Plot
Clapton College needs more pupils. Head girl Di Gibson decides newcomer Rose Redd could bring the school valuable publicity because she is brainy and a natural athlete. The trouble is, Rose has a rather absent-minded way of doing things!
Notes
- Artist: Matías Alonso
Appeared
- Rambling Rose – Bunty: #1631 (15 April 1989) – #1644 (15 June 1989)
Is this perhaps the second story with these characters, or a reprint? There was a Rambling Rose story in the 1982 Bunty Annual, which suggests that there had been a weekly serial in 1981 or before.
If it’s the same Rambling Rose, the 1989 story must be a reprint.
I have no record of a story in BUNTY with the title ‘Rambling Rose’ prior to the one in 1989.
Must be a recycled title then, not an unusual thing in girls comics. Thank you Derek.
The odd thing is it’s not a reuse of a title for a totally different story. This story and the one in Bunty 1982 are different, but they share the same characters, the same basic situation (brainy absent-minded pupil at needy school) and the same artist. This must be a rare example of a story that first appeared in an annual, and was followed up later by a serial in the weeklies.
The 1980 Mandy Annual had a story “The Girl in the Mirror” which other than being set in contemporary times it is very similar to “The Girl in the Mask” which appeared in the Mandy weekly issues a few years later. I wonder if writers had stories for annuals and would later decide to flesh out those stories into full serials.
This serial may also have been influenced by an earlier story, Bunty PSL 148 “No Mirrors for Morna!” (August 1975), although that involved a heroine who was supposed to be heavily scarred, rather than simply ugly.
In the case of Rambling Rose, the connection is far closer. The two stories have the same setting, situation and characters. The plot summary above is very close in wording to the introduction to the 1982 story, suggesting that the 1989 serial had a very similar introduction. Even the hairstyles and school ties are unchanged. Given the lapse of time between the two stories, maybe the editors were on the hunt for story ideas when they found the 1982 story and decided that it had more potential than had been realised in the short Annual story.
Suzy had “The House of Broken Mirrors” where every mirror in the house is broken and eventually we learn the owner, who conceals herself, wears a mask. Tammy had “Mask of Melissa” where Melissa hides behind a face mask and won’t even look in a mirror because of face scars. These protagonists can get so ridiculously sensitive about face injuries…