Plot
Jane Taggart had been coached by her guardian, Rachel Strong, known as “the Coach”, who had filled the girl’s life with tennis even to the extent of chaining her to her racket. When Jane joined a professional tennis “circus” run by Jack Miller, he and his wife decided to arrange a party for Jane, but a jealous rival player, Pauline Fox, told Jane that if she went to the party there would be more to follow, eating into the time she would have for practising and playing tennis.
Notes
- Artist: Don Walker
- Unconfirmed: Translated to Dutch as “Geen tennis voor Trix” : Debbie Parade Album #13 (1981).
Appeared
- Chained to her Racket! – Judy: #603 (31 July 1971) – #618 (13 November 1971)
- Reprinted – Judy: #968 (29 July 1978) – #983 (11 November 1978)
Debbie had a similar story, “No Love for Lorna”. Here the sport is fencing, with the girl chained to her sword. And the guardian is called “The Coach” here as well and brought up Lorna in a similar way to Jane. Lorna appeared five years after “Chained to Her Racket!”.
I think there was also a boy’s version with cricket (Wizard maybe?)
“Chained to His Bat!”, it was
called. I wonder if Mandy and Bunty had their versions too.
The serial ”Chained To His Bat!” appeared in The Rover 1610 (May 5 1956) – 1627 (Sep. 1 1956).
Artist is Don Walker.
The serial ‘No Love For Lorna’ ran in DEBBIE 165 (April 10 1976) – 180 (July 24 1976).
The 1978 reprint of this story was translated into Dutch for Debbie Parade Album #13 (1981), “Geen tennis voor Trix”.
Were any changes made between the 1971 and 1978 runs?
And can anyone tell me more about Don Walker? I have not found anything about this artist online…
Regards,
Ramon
Almost nothing is known about him. His name came to light only a few months ago following an exchange on this website in connection with the Judy story Cybela. Link to the thread here: http://girlscomicsofyesterday.com/2015/01/cybela/
David Roach had been looking for the artist’s name for many years, and this post on John Freeman’s website gives some details of the work that the artist did. https://downthetubes.net/?p=45608
What’s the translation of that title please?
Doesn’t it translate as “No Tennis for Trix”? Quite a change of emphasis from the original title.
Are you sure it’s “Chained to her Racket!” that was translated as “Geen tennis voor Trix” [No tennis for Trix]? According to another source it was “No Tennis for Tessa” (Bunty, 1980).
Just as a somewhat belated addendum to the interest shown in the 1971 serial about Jane Taggart in ‘Chained To Her Racket!’, this morning I finally found my copy of ‘The ROVER Index’ by my late friend Colin Morgan, [I have a lot of books in my house!!!], and looked up ‘Chained To His Bat!’ in issue 1610 (May 5 1956), and I can now state with certainty what I wasn’t sufficiently sure about yesterday, that being the name of its main character. He was also called Taggart, John Taggart.
As an addendum to the above addendum, for those people already making plans to rush off to the British Library to read the entire ‘Chained To His Bat!’ serial, the issue numbers and dates in The ROVER are 1610 (May 5 1956) – 1627 (September 1 1956). It may be as well to ring up and reserve the relevant volumes, as they may not be immediately available in London. I say ‘volumes’ because often a year’s worth of issues is split into two of six months each. A great many of their less-requested volumes are housed in their storage facility in Boston Spa, and will have to be brought over from there. From personal experience, you will probably be looking at a 48-hour delay at worst, despite the fact that as far as I’m aware, there are still daily shuttle services in both directions.
“Chained to His Bat!” appeared in 1956 and “Chained to Her Racket!” in 1971? Someone must have had a long memory.
According to this source at https://nothingbutafan.wordpress.com/2015/12/14/chained-to-his-bat/, “Chained to His Bat” ran #244 to #255 (20th June to 5th September 1964). Perhaps a reprint? And it’s “Chained to His Bat”. No exclamation mark in the title.
The information that I posted about the issue numbers and dates of the first appearance of ‘Chained To His Bat!’ in The Rover, Briony, are completely accurate. I am not disputing your information, but there are two fundamental differences between them.
1. The serial in 1956 was in text form, the one in 1964 was in picture form.
2. The 1956 one was in The Rover, as I stated, whereas the 1964 version appeared in The Hotspur.
Many a Thomson sub editor on the girl’s papers was sent into the archives looking for boy’s stories and strips that could be adapted for the female market and a good many of the girl’s papers editorial staff had previously worked on the boy’s titles and helped create the original stories they were then called on to adapt.
It is interesting how many forms a story could take, such as in this case of text to picture to girl picture story and then you have the reprints and translation into other languages, with it appearing several times over 25 years. It must have been a fun job to adapt a story with female protagonist, and probably find not much needed changing!
Ok, two versions of the story. Wasn’t clarified before, but it is now. Thank you.