Plot
When Helen Taylor bought a crying doll named Tina, for her sister, Jenny, she angered an old woman who cast a spell on the doll “whenever the little child doll weeps, your sister shall suffer before she sleeps”
Notes
- Photo story
Appeared
- The Evil Eyes of Tearful Tina – #46 (23 July 1983) – #54 (17 September 1983)
Would you believe Helen has to live with what follows for a whole year before the old woman turns up again and Helen tries to get her to remove the spell?
There are two mistakes in the plot description above. First, Helen’s surname is Taylor, not Tyler, and secondly, Helen’s sister is called Jenny, not Tina. It’s the crying doll that is called Tina. Where the lifting of the curse is concerned, the deus ex machina, Helen’s rescue from their gas-filled caravan of the daughter of the old lady who was just too late to buy the doll in the first instalment, and in her disappointment placed the curse on Jenny, is just about persuasive.
She cursed the doll just because she was too late to buy it and it was nothing personal against Helen or her sister? Pathetic. But typical of these nasty witch types.
If you look at the statement in quotation marks in the plot summary above, the curse is clearly placed on Jenny. However, the doll is affected in one way because it can produce tears. Helen is amazed because she has not yet filled her up with water, and even more amazed when she discovers that there is no bag inside the doll to hold water. So how then can “the little doll weep?”
On eBay and other Internet marketplaces there’s even a market in buying haunted/cursed dolls. Weird.
I have for many years been buying books and story papers for boys and girls on eBay, but I won’t be letting a market in cursed dolls disturb my focus on The HOTSPUR and BUNTY et al.
Yep, I think I’ll leave the market in haunted dolls to others to and continue tracking down issues for my collections.