Picture-Story Polly was a serial in Mandy but was clearly popular enough to score annual appearances. Polly gets herself into all sorts of scrapes trying to copy the characters in her comic before deciding she should stop doing so and just be herself. I wonder if it is a parody on girls comics and their readers. And no prizes for spotting what “Candy”, the title of the comic, rhymes with.
Mandy seemed to like this idea. There is a nice variation on it in the 1997 Annual (“Copy Kat”). A girl called Rachel is mad keen on the exciting adventures of a character called Kat in her weekly comic, and is constantly contrasting these with the humdrum boredom of her own life. She decides she will “be like” Kat, and tries all sorts of hare-brained notions, such as taking part in a sponsored rollathon when she’s never roller-skated in her life. Of course, everything she does goes wrong, although she gets a lot of credit for bravery and initiative.
Along the way, she fails to take much notice of the fact that Kat’s weekly adventures look very like successful versions of her own, until she discovers that a sympathetic neighbour whom she chats with each day is the writer of the Kat series. This lady has been using Rachel’s experiences as the basis for her story ideas, so Kat has been copying Rachel while Rachel has been trying to copy Kat.
Mandy also had Copy Kate, who scored some annual appearances. Tired of not being good at anything, Kate starts copying people, which of course leads to hilarious scrapes. Instead of deciding to just be herself, Kate realises her talent is copying people, which gets her launched as an actress.
Stories about fortune tellers with frightening prophecies that get misconstrued were nothing new for Alison Christie Fitt. Two of her serials in Jinty, The Bow Street Runner and Cursed to be a Coward, used this theme.
Picture-Story Polly was a serial in Mandy but was clearly popular enough to score annual appearances. Polly gets herself into all sorts of scrapes trying to copy the characters in her comic before deciding she should stop doing so and just be herself. I wonder if it is a parody on girls comics and their readers. And no prizes for spotting what “Candy”, the title of the comic, rhymes with.
Mandy seemed to like this idea. There is a nice variation on it in the 1997 Annual (“Copy Kat”). A girl called Rachel is mad keen on the exciting adventures of a character called Kat in her weekly comic, and is constantly contrasting these with the humdrum boredom of her own life. She decides she will “be like” Kat, and tries all sorts of hare-brained notions, such as taking part in a sponsored rollathon when she’s never roller-skated in her life. Of course, everything she does goes wrong, although she gets a lot of credit for bravery and initiative.
Along the way, she fails to take much notice of the fact that Kat’s weekly adventures look very like successful versions of her own, until she discovers that a sympathetic neighbour whom she chats with each day is the writer of the Kat series. This lady has been using Rachel’s experiences as the basis for her story ideas, so Kat has been copying Rachel while Rachel has been trying to copy Kat.
Mandy also had Copy Kate, who scored some annual appearances. Tired of not being good at anything, Kate starts copying people, which of course leads to hilarious scrapes. Instead of deciding to just be herself, Kate realises her talent is copying people, which gets her launched as an actress.
Stories about fortune tellers with frightening prophecies that get misconstrued were nothing new for Alison Christie Fitt. Two of her serials in Jinty, The Bow Street Runner and Cursed to be a Coward, used this theme.