- The Change in Claire – Bunty: #1697 (21 Jul. 1990) – #1708 (06 Oct. 1990)
- Reprinted: Bunty #2165 (10 July 1999) – #2176, (25 September 1999)
- Artist: Matías Alonso
Plot/Thoughts
Jane Cook is happy when she finds out her friend Claire is moving back to the neighbourhood, but Claire seems to have changed in her time away and has it out for Jane’s family. She starts out with small things, such as knocking over Jane’s books so Jane misses the bus, of course she acts all nice afterwards claiming it was accidental. It’s not just Jane she’s making trouble for though, Jane’s Dad’s car gets scratched and Claire causes Jane to break her Mum’s favourite teapot. After Claire turns the class against Jane, Jane is determined not to get tricked again and also get to the bottom of why Claire has changed.
When Jane’s cousin Andy comes to stay, his dog goes missing, Jane believes Claire has something to do with it she confronts Claire. It seems Claire has mistook Andy for Jane’s brother Mike. Jane begins to wonder if Claire has something against Mike in particular. After a trip to a funfair, Claire appears to be getting more dangerous, nearly pushing Claire’s Mum out of a ferris wheel carriage, while pretending to have vertigo.
Claire’s little tricks have now become more psychotic as she actually tries to injure some of Jane’s family. While out riding with her cousin Jenny, Claire startles the horse causing Jenny to fall off and get injured. She reveals to Jane that her change seems to be something to do with her sister Sara/Fay. ( It seems the writer/editors, had a hard time keeping track of Claire’s sister’s name. In issue 1697 it is Sarah, then in issue 1704, she is called Fay and in 1707-1708 she is back to being called Sara, though without a h!)
Continuing on the road of nearly killing the Cooks, Claire invites them over to the house while her parents are out. She acts all nice for a while, then pops out. She leaves the central heating on full blast, then locks all the doors and windows so they can’t escape.
Luckily Claire’s parents come home in time. Meanwhile Jane has discovered that Claire’s room is covered with pictures of Sara. (Jane describes it as a shrine, creepy much!?) Later Claire confirms that she is making the Cooks pay for what they did to her sister. Jane not having any idea what that could be, is happy that her brother Mike is coming home from college so she can talk about Claire with him.
Claire is excited her sister Sara is coming home too, she boasts a lot about her. Mike goes cycling on his new bike but Claire cuts the breaks, even though Jane can’t prove it. So another kill attempt, the girl is seeming like potential bunny boiler material! After the accident Jane remembers that Mike and Sara had been on an adventure holiday together a few years ago. Mike is reluctant to tell her the story, but does eventually.
His version of the story is that him and Sara were friends, but then she started to tell everyone they were engaged and Mike didn’t know how to handle it. (So I wonder how much of a casual “friendship” this was, either way Sara is delusional to announce their engagement. Seems this family is full of issues! ) So Mike not wanting to embarrass her waited til he was home and wrote to her saying he wasn’t ready for that sort of thing. I would think so, as Mike is just in college now and the holiday was a a year ago how old were they when Sara created this engagement? I’m guessing way too young to be planning a wedding.
So Jane tells Mike what has been happening. They go to see Claire. Sara is home and they are surprised to see her in a wheelchair. Turns out Sara had an accident on her horse a couple of weeks after Mike’s letter and Claire has blamed Mike and hated his family since, because its rational to hold a vendetta against the entire family over what she perceived Mike did wrong. Anyway Sara knows it was just bad luck, and she was over the Mike break-up at that stage (would have been nice if she told Claire that!) Claire’s upset at this revelation.
In a few weeks everyone’s feeling better and apparently there are hints of Sara and Mike getting together, yep because nothing is more attractive than a delusional girl and her psychotic sister, that nearly killed you and your family. Seriously hope Claire got some professional help, her obsession with her sister and basically attempts to kill people isn’t something that should be that easy to get over in a few weeks….in the real world at least!
The Change in Claire was reprinted in 1999.
By the way, Claire wasn’t the only dangerous psychopathic girl to appear in Bunty. In ‘Down with St Desmond’s’, Carol Anne Brabazon conducts a campaign to close St Desmond’s because she believes her mother was unjustly expelled from there and died as a result. She gets innocent pupils expelled and employees sacked, and engineers scandal after scandal about the school to hit the headlines, and feels absolutely no guilt or compunction. She is just too full of hate against the school and must rate as one of the most dangerous girls to ever grace the pages of Bunty.
But imagine Carol’s shock when she finds out that everyone she’s campaigned against is innocent and her mother was rightfully expelled. She’d been fed lies by her father because he can’t tell her the truth – that her mother is a nasty piece of work who cares nothing about her. He knew he was turning her into a monster with his lies and about her campaign against the school, but he did nothing about it because he was scared he would lose her.
Yes I remember that story, I quite liked after she was found out they actually spent 1 or 2 issues dealing with it, and yeah that she didn’t suddenly change back into a nice person because she found out she was wrong.
Yes, girls’ comics are filled with stories of girls who were out for revenge and some, like Carol or Claire, go to extreme and dangerous lengths to get it. And then they find out it was all for nothing and their victims were innocent. They had jumped to the wrong conclusion, or they irrationally blamed their victim for some accident, or didn’t get their facts straight, or like Carol, they were fed false information.
Yes, I thought the ending to The Change in Claire was a bit slick and quick. Considering that Claire came close to committing murder on four occasions, she got off way too easily. Mind you, the ending was a bit rushed because it all had to be resolved on one page. No room for lingering ill-feelings and their resolution.
The story was reprinted Bunty #2165 (10 July 1999) – #2176, (25 September 1999)