When I was growing up I had the excitement of going to the newsagent and getting my weekly dose of girls comics, filled with stories about girls in boarding schools, girls starving on the Victorian era streets of London, girls who had drank invisible or shrinking potions, girls who had mysterious neighbours to investigate and many other stories that pulled me in each week.

While I never aspired to be a ballerina or to own a horse, there were lots of other stories to appeal to me. Whether you liked ghost stories, sci-fi, mysteries, historical stories, tragedy, drama, romance, or the stories about ballerinas and horses, there was a wide variety of stories that appeared during the comics’ long run. Unfortunately the last of these types of comics ended ten years ago, although the Christmas annuals were still alive up to 2009. Of course these stories weren’t perfect, often plots were recycled, so many stories saw the tragic heroine denied to dance/skate/sing by their strict parents/cruel aunt and uncle or some variation on that. Sometimes the protagonist were ridiculously good and the bullies unredeemable. Often the story was resolved suddenly with some sort of a deus ex machina. Despite these flaws these comics did provide some gems of stories, beautiful artwork and great entertainment all around.  I mean where else would you find a story about a girl finding a talking rabbit shaped spaceship that flies her around exploring new planets?