Monthly Archives: February 2013

The Mini Morgans

Bunty, , ,
  • The Mini Morgans – Bunty: #1634 (06 May 1989) – #1645 (22 July 1989)
  • Artist: George Martin

Plot

The Mini Morgans are Little People,  that perform as a circus act in 1885, along with their friend Martha Little. Unfortunately the circus has to close and while the owner thinks he can get Martha another job, for the Morgans he says the only option is to join a freak show. The Morgans are not happy with being considered freaks and Martha decides she will help find them jobs. The Morgans consist of Ada and Bert the older parental couple, Danny their son,  Holly and Jake a younger couple and Frank and Freddy.

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Along the way to find new jobs they have to deal with people’s prejudices as well as DeVere the owner of the Freak show trying to capture them. Danny is the first to get  job when he comes across a young catatonic girl Emily and manages to entertain her. The grandparents are so grateful that the offer him a place to live and to train him up as a tailor to work with the grandfather. Soon after that, a scheme by DeVere to capture the Morgans leads Ada getting hurt. They get her to a doctor, who tries to scam them saying she  will need an operation.  Luckily Martha also does some research on Dr. Dakin, and finds out he’s a scam artist, Ada will be fine she just had a concussion

Later Madame DeVere convinces Frank and Freddy to give her a chance only for her to steal their horse and burn their caravan. Holly is the romantic of the group while her boyfriend Jake is more gruff  and is not one to show his feelings. They get a job looking after chickens but on their first night a wild dog attacks the chickens, while trying to scare it off Jake is hurt. Unfortunately he doesn’t make it. Holly is devastated and doesn’t want to stay at the farm, but soon after Martha gets  gets Holly a job with a family of acrobats. Frank finds a girlfriend, Sally and gets married. Freddy rescues a girl in a fire, and in doing so catches the attention of a rodeo manager who gives him a job. So that only leaves Burt and Ada. Martha does some temporary acrobatics with family. When the parents decide it’s time to retire the son Davy suggests him and Martha could start their own trapeze act. Burt and Ada, see Martha has a chance of  love and job and decide to leave before she turns it down. Martha goes after them, she catches up with them just when Burt is  nearly killed when he rescues a dog from a flood. Burt and Ada get jobs as gardener and housekeeper with the dogs owner, and Martha feels she can move on now.

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Thoughts

There is a lot going on in this story. There is obvious drama but also some comic relief, with the way characters interact with each other, particularly with Frank and Freddy and Holly and Jake. There is also a good sense of family and closeness between the characters.

Holly and Jake are fun with her gushing romance and Jake being more of the gruff type but there is still the sense that he cares about her . His death is really unexpected and touching. We don’t actually see him die, but a doctor says it does not look good for him. It is well done with him declaring his love for Holly, then the next scene cuts to the next day Holly crying wanting to leave and a wordless panel with the Morgans comforting each other.

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While that is well done, it is strange that the next issue Jake never gets mentioned, presumably a bit of time has passed but still even in the caption box it basically says there is now only 5 Morgans left but doesn’t mention what happens. Though I suppose it seems that once a Morgan has moved on no matter what the circumstances they aren’t spoken of again. Ada and Bert have a tearful goodbye with their son Danny only for him  never to come up in conversation again.

DeVere drops off pretty suddenly as well. just before Holly gets her job, DeVere locks Martha up in order to convince the Morgans that she has abandoned them. She  leaves them with her card in hopes they will join her. Martha escapes of course and then the move on, and DeVere is never heard from again. Perhaps she thinks with only 4 of them its not worth her trouble any more as the whole point was to get the entire group, but its never explained what happened to her.

It is a nice story, the Morgans do have to deal with prejudice and being mocked. When things get tough, some of them even feel that maybe being in a freak show is their only option. Clearly Martha is a good friend and very close to them, but its also a bit sad that they sometimes feel a burden to her and that without her help they wouldn’t get much of a chance. I did like that when Martha is upset that Bert and Ada have left and she has to go find them, Davy points out that they are adults and would maybe like to look out for themselves. (Also its one of the few stories featuring little people that doesn’t involve magic, or some hidden society!)

The artwork is good, especially at portraying some of the more emotional scenes. There is plenty of action, drama as well as some humour to keep the story entertaining. The characters are very likeable and their is a nice sense of family and comradeship between them.

Pat the Brat

Bunty,
  • Pat the Brat –  Bunty:  #1638 (03 June 1989) – #1647 (05 August 1989)
  • Artist: Colin Merrett?

Plot

Pat Barnet, is a good tennis player but doesn’t have the killer instinct, she plays for fun not to win.  At some point in the past, her mother died of unnamed reasons, so it’s just her and her dad at home. Then her father gets in some serious trouble when he borrows money from a charity fund he is treasurer of to help out his own business, planning to pay it back later. An audit is coming up in 4 months and if he doesn’t replace the money by then, he is sure to go to jail.

Pat decides she must start winning cash prizes at tennis and show no mercy to other players. The other girls are surprised at this new attitude, especially when she does dirty tricks to get her opponents nerves, such as “accidentally” breaking a girl’s lucky racquet  and throwing people off their game by arguing with the umpire. She starts acting nasty in general, so not to give away the reason why she is suddenly so keen to win. She gets the nickname “Pat the Brat”  and she upsets her coach, Anne, even more when she refuses to play in charity match, as it means no money. This ends up with them going their separate ways.

Needing more money Pat goes onto a Europe tournament, she has to keep up her brat act, though one reporter Pauline suspects there is more behind this brat act. Just as Pat is regaining Anne’s trust, she notices Pauline watching so she has to act up again. Back home she goes for her last match against a nice girl Amy, and although she could probably win on her own merits,  just to be on the safe side she also shatters Amy’s confidence.

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She presents her dad with the money she’s won, so he can replace the money and things also are looking up for his business as he just landed a big contract. She goes on to explain to Anne about the situation, who understands the difficult situation she was in and also promises not to tell, though she does not condone her actions.  After their last match Amy has quit tennis. Pat tries to make amends  she talks with Amy and helps her get her confidence back.  She is also happy to be back playing tennis for fun.

Thoughts

Tennis was one of the more popular sport for girls to play in these comics, usually with an end involving winning some big tournament. Here instead of been driven by a need to prove her talent, Pat is doing it only to help her father. Even if she is quite talented she also feels the need to use dirty tricks as well, though her coach Ann points out their were many matches she could have just won with skill alone. While understandably Pat doesn’t want to take the risk, but it does mean the matches weren’t fairly won and that makes it harder to root for the protagonist.

pat_the_brat_01  pat_the_brat_02

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Overall the story is okay and the art is fine. In lots of ways it is hard to feel sympathy for some of the characters, especially the father. He is the cause of the trouble to begin with, once he mentions his concern that Pat is getting a bad reputation, but for the most part he is so distracted by his own problem he actually doesn’t take much notice of Pat.  He also tends to go around feeling sorry for himself, but not really doing anything pro-active to solve the problem. As for Pat there have been many characters that may act hard and nasty to cover their true feelings (for example The Seeker) but it doesn’t really excuse her actions.

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So yes there is a moral grey area, but I think the biggest problem I have with the story is actually that it’s a bit boring.  Even if I dislike some of the characters actions, it doesn’t make them un-likeable people, but mostly they are just bland and forgettable. I wasn’t eagerly awaiting to see what happened next.  I will say my  my story preference is more towards sci-fi stories or the unusual, but  that’s not to say I don’t like some of the grounded more soap like stories.  It may have appealed to other readers but personally I think this is one of the weaker stories printed.

My Cousin Quacker

M&J, , ,
  • My Cousin Quacker–  M&J: #1 (18 May 1991) – #11 (27 July 1991)
  • Artist: Wilf Street

Plot

Sally and her friend Jean are on a camping holiday. Also with them is Sally’s older cousin Kate who spends her whole time complaining and getting the girls to run around for her. While out for a walk they stop at an old woman’s cottage which is surrounded by animals. Kate makes fun of the old woman, who informs them that the animals used to be people who annoyed her. Kate continues to make fun, so the woman seems to put a spell on her.

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When the girls get back to camp it starts raining hard.  Kate complains and wants to go home, but that would mean the end of the holiday for Sally and Jean too,  so they go for a takeaway, to keep Kate happy. When they come back Kate is gone and instead there is a duck on her bed with a half eaten note that just says Kate. The girls conclude that Kate has been turned into the duck and that they will have to go back to the old woman to change her back. Miss Knight won’t admit to anything but tells them to come back the next day. When they return they find she has gone to visit her sister. The girls name the duck the more inconspicuous sounding Quacker and and go to track down Miss Knight.

Of course mishaps and adventures happen along the way including Quacker getting sold to a restaurant. Luckily it’s actually a vegetarian restaurant and Quacker is there just to enhance the scenery  The owner Miss Boxer tells the girls if they want the duck back they will have to pay for it, so the end up being waitresses  at the restaurant.  Later they also end up disrupting a carnival procession, where Quacker is quite the hit.

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They finally catch up with Miss Knight, who agrees to change Kate back at a price. There is no immediate affect but Miss Knight tells them it takes a while. So they head home, but soon realise they have been swindled and wonder how to break the news to Kate’s parents.  Suddenly Kate arrives it turns out she had met some friends at camp and gone off with them in their camper van. Of course Quacker had eaten most of the note she had left. The girls are disheartened to learn they’ve been chasing after a real duck and now Sally is stuck with it as a pet.  But as Quacker chases Kate, Sally can see advantages of having her new pet.

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Thoughts

I don’t know who the artist is but they seemed to do a lot of humorous,  light hearted stories including “Haunted Hotel” and “Polly and the Prince”. Which does suits the artist style as the characters do have a cartoon look too them and actually act quite cartoony as well. Even though Quacker is not actually Kate, she would be quite extraordinary for a normal duck. Including one instance where she ends up riding a horse.

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While the girls thinking Kate has been turned into a duck would be ridiculous in most circumstances, in these comics it was not uncommon for girls to be cursed by witches. For example “Dogsbody Debbie” is a story where a magician places a spell on a girl, so every time she complains about being a dogsbody she turns into a dog! Though the girls become more convinced that Quacker is Kate, such as Kate being a good horse rider, there are clues from the first issue that she is not a duck. There is a camper van next to there tent before they go for takeaway, which is gone when they get back. Also when they confront Miss Knight the first time, she seems surprised commenting that she must be more powerful than she thought! Whether you know that the girls have spent their time chasing after a real duck or not it’s still works as a fun story.