Jinty & Penny 28 March 1981

• Pam of Pond Hill (artist Bob Harvey, writer Jay Over)
• The Ghost Dancer – final episode (artist Phil Townsend)
• The Queen’s Vengeance! Gypsy Rose story (artist Trini Tinturé)
• The Long Shot – text story (artist Mario Capaldi)
• Just the Job
• Gaye’s Gloomy Ghost (artist Hugh Thornton-Jones)
• Are You Good at Arguments? (Quiz)
• Tansy of Jubilee Street (artist Peter Wilkes)
• Fancy Free! – first episode (artist Phil Townsend)
• Spot of Trouble – A Jinty & Penny special story (artist José Casanovas)
• Land of No Tears (artist Guy Peeters, writer Pat Mills)

This week the Pond Hill-hating Wormsley Comprehensive makes its only appearance in the entire run of Pam of Pond Hill. It is such a neglected, rundown, graffiti-smeared dump it makes Pam appreciate Pond Hill. It’s no wonder the Wormsley pupils (“Worms”) are so rough. So could jealousy be the reason they hate Pond Hill? Pam and Steve never get the chance to even ask, for they get nabbed by the “Worms” and are now set to get a variant on tarring and feathering.

Two Phil Townsend stories overlap this week: “The Ghost Dancer” (ends) and “Fancy Free!” (begins). Ferne embarks on secret training to get out of that wheelchair and back into her ballet shoes. Fancy Cole is a problem girl who wants to have the freedom to do anything she likes. That includes bullying, it would seem. Still, things could be so different if her mother was kinder and looked after the place more instead of indulging in bingo all the time.

“A Spot of Trouble” is a Jinty and Penny special story. Apparently it is a filler, as two serials ended last issue but only one begins this issue. Natasha rescues an abandoned pup, Spot, in the Gulf States. The locals don’t much care for dogs, so the hotel manager doesn’t see the point in Natasha befriending Spot. He sees things in a new light when Spot saves Natasha from a deadly snake. The artist of this story is a bit uncertain. It looks like José Casanovas but it does not have the intricate detail that his other Jinty stories had. Perhaps it is an early Casanovas reprinted from somewhere.

Tansy’s in a fix when she forgets Mother’s Day and has to lay her hands on a present fast. Sir Roger is embarrassed when he accompanies Gaye to the museum and finds a document he signed is on display, and it says he is “ignorant, timid and the biggest liar in the kingdom”. It’s hijinks time when he tries to keep Gaye from finding out.

“The Long Shot” is the first of the text stories that will continue during 1981, with the spot illustrations being expanded for the covers. The cover could also be considered the last of the Mario Capaldi sports covers as it features a sport. There are no “Winning Ways” this week, so perhaps they have now been phased out.

This week’s Gypsy Rose story is another recycled Strange Story (which appeared in June). Julie laughs at ghosts and the supernatural, and never refuses a dare. So she accepts a dare to spend the night in a house supposedly haunted by a vengeful Elizabeth I. Julie emerges not quite sure if what she saw that night was a dream or not, but she stops laughing at ghosts. The Storyteller was more smug about this than the paste-up of Gypsy Rose is. Julie also discovers a lost miniature that not only triggered the apparent haunting but also saves the house from demolition. The story has been uploaded to the Gypsy Rose gallery in the panel section.

Miss Norm reveals the full story of how she became to be both the Hive Mother and the Gamma Girls’ secret trainer. Her training is paying off because the Gamma Girls are doing so well in the finals – much to the consternation of the bigoted Hive Inspector. Unfortunately Cassy made a bargain to let Perfecta beat her in the swimming marathon and sees no way out of it. However, the blurb for next week says fate is going to step in, so it sounds like there is a way out after all.

José Casanovas

Catalan artist José Casanovas (1934 – 2009) was well-known and well-loved by lots of readers, appearing as he did in many British comics over a number of decades. His detailed, stylish, and above all fun art was distinctive and he was credited in various publications, so it is easy to pull together quite a long list of his work (though no doubt still incomplete). Many British readers think of him as a 2000AD artist – that is how I first came across his name myself – and therefore perhaps as an SF artist primarily. If you count up the stories he drew and the titles he appeared in, though, by far the majority of his work seems to be for the girls’ comics market.

The list below has been pulled together with much reference to the Catawiki database in order to fill out the non-Jinty stories, so many thanks to the contributors to that site. (I have included the numbers of episodes listed for each story as per Catawiki, to emphasize how prolific he was. I am fairly sure the records on that site are not complete but it gives a good impression of his work. Of course, please do send in further information if you have it!)

• Tammy
  • Cinderella Spiteful (1971-72) – 20 episodes
  • Two-Faced Teesha (1973-74) – 10 episodes
  • Ella on Easy Street (1974) – 8 episodes
  • The Town Without Telly (1974) – 12 episodes
  • Wars of the Roses (1975-76) – 11 episodes
  • Babe at St Woods (1976-77) – 39 episodes (you can see some sample pages here)
  • Down To Earth Blairs (1977-78) – 25 episodes
  • Running Rosie Lee (1980) – 10 episodes
  • Tomorrow Town (1982) – 10 episodes from 11 Sept 1982 – 13 Nov 1982.
• Sandie
  • The Nine Lives of Nat the Cat (1972-73) – 38 episodes
• Princess Tina & Penelope
  • Have-A-Go Jo (1970) – 25 episodes
• Jinty
  • Dora Dogsbody (1974-76) – 94 episodes
  • Snobby Shirl the Shoeshine Girl (1976) – 13 episodes
  • Her Ugly Duckling – reprinted story in Jinty Annual 1976
  • The Darkening Journey (1977) – 20 episodes
  • Sue’s Daily Dozen (1980-81) – 14 episodes
  • Spot of Trouble (28 March 1981) – complete story
• Lindy
  • Sophie’s Secret Squeezy (1975) – 7 episodes
• Penny
  • Pickle, Where Are You? (1979) – 10 episodes

Mistyfan has recently done a post about “Sue’s Daily Dozen” in which she made the point that Casanovas is known for science fiction. There is one science fiction story done by him in a girls’ comic, namely Tammy‘s “Tomorrow Town”, which I take the opportunity to reprint here as being a piece of art that would otherwise not be likely to get a showing on this Jinty-specific blog.

click thru

click thru

Following Casanovas’ death in 2009, Steve Holland wrote an obituary Bear Alley post here, drawing also on the Spanish-language blog Tebeosfera’s post here. (Do follow this last link to see some lovely artwork from an adaptation of Pollyanna done for the local market.) There was also an interesting comment on 2000AD fan blog the Prog Slog about Casanovas’ work in the boys’ science fiction comics market. He drew well-liked characters Max Normal (some Max Normal art by Casanovas can be seen here) and Sam Slade Robo-Hunter (after Ian Gibson had stopped drawing this latter character). He also drew a number of one-off stories in 2000AD, and a story in Starlord, and people characterise him as a 2000AD artist therefore. The Prog Slog comment here clarifies that: “Casanovas early work for 2000AD, Starlord etc. was sporadic. First appearance was a ‘Future Shock’ in Prog 70 (24 June 1978) a 1.5 pager called ‘Many Hands’. “Good morning Sheldon, I love you” was his next, a six page future shock style one-off written by John Wagner in Starlord 11 (22 July 1978). He drew another one-off Wagner [story] in Starlord 16. There’s a gap then until Progs 148 & 149 (January 1980) where he does a 2-part Ro-Jaws Robo-Tale. He then draws the 11 page Mugger’s Mile by Alan Grant, the first ever Max Normal strip (“The Pinstripe Freak (He’s Dredd’s informer)”) in the first Judge Dredd annual (1981). He goes on to draw more Future Shocks in Prog 220, 241 and 245, another Max Normal in the 1982 JD annual, and again in JD 1983 annual. In the 1982 Sci-Fi Special he draws his first Dredd proper, a 10 pager by Wagner – The Tower of Babel. His first Dredd in the weekly is the excellent “Game Show Show” 2 parter in 278/279, August 1982, Wagner again. He did the second ever ‘Time Twister’ in Prog 295, a 4 pager called Ultimate Video. And that’s as far as my data goes for now, by Prog 300 he’d done 77.5 pages: 32.5 in the weeklies, 10 in specials, 23 in annuals and 12 in Starlord. According to ‘Barney’ online (http://www.2000ad.org) his last work was in Prog 822 (Feb 1993), Robo-Hunter”. The tally of his pages for 2000AD and the like must therefore surely be far outnumbered by the 90+ episodes of his run on Dora Dogsbody in Jinty alone!