All posts by lorrsadmin

Chill Out!

Mandy, Picture Story Library, , , , , ,
  • Chill Out! – Mandy Picture Story Library : #234 [1996]
  • Art: Cover & Story 2 – Norman Lee,  Story 1 – Douglas Perry, Story 4 – Carlos Freixas

Plot

Four short spooky tales for this picture story library.

Story 1:  Lonely… (Art: Douglas Perry)

In 1933 Lyn Lawrence and her family move into a temporary rented home, Lyn finds the  house’s old fashioned phone a novelty. Then during a storm she gets a strange call with a faint voice saying “I’m lonely…”, but her parents say the telephone lines have been brought down in the storm. She find out the lines have become tangled with the grave of a 13 year old girl Annie, who once lived in the house. Meanwhile she has been getting messages in her bedroom, written on her mirror “I’m still lonely” and pencils spelling out Annie. It escalates to Annie’s ghost appearing to Lyn and trying to get her to come and be her friend, Lyn snaps out of her trance just in time and her mother sends her to stay with her gran until their new house is ready. Lyn is happy in the new house, until her mother answers a strange call and she goes to her room to find the message “I’ve found you and I’m still lonely” on her mirror!

Story 2: Trapped! (Art: Norman Lee)

On a school trip to Holburn Hall, Fay Lang feels a strange connection to the house, knowing things about it despite never being there before. One thing she knows about is a fake door that leads to nowhere, but as the rest of the tour group moves on she suddenly hears someone calling for help from behind it. When she tries the door she actually finds herself in the past face to face with her double named Bridie. In the Victorian era the hall had been used as a orphanage, Bridie helps Fay escape from the cruel Matron, getting whipped across the arm in the process. She convinces Fay to put on some old clothes and hides her away in a laundry. Matron catches up with Fay and thinks she is Bridie, not listening to her protests. Meanwhile a girl steps out the door in the present, bruising on her arm indicates that it is Bridie.

Story 3: Home Sweet Home! (Text story)

Emma wakes up after a sickness and is confused to find some strange things in her house, the furniture in her room has changed, she can not find her parents and the strangers in the house ignore her, while their dog growls at her. One person does acknowledge her when she sees her, a girl who yells out to her parents to come look at Emma before she disappears  again. It is then Emma realises she is a ghost and has been dead for over a 100 years!

Story 4: The Mark! (Art: Carlos Freixas)

Fliss and Gina move into an old cottage with their parents, as it had been empty for some time, there is a lot of repair work to do. In one room their father tries to paint over a damp patch but it keeps showing through the new paint, the sisters comment that it looks like a figure of a girl. Everyday  the figure seems to get more clearer, the room is colder and at night Gina is woken up by scratching noises downstairs. Gina in particular is getting more creeped out by the house, and at a cafe a local girl overhears them talking about it and tells them the house is haunted by a girl who was walled up in the cottage when it was built and is now out for revenge. Fliss being more practical, thinks the girl is only making things up to scare them, when they go to talk to their parents there seems to be a logical explanation for everything. Mice have been scratching at night and previous owners had a cafe with a highwayman mural,that must now be showing through. Their father is going to cover up the mark with wood paneling, the girls are relieved. The next day they help their mom in another room but are surprised to uncover the highwayman mural there. At the same time, their father is upset the mark is still coming through the wood panel he just dis, and notices it does look more like a figure of a girl, Gina and Fliss are scared, the girl is coming out for revenge…

Thoughts

Spooky stories for a spooky month! There have been a few picture story library books that had a collection of supernatural stories. Debbie had several spooky storyteller, Damian Darke, based books, Mandy had Chill Out! and later Scream! which had 5 short stories. In this book none of the protagonist get happy endings, or they are left ambiguous to their actual fate. They are all quite effective stories for such a short format.

Lonely… is a creepy tale and just when you think that Lyn has escaped, it ends with Annie tracking her down again, will she be haunted forever, will Annie succeed in trapping Lyn or will she find a way to banish Annie for good? The ending is left unresolved, leaving us to speculate what might happen next. Trapped! raises even more unanswered questions, such as why did Fay remember Holburn Hall, was it some connection with Bridie that she was feeling, which is why Bridie also know about Fay and set up her devious scheme? Is Fay forever trapped in the past and will anyone notice that Bridie is not who she says she is? Home Sweet Home! works well as a text story with an unreliable narrator, only in the last spot art panel we can see Emma is out of place in the contemporary setting. The Mark has one of the more frightening endings with the ghostly figure coming out from the wall.  Again, the story ends before revealing their fate—an common approach for ghost stories, where conclusions are left open-ended, allowing readers to use their imagination to fill in the blanks.

Pavement Ballerina

Bunty, Lucky Charm, , , ,

Plot

Tessa Turner, grows up poor, but has a talent for dance. A meeting with a homeless woman, Rosie, who tells her she is a former ballerina and will teach her to dance, changes her life. She begins to take her lessons on the street, though other people think that Rosie is a con artist, Tessa finds out that she was in truth a famous ballerina, that was believed to have died in a concentration camp during World War II.  With her mother and Rosie’s help Tessa gets a place in a dance school and in turn she secures Rosie a job there as a teacher.

 

Notes

  • Art: Andy Tew
  • Art Lucky Charm Cover: Ian Kennedy

Appeared

  • Pavement Ballerina – Bunty: #905 (17 May 1975) – #926 (11 October 1975)
  • Reprinted – Lucky Charm: #14 (1981)

Little Miss Frozen Face

Bunty, Lucky Charm, , , , , , ,

Plot

Jo-Ann Morton, a rising tennis star, earns the name “Visage Glacial” (Frozen Face)  in France after she wins the Europa Junior Tournament while her parents died in a crash and she quickly goes on to compete in another competition. Unknown to all the gossipers, Jo-Ann’s aunt had not told her the news during the match and afterwards told her that her father left  lot of debt and embezzled money from a children’s home, so she would need to compete to earn her keep and to make her her father’s good name wasn’t ruined.

Jo-Ann plays but she no longer has a love of the game, and never showing happiness on her face only builds her Frozen Face reputation. Her aunt continues to exploit and blackmail her. She makes a friend with Sir Sam Haigh, a millionaire mill owner, but due to his appearance her aunt Maud thinks he’s a commoner. Finally having a friend to confide in Sam helps clear her father’s name and expose the real culprit, her Aunt Maud. Free from her, Jo-Ann can finally begin to live her life again and play tennis for her own enjoyment.

 

Notes

  • Story Art: Mario Capaldi.
  • Art Lucky Charm Cover: Ian Kennedy

Appeared

  • Little Miss Frozen Face – Bunty: #784 (20 January 1973) – #803 (2 June 1973)
  • Reprinted – Lucky Charm: #17 (1982)

Trudy Ten-Legs

Bunty, Lucky Charm, , , ,

Plot

Trudy Ross earns the nickname “Trudy Ten-Legs” as she’s hardly ever seen without her uncle’s two horses, Chief and Hero. When her uncle (who she lives with) dies, she has to figure out a way to keep the two horses. Avoiding authorities, she finds places to stay and  begins earning money by taking part in competitions. She takes on two hunt dogs and finds friends that help her, providing food. She runs into trouble with two snobby girls, who are not happy with a scruff winning competitions.

When Chief is sick, to save him she turns herself in and gets sent to an Approved School with Hero, but while Chief has recovered from illness he is pining for Trudy and Hero, so she runs away to reunite with him.  When she stops a girl, Maude, from whipping her horse, the police catch up with her. Her day in court turns to her favour, as Maude’s father, a lawyer, actually is appalled by his daughter’s behaviour and comes to Trudy’s defense. Due to confusion over her leap year birthday, Trudy is proved to be 16 and therefore she could leave school when she wants. She goes on to get job at stable with Mr Grampton, the owner of the hunt dogs and a helper to Trudy, and then she becomes junior top show jumper.

Notes

  • Art: Dudley Wynne
  • Art Lucky Charm Cover: Ian Kennedy

Appeared

  • Trudy Ten-Legs – Bunty: #632 (21 February 1970) – #651 (4 July 1970)
  • Reprinted – Lucky Charm: #6 (1980)

The Double Life of Coppelia Brown / The Double Life of Dolly Brown [1969/1976]

M&J, Mandy, , , , , , ,
  • The Double Life of Coppelia Brown – Mandy: #128 (28 Jun 1969) – #138 (06 September 1969)
  • Reprinted as The Double Life of Dolly Brown – Mandy: #482 (10 April 1976) – #492 (19 August 1976)
  • Reprinted as The Double Life of Coppelia Brown – Mandy #818 (18 September 1982) – #828 (27 November 1982)
  • Reprinted as The Double Life of Dolly Brown – Mandy #1188 (21 October 1989) – #1198 (30 December 1989)
  • Reprinted as The Double Life of Dolly Brown (as Mandy Classic) – M&J:  #297 (18 January 1997) – #307 (29 March 1997)

Plot 

Note: The main character went by different names in different prints of the story, in this summary, I’ll just refer to her as  the most commonly used “Dolly Brown”

In Victorian times, traveling around fairs Gus Grimby shows off his amazing mechanical doll invention that can walk, talk and obey commands with no strings attached. Although if the audience could look closer, they would see it was actually a girl in makeup, straining to stay still and not blinking. While not on stage Dolly Brown is forced to slave for Gus and Ma Grimby. Dolly cannot remember her past, but has been told by the Grimbys that she committed a crime and she owes them as they protect her from being sent to prison. A torn wanted poster with her picture convinces her that  they are telling the truth, and she must stay being a puppet.

Despite her hard life and supposed criminal past, Dolly still shows kindness to others like pretending to freeze up on stage to point out a thief, being kind to an ill girl or rescuing a kitten, even though it risks punishment later . She is forced by the Grimbys to give a way the kitten to an audience member. The recipient comes back to thank the doll and seeing servant girl, Dolly, the family seem to think she looks familiar, whether they are recognising her as doll or from some place else is unclear, beginning the mystery of who really is Dolly Brown.

Dolly gets a clue to her past when she helps an injured girl during a storm, the girl seems to recognise her when she says “Dolly! Willow Wood..”. Dolly doesn’t get a chance to see the girl again to question her more, as the police move the Grimbys on. This also raises doubts about the Grimby’s honesty regarding Dolly’s past. Gus Grimby tells Dolly they had to move on because the police were sent after the girl recognising her, but Dolly had overheard the actual conversation, that the police is moving them on because the squire doesn’t want fairs on his land so she knows he is lying.

In the meantime she continues with her double life. She stills shows kindness to others, although she finds out not everyone is deserving of it. She is tricked by a girl into borrowing the dolls shoes, but the girl then tries to sell them, luckily they are returned but that doesn’t stop Dolly getting a beating and the Grimbys implying she was in on the scheme being a criminal herself. She never gets any sympathy from the Grimbys, even when she is sick they ignore her suffering and force her to continue to perform. When she does collapse, not wanting to lose their source of outcome they do temporarily get better lodgings and someone to look after her. After waking up from her fever in a comfortable bed, a confused Dolly first asks if she is at Willow Wood. The woman looking after her remembers a story about Willow Wood,  that a child disappeared from there, alongside valuables.

Not wanting to miss a good money opportunity, the Grimbys head towards Maybury, where Dolly supposedly committed her crime. Ma Grimby is nervous about being so close to there and tells Dolly to keep out of sight. Dolly  can’t stay hidden when a fire breaks out at a nearby tent and she rescues a baby, a comment from crowd says she has look of a gentry family named Harding. Deciding to investigate further thinking that Willow Wood must be close by Dolly takes an opportunity to sneak off to look for it. She locates the large house and immediately recognizes it, but before she can look around, the groundskeeper spots her and drives her away, assuming she’s there to pry into others’ misfortunes. Later that evening, the man goes to view the show, Dolly thinks he has recognised her, until realising it is Gus Grimby he is looking at. After the show the man confronts Gus Grimby, as Dolly is still dressed as a doll, Gus is forced to let her stay. The man, Gem Baker claims he remembers him from the night Grimby and his gang robbed Willow Wood. Grimby ever the charming con man, weasels out of it claiming it was his brother that he must have seen. Having heard it all Dolly believes they were all part of robbery.

When they are asked to do longer show, Dolly knows she must endure if she is to stay in Maybury and find out more about her past. Dolly investigates further and she meets a girl, Susie, who’s mother now works at Willow Wood. She feels the house is familiar and a feeling of happiness, when she hears the story of the robbery, that Mr Harding was struck down and crippled during the robbery and the housekeeper’s daughter disappeared at the same time, she concludes she must be that girl who betrayed her mother and Mr Harding by letting the thieves in.She doesn’t wait for Susie to tell her the rest of the story.

Having enough of her double life and wanting to atone for her crimes, she decides to turn herself in to the police. Suspicious, Ma Grimby catches her and stops her,  when Dolly tells them she knows she was daughter of the housekeeper who betrayed Mr Harding, the Grimbys suddenly act nicer to her. Later she hears them say that they are safe as she still doesn’t remember who she is, they plan to keep a closer eye on her and board up her room’s window. Dolly is surprised she still doesn’t know who she is, but she won’t keep up this life any more and with no other option, in the middle of the act on stage she shouts out for help and give up the ruse.

The Grimbys make a quick get away with her, but crash the caravan. Cutting their losses they leave the unconscious Dolly for dead and get away. Dolly wakes and makes her way to Willow Wood, knowing she will be safe there. Collapsing at the house when her makeup is removed, she is revealed to be Mr Harding’s granddaughter. She had seen the robbery and lost her memory with the shock of seeing him struck down. The Grimbys kidnapped her so she wouldn’t be able to give evidence against them. Finally home her memories come back,  the Grimbys are found and arrested and Dolly packs away her doll costume never having to live double life again, but she will not forget her time, and those less fortunate than her.

Thoughts

Clearly a well received story, as it was reprinted 4 times. In the original story the girl’s name was Connie Brown, and the doll was named Coppelia. The doll’s name and title clearly a reference to the Coppélia ballet, where a man becomes infatuated with a mechanical doll that an inventor has created and his previous love, dresses up as the doll to rescue him. In the reprint the name is switched to Dolly Brown, the next reprint has the title changed back to Coppelia Brown again, but oddly in this case the girl is no longer called Connie, instead both her and the doll are called Coppelia. The next two reprints they keep with the Dolly Brown name.

As with other stories, we see variants pop up, such as The Secret of Penny Farthing where a girl is blackmailed into pretending to be a ventriloquist dummy or Ballerina on a String where a girl performs as a dancing puppet. Due to being one of the first or perhaps because of its many reprints, this story is one that sticks in the mind more.  There is also added mystery in this story, as Dolly has amnesia and we don’t know who she is or what she supposedly did. Throughout the story and Dolly’s acts of kindness, despite her own circumstances, the reader must find it hard to believe that she could have committed such a terrible crime. Meanwhile the Grimbys are deceitful, cruel guardians, forcing her to perform and slave for them, beating on her when she doesn’t meet their standards. When the truth comes out, that not only are they blackmailing her with the crime they committed, but also that they kidnapped her from a loving home, they certainly rank top among the despicable villains to appear in these comics.

The build up of clues to Dolly’s past and wondering if she will ever be free of her false life keeps readers engaged. When Dolly finally decides to break away, going to turn herself in to the police, there is one more obstacle as the Grimbys stop her, and it seems she is trapped again. Revealing herself on stage makes for a more exciting climax and the panicked escape with the Grimbys taking Dolly, it is relief to see her finally escape their clutches and get her happy ending. As with a lot of theses older stories, there is a panel of info dump explaining how Dolly ended up with the Grimbys, but overall an exciting and satisfying conclusion to the story.

 

Dear Dave

Bunty, , ,

Plot

Friends, Gina Wood and Wendy Hall both fancied Dave Bell. When Dave asked Wendy out, Gina was pleased for her friend. But, Dave’s nasty sister, Marsha, got hold of some letters Gina wrote, but never sent, saying how much she liked Dave, and was using them to blackmail Gina.

Notes

  • Photo story

Appeared

  • Dear Dave (photo) – Bunty:  #1918 (15 October 1994) – #1923 (19 November 1994)

Little Ghost Lost

Bunty, ,

Plot

When Rosie Webb moved with her parents to a small country town, she went exploring a local castle which was being demolished. When Rosie took home one of the castle stones as a keepsake, she discovered that Bessie, a ghostly kitchen maid, had followed her, determined to become her servant.

Notes

  • Art: Wilf Street

Appeared

  • Little Ghost Lost – Bunty:  #1887 (12 March 1994) – #1894 (30 April 1994)

Forever Friends?

Bunty

Plot

Jodie had won a place at a stage and screen school. She wanted to keep her friends from her old school as well as make friends at the new one, but she was finding it difficult being pulled in two directions.

 

Notes

  • Photo story

Appeared

  • Forever Friends? (photo) – Bunty:  #1880 (22 January 1994) – #1883 (12 February 1994)

Roxy: Romance Reborn

Treasury of British Comics, , , , , , , ,

The romance comic Roxy ran for 5 years, from 1958 to 1963 before being merged into Valentine (which lasted until 1974). There were other longer running  romance comics such as Marilyn and Mirabelle, but it is the Roxy name that has been chosen for the revival.  Like other new comics that Rebellion has released, the name does not necessarily mean that they are restricting themselves to just what appeared in that publication, rather it’s just been taken to represent the romance comics. This anthology collection features 1 reprint from the original Roxy comic, a new updated version of The Getaway Girls,which first appeared in the Mirabelle comic, and three other new stories made specially for this book.

My favourite story was Flowers for Agatha, by writer and artist Sarah Gordon, a magical tale where Agatha finds out what happened to her lost love, who she has not seen in 10 years. The story is beautifully told with a great use of colouring and panels. Yellows, oranges and reds and slim panels showing the past in contrast to the blues, greens and wider panels used in the present.

Close second was the re-imagined Getaway Girls by Alex de Campi and Erica Henderson.  I read the original story when it was reprinted in the excellent A Very British Affair book,  two years  ago.  This updated version is still set in the fashion world and we are introduced to the girls through the viewpoint of newcomer, Melanie. We can see why she would want to join these very cool girls, she gets caught up in adventure with them and finds out they have other priorities outside of fashion. It’s a fun story and Henderson (whom I’m familiar with from her run on Unbeatable Squirrel Girl) does great work and captures the comedic expressions perfectly.

There is room for reprint and the chosen classic story  Change of Heart, still has its appeal as protagonist Moira, who has had two major romances, realizes you can’t always go back. With art by Jesús Blasco, it is of course very nice to look at too.

A  sci-fi story What I was Made For by Nadia Shammas and Jaws Stone, is set in a future were soldiers are synced with their Mech units (big robot type things), which leads to an unusual romance. It has some very pretty panels,with only black, grey, pink and white used throughout.

Lastly Banmoor by Mags Visaggio and Sterric, was my least favourite story, I can’t decide if I like the art or not, on first glance it did not appeal to me particularly the eyes, seem weird and ugly,  but I will say on a second read the art is quite effective for the more horror parts. The story was intriguing, as Becky finds a doorway in an inherited house, leading her to embody the maid Miss Prim, the parts in the past were quite effective, but felt some of the present stuff particularly her relationship with Vic could have been developed more.

Overall this had lots of appeal, a nice entry into the romance comic genre which still had a variety of themes touched on in just 5 stories. Additional features such as horoscope and a making of the book, nicely expand the book. As I backed the  original kickstarter campaign, I got a digital version of the book, and a digital classic issue and also was able to choose an options for hardcover. I choose the gorgeous hardback cover by Marguerite Sauvage and was very pleased with the quality of the book. I also got extra goodies, tote bag, pins and bookmarks. The hardback editions were only available through kickstarter but paperback and digital version is available to buy now through rebellion.

https://shop.treasuryofbritishcomics.com/catalogue/RCS2351P

If you are picking that up, you might also be interested in their massive sale, with books like Jinty’s A Spell of Trouble, The Best of Cat Girl and Concrete Surfer at 75% off.