freixas)
• Jinty Made It Yourself – So Can You! (feature)

This issue is very close to Valentine’s Day, and so it features Katie Jinks receiving an appropriate heart-shaped card. What she doesn’t know is that her friends Liz and Sue are playing a trick on her – but as they soon find out, putting Katie into a romantic daze “means she’s a danger to life and limb! Our lives and our limbs!” How true – Katie jinxes her friends’ attempts to get a date for the Valentine Dance that night, while she herself gets an invite from the dishy lifeguard. Heh heh.

This issue has the first episode of “Tricia’s Tragedy“, following hard on the heels of the previous week’s final episode of the Alan Davidson-written “Jackie’s Two Lives“. It is seems pretty typical that a story by one artist / writer combination is often followed by another story from the same team, so while we do not have any definite indication that this story was also written by Alan Davidson, it seems a good likely hint. Tricia starts off the story by training in the local quarry pool because her family is too poor to use the public baths very often. We are told that if she can manage to win the Lloyd Trophy, then everything could change for her family.  But in the same few pages, her chance to continue using the quarry pool is dashed, by a complaint from the rich side of the family.

Merry is puzzled because someone else is playing practical tricks on the wardens in the reformatory – but they are tricks that go too far and will rebound on the joker. Of course everyone thinks it’s Merry who’s doing it while she knows it’s someone else – but who would have the nerve to do it, and why? Whatever the reasons, it spells trouble for Merry.

Kat is playing horrible tricks on Mouse but she is a careful and thorough worker, so all the ‘accidentally on purpose’ slips that Kat makes are undone by Mouse. The task that Mouse is trying to accomplish is to wash some expensive theatrical costumes, and it all goes off so well that Kat is driven to a desperate step to blacken Mouse’s name. She tries to chuck the hamper in a rubbish truck – but instead puts herself in the path of a passing motorbike, and hurts her leg badly!

Sally Tuff’s hockey team try to leave Paradise Island – they are not exactly prisoners, but they are tricked into staying as Miss Lush fools them into thinking that it doesn’t matter how little they train and how much they eat or drink – they are unbeatable no matter what! Sally knows different, but will she be able to do something about it?

It’s Beth’s birthday in “Always Together…” – as a small girl who doesn’t understand death, she is expecting her mother to come and give her a present, or at least to send her a card. Her brother and sister are working hard to make it a lovely birthday for her, as much as they can… but an unexpected visitor drops the bombshell that makes little Beth believe that her mother truly is dead. It is enough of a shock for her to fall down in a faint. Will the truth kill her, as her sister believes it might?

The girl in the mirror has Mia forging a number of letters, but this time in a good cause – she ends up clearing the Major’s name. Mia has also been noticed as someone who is pretty enough to make a living as a model – we are told this will lead to amazing developments later.

WTFometer VI – Group Slave Story

Comixminx has devised the WFTometer, the idea of which “was to give a framework for looking at how bonkers (or not) a story’s plot was, by comparing the story to an assumed ‘average reader’s situation’. This gives a structured way of comparing stories, including the possibility of finding patterns of oddity in seemingly different stories which are perhaps odd in similar ways”.

In the sixth volume of the WTFometer I am putting three group slave stories through the WFTometer. The stories are Merry at Misery House and Prisoners of Paradise Island from Jinty, and Slaves of the Nightmare Factory from Girl series 2. All of them have entries on this blog.

The group slave story is where a group of girls are being held captive, used as slaves and mistreated. Settings for the slavery have included state prisons, cruel schools, orphanages, factories, workhouses, mines, farms and secret workshops. More unusual settings have included ships, circuses, restaurants, holiday camps, totalitarian regimes and dystopian worlds. Sometimes the enslavement is based on an activity, such as hockey, ballet or swimming.

Sometimes the slavers have ulterior motives for exploiting girls, such as the establishment being used as a front for an underground crime ring or forced labour racket. And there are times when the slavery takes a form that is more insidious. On the surface it looks harmless, even enjoyable, but underneath it all, its victims are being ensnared for sinister purposes.

These three group slave stories are being put through the WFTometer to see how high the settings of the their forms of slavery, the cruelties the villains inflict, and how far they went would score on the WTFometer. As part of this purpose there are two lines for physical security: one for the protagonist and one for supporting characters. This is in case the physical security of the protagonist is any different from her fellow prisoners. For example, do any fellow prisoners actually die from all the cruelty?

First: Prisoners of Paradise Island

Score: 19

This is one of the more insidious group slave stories. A hockey team is kidnapped and taken to a tropical island. But instead of being subjected to all sorts of cruelties and being abused and exploited, the girls are treated to every kind of luxury and pampering their kidnapper, Miss Lush can offer. Only the hockey team captain, Sally Tuff, realises it’s a gilded cage. Miss Lush is deliberately spoiling the girls with too much luxury and pampering so as to make them too fat and unfit to win a hockey championship, and she is going to take punts against them. After many failed bids at escape or make the girls see reason, Sally calls in their sports teacher Miss Granley for help. But when Miss Lush finds out, she tries to kill them both.

On the WTFometer there is a difference between Sally’s physical security and those of the other hockey players. They are subjected to deceptively luxurious treatment that threatens to damage their health, but it does not put them in any physical danger. However, Sally is put in physical danger when Miss Lush tries to kill her. So her physical security scores higher. Taking the hockey players away from their locality and onto a tropical island also scores points. This story would score more if its cruelties were more severe, but as it is it scores 19.

Second: Merry at Misery House

Score: 26

This was the longest-running group slave story in Jinty (and in girls’ comics). In the 1920s Merry Summers is wrongly sent to a reformatory called Sombre Manor. It is better known as Misery House, and for good reason. The reformatory staff are sadistic, hypocritical and corrupt, and inflict tortures that include beatings, starvation, drip dungeons and stocks. They are capable of leaving sick girls to die of neglect, and only Merry’s efforts to get medical attention for them one way or other saves their lives. Eventually it is revealed the Misery House staff are engaged in illegal dealings, and when Merry discovers this they try to kill her.

Physical security for both the protagonist and supporting characters is the same: big difference because of high risk of death or injury, but nobody actually dies. The setting of a juvenile prison and historical time period also help bring the scoring of the story to 26.

Third: Slaves of the Nightmare Factory

Score: 33

Natalie Jones and Amanda Harvey are kidnapped for slave labour in a secret dress factory located deep underground in London’s wasteland. Girls are sent to the dreaded Punishment Box if they fail to meet strenuous dress quotas. Food is terrible and monotonous. Basic necessities and medical facilities are totally absent because the kidnappers care nothing for the girls’ welfare.

Girls are showing more psychological effects of their ordeal, which means a “big difference” score on the mental security. The prison settings also raise scores in the free will/agency sections. The physical security for the protagonist scores “big difference”, and indeed co-protagonist Natalie almost dies from the ordeal. But what makes this story score the highest, with 33 points, is the “extreme” rating in the physical security for supporting characters. This is because one slave girl, Ellen Crawley, actually dies while trying to escape, in circumstances that suggest murder or at least culpable homicide.

Jinty #40, 1 March 1975

Stories in this issue:

• The Jinx from St Jonah’s (artist Mike White)
• Tricia’s Tragedy (artist Ana Rodriguez)
• Merry at Misery House (writer Terry Magee)
• Do-It-Yourself Dot (artist Alf Saporito)
• The Kat and Mouse Game (artist Jim Baikie)
• Prisoners of Paradise Island (artist Trini Tinturé)
• The Hostess with the Mostest
• Dora Dogsbody (artist José Casanovas)
• Bird-Girl Brenda (artist Phil Gascoine)
• Always Together… (artist Phil Townsend, writer Alison Christie) – last episode
• Slave of the Mirror (artist Carlos Freixas)

Katie fools a pony-napping gang in the cover story – there are some crooks who are stealing away the foals of some wild ponies and selling them to a nearby pony riding school. You’d think the school would soon spot that the ponies are wild, but the crooks tell them that ‘they’ll soon settle down’! Well, luckily Katie has hitched a couple of rides – first on one of the mother ponies trekking after her stolen baby, and then in the truck taking the ponies away. So she soon foils the plans, and is a hero to the neighbourhood.

Tricia’s tragedy takes place in this issue – cousin Diana dives too close to Tricia when she is in the pool, and the next thing Tricia knows, Diana seems stunned… unconscious! and when she wakes up, suddenly the cousin has been struck blind.

In Merry at Misery House, she is trying to get to the bottom of the mystery of the sinister figure – the joker who is turning the place upside down, but only at times when Merry is blamed for the pranks! But at last the prankster gets Miss Ball dismissed as deputy warden – and Merry finally gets a clue as to what is happening. We are promised that she will be unmasking the joker – next week.

“The Kat and Mouse Game” is nearing its climax. Mouse is still dancing Kat’s part and letting her take the credit, but is hurt because Kat doesn’t seem to be acting like a real friend and taking any interest in Mouse’s small dance solo. The scheming Kat plots to sabotage even this small triumph – but we can tell that it will rebound on her, one way or another. The sample page on the story post shows you what happens in the following week’s episode…

The Prisoners of Paradise Island aren’t yet seeing through the luxury trap that Miss Lush has set for the hockey team. Sally Tuff has managed to get out a radio message to Miss Granley, their sports mistress – will she be the saving grace?

It is the last episode of Always Together…. Little sister Beth is desperately ill but all is sorted out in the final few pages – even to the extent of restoring the lost mother and the family home!

Finally, in “Slave of the Mirror“, Mia is still being manipulated by the mirror at the times when she feels most resentful for her sister’s bossy ways. But nice old Major Rose has build Mia a beach hut that she can escape to when she feels stressed out. She does so, and prepares to go for a dip – unaware that she is being watched by two men. Are they sinister stalkers such as we would expect them to be nowadays, or far more benign?

Jinty #42, 15 March 1975

Stories in this issue:

• The Jinx from St Jonah’s (artist Mario Capaldi)
• Tricia’s Tragedy (artist Ana Rodriguez)
• My Perfect Day – themed reader letters
• Merry at Misery House (writer Terry Magee)
• The Kat and Mouse Game (artist Jim Baikie)
• Prisoners of Paradise Island (artist Trini Tinturé) – last episode
• The Ghostly Wedding – spooky story
• Dora Dogsbody (artist José Casanovas)
• Bird-Girl Brenda (artist Phil Gascoine) – last episode
• Daddy’s Darling (artist Phil Townsend)
• Slave of the Mirror (artist Carlos Freixas)

Katie is dog-sitting for Lady Lampwick – but the huge dog ‘Cuddles’ looks like rather a handful! She earns enough money to be able to afford a dog of her own, but by the end of the story she is somehow not quite as keen on the idea…

Tricia is forced to slave for her cousin Diana, whose family say was blinded by an accident caused by Tricia. At least, unlike in some slave stories, Tricia is not emotionally fooled by her abusive cousin: they are ‘two people who hate each other… tied to each other by a terrible debt!’

There is a page of reader-produced content: the winning selections in a request made by the Jinty editors for letters on the theme ‘My perfect day’. I reproduce it here particularly because of one letter, ‘Just peace would be perfect’, about living in Northern Ireland – the reader wishes for peace and safety in Belfast. In the intervening years this has indeed come to pass, though there are many fears at present of possible impacts that could affect the Good Friday agreement as and when the UK exits from the EU – and/or the EU Human Rights Convention, the legal framework of which underlies the Good Friday agreement.

click thru

Merry is planning an escape from Misery House, so as to try to warn the outside world of the cruelties that go on inside its walls. The convicts make a dummy look-a-like of Merry, to hide the fact that she is not returning with the rest from an outdoors stint of fence-mending. Will it work?

Kat is still fooling everyone, this time by pretending to sleep-walk to make it look like some missing money was stolen by the innocent Mouse.

It’s the last episode of “Prisoners of Paradise Island” – school sports mistress Miss Granley was Sally Tuff’s hope for outside rescue, but she seems to be in league with the evil Miss Lush. When it is revealed that the teacher is really on their side, Miss Lush pops up and takes Miss Granley hostage – but it all goes wrong for her as reinforcements help the girls to finally fight back against their captors. At the end of the story, we see the hockey team winning the international championship, and we are promised that new dramatic story “Cinderella Smith” (also drawn by Trini Tinturé) starts next week.

It’s also the last episode of “Bird-Girl Brenda” – a very sudden ending, as Brenda discovers that going for a walk with her friends – and someone’s dishy cousin Rob – is just as much fun as flying. Just as well, because her flying powers have abruptly deserted her. Next week we will get new story “Bet Gets The Bird”, likewise drawn by Phil Gascoine – another lightweight humour strip with no overall story arc. Bet was rather more short-lived than Brenda – perhaps it wasn’t as successful – but for whatever reason that left Gascoine drawing more memorable stories such as “The Green People”, “Golden Dolly, Death Dust!”, and of course the long-running “Fran of the Floods”.

It’s early days in “Daddy’s Darling” – protagonist Lee is being looked after so closely by her father that she has no life of her own. Even though she now has to go to the local school, her father is still managing to separate her from others her own age.

Mia Blake is still strongly possessed by the spirit in the mirror – not surprisingly it is feeding off the resentment that Mia feels when her sister prevents her from going into a modelling competition.

Jinty 8 February 1975

Stories in this issue:

• The Jinx from St Jonah’s (artist Mike White)
• Jackie’s Two Lives – final episode (artist Ana Rodriguez, writer Alan Davidson)
• Merry at Misery House (unknown artist – Merry; writer Terence Magee)
• Do-It-Yourself Dot (artist Alf Saporito)
• Prisoners of Paradise Island (artist Trini Tinturé)
• The Kat and Mouse Game (artist Jim Baikie)
• Dora Dogsbody (artist José Casanovas)
• Bird-Girl Brenda (artist Phil Gascoine)
• Always Together… (artist Phil Townsend, writer Alison Christie)
• The Hostess with the Mostest
• Slave of the Mirror (artist Carlos Freixas)
• Jinty Made It Yourself – So Can You! (feature)

 

This week Katie’s torn between getting her own back on a horror who keeps plaguing her with practical jokes and sticking to her New Year’s resolution of being nice to people. Katie’s jinxing turns out to be the perfect compromise.

Speaking of practical jokes, they are the order of the day in this week’s episode of “Merry at Misery House”. Merry has turned to pranking Miss Ball. Then another practical joke is pulled on Miss Ball – but it isn’t Merry! What’s going on here?

It’s the final episode of “Jackie’s Two Lives”. History threatens to repeat itself for the obsessive mother who hasn’t learned her lesson from the last time she drove her daughter too hard to win the Princedale Trophy. Next week, Jackie will be replaced by another Ana Rodriguez story, “Tricia’s Tragedy”. Jinty sure liked to keep her artists in business. As with Jackie, “Tricia’s Tragedy” sounds like it has a rich vs poor basis, and there’s a trophy at stake again.

Sally seems to have succumbed to the old adage, “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em”. Actually, it’s another scheme to bring the “Prisoners of Paradise Island” to their senses. And it works! But will it last, or will the devious Miss Lush come up with another ploy to ruin them as hockey players?

Bird-Girl Brenda is given an ostrich egg and thinks it is a most appropriate gift for her. But perhaps it isn’t so appropriate when she starts having odd dreams about the egg.

The latest trick forced upon “Slave of the Mirror” destroys the reputation of an innocent man. But – surprise, surprise – the face in the mirror breaks down in tears when she hears what she’s done to the man! Maybe the spirit has a better side to her nature after all?

Kat definitely does not have a better side to her nature though. She’s playing nasty tricks on both Mouse and the juniors that Mouse has taken under her wing. Then she’s trying to ruin their costumes, while still trying to find a way to get Mouse expelled. All the while she still expects Mouse to do all her chores and cover for her in the role of the Tiger in the ballet show. What a nerve!

Dot is inspired to play Indians this week, which brings heap big trouble on her. Heap big angry croquet players play her at her own game and stake her out on lawn.

Ma Siddons has been so much more nasty than usual that Dora has walked out with the dogs. They’ve now taken refuge on a farm, where hijinks are ensuing between the dogs and the donkey. Things get even more hilarious when the Siddonses catch up and try to take the dogs back.

A Canadian offers to adopt the children in “Always Together”, but Beth won’t budge because she believes they should wait for their mother.

 

Jinty 7 December 1974

• The Jinx from St. Jonah’s (artist Mike White)
• Jackie’s Two Lives (artist Ana Rodriguez, writer Alan Davidson)
• Get Time on Your Side! – competition
• Merry at Misery House (writer Terry Magee)
• The Kat and Mouse Game (artist Jim Baikie)
• Prisoners of Paradise Island – first episode (artist Trini Tinturé)
• Dora Dogsbody (artist José Casanovas)
• Always Together… (artist Phil Townsend)
• Jinty Made It…for Christmas – feature
• Do-It-Yourself Dot (artist Alf Saporito)
• Slave of the Mirror (artist Carlos Freixas)

“The Hostess with the Mostest” and “Bird-Girl Brenda” do not appear in this issue. Maybe they have been pushed out by the competitions and features, including Christmas features that are leading up to the Christmas issue.

A new story, “Prisoners of Paradise Island” is a slave story, but the cage is a complete contrast to the harshness of the reformatory in “Merry at Misery House”. Rather, the prison is a tropical island and the prisoners are pampered with treats and luxury instead of being tortured and abused like Merry and her fellow inmates. But the intention behind it all is just as evil as the sadistic Misery House staff – it is meant to ruin the girls and make them unfit to win a hockey championship. It’s Trini Tinturé’s first story for Jinty, and Tinturé became a regular Jinty artist, lasting well up to Jinty’s last issues in 1981.

And in our regular Jinty slave story, the Warden is out to crush the girls’ new-found joy: a dog that has somehow found its way into Misery House. She’s tried poison and now it’s bullets – but then the dog’s owner turns up to claim him.

The wedges Mrs Mandell is driving between Jackie and her family are getting wider. Jackie has ruined her own mother’s birthday dinner because of it, hit her sister when she tries to talk sense into her, and the blurb for next week tells us that it’s going to get worse because it will be the ‘death’ of Jackie Lester.

Kat is sabotaging Mouse’s dancing while making sure she does not go too far, because she does not want to lose her mug. And Mouse is such a mug that she does not listen to warnings from the other girls about Kat.

The “Slave of the Mirror” is still under the mirror’s evil influence to drive off customers from the boarding house. And now she is being directed to get rid of Inez, the new help.

Prejudice against gypsies erupts in “Always Together”. Johnny has been kicked out of school, just because the new headmaster has a personal hatred towards gypsies and bans them all from the school. Hmm, aren’t there supposed to be laws against that kind of thing? But it’s the Harveys’ pram to the rescue, of all things.

A cat in the dogs’ hotel? Yes, that’s Mrs. Siddons’ latest charge this week. And to make matters worse, the cat is a real troublemaker.

Katie goes sleuthing to clear her father, who has been wrongly sacked on suspicion of smuggling. She spreads her jinxing along the way of course, but has found vital evidence. Or has she? She has been warned that she has got things all wrong.

 

Jinty 14 December 1974

• The Jinx from St. Jonah’s (artist Mike White)
• Jackie’s Two Lives (artist Ana Rodriguez, writer Alan Davidson)
• The Hostess with the Mostest
• Merry at Misery House (writer Terence Magee)
• Jinty Made it…for Christmas (feature)
• The Kat and Mouse Game (artist Jim Baikie)
• Prisoners of Paradise Island (artist Trini Tinturé)
• Dora Dogsbody (artist José Casanovas)
• Bird-Girl Brenda (artist Phil Gascoine)
• Always Together… (artist Phil Townsend)
• Slave of the Mirror (artist Carlos Freixas)

This issue has just arrived in my collection.

Kate discovers plotters aboard her dad’s ship and is out to expose them. Knowing our jinx, maybe we should pity the poor plotters. Meanwhile, another crook pulls a fast one over Mrs Siddons with a phoney ghost act. By the time she finds out, she has paid good money to him to exorcise the ghost. But given what an unsavoury character she is, Dora has more sympathy for the crook.

Jackie goes too far – she fakes her own death so she can play up to Mrs. Mandell as her daughter Isabella full-time. But she had forgotten what a hard mother Mrs. Mandell can be, and already the demands are starting. Meanwhile, Jackie’s sister Wendy is not convinced she is dead – but how can she prove it?

Two different types of punishment cells appear in this issue. For “Merry at Misery House”, it’s a week in solitary on meagre rations of bread and water, which puts her in the infirmary. And then she is very surprised to see the sadistic Warden suddenly being friendly to her! But it can’t be sincere, so what’s the Warden up to now? For Sally in “Prisoners of Paradise Island”, the punishment cell is a room filled with luxury, temptation, and gorgeous fruit to eat (far better than bread and water). But Sally is determined not to let this type of punishment room break her either.

A new threat threatens the Harveys in “Always Together” – a nosy reporter who has realised they are runaways and wants the full story! New help, Inez, arrives at the hotel, and the evil power over Mia, the “Slave of the Mirror” is forcing her to cause trouble for Inez. But Mia is soon caught out. And at least someone has caught Kat out in taking advantage of Mouse – her own mother, who stops her pocket money in punishment. But not even this causes Mouse to see through Kat.

Jinty 18 January 1975

Stories in this issue:

• Bird-Girl Brenda (artist Phil Gascoine)
• Jackie’s Two Lives (artist Ana Rodriguez, writer Alan Davidson)
• Do-It-Yourself Dot (artist Alf Saporito)
• Merry at Misery House (writer Terence Magee)
• The Kat and Mouse Game (artist Jim Baikie)
• Prisoners of Paradise Island (artist Trini Tinturé)
• Dora Dogsbody (artist José Casanovas)
• The Jinx from St Jonah’s (artist Mike White)
• Always Together… (artist Phil Townsend, writer Alison Christie)
• Slave of the Mirror (artist Carlos Freixas)

This is the second of the two Christmas issues I got out. This one is very festive and seasonal, with a competition to find the robin printed on a number of story-pages, and Christmas story-lines in “Dora Dogsbody”, “The Jinx From St Jonah’s”, and “Always Together” (yes, the kids get their Christmas after all, once Jilly manages to sell some of her sketches and Johnny gets given food by his gypsy friends).

The only catch with all this Christmassy-ness? It came out in January, due to a few weeks “production troubles” (often a euphemism for industrial action).

I thought I would include some art from “The Kat and Mouse Game” to show that despite having felt that the earliest pages drawn by Jim Baikie on this strip were a little shaky, there was also lots of good art – and a totally unrepentant and black-hearted bully protagonist.

click thru

click thru

Jinty 21 December 1974

Stories in this issue:

• The Jinx from St Jonah’s (artist Mike White)
• Jackie’s Two Lives (artist Ana Rodriguez, writer Alan Davidson)
• Do-It-Yourself Dot (artist Alf Saporito)
• Merry at Misery House (writer Terence Magee)
• The Kat and Mouse Game (artist Jim Baikie)
• Prisoners of Paradise Island (artist Trini Tinturé)
• Dora Dogsbody (artist José Casanovas)
• Bird-Girl Brenda (artist Phil Gascoine)
• Always Together… (artist Phil Townsend, writer Alison Christie)
• The Hostess with the Mostest
• Slave of the Mirror (artist Carlos Freixas)

I have got out two Christmas issues as it is that time of year. This first one is posted exactly 41 years from the date on the cover, and gets us ready for Christmas with some seasonal stories. Katie Jinx and friends are delivering presents collected for the old folks, but a little mishap and someone else’s misunderstanding leads to the presents going astray – with the schoolchums in hot pursuit!

“Jackie’s Two Lives” is not seasonally cheery – it is a creepy and grim story of emotional coercion, now nearing its peak. Jackie Lester has faked her own death and taken on the life of her double, Isabella Mandell – but the hard-driving Mrs Mandell has got her increasingly scared for what will happen next. We have recently learned that this story was written by Alan Davidson, who also wrote the well-known story “The Bewitching of Alison Allbright”; from the available plot summaries this latter seems to be a story very much along the same lines as this one. I wonder if it is as chilling – has anyone read both?

“Merry at Misery House” sees her waking up wondering if she is still ill – because suddenly all the staff and monitors have become friendly and compassionate! Of course it is all to trick an outside warden who has come to inspect the reformatory.

“The Kat and Mouse Game” is not one of my favourites: in the first few episodes, the Jim Baikie artwork looked more rushed than his usual efforts, and it is another story following some well-trodden paths: a bully who gets away with emotional abuse of a timid new girl, plus ballet and scheming to get one’s own way. Having said that, the character of Kat is marvelously full-on: no question of remorse or back-pedalling with her, oh no.

“Prisoners of Paradise Island” is the first Jinty story to feature Trini Tinturé’s beautiful artwork. It’s a light story and fairly silly, which I suppose parallels one of Trini’s last stories for Jinty: “The Perfect Princess”.

“Always Together…” gives us more Christmas atmosphere, as the three orphans manage to outwit a snooping reporter and then try to have a homely Christmas in their cave. Big sister Jilly is doing her darndest to make sure it is a nice time for her two smaller siblings, but when she fails to sell her sketches in time to buy presents and the all-important Christmas meal, it looks like a sad time instead of an uplifting end to the year…

Finally, the evil Mirror seems to be driving its slave into hospital – either through physical injuries, or by breaking her mentally.