Tammy 20 January 1979

Cover artist: John Richardson

• Mouse (artist Maria Dembilio)
• One Girl and Her Dog… (artist Mario Capaldi)
• My Terrible Twin (artist Juliana Buch)
• Edie the Ed’s Niece (artist Joe Collins)
• Thursday’s Child (artist Juan Solé, writer Pat Mills) – first episode
• Bessie Bunter
• Molly Mills and the Haunted Hall (artist Douglas Perry)
• Menace from the Moor – Strange Story (artist Peter Wilkes)
• The Moon Stallion – television adaptation (artist Mario Capaldi)
• Wee Sue (artist Robert MacGillivray)
• The Upper Crust (artist Giorgio Giorgetti)

Time for the 1979 issue in our Tammy round robin, and the issue chosen is 20 January 1979. It is three weeks into (at the time) the New Year, so naturally Tammy’s January issues are focused on new stories and clearing out old ones to make way for more new ones. The New Year also continues Tammy’s adaptation of the TV serial “The Moon Stallion”.

Bella is not part of the new lineup for the New Year though. When her story does start we learn that she’s been sailing home to Britain all the while.

We sense “The Upper Crust” is heading for its conclusion. Snobbish Mavis Blunt, of a snobbish neighbourhood, has had her nose put out of joint ever since the Carrington-Crusts moved in. She also suspects they are not all they appear to be. Now Mavis and her father suspect the Carrington-Crusts are criminals and set a trap for them, which appears to prove their suspicions. Or does it? We find out, in what we suspect is the final episode, next week.

“One Girl and Her Dog” looks like it is on its penultimate episode too. Kim Robinson and her dog Rumpus have finally caught up with Harry Whelkes, the man who has been hired to stop them claiming their inheritance in London. As a matter of fact, it’s brought the force of an entire circus down on Harry!

The circus also features in Wee Sue. Sue wants to go to the circus, but having no money, tries odd jobs there. The trouble is, two scheming girls from school have the same idea and are making sure she doesn’t get anything. They almost succeed, but the clowns decide Sue’s size will make her ideal for their act, and Sue gets the last laugh on those schemers.

“Thursday’s Child”, written by Pat Mills, starts today. It went on to become one of Tammy’s most popular stories and best-remembered classics. Life has always been good to Thursday Brown – but the splash panel on the first page tells us that will only be until she meets “the stranger” and her tears begin. And who might this stranger be? It’s the girl who mysteriously shows up in Thursday’s bed the night she starts using the family Union Jack as her bedspread. Looks like Thursday should have paid more attention to her mother’s misgivings about using the flag that way. Not to mention the strange red stuff that comes out when the flag is washed – it feels like blood. Is this a clue as to the reason why Mum was so unnerved?

“Mouse” and “My Terrible Twin”, the first Tammy stories to start in the New Year, take dramatic plot developments. Mary “Mouse” Malloway learns the reason for her stranger-wary upbringing is her mother’s fears she will become the victim of an international child abduction at the hands of her estranged Sicilian father (the marriage soured because of the tyrannical mother-in-law). In the same episode, Mum’s fears come true. The father succeeds in catching up to Mary, abducts her, and is dragging her off to Sicily.

“My Terrible Twin” (Lindy) is on parole from a remand home after a shoplifting conviction and getting into a bad crowd. Her fraternal twin Moira is desperate to help her reform, which the remand home didn’t have much success in doing. However, Lindy gets off to a bad start in stealing lipsticks from the store Moira sets her up in. In this episode Lindy quietly returns them, settles into her job, and things seem to be going better. But there are clear bumps: Lindy has little sense of responsibility, and she is vain, conceited, which makes an enemy out of another employee, Helen. But that’s nothing compared to the real problem Lindy is now facing – her old crowd turn up and make trouble! Incidentally, My Terrible Twin was so popular she spawned a sequel, and her first story was reprinted by popular demand in 1984.

In the Strange Story, “Menace from the Moor”, Dad is trying to start a market garden business, but a horse from the moor keeps turning up and trampling all over his plants. It does not take long to realise there is something strange about the horse. It is getting in despite fencing, seems to just vanish, only appears on moonlit nights, and has a missing shoe. Could there be a link to the horseshoe in the house? Which, by the way, is hanging upside down – the bad luck position.

Molly’s new story is “the Haunted Hall”, but it’s not really haunted. Molly is trying to hide her kid brother Billy in the hall while the family see to a sick relative. But Molly will lose her job if she is found out. Naturally, Billy’s high spirits make it hard to conceal him. His antics, plus ghost stories, are getting Pickering wound up about the hall being haunted. Pickering always did have a track history for being haunted, whether the ghost is real or fake.

Don’t talk to Bessie Bunter about birds this week! Mary Moldsworth tries to encourage Bessie to share her food with birds. But all poor Bessie gets out of it is bird bother and an unfair punishment.

Tammy 10 March 1979

Cover artist: John Richardson

• Nurse Grudge (artist Tony Coleman)
• A Girl Called Steve (artist Diane Gabbot)
• My Terrible Twin (artist Juliana Buch)
• The Moon Stallion (artist Mario Capaldi) – final episode
• Bessie Bunter
• Molly Mills and the Portrait Painter (artist Douglas Perry, writer Maureen Spurgeon) – first episode
• Unlucky for Some (artist John Armstrong) – Strange Story
• Wee Sue (artist Robert MacGillivray)
• Thursday’s Child (artist Juan Solé, writer Pat Mills)
• Just Jogging Along! (feature)

It’s Friday the 13^th (did you know there is a Friday 13^th in a month that begins on a Sunday?). So this issue of Tammy is being profiled to commemorate. It’s not just because the theme on the cover – Dracula vs Tammy – should make it a Halloween issue but isn’t. It’s also because the number 13 is the theme of this issue’s Strange Story, which appears below. Could the mysterious 13^th floor in the story have been one inspiration for “The Thirteenth Floor” in Scream!, perhaps? It is a bit like how Scream’s 13^th floor works in the way it teaches arrogant Annette a lesson. All that’s missing is Max the computer. Oh well, judge for yourself. It sure looks like Bella Barlow’s Aunt Gert was the inspiration for the workhouse matron anyway.

Click thru

 

There is no Bella yet. Instead, the first story is part two of “Nurse Grudge”. It was extremely rare for Tammy to have a nursing story (the same went for Jinty). It’s also a revenge story, where Greta Jones starts as a student nurse at her dad’s old hospital to get revenge on the staff who got him dismissed 20 years ago. His old notebook is full of the details of their turning against him – but no details at all on why they turned against him or just what he was dismissed for. Now why did he leave that part out of his journal? Greta has noticed the omission but not looked into it at all before starting her vendetta against the hospital – and perhaps she should have done…?

Tammy’s adaptation of “The Moon Stallion” TV series ends this week. Next week is “The Outcast of Oakbridge”.

Bessie sneaks into town after Miss Stackpole, who is going to a dance. Hijinks ensue with Miss Stackpole and Bessie ending up in the same farmer’s truck and then having to use an old raincoat and sacking against pouring rain while trudging into town. Miss Stackpole finds she has missed the dance because she got her dates muddled, but the raincoat wins her first prize at a tramps’ ball instead.

It’s a real turnabout for Molly Mills in her new story, but it’s one she could well do without. Lady Stanton turns against Molly when a painter prefers to paint Molly than her. Then Molly is very surprised to find her arch-enemy Pickering suddenly coming over to her side and being supportive against Lady Stanton’s jealousy. Now he couldn’t possibly be doing that unless there’s something in it for him – but what? Is he hoping for a group portrait with Molly or something?

From the moment Stephanie “Steve” Sutton has arrived at her father’s archaeological dig, it has been looking more and more like enemies are trying to scare her away. They certainly are doing a very good job of scaring her in this episode. Now she’s being dragged into a terrifying magician’s act.

“My Terrible Twin” is beginning to turn around – but just as she does, her remand home past begins to catch up. First, an unreformed girl from the remand home wants Lindy to help her shoplift, and then swears revenge when Lindy refuses. Then Lindy’s enemy Helen discovers her past and is going to tell the boss!

Sometimes Wee Sue had two-part or even three-part stories, and this is the final episode of one of them. So far her class’s skiing holiday abroad has been disappointing because the whole setup looks a cheat. It turns out to be a troubled business with the owner reduced to running it as a one-man-band (chef, ski instructor, DJ etc) while not having the slightest idea how to do all the roles. Does one of Sue’s famous brainstorms save the day? No, it’s more a lucky fluke (and extremely improbable one) that turns everything around.

Thursday’s legs are mysteriously paralysed after her fall. However, Thursday has no doubt that the evil Union Jack and Julie’s strange grudge against her, which caused the fall, are behind this. Then comes a turning point: Julie is now willing to explain just what her problem is with Thursday.

Tammy 17 February 1979

Cover artist: Giorgio Giorgetti

Contents

• Mouse (artist Maria Dembilio)
• A Girl Called Steve (artist Diane Gabbot)
• My Terrible Twin (artist Juliana Buch)
• Shadow on the Stage (artist Tony Coleman)
• The Moon Stallion (artist Mario Capaldi) – adapted from TV series
• Bessie Bunter
• Molly Mills and the Haunted Hall (artist Douglas Perry, writer Maureen Spurgeon)
• The Holden Hunt – Strange Story (artist Bob Harvey)
• Make a Valentine Card…and Cookies – feature
• Wee Sue (artist Mike White)
• Thursday’s Child (artist Juan Solé, writer Pat Mills)
• Have a Hearty Party! – feature

 

In honour of Valentine’s Day we profile Tammy’s Valentine issue for 1979, which I have just acquired.

The cover leads off the Valentine theme. Unusually, it is drawn by Giorgio Giorgetti instead of the regular cover artist, John Richardson. Tammy is the great lover on the cover instead of boys for the Cover Girls.

Inside, there are two Valentine features: one gives instructions for making Valentine cards and cookies, and the other gives tips on throwing a Valentine’s Day party. Inside, Wee Sue honours the event – in spite of Miss Bigger, who lumbers the whole class with a monstrous homework paper on Valentine’s Day because she’s upset at not getting a Valentine. Sue comes up with a solution once she acquires a box of reject Valentine cards – send them to Miss Bigger. Eventually this teaches a tight-fisted manager a lesson into the bargain when Miss Bigger takes him for the lover who sent her the Valentines. When you think about it, he and Miss Bigger would make a perfect match.

Tammy could have used Bessie Bunter and the Storyteller to enhance the Valentine theme as well. There are plenty of Bessie Valentine episodes they could have recycled and the Storyteller could have given a Strange Story with some romance in it. Instead, the Cliff House heating is busted and the caretaker is ill. Bessie ‘helps’ Miss Stackpole to fix it while trying to take advantage to swipe food from the kitchen, but it rebounds in the end. The Strange Story has an anti-fox hunting message. Lee Parsons is wearing a fox fur while running through a wood during an emergency. All of a sudden it feels and sounds like there is a fox hunt after her, and it’s terrifying. It mysteriously stops when Lee drops the fur, and later she finds out the date is the anniversary of the old annual Holden fox hunt.

You may have noticed from the lineup above that there is no Bella Barlow. Yes, she’s on hiatus. In a few weeks we learn she has been sailing home to Britain after two years of adventures and misadventures in various countries abroad, including Canada (Montreal Olympics) and Australia. Of course trouble isn’t far away once she docks, which sets the stage for her 1979 stories…but we’re getting a bit far ahead.

Tammy did many adaptations from books and TV series. This time she’s running an adaptation of “The Moon Stallion”. It is in the picture story format but uses story text in each panel instead of dialogue balloons.

“Mouse” is really ahead of its time for portraying child abduction, international custody disputes and girls being sold into forced marriages years before “Not Without My Daughter” and “Sold”. Mary “Mouse” Malloway is kidnapped by her father and brought to Sicily, where her tyrannical grandmother intends to sell her into a forced marriage in exchange for a vineyard. But in this episode, after Mouse makes it clear to her father how unhappy she is about that, he seems to be discreetly teaching her a few things that could be useful for an escape. Could he be actually helping her to do so?

“My Terrible Twin” was reprinted by popular demand in 1984. Lindy is on parole from a remand home. She has stopped the shoplifting that got her convicted, but she is having lapses of thoughtlessness and irresponsibility, and her sister Moira suffers for it. By the end of this episode Moira has had enough and she’s in tears, but she is failing to see that what Lindy is doing now could be considerate this time.

Jan Gregg is being harassed by a shadowy figure at Olivia Oldborne Memorial Stage School. It’s even made several attempts on her life. Now the Shadow has come right on stage and cornered Jan, saying “Little fool, to think you could ever rival the great Olivia Oldborne!” Hmmm, now that sounds like a clue!

Stephanie “Steve” Sutton is also being harassed while accompanying her father’s archaeological dig at Clambourne Bay. The villagers round on Steve, saying the dig has brought a curse on the whole village because it disturbed a monster called “the Acum”. But it isn’t long before we see clues that the Acum is a hoax and enemies are responsible for whatever’s going on.

Despite the title for the latest Molly story, the hall is not haunted. The ghost is a cover story for Molly’s high-spirited kid brother Billy, whom she’s trying to hide in Stanton Hall while her family visits a sick relative. But Molly will be fired if she is found out, and Pickering, who suspects what she is doing, will be very happy to see that. And this time it looks like Pickering really is going to catch Billy.

“Thursday’s Child” was one of Pat Mills’ most popular Tammy stories and one of her very best. Life has been good to Thursday Brown until she decides to use a Union Jack flag for a bedspread, despite her mother’s warnings that there is something about that flag. Soon after, a girl named Julie appears in Thursday’s bed, who claims to be Thursday’s daughter from the future. But for some reason Julie has nothing but hate for her future mother and makes her life a misery. The reason for Julie’s hatred seems to be linked to being paraplegic – and at the end of this episode, Thursday suddenly finds she has lost the use of her legs for no apparent reason, and Julie is gloating over her.

Girl Picture Library

Girls’ picture libraries. The monthly Commando-style digests where girls could read a complete 64-page story every month as a supplement to their regular weekly comic. Thrillers, humour, drama, horror, supernatural, heart-breakers, fantasy or science fiction stories were told in a once-a-month, one-volume complete story.

The picture libraries also provided stories about favourite regulars such as The Four Marys, Wee Slavey and The Comp. Occasionally there were variations in the formula, such as a story being told over two picture libraries, or a picture library featuring several short stories instead of one complete one. One example was “Scream!” (not to be confused with the IPC comic of the same name), which told five scarey stories to make you scream.

Picture libraries were a long-running staple of four of DCT’s titles: Bunty, Judy, Mandy and Debbie. The Bunty picture libraries lasted 455 issues. This is not surprising as Bunty herself is the longest-running girls’ title in history. The Mandy books finished at the same time as the Bunty ones, but at 277 books. Judy produced 375 books and Debbie 197 books. Towards the end of the run reprints appeared although original stories continued.

In IPC the girls’ picture library had a more unusual and uneven history. June and Princess Tina were the only titles to produce any long-running ones. In fact, the June picture library eventually recycled the old Princess logo to become the wordy title, “June and School Friend and Princess Library Picture Library“. Maybe this was why “Picture Library” was dropped on the cover at some point after #458, though the spine continued to say “June and School Friend and Princess Picture Library” to the end of its run.

Tammy and Jinty were never given any picture libraries although they lasted the longest after June. Yet the photo-story comic, Girl (series 2) was given her own picture library. This lasted for just 30 books. Miniscule compared with the rich histories of the June picture library and its counterparts from DCT. But what gives Girl Picture Library its place on this blog is that although some of the libraries were original material, many of them also reprinted material from Jinty and Tammy.

Most of the reprints appeared under revised titles, some of which were awful and showed little thinking. For example, “Vision of Vanity Fayre” from Tammy was reprinted in Girl Picture Library #2 under the the extremely lame title of “Dear Diary”. Strangely, the last three Girl picture libraries reprinted Tammy stories under their original titles.

There were some oddities and even downright sloppiness in the run, which may indicate what sort of budget or editorship that the series was running to. For example, the cover of #16 (reprint of “My Heart Belongs to Buttons”) changes the appearance of the heroine. Readers must have been surprised or irritated when they opened the issue and found the brunette heroine inside bearing no resemblance to the girl on the cover. And the girl who appears on the cover of #25 (reprint of “Shadow on the Fen”, above) has the wrong hair colour – she is blonde on the cover but is a brunette in the story. The witchfinder too looks different – he looks younger and has a fuller face than the craggly gaunt face rendered by Douglas Perry. Still, it is a beautiful, haunting cover.

A more striking oddity was “Sue’s Daily Dozen” being reprinted over two volumes: “Spellbound” and “Bewitched”. But there was no indication in “Spellbound” to say “to be continued”. Readers must have wondered why the story suddenly stopped abruptly. The remaining pages are devoted to “Tiny Tina”, which is Wee Sue under a revised title. “Cathy’s Casebook” also appears in two volumes: “Cathy’s Crusade” and “Dr Cathy”. But the reprint is even odder in that “Dr Cathy” does not come immediately after “Cathy’s Crusade” – “The Old Mill” is in between them.

Naturally, some material and panels had to be cut or modified to make the reprints fit into 64-page pocket size volumes. For example, “Moments of Terror”, which reprints “Waves of Fear”, deletes Priscilla Heath and the orienteering club sequences. Both of these played a key role in the resolution of the story in its original run – realising that the panic Clare Harvey had while her friend was drowning in a cave was a claustrophobia attack and not the cowardice that has made her the most hated girl in town. The revelation is now made by Clare’s mother after Rachel tells her about the trick Jean pulled – playing on Clare’s claustrophobia – to get her expelled.

On the other hand, the editing also mercifully reduces some of Clare’s ordeal; for example, the hostility Clare receives from the townsfolk has been removed completely. Some of the bullying at school and the harsh treatment Clare gets from her parents has been deleted as well. The editing is pretty seamless, but there is one glitch: when Clare is pushed to the brink of suicide, she thinks the business at the club was the last straw. With the orienteering club deleted, readers must immediately have wondered “what club?” or “what’s missing here?”. They would know it’s been reprinted from somewhere else because there was always a caption saying “previously published” for the reprint material.

Cutting out material also had the unfortunate effect of removing key turning points in some plots. For example, the reprint of “Thursday’s Child” removes the scene where an evil flag forces a man to nearly saw his own hand off. Yes, it’s gruesome. But in the original run it was what made the villainess, Julie, who had been using the flag’s power to conduct a revenge campaign against her future mother, Thursday, come to her senses and realise the flag had to be destroyed.

Below is a list of the Girl Picture Libraries, along with their original titles and appearances. The only one that has not been identified is “Penny’s Best Friend” in #8. It could be that this was an original story as not all the Girl Picture Libraries carried reprints, but I need to confirm this.

1. Patty’s World – reprinted from Tina
2. Dear Diary – Vision of Vanity Fayre from Tammy
3. Patty’s World – reprinted from Tina
4. The Dolphin Mystery – The Disappearing Dolphin from Jinty
5. Cathy’s Crusade – Part 1 of Cathy’s Casebook from Jinty
6. The Old Mill – original
7. Dr Cathy – Part 2 of Cathy’s Casebook from Jinty
8. Penny’s Best Friend – contents unknown
9. Circus Waif – Wild Rose from Jinty
10. Stormy Seas – original
11. Moments of Terror – Waves of Fear from Jinty
12. The Shadow – Mike and Terry from Jinty
13. Princess Wanted! – The Perfect Princess from Jinty
14. The Black Sheep – Black Sheep of the Bartons from Jinty
15. I’ll Never Sing Again! – Nothing to Sing About from Jinty
16. A Second Chance – My Heart Belongs to Buttons from Jinty
17. Winner-Loser! – No Medals for Marie from Jinty
18. Spellbound! – Part 1 of Sue’s Daily Dozen from Jinty, plus A Wee Sue story from Tammy reprinted as Tiny Tina
19. Bewitched! – Part 2 of Sue’s Daily Dozen from Jinty, plus a Strange Story, “A Monumental Detective” reprinted as “The Crook Catchers”
20. The Inheritance – Race for a Fortune from Jinty
21. The Fortune-Teller – Cursed to be a Coward! Jinty
22. Tina’s Temper – Temper, Temper, Tina! from Tammy
23. Fame and Fortune – Make Headlines, Hannah! from Tammy
24. Wonder Girl – Betta to Lose from Tammy
25. The Witchfinder – Shadow on the Fen from Jinty
26. Sweet and Sour – The Sweet and Sour Rivals from Jinty
27. Carol in Camelot – Carol in Camelot St from Tammy
28. The Happiest Days – Tammy
29. Thursday’s Child – Tammy
30. A Girl Called Midnight – Tammy

Jinty 31 October 1981

(Cover artist: Mario Capaldi)

• Pam of Pond Hill (artist Bob Harvey, writer Jay Over)
• The Marble Heart – Gypsy Rose story (artist Carlos Freixas)
• Tansy of Jubilee Street (artist Peter Wilkes)
• Gaye’s Gloomy Ghost (artist Hugh Thornton-Jones)
• Winning Ways – badminton (writer Benita Brown)
• Thursday’s Child Has Far to Go… (artist Christine Ellingham)
• Hallowe’en Magic (text story)
• Badgered Belinda (artist Phil Gascoine)
• Snoopa (artist Joe Collins)
• Man’s Best Friend: Mastiffs
• The Bow Street Runner (artist Phil Townsend, writer Alison Christie)

This was Jinty’s last Halloween issue. As you see, the cover is a lead-in to the digital watch offer inside. The cover and the text story are the only things honouring Halloween. None of the regulars – Tansy, Snoopa, Gypsy Rose or even the resident ghost, Sir Roger, do anything to commemorate. It is business as usual. Perhaps the upcoming merger was the reason for the lack of Halloween spirit in the issue. 

In the stories, Tess comes back to Pond Hill, but her victim Sue is finding it difficult to forgive her for bullying. Meanwhile, Tess is finding it hard to accept her new stepmother. The Bow Street Runner is suspended from her cross country club thanks to a dirty trick from her enemy. Belinda continues to secretly tend the badgers in the face of bullying, the squire seeming to promote hunting vermin at the school, and losing sleep because she’s staying up half the night minding them. Dad promises extra pocket money if Tansy and Simon are helpful to each other, but he should have known better. In “Gaye’s Gloomy Ghost”, a visiting ghost friend drops in on Sir Roger, and the television reception becomes the casualty of their swordplay.

We know Thursday’s Child has far to go – but travelling all the way from England to Poland on cattle boats, on foot, and as an Allied mascot? That’s what Thursday’s Child Lisa does to find her parents, whom she does not believe died in WWII.

Gypsy Rose is still on repeats. This time it’s the story of a Greek girl who was turned into a statue as a punishment for going too far in teasing her lover, which led to his death. The statue sheds tears as a warning to other girls who mistreat their boyfriends.

 

Jinty 3 May 1975

Not a particularly distinguished cover in itself, and sadly without any references to the stories inside. However, it’s quite a neat illustration of the sorts of competitions that were a regular feature of girls’ comics of the time.

A short self-contained set of stories ran at around this time, illustrating the nursery rhyme about people born on certain days of the week – here, “Thursday’s Child” who has far to go. In this case, a polish evacuee to England returns to Poland after the war to search for her parents, and finds… a memorial to herself put up in 1939. Her parents come to the grave to put flowers on it every month, and they meet that way; in three pages, this is a real distillation of a classic type of comic story.

Stories in this issue:

• The Jinx From St Jonah’s (artist Mario Capaldi)
• Tricia’s Tragedy (artist Ana Rodrigues)
• Bet Gets The Bird! (artist Phil Gascoine)
• Merry at Misery House (writer Terence Magee)
• Dora Dogsbody (artist José Casanovas)
• Thursday’s Child
• Cinderella Smith (artist Trini Tinturé)
• Face the Music, Flo! (artist Jim Baikie)
• Daddy’s Darling (artist Phil Townsend, writer Alison Christie)