Tammy & Misty 16 August 1980

Cover artist: John Richardson

Bella (artist John Armstrong) – final episode

Running Rosie Lee (artist José Casanovas)

Cut-Glass Crystal (artist Tony Coleman)

Golly! It’s Pressie Time! – Competition 

The Loneliest Girl in the World (artist Jaume Rumeu)

Wee Sue (artist Hugh Thornton-Jones)

Molly Mills and the Green-fingered Runaway (artist Douglas Perry, writer Maureen Spurgeon) – first episode

Edie and Miss T – (artist Joe Collins)

The House Mouse (artist Mario Capaldi) – Strange Story from the Mists (Part 2 of 2)

Plain as Pearl (artist Juliana Buch)

Now we come to 1980 in the Tammy August month round. In this issue, Tammy has some Golly giveaways to celebrate Golly’s 50th. How times have changed for Golly in increasingly PC times since then.

Bella concludes her bid to reach the Moscow Olympics. A shipwreck brings it all to a head, putting her in hospital with a busted ankle, so no Moscow. That’s the second time poor Bella has missed out on the Olympics, and unlike her Montreal story she didn’t even get there this time. Maybe a rebooted Bella will finally get to compete at the Olympics. At least the rescuers brought her back to Britain for treatment, so she’s home and no longer stranded in the US. We’re promised a new story next week while Bella is recuperating. 

In Molly’s new story, it’s time for Lord Stanton’s summer fete. We are introduced to Charlie’s sister Cathy, who has run away from a harsh orphanage, and the police are hunting for her. Molly and Charlie are very surprised when she turns up at the fete, helping Lord Stanton’s gardener. Oh boy, this is going make for one very interesting fete! 

Since Misty joined, several Strange Stories from the Mists have appeared in two or three parts. The current two-parter, “The House Mouse”, has to be the most frightening of them all and is guaranteed to stick with you for years to come (it does me!). The House Mouse is far from a cute, cuddly mouse – it is an evil, possessed monster that drives off prospective buyers of its fanatical master’s house with “accidents”, outright attacks and even murder, as he has vowed the house will never leave his family.

There are a lot of “court” jokes and puns in this week’s Wee Sue story when Miss Bigger ropes Sue into helping her with tennis practice. This ends up “courting” trouble. Ultimately, they find themselves more successful at cricket. 

In a later issue ye Editor informs us “Plain as Pearl” is a very popular story, and there is a lot in it to make it so. Pearl Kent has taken a job as a model to raise money for her sick mother’s holiday. Trouble is, she has to do it in secret because she senses Clare, the daughter of the foster family she is staying with, will be jealous. The secrecy is leading to problems of course, like Pearl not having a guardian’s consent for the job.

“Running Rosie Lee” turns into the bionic woman once she’s had a cup of tea, to the consternation of the snobs at her new boarding school. But this week it is established that the tea must be stirred, or failing that, shaken to get things going.

Karen Chalmers, “The Loneliest Girl in the World”, doesn’t know where she’s coming or going with the weird things that are happening to her, except now confirming that her parents are indeed robot imposters. But all this does is get her committed to a psychiatric hospital. The robot parents say she must never discover the truth, even if she has to stay at the hospital all her life. Now what can the truth be, and is it connected with her nightmares about her house burning down and nobody left except her?

Cut-Glass Crystal is finding out – the hard way – why her mother refused to come to Dad’s hometown of Pitedge after his business collapsed. Pitedge is worlds away from the upbringing she has had, adapting to life in Pitedge is hard for her, the house they live in doesn’t even have proper commodities, she doesn’t fit in, and now she doesn’t even know her own father anymore. Instead of being sympathetic and trying to help – or even grateful Crystal chose to come with him when Mum didn’t – he’s become very harsh with her. Can things possibly sort themselves out, or did Crystal’s mother have the right idea? 

Tammy & Misty 21/28 June 1980

Cover artist: John Richardson

Bella (artist John Armstrong, writer Primrose Cumming)

Shadows on the Wall – Strange Story from the Mists

Tina’s Telly Mum (artist Giorgio Giorgetti, writer Alison Christie) – first episode

Wee Sue (artist John Richardson)

The Sea Witches (Mario Capaldi)

Lucky By Name (artist Julian Vivas)

Peggy in the Middle (artist Tony Coleman)

Edie and Miss T (artist Joe Collins)

Meet the Tammy Gymnast of the Month – Feature

Donna Ducks Out (artist Diane Gabbot(t))

Now we come to 1980 in our Tammy June month round. This particular June issue is unusual for having a double date (edited to amend), but this was due to the May strike. 

It’s been six months since Misty merged with Tammy. The merger changed the Tammy logo from having daisy flowers to solid letters. The Misty merger was a bit disappointing because Misty was underrepresented in the merger. Tammy had a higher ratio of content all the way through. Much of the problem must have been with Misty herself. She had no regulars except Miss T and Misty herself, and regulars are vital for carrying on in a merger. Also, Misty’s ratio of serials was not very high, while her number of complete stories was way too vast. Also, her stories used 4-page spreads while her sister comics used three, which also reduced the space for more serials to run. A lower ratio of complete stories, enabling more room for serials, would have created a better balance. It would have also created more scope for something from Misty’s serials to turn into a regular, or for a regular strip to have been created. Some of the spooky stories that appeared during the merger, such as “The Sea Witches”, do give the impression they were originally scripted for Misty. Unfortunately, if Misty was not writing that many serials to begin with, not many of them could be published in the merger. The ratio of Tammy serials was definitely higher than Misty’s in the merger. Misty made her presence felt more in the Strange Stories – now called Strange Stories from the Mists, and she alternated with the Storyteller as the presenter. 

Meanwhile, Tammy has a higher number of serials running, as she is not running her regulars so much. This was another key change when Misty joined. The ever-popular Bella has to continue of course, and Sue is still a weekly regular, but Bessie is now appearing off and on, and Molly is on hiatus. 

In the serials, “The Sea Witches” are striking back at an American air base, which is disturbing nesting grounds, and how far they will go is increasingly worrying. “Peggy in the Middle” is a bold move in exploring how messy divorce and custody battles can be. “Lucky By Name” reaches its climax, with Lucky running off with her beloved pony in the mistaken belief her father will sell him. “Donna Ducks Out” is now on its penultimate episode. A bathroom duck gives Donna the power to swim, but now it has been damaged. The final episode will clearly tell if Donna can now sink or swim without the duck. A new story, “Tina’s Telly Mum”, starts. Tina Mason persuades her recently widowed mother to take a glamorous TV announcer job to distract herself from grief. Unfortunately, there are ominous signs Tina is going to regret this. She has already been left behind as her mother leaves for her new job, and a most unsuitable woman has been put in charge of her – the sort that has us instantly thinking, “What the hell was Mum thinking when she hired her?”

Bella is making a bid for the Moscow Olympics, but got herself stranded in the US after winning a qualifying event and then lost her sponsorship. Now it’s becoming even more difficult to keep up her gymnastics, much less get to Moscow. Bella missed out on competing in the Olympics once before, and now history is threatening to repeat itself. Bella is also making her influence keenly felt in Tammy’s latest competition, “Meet the Tammy Gymnast of the Month”.

Tammy & Misty 13 June 1981

• Sandy – A Girl Like You (artist Juliana Buch)
• Olympia Jones (artist Eduardo Feito, writer Anne Digby)
• Bella (artist John Armstrong)
• Wee Sue (artist Hugh Thornton-Jones)
• Tune-In (feature)
• The Breaking of Faith (artist Giorgio Giorgetti)
• Water under the Bridge – Strange Story from the Mists (artist John Richardson)
• Stella Stirrer (artist Tony Coleman)
• Edie and Miss T – cartoon (artist Joe Collins)
• Linda’s Fox (artist and writer Ron Tiner)

For 1981 in Tammy round robin we profile 13 June 1981.

The Misty logo still appears on the cover, albeit reduced in size, and Strange Stories from the Mist are still going. In this week’s tale Misty herself hosts the tale and even appears in the tale. Fiona encounters a bridge that is haunted by the spectre of an evil tyrant. In life he enjoyed murdering peasants and throwing their bodies in the river. In death he lures live people to their deaths in the river, but when he tries it on Fiona he is outwitted when she gets rescued. The villagers downplay her experience, but there are definite signs they more about it than they let on.

A full-page splash panel of a serial now leads off the covers. Usually it is Bella, but right now it is the second Sandy Rawlings story, “Sandy – a Girl Like You”. Sandy is always having boyfriend and boyfriend-related problems. This week it is lovesick fools who develop crushes and the problems these can cause. Sandy has a lovesick boy, Timmy Harris, hanging around her like a shadow, and it’s causing a nuisance and embarrassment for Sandy. He is too young for her and classmates are sniggering, but how to get him off her back? He’s like a limpet on it. Meanwhile, classmate Jane develops a crush on the new maths teacher, which is also causing problems.

Although Bella is not on the cover, she is running in the issue. In fact, her story started with her running away from Jed and Gert’s abuse. In so doing she has ended up joining a circus. Bella soon decides circus life isn’t for her, but can’t leave them because rogue Uncle Nick is trying to ruin them with nasty tricks so he can add them to his fairground. This week he poisons the performing poodles.

This week’s episode of Olympia Jones takes a pivotal turn for her. During an emergency she accidentally discovers her horse Prince is a brilliant show jumper. All of a sudden, her dreams of an equestrian Olympic gold, which seemed to die with her parents, are reviving. The training begins, and Prince is doing so well that trainer Miss Carson (“Carsie”) decides his debut will be the County Open. Ye-ikes! Olympia has never entered a swish horse event like that and the competition will be far stiffer and grander than the gymkhanas she entered before. Will she and Prince be up for it?

In Wee Sue, the headmistress wants the pupils to have more nature studies, so Miss Bigger takes the class out for a lesson on apiarism – “the study of bees” she tells smartass Sue, not “the art of monkey impersonation”. Boy, the old tartar really is letting Sue get away with such cheek this week. Unfortunately for Miss Bigger, her lesson ends up with her diving into the duckpond to escape the swarm she found in the hive. As a result, she gets a nasty cold and can’t stand any mention of bees. So don’t tell her Sue got in the local newspaper for finding rare bee orchid.

“Linda’s Fox” is the third example we have found on this site where the artist wrote the story they illustrated. Linda Barnes takes solace in a litter of foxes next door, especially one cub she names Ross, after her policeman father is wrongly imprisoned at the hands of “Splinter” Mallory. In this episode both Ross and Linda get hard knocks – literally – and haven’t got their protectors to help them. Ross is venturing into the outside world and discovering some of the dangers, and at the same time loses his mother. Meanwhile, Splinter’s bully son and his gang attack Linda. Linda’s policeman father is not around to deal with it, and they don’t deal with it themselves by reporting it because Linda is scared it will make things worse.

Faith Adams values her new friend Claire Ellerman as she doesn’t make friends easily. However, her classmates keep telling her Claire is no good: she comes from the local home for problem children. Claire’s explanation for this seems reasonable enough and Faith accepts it – but is it true? Is she really the daughter of rich parents living abroad who’s only staying at the home because the matron is her cousin? And now a classmate has planted another seed of doubt about Claire in Faith’s mind: did she steal the fancy paintbox she brought to art class?

Stella “Stirrer” Smith has taken a kitchen job at a posh school but is the constant target of bullying at the hands of snooty girls. She is finding the kitchen the perfect way to hit back at them. So far her tricks have gone smoothly and she’s gotten away with them. But this week she runs into trouble with her first cliffhanger. She is trying to get revenge at the school hockey match but gets cornered under the table. Will she be caught or find a way to stay hidden?

Tammy & Misty 26 January 1980

Cover artist: John Richardson

• Bella (artist John Armstrong)
• Cindy of Swan Lake (artist Ana Rodriguez)
• Sister in the Shadows (artist Giorgio Giorgetti)
• Spider Woman (artist Jaume Raumeu)
• Wee Sue (artist Robert MacGillivray)
• The Witch in the Window – Strange Story from the Mists (artist Tony Higham)
• Miss T (artist Joe Collins)
• Make Headlines, Hannah! (artist Tony Coleman) – final episode
• Daughter of the Desert (Mario Capaldi)

Part two of the Tammy & Misty merger has been chosen for 1980 in the Tammy round robin. For the second – and last time – Misty shares the cover with the Cover Girls. Afterwards the cover returned to the Cover Girls and Misty never occupied a cover spot again. Poor Misty.

To further commemorate the merger, next week we are getting the House of Mystery game, where we become one of our favourite Tammy characters (Molly, Sue, Bessie or Bella) and try to escape from the House of Mystery. Which Tammy character would you pick for this game? Misty readers would probably go for Sue or Bella as they haven’t seen Molly or Bessie yet in the merger.

Tammy is working on clearing out her older stories so she can make way for the new ones she has already indicated are waiting in the wings. “Make the Headlines, Hannah!” finishes this week. Hannah not only succeeds in making a name for herself at long last but also gets on television. Funny – the possibility of appearing on television was something she fantasised about way back in part 1. And it wasn’t for the money her Uncle promised as her mean sisters thought. It was winning respect and proving to everyone she was not a born loser.

“Daughter of the Desert” looks like it is heading for its conclusion. The episode itself says as much: the protagonists reckon everything is coming to a head and they are about to find out why the school has been plagued by strange desert phenomena ever since the Arabian princess Aysha arrived. What makes them think that? The mystery “Arab” behind it has cut off the water’s school supply for 24 hours and now they are all going as dry as the desert.

“Cindy of Swan Lake” still has longer to go, though its conclusion can’t be far off either. Jealous Zoe Martin is still playing on Cindy Grey’s worries about her sick swan, who is dying from pollution. This week she allows Cindy to get the lead in Swan Lake. Why? She calculated Cindy would get too distressed at doing the Dance of the Dying Swan in Swan Lake to continue with the role, so she would get it, and she was right – except for one very bad plot blunder. The Dance of the Dying Swan is not in Swan Lake! It’s a solo dance, separate from Swan Lake.

Like Hannah, Wendy the “Sister in the Shadows” is overshadowed by a successful sister (Stella) and trying to prove herself against comparisons, bullies, lack of self esteem and sabotage. This week, Wendy’s debut is on stage is a disaster because of nasty tricks from the bullies, but there is insult to injury as well. Wendy’s parents totally forgot to come and watch her, but as far as they are concerned, Stella phoning to say she might visit for the weekend (which she doesn’t) was far more important anyway. Not exactly making things up to Wendy for letting her down, are they? From this, we can see Hannah definitely had it easy compared to Wendy in proving herself and winning respect. And at least Hannah had some friends to help. Wendy has none at all.

Bella has a long history of getting stranded in foreign countries. She’s only two episodes into her new story and it’s happening again: she is stranded in the US, trying to win a championship to qualify for the Olympics, but her wealthy guardians fail to show up. They abruptly cancel and don’t even send a message to Bella to explain why or arrange help. Now this is really irresponsible, even if something bad happened to them back there. They’ve really left her in the lurch and Bella is not getting much help from the coaches either. It’s no wonder she gets off to a bad start when the event gets underway. The vault, which was never her strong point, is already down – in flames.

Spider Woman has discovered witnesses have stumbled onto her evil plan. To deal with them she strands them on a deserted island that used to be a leper colony. Too late they discover it was a trap. And they have to live in rundown huts. As if that weren’t bad enough, the former occupants were the lepers and there are rumours their ghosts still haunt the huts. Then they discover the boat Mrs Webb used to bring them to the island is now covered with spiders, so there is no getting off the island with it. But what about Mrs Webb herself? Where has she got to? Did she get off the island on another boat…or what?

In Wee Sue, it’s charity fundraising time at Milltown Comprehensive. Sue’s idea is bash up one of the old bangers from the council tip and see who can guess the correct number of parts. Of course Miss Bigger and Wee Sue get into all sorts of scrapes towing the old banger to the event, but they do foil bank robbers with it before finally getting it to the banger-bashing ceremony.

In Strange Story from the Mists, the Witch in the Window makes a profitable living out of causing bad luck to girls unless they give her money. She meets her match in one girl and flies off in a rage. But beware – there are plenty of other girls in the windows out there for her to take her revenge out on.

Tammy’s 10th Birthday Issue

Cover artist: Robert MacGillivray

Characters/serials on the cover: Sandy Rawlings; Molly Mills; Belinda Bookworm; Wee Sue; Bella Barlow; Mary Moldesworth from Bessie Bunter?; Push-along, Patti; Bessie Bunter; Miss Bigger

•  Bella (artist John Armstrong)
• The Black and White World of Shirley Grey – first episode (artist Diane Gabbot, writer Jake Adams?)
• Push-along, Patti (artist Juliana Buch)
• Wee Sue (artist Robert MacGillivray)
• Help Yourself to a Holiday – competition
• Molly Mills and the Echoes from the Past – new story (artist Douglas Perry)
• Edie and Miss T (artist Joe Collins)
• Tune-In (feature)
• Belinda Bookworm (artist Giorgio Giorgetti)
• Imaginary Abbie – Strange Story from the Mists (artist Eduardo Feito)
• Rita My Robot Friend (artist Tony Coleman)

While it is out of the garage, I am going to discuss the issue where Tammy celebrated her 10^th birthday (sadly, this is something Jinty never reached). Tammy certainly pulls out the stops to celebrate: her commemorative cover; Edie and Miss T redecorating their rooms with 10 years’ worth of Tammy; Miss Bigger taking Wee Sue and her friends on a special tour to the Tammy office; and Molly reflecting on her 10 years at Stanton Hall (once Pickering points out she had been there that long). And of course it wouldn’t be complete without celebratory competitions.

When revisiting past Tammy characters, we see that the focus is on ones who are currently running (Belinda Bookworm), have appeared in comparatively recent years (Thursday’s Child, Cindy of Swan Lake), or whose memory still lingers on (Olympia Jones, Babe of St Wood’s). The only really early Tammy character to reappear is Cat Girl. There are no Slaves of ‘War Orphan Farm’, Aunt Aggie, School for Snobs, Beattie or any of the characters from the first years.

Wee Sue has a very special commemorative story, reproduced below. Miss Bigger takes the class on a tour of King’s Reach Tower to see how Tammy is produced. Sue ends up in the copy room where she falls asleep trying to read 10 years’ worth of Tammy. Her dream takes her to flashbacks of Tammy characters, old and new, and finally Tammy’s birthday party. The Tammy stories referenced to in the Wee Sue story are, in alphabetical order:

Babe of St. Wood’s

Belinda Bookworm

Bella Barlow

Bessie Bunter

Cindy of Swan Lake

Goldie Alone

Jeannie and Her Uncle Meanie

My Terrible Twin (not mentioned, but the protagonists are recognisable)

Molly Mills

Olympia Jones

Push-along, Patti

Sandy Rawlings (three stories appeared in total, individually titled)

The Cat Girl

Thursday’s Child

(click thru)

Wee Sue celebrates Tammy’s 10th birthday 7 February 1981

Wee Sue celebrates Tammy’s 10th birthday 7 February 1981

Wee Sue celebrates Tammy’s 10th birthday 7 February 1981

Wee Sue celebrates Tammy’s 10th birthday 7 February 1981

However, the Molly story does reflect back on the early days and hints at how different the tone of Tammy was back then. Molly not only remembers the time she arrived at Stanton Hall but also how much more cruel Pickering was back in the early days.  Indeed, the Molly strip has become tamer now in comparison to what it was in Tammy’s early years. It has clearly been toned down. Pickering is still a bully who picks on Molly, but the stocks, beatings, dungeons and cold duckings in the lake are now a thing of Tammy’s past, thank goodness. Even the catty Betty and Kitty, who played a dirty trick that nearly got Molly sacked on her first day, have lost their cattiness and are more friendly with Molly.

(click thru)

Tammy herself has been toned down as well. When she was first launched, she revelled in stories filled with darkness, cruelty, torture and suffering. But readers loved it and her sales rocketed. Stories with the Cinderella theme or slave theme (girls used as slaves in one form or another) abounded, and a number of them, such as “Slaves of ‘War Orphan Farm’” and “The Four Friends at Spartan School” really pushed the envelope with the tortures their heroines went through. But by the late 1970s these had all faded. All that remained of them was Bella Barlow, who is still badly treated by Jed and Gert Barlow, although she has just rescued them from hard times.

But Tammy had not gone all light and soppy. Her current stories, “Belinda Bookworm”, “Push-along, Patti” and “Rita My Robot Friend” all feature heroines who are being bullied/ostracised at school and trying to rise above it. Tammy’s new story, “The Black and White World of Shirley Grey”, will also feature some extremely vicious and horrifying bullying in the weeks ahead.

It has been just over a year since Misty merged with Tammy. The Misty logo is smaller now and there have been fewer spooky stories than when Misty joined. But the Strange Stories from the Mist continue, as do Edie and Miss T and the Misty horoscope.