All posts by mistyfan

Misty Short Stories II

19th May 2016MistyAnimal Cruelty, Ballet, Barry Clements, Bullying, Chase, Danse Macabre, Douglas Perry, Girl Who Walked on Water, Gravedigger's Daughter, Isidro Mones, Jacques Goudon, John Armstrong, John Richardson, José Canovas, Killer Fish, Maria Barrera, Mario Capaldi, Misty, Monkey, Monster of Greenacres, Problem girls, Purple Emperor, Sticks and Stones, The Treatment, Vengeance is Green...mistyfan

In a follow-up to Lorrsadmin’s discussion of 15 of her favourite Misty short stories, I am going to discuss 10 of the Misty stories that have really stuck with me. Some of my favourite short stories, “Mr Walenski’s Secret”, “Don’t Look Now!”, “Room for One More”, “Fancy Another Jelly Baby?”, “Prisoner in the Attic” and “The Evil Djinn”, have been omitted here as Lorrsadmin has already discussed them. For this reason, I am not going to discuss the following stories in order of preference.

1: The Girl Who Walked on Water

Misty: #35

Artist: José Canovas

Writer: Barry Clements (?)

Plot

Nancy Pierce has caused her parents so much trouble that they have disowned her and dumped her on Social Services. Social Services are making no headway with Nancy, so they send her to Mrs West, who has an “astonishing” success rate at reforming delinquents. Mrs West keeps photographs of Nancy’s predecessors on the mantelpiece; Nancy attacks photographs when she hears those girls have all reformed. But this does not affect the calm, unruffled Mrs West in the slightest, nor do any other attempts to annoy her.

While walking on the beach, Nancy is amazed to see a girl walking on the water. When Nancy tackles her about how she does it, the girl says to leave her alone. Mrs West denies any knowledge about the girl walking on water.

Nancy keeps an eye out for the girl. When she reappears, Nancy rows up to her, and recognises her as one of Mrs West’s girls from the photographs. The girl warns Nancy not to pursue the question of how she can walk on water, for it is not the good thing it appears to be. But Nancy persists and resorts to force to get what she wants out of her. The girl says it is the shoes, which she forced off another Mrs West girl in the same manner that Nancy is doing now. Still not listening to the girl’s warnings that she will regret it, Nancy makes her remove the shoes.

When Nancy puts on the shoes, she is thrilled to be walking on water. But then she discovers the catch – the shoes do make her walk on water, but they also make her sink on land. And now the shoes will not come off, which means Nancy is now trapped on the water. She will remain so until the next Mrs West girl comes along and, in turn, force her to remove the shoes. When that happens, Nancy will be free and add to Mrs West’s astonishing success rate. As the girl goes up to Mrs West’s house, the lady takes down her photograph and replaces it with Nancy’s.

Thoughts

The story falls into the category of what I call “The Greed Trap”. An unsavoury person is lured by greed to an object, place or power. Too late they discover it is a trap. They become its prisoner until the next unsavoury person arrives (if they ever do) and replaces them by falling into the same trap. The concept has been used in several Misty stories, such as “Full Circle” and “The Final Piece”. But what makes this story so striking is how it turns the whole concept of walking on water inside out. We all know the story of Jesus walking on water, and how the feat has been hailed as a miracle. So it is a real twist here to see the concept walking on water being turned on its head to become a punishment instead of a miracle.

It’s also slightly different from the usual greed trap stories, where the trap catches the person completely unawares. Here Nancy had plenty of warning – from the girl. We also suspect she had a chance to change at Mrs West’s house (everything free and easy, nice place in a beach setting, the lady being kind and not getting wound up by Nancy’s misbehaviour). But Nancy did not heed any of it and so she went on to suffer Mrs West’s special treatment. Still, at least Nancy will one day regain her freedom and start a new life as a reformed girl. This is not the case with the delinquent girl in our next story…

2: The Treatment

Misty: #75

Artist: Mario Capaldi

Plot

Glenda Barton is a problem girl and her parents have sent her to Country Park Corrective School. It is not a bad place; many of the other inmates seem to like it and respond to its therapy. But the school’s methods make no headway with Glenda and she wants to escape. She gets no help from the other girls, but the cook agrees to help her in exchange for money. But in fact Cook let her out on orders on the staff, who have decided she needs “The Treatment”, which the school reserves for incorrigible cases like her. When Glenda enters a wooded area Cook directed her to, The Treatment begins: She undergoes a terrifying transformation into a tree. A strange plant then releases a duplicate of Glenda to the staff. This Glenda is completely different in personality, and she will be the ‘reformed’ Glenda for her parents to take home. The Treatment is the bargain they have made with the plant: send in hopeless cases to be “adopted by the woods” in exchange for good-natured doubles.

Thoughts

Glenda had her chance to reform at the corrective school, as many of the other girls have done, without resorting to “The Treatment”. Indeed, many of Misty’s unpleasant characters are given a chance to change (warnings for example). But like most of them, Glenda persists with her unpleasant ways. So it’s comeuppance Misty style, and there is no mercy or release for the girl this time.

Perhaps the strongest point of this story is its most frightening moment at the climax and the artwork that renders it – Glenda’s transformation into the tree. It begins with her hand, spreads across her body, and she screams for help until she is fully transformed and then there is only silence until the staff come for her double. But the most disturbing part of all is the terrified face that remains on the trunk, in wooden form. We even see what could be beads of sweat on it in the final panel of the story. We are left wondering if that face in the final panel was her last expression before she was fully transformed, or if it is actually looking on in horror and helplessness as her double takes her place. We are never told what happens to her mind after her transformation, and we are left to ponder whether or not it is still functioning, trapped in the tree form. If her mind is still working, could she be finally thinking about changing her ways, but too late? At any rate, there is no release from this trap for problem girls.

3: The Chase

Misty: #40

Artist: Douglas Perry

Plot

Two pet fish, Sammy and Joey, always seem to be chasing each other around the tank as if they are playing tag. One day Sammy is found floating, with a gash in his side. The protagonist (no name is given) feeds Joey while saying she can’t play with him as Sammy could and he must miss Sammy a lot. Then Joey stares at her in an odd, hypnotic manner. She goes all dizzy and then finds herself in the fish tank with Joey. She agrees to play tag, and she will be “he”. But when she suggests they swap, Joey chases her in a killer-fish manner and puts a gash in her leg. The protagonist now realises it isn’t a game of tag; Joey is out to kill her and this was how Sammy went. When Joey corners the protagonist, she throws a stone at him. This stuns Joey and frees the protagonist from his spell. She finds herself back in the living room in a badly shaken state. Her mother thinks she just had a nightmare and she goes out for fresh air to recover. Then she finds the gash in her leg and realises it really happened. Then the protagonist hears her mother making a comment that has her realise that Joey is now staring at her mother in the same hypnotic manner, and she starts screaming after her…

Thoughts

Misty had several stories showing that even animals considered small and harmless (rabbits, snails, tadpoles) can strike horror, terror or revulsion if handled the right way. And here it is the turn of goldfish. Goldfish are supposed to be harmless fish for you admire every time you see a tank full of them. You would never consider them to be dangerous or killers. But this is precisely what happens in this story and shows that a fish does not need to be a shark or piranha to be a killer fish rivalling “Jaws”. Once Joey has the protagonist in the tank, he sure looks like Jaws in the way he bares his teeth when he chases her around the tank and puts the gash in her leg.

4: Sticks and Stones

Artist: John Richardson

Misty: #9

Plot

Joan Cook is a nasty poison pen gossip columnist. All she cares about is making a name for herself with her poison pen and she really enjoys hurting people with the names she calls them. The editor knows this and is concerned, but does not really deal with her despite the trouble her poison pen has caused for him. Meanwhile, Joan’s shelves are groaning with files on all the dirt on people she has collected over the years. Her assistant Carol warns her that the shelves are dangerously overloaded from the files and could collapse at any time. But Joan won’t hear of pruning the collection, saying they are her life’s blood and will make a name for her. They will only go when she does.

A crossed wire enables Joan to overhear a conversation that Dr Garrett, a top scientist, is making with his assistant. The assistant asks how things are coming along with Gert, but Garrett makes a guarded answer. Based on this conversation, Joan writes a smear piece on Garrett, saying he is having an affair with a woman called Gert while his wife is sick in hospital. This makes life hell for Garrett’s daughter Marilyn, who gets targeted by nasty gossips and bullies at school and on the street. Marilyn tries to fall on the old adage “sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me”. But as the bullying continues, she finds it is far from the truth – names can and do hurt. Marilyn’s friend Anne sticks by her, saying there must be a logical explanation. And there is – G.E.R.T. is the acronym for the machine her father has developed for treating her mother, and it proves successful too.

Meanwhile, the adage “names will never hurt me” bites Joan as well. Her groaning shelves finally collapse – right on top of her – and she gets crushed to death under all the files of the names of people she has collected dirt on.

Thoughts

Does this one remind you of the popular cartoon joke where someone defiantly says to a heckler “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me” – and then they get hit by a dictionary? The joke has cropped up in Garfield and Wizard of Id among others. The old adage is a fallacy – words not only hurt as much as sticks and stones but they can also destroy your own name and even your life.

Other word-related adages are played on as well. One is “famous last words”, where Joan says she is staking her life that she got her facts straight on Garrett. She didn’t (as usual) and does lose her life. Another is “eating your words”, where Joan says she will go when her files do – and that is precisely what happens.

Using a gossip columnist for the comeuppance makes a nice change from the usual bullies, problem children, abusers and thieves. And who wouldn’t want a poison pen columnist to get it? The beauty is that Misty shows she can give someone a comeuppance without any supernatural or SF elements at all. Instead, Joan brings about her own destruction by her lack of common sense as much as her nastiness.

5: The Purple Emperor

Misty: #12

Artist: Isidro Mones

Plot

Betty regards butterflies as nothing more than specimens for her butterfly collection and the more rare they are, the greater her triumph. Betty’s kinder sister Sharon is horrified at how cruel she is to butterflies. Betty becomes obsessed at catching a Purple Emperor for her collection. When Sharon saves one from her, Betty further demonstrates her cruelty by slapping Sharon’s face and threatening to tear wings off a Purple Emperor just to spite her. Betty sets out on another attempt to catch a Purple Emperor, but has an accident and hits her head. She then has a terrifying experience (or dream from the blow on her head?) of a giant who is a Purple Emperor. He captures her with a butterfly net and throws her into a killing jar to suffocate and be added to his collection. She starts screaming that she must be imagining it and begs to wake up soon…

Thoughts

The story of the horrible butterfly-collecting girl who becomes a specimen herself and suffocates in a killing jar is one that has struck a cord in fandom. It is still mentioned in many Misty discussions. The artwork certainly helps to bring it off. The splash panel of Betty gloating evilly over a butterfly as she is about to stick a pin in it, and speaking her triumph in a jagged speech balloon rather than a regular one tells it all – the horror, the cruelty, the disregard for the life or beauty of nature, and what sort of comeuppance is in store. This panel takes the cover spot, which must have helped the story to endure in readers’ memory. Printing the story in full colour further enhances it. We can see the beauty of the butterflies in full colour, and the Purple Emperor giant in all his purple glory. He would have been far less effective if it had been in the usual black-and-white pages.

6: The Gravedigger’s Daughter

Misty: #78

Artist: John Armstrong

Plot

In an earlier period, Katey Malden is being bullied because her father is the local gravedigger. The bullying gets so bad that Katey runs off. By the time she is found she has contracted pneumonia, for which there was then no cure. Before she dies, she whispers something to her father.

The whole town turns out for the funeral, with people expressing regret that they did not take action against the bullying. The bullies themselves are remorseful except for the ringleader, Mary Douglas. The other bullies tell Mary go to Katey’s grave, lay down some flowers they give her and beg forgiveness, or they will never speak to her again. Mary goes to the grave and puts the flowers on it, but only to please the other girls. She has no intention of asking forgiveness and that is what she says at the grave. Then a hand shoots out of the grave Carrie-style and strangles Mary. Her body is found the next day. People think she died of fright, but Mr Malden guesses the truth, because the last thing Katey said to him was: “I shall never, never forgive!”

Thoughts

Misty ran a lot of complete stories on the seriousness of bullying, but even she seldom went as far as to touch on the most extreme consequence of bullying – when it leads to the victim’s death. But that is the case here. The victim dies because of the bullying. We hear of it so often in the news, but seldom did it appear in the comics. So this sets the story apart more from Misty’s other stories about bullying.

Misty certainly is not going to allow the chief bully to get away with causing someone’s death, especially as the bully does not feel in the least bit guilty about it. And can the mere laying of flowers on the grave really right the wrong done to the victim or earn forgiveness for the bully? It does not sound likely. On the other hand, would a genuine show of contrition have brought forgiveness, since Katey had vowed with her dying breath never to forgive the bullies? Or would Katey have killed Mary anyway, regardless of her attitude at the grave? With this possibility in mind, it makes a better story to keep the chief bully an unsympathetic character that has no remorse for the death her bullying caused. The arm shooting out of the grave is a bit clichéd, but the artwork of John Armstrong really brings it off in the expression on Mary’s face as the hand throttles her.

7: Vengeance is Green…

Misty: #15

Artist: José Ariza

Plot

Nobody cares for Nina Parker. Girls bully her at school, the teachers don’t listen or intervene, and there is no help from her callous gran either. One day during the bullying, Nina finds an ivy plant that also got damaged from the bullies. She takes it home, pots it up, and starts caring for it as her only friend. Her gran is scornful, but the ivy begins to thrive. Nina finds that talking to the plant makes it grow faster and she pours out her bullied heart to it. One day the bullies overhear her and pounce. Then the ivy attacks the ringleader, Marion, and threatens to choke her. To save Marion, Nina is forced to destroy the ivy, her only friend.

Thoughts

The comeuppance of the ivy attacking the bully is no surprise because of the buildup (talking to the plant, telling it all about the bullying, caring for it, looking for sympathy from it, and the plant thriving under it all). What is a surprise, and also a heart-breaking twist, is that Nina is forced to destroy her only friend with her own hands to save the bully, who would have been killed otherwise. One sure hopes the bully appreciated it and left Nina alone after that.

8: Monster of Greenacres

Misty: #85

Artist: Jacques Goudon

Plot

Greenacres is being terrorised by a strange madman who kills people and police are completely baffled as to his identity. He seemed to start by merely making a nuisance of himself, but once people got more used to it, he stepped up to murder after murder. Nobody is more scared of him than Polly. When she has a narrow escape from him, it drives her and her family out of Greenacres. This starts a stampede where everybody flees Greenacres to get away from the madman and it turns into a ghost town. There is nothing and nobody left in Greenacres but the killer himself – who is the scarecrow on the farm where Polly and her parents lived. The scarecrow did what he did because he just likes to scare and doesn’t know where to stop. But now there is nobody and nothing left for him to scare.

Thoughts

Here Misty portrays an evil that never gets destroyed. How can the police possibly figure out that the murderer is a scarecrow? There is no supernatural force of any sort that comes in and destroys him either. And the irony is that it is the scarecrow on the property where Polly lives – the one who fears him most. And it was his attempt to scare Polly that triggered the stampede that leaves the scarecrow with nobody left to scare. He has become a victim of his own success and presumably stands on the old farm bored stiff because he has left himself with nothing to scare. He has created his own punishment. It is not on the same level as him being destroyed and Greenacres becoming safe to live in again. But in some girls’ stories you can’t always win against evil or score a total victory against it. This is the case here, and it has the story end on a grim, sad note that makes it a better story.

9: The Monkey

Misty: #80

Artist: Mario Capaldi

Plot

Kitty is a bully, and her worst vitriol is reserved for Benny, the organ grinder’s monkey. Every time she passes Benny she teases him, though she is disturbed by the way he looks at her. She does not heed admonishing from her parents or classmates to leave the monkey alone. One day Kitty pushes Benny too far and he bites her; the organ grinder says it is the great law giving her what she deserves. Soon after, Kitty starts acting very strangely. She acts like a monkey and seems to hear the organ grinder’s music out of nowhere. Every time she hears the music she behaves like a monkey. Deciding it must have something to do with the monkey bite, she goes to the organ grinder’s house to sort it out. There she finds Benny, who stares at her with burning eyes that seem “strangely human”. She goes into a strange trance that is full of more organ-grinding music. When she comes out of it, she finds that Benny has somehow switched bodies with her. He escapes in her body. She is condemned to spend the rest of her life in Benny’s body and forced to dance to the hated organ-grinding music while Benny gloats from inside her body.

Thoughts

This story has something that was rare in Misty – humour. It sure is funny, the way Kitty behaves like a monkey: walking like one, climbing trees, eating peanuts. But it’s black comedy of course, and we know the girl is going to be punished for bullying and animal cruelty. And when Kitty becomes trapped in the monkey’s body, she finds that being an organ grinder’s monkey is cruel too. Though the organ grinder is not a cruel person and loves Benny, Misty shows the monkey leads an unpleasant life, dressing up in tutus and other costumes and dance for people’s money and entertainment. We also see the monkey is kept in a cage at home, which is a far cry from his natural habitat and no other monkeys for company. And this story was written in the 1970s, when it was less un-PC than it is now to use organ grinder monkeys or when fewer people gave thought to how unnatural it for exotic animals to be used for entertainment. It was a bit ahead of its time on that score.

10: Danse Macabre

Misty: #52

Artist: Maria Barrera

Plot

It is nearing the end-of-term production by Madame Krepskaya’s dancing academy. She has to choose between Nadia Nerona and Lois Hills for the star role. Nadia manages to cheat her way into the role. After all-day practice for the show the next day, Nadia asks to borrow the ballet shoes Madame wore at the height of her success for luck at the show. Madame refuses, saying luck is immaterial for a professional dancer, and furthermore, the shoes brought her success, but someone like Nadia has no idea of the price.

Scheming Nadia steals the shoes and takes them to the academy stage to try out. She is astonished to find ballet music coming out of nowhere and the shoes have a life of their own and can dance anything beautifully. She realises that the shoes were the secret of Madame’s success. But then comes the snag Madame hinted at – Nadia finds the shoes just won’t stop. They go on dancing and dancing, regardless of how exhausted Nadia is getting or the injuries her feet are taking from the non-stop dancing. Things get even more terrifying when Nadia discovers that the music is coming from the orchestra pit and the musicians are all skeletons! The same goes for the corps de ballet and the danseur who now partners her. And when the ballet turns to “Giselle”, Nadia really panics – the protagonist in that ballet dies and is carried off by the spirits of death (actually, the part about the spirits of death is not correct, which shows lack of proper research there). The ballet dancing with the skeletons gets more and more wild until Nadia finally blacks out on the stage and everything goes quiet. Nadia is found next morning and taken to hospital with badly damaged feet. Lois gets the role after all, and is a “towering success”. Lois also asked Madame if she could borrow the shoes for luck. Madame said an artist like her does not need shoes like that, and in any case, the shoes have been danced to pieces.

Thoughts

When reading this story, one is reminded of the fairy tale of “The Red Shoes” where a vain girl is put through a merciless punishment of being locked into red shoes that will not stop dancing. She has to get her feet amputated by a headsman to break free of the spell. Though the story doesn’t go that far, it is excruciating and more than terrifying enough for the ballerina. Those skeletons would strike terror and nightmares into anyone. But they should not be a surprise to the readers with a title like “Danse Macabre”. For a moment we have to wonder if Nadia was meant to dance until she was a skeleton herself – there was a hint of it when the ballet turned to “Giselle” (which also has spirits forcing people to dance until they die) – but some editorial censorship stepped in. Or maybe it was the coming of dawn, though this is not mentioned. After all, daybreak stops the evil spirits in “Giselle” and the skeleton dance in the orchestral “Danse Macabre”.

They Call her Tuesday Twelfth (1980)

7th May 2016TracyAbusive guardians, Amnesiac, Deceptionmistyfan

Plot

Kathy Gregg lives a hard life slaving for her uncaring aunt and uncle in their cafe. They head off to Spain on a high-paying job, leaving Kathy to fend for herself with no money or food. While trying to think what to do, Kathy has a road accident. Her dazed state has everyone think she has lost her memory and they call her “Tuesday Twelfth” in lieu of a name, after the date of the accident. Kathy ends up in a home, and decides to go on pretending to be amnesiac for as long as she can so as not to go back to her old life.

Notes

Translated into Dutch in Debbie Stripstory 05/1981 as “Kathy wil ook jarig zijn” (cover blurb) (Kathy Wants to Have a Birthday Too) and “Ik wil óók jarig zijn” – (I Want a Birthday Too) (story).

Appeared

They Call Her Tuesday Twelfth – Tracy: #47 (August 23 1980) – #57 (1 November 1980)

Penny’s Puppets (1966)

28th March 2016BuntyFamily feuds, mystery, Problem guardians, Puppetsmistyfan

Plot

Orphan Penny Fairchild lives with her stern, cold grandmother Agnes Fairchild at the Fairchilds’ ancestral home, Middleton Manor. She feels out of place at school because of the clothes grandmother makes her wear and grandmother not allowing her friends over, but finds solace in her teacher Miss Jackson. Penny finds further solace in the puppets she finds in the attic and starts playing with, but this is going against grandmother, who has forbidden her to go to the attic.

Then Miss Jackson tells Penny that the trouble is about a family feud. The feud has something to do with the puppets, which are linked to Roland, the world’s greatest puppeteer and ventriloquist, and a singer called Rose Rossay. They start to investigate the mystery together.

Notes

Appeared

Penny’s Puppets – Bunty: #435 (14 May 1966) – #440 (25 June 1966)

School of Shadows (1995)

7th March 2016BuntyBully headmistress, bully teachers, Bunty Picture Library, Carlos Freixas, Cruel school, evil influence, Ghosts, Supernatural, victorian era, Victorian Timesmistyfan

Bunty Picture Library: #393

Published: 1995

Artist: Carlos Freixas

Plot

The pupils of Ratcliffe Park Boarding School are temporarily relocated to Ratcliffe Manor when their school needs repairs because of structural damage from flooding. There are whispers from a couple of pupils, Emma and Mags, that the manor is haunted. Sarah and Sally, the protagonists of the story, don’t take the rumours seriously. But they are disturbed when they see the portrait of the stern-looking Lavinia Wykes, whose family were the first owners of the manor, and marvel at what a contrast it is to Lavinia as a child in another portrait.

Then the headmistress, Mrs Jonson, starts acting very strangely. Normally she is a kindly headmistress, but suddenly there are strange fluctuations in her behaviour. She starts turning into a Jekyll and Hyde character. At times she acts quite normally, but at other times she turns into a dragon, treating everyone in a manner that is not only extremely harsh but also Victorian in its thinking. She gives orders for the pupils to be served plain breakfasts consisting of dry bread and porridge. New rules are installed, and the girls are shocked and surprised at how severe they are: uniform to be worn at all times; no talking after lights out; no food in the dorms; no wandering around inside the house; and other rules listed that are not described. The caretaker doesn’t fare much better. When the school first arrives, Mrs Jonson tells him not to worry about cleaning the difficult-to-clean Victorian style windows. But then she does a very angry U turn, demanding they be cleaned “my good man!”

Sally and Sarah put her behaviour down to the stress of the move, and Mrs Jonson is indeed taken ill. But when the deputy head, Miss Greg, takes over, she starts acting the same way. When Mrs Jonson returns, she seems to be herself again and even gives the girls pop posters for their dormitory. But soon the same thing starts again.

Things get weirder and weirder. When sent to the upstairs room for detention, Sally and Sarah rapidly discover there is something strange about it. It is inexplicably hot, and soon there are strange lights and voices crying “No! No! No!” in the room. In the school grounds they encounter a strange apparition and catch the words “…and I will not tolerate it!” in a voice they don’t recognise.

Sally and Sarah now think it is time to look up the history of the manor. They search newspapers in town, which yields information that the Wykes family built the manor as a private house. Thirty-five years later it was converted into a girls’ boarding school, with Miss Wykes as headmistress. Two years after that, a fire broke out in a dormitory, killing Miss Wykes and several pupils.

Now Sally and Sarah believe the manor really is haunted after all, and the ghost of Miss Wykes has possessed Mrs Jonson (and Miss Gregg during her brief stint as headmistress). When they tackle Mags for information on what she said about the manor, she says she was just embroidering rumours she had heard from her gran.

The abnormal change in Mrs Jonson gets worse and worse. She even starts looking like Miss Wykes, calls herself Miss Wykes, and redecorates her office in a Victorian style and switches to kerosene lamps because electric light hurts her eyes. She also gets flummoxed when she encounters computer technology, but then seems to recover herself and tackle it comfortably. She had given the girls posters to decorate the dorm with, but then tears them down when she turns into the dragon that seems to model itself on Miss Wykes.

By now the headmistress’s behaviour has spread confusion and fear through the pupils. Because of it, they hate being at the manor and are desperate to go back to their own school. Sarah and Sally don’t want to start a panic by telling them what they think is happening, but they do take a third girl, Jane, into their confidence.

During another Wykes possession, Mrs Johnson scolds the girls for reading by candlelight in the dorm again – when there are no candles at all. At this, Jane, Sally and Sarah suspect that candles in the dorm started the fire.

They discover that records from the Wykes school are stored in the upstairs room – where the inexplicable heat, noises and lights are centred. That evening, they investigate the records, while the heat and noises start up again. They suspect this is because the original dormitory was located in the upstairs room, and where the fire started. A blueprint of the original school confirms their suspicions.

They then come across a teacher’s journal, which lists the same set of rules that Mrs Jonson set up. The journal reveals that the fire was indeed started by pupils reading by candlelight in the dorm, which they often did because Miss Wykes frequently punished them by sending them to bed much too early. It goes on to say that the manor had been a sinister place since the fire and would have been better off burning right to the ground.

Then the girls discover that the day is an anniversary of the fire, which can only mean that something terrible is going to happen. Right on cue, the voices start up again and a notebook starts floating. They realise that another school on the premises must have been what sparked it all off. They head off to the headmistress’s office, hoping to convince her that they are in danger. As they do so, they feel they are being followed.

They find no headmistress – but her office is on fire! They sound the fire alarm and the school evacuates. They hear another “No! No! No!” coming from the upstairs room, this time in Mrs Jonson’s voice. They find her in a very strange state, and she drops her lamp, which starts more fire that is not affected by fire extinguishers. The girls feel that these are not ordinary flames, and the fire brigade does not fare any better against them. This time the manor does burn to the ground, and the girls realise that the journal was right to say that it should – it is the only way to purge the ghosts. Mrs Jonson returns to normal and everyone is safe. The protagonists don’t dwell on wondering exactly what happened at the School of Shadows – they are just glad to see the end of it and return to their own school.

Thoughts

The harshness of old-style school discipline, particularly among principals who take it too far, or even let it turn into downright child abuse, has been a frequent one in girls’ comics. It often makes grim reading and a salutary lesson in not what to do in education. But when it is combined with the supernatural, as it is here, it makes for the most disturbing but compelling reading.

The haunting at the School of Shadows is all the more frightening and effective because the ghosts are kept obscure and it is never made clear just what the haunting is about. There are no supernatural beings actually appearing to frighten everyone, apart from the one in the grounds. No apparitions appear to speak to anyone, whether it is to make demands, threats, requests, or offer explanations and help. The ghost of Miss Wykes does not appear in person; you just get the impressions of both the ghost and the tyrannical headmistress it was in life, through its possession of Mrs Jonson. But this makes the haunting even scarier.

The ghost in the grounds is the only apparition to actually appear in the story, but just what it is – it does not even look like Miss Wykes or the pupils who died in the fire – what it wants, or what it means by “And I will not tolerate it!” are not clear. It does not even bother to actually scare the girls; it just drifts by them as if they don’t exist. Its purpose in the story is difficult to understand and it does not square with who is supposed to be haunting the manor. One gets the impression that Bunty was gilding the lily a bit there.

However, there are few nice touches about the haunting of Miss Wykes. The first is the glimpse of her as a cute-looking child in one portrait that is such a contrast to the formidable, unsmiling headmistress she has become in the portrait that unnerves the girls. So often do these stern, hard teachers that we see in so many serials forget that they were once children themselves, just like the kids they rule with a fist of iron. And the reader also gets a reminder that a horrible headmistress was a child once – something you don’t see every day in girls’ comics.

There are also dashes of faint humour that the tyrannical ghost of Lavinia Wykes is getting a bit of 20^th century culture shock while she possesses the body of Miss Jonson. One occurs in the computer room where she is completely thrown by all the computer technology, and we get the impression she had to retreat there and let Miss Jonson return. Another occurs in her office where she can’t bear modern electric lighting and insists on the old-fashioned lamps.

The girls don’t dwell on pondering exactly what went on at the manor, but we will take a moment to do so. First, there cannot be much doubt that the combination of the upcoming anniversary of the fire and the presence of another school on the premises was enough to stir up the ghosts. Plus, it must have been a miserable school with the harsh, intolerant Lavinia Wykes as headmistress (mind you, we have seen worse in girls’ comics).

It certainly looks like Lavinia Wykes was reliving her time as headmistress through her possession of Miss Jonson – but for what purpose? Was the past just replaying itself through the guest school because of the upcoming anniversary of the fire? Or did the ghost(s) have an ulterior motive? For example, did Lavinia Wykes want to relive her time as headmistress all over again? Or did she react badly to the sight of the modern, progressive school and its easy-going headmistress and set out to impose her ideas of discipline on the school? Clashes between strict old-fashioned schools and progressive modern schools have occurred before in girls’ comics, such as “The Girls of Liberty Lodge” in Tammy and “Dracula’s Daughter” in Jinty. If Lavinia Wykes had been alive, there would certainly have been feuds between her and Miss Jonson over the way a school should be run.

Or were the ghosts out to exorcise themselves by recreating the past and then the fire? It is strange, the way the fire that destroys the manor does not seem to be an ordinary fire, and resists all attempts to extinguish it. But the ghosts don’t seem to be out to kill anyone with the fire, as there is no there is no attempt to stop them escaping with their lives.

There is no way to know for certain because there is not enough information given about the ghosts and their motives. Like the girls, we only know for certain that the ghost of Lavinia Wykes is no more by the end of the story, and are so glad.

“Ma Budge’s Drudge!” (1987)

3rd March 2016JudyDavid Matysiak, Farming, Judy Picture Library, Land Girls, Period story, World War IImistyfan

Judy Picture Library: #286

Published: 1987

Artist: David Matysiak

Plot

In World War II, Jill Durrell has just completed training in the Land Army, which consists of girls who work on farms in the place of men who have gone to fight. Now it is time for the girls to be sent on their various farming assignments.

The girls are expected to go where they are sent, but the instructor does not want to give anyone the assignment from Mrs Budge: “Mrs Budge works single-handed on a smallholding with neither electricity nor running water, situated at the back of beyond. She’s a cantankerous, demanding, slave-driver, and no girl has ever stayed there more than a week!” He cannot believe his ears when Jill insists on volunteering for Mrs Budge’s assignment.

Jill arrives exhausted and hungry because Mrs Budge could not be there to meet her at the station at Geronwy Junction. Mrs Budge is not impressed to see the replacement for her farmhand Owen (who is in the catering corps) because Jill looks too small and not strong enough. Jill begs to be given a chance, so Mrs Budge has her prove it by preparing the stall for a newborn calf. Jill is tired and hungry, but completes the job because she is a stubborn girl. Later, she tells Mrs Budge that she won’t leave on the next train leaving Geronwy Junction.

And Jill doesn’t, despite how tough it is working for Mrs Budge. Mrs Budge is not only the cantankerous slave driver the instructor warned her about, but also insists on doing everything the hard, traditional, old-fashioned way: hand scythes and sickles, hand water pumps, doing laundry in copper boilers, oil lamps, candles etc. “They were good enough for my great grandfather when he bought this farm, and they’re good enough for me, now!” She won’t have a bar of modernisation, modern farming methods, or any other labour saving devices. She won’t even have electricity or running water. She throws a fit when she sees Jill borrowing a combine harvester from a neighbour, Mr Wheldon, and only agrees to let Jill keep her job on condition she complete the haying her way – the old-fashioned way. The same obstinacy also extends to medicine; she doles out her own homemade potions and she won’t call in doctors or vets. On Mr Wheldon’s farm, Mrs Budge has a reputation for running her farm in the “dark ages” because she is too mean and tight-fisted to modernise. Mr Wheldon has his own team of land girls, who call Jill “Ma Budge’s drudge” (hence the title of the story), but they are friendly with her.

Jill, however, is under the impression that Mrs Budge sticks to the old ways out of pride rather than miserliness – that and just plain stubbornness. Throughout the story, Jill is appalled and exasperated at how stubborn Mrs Budge is, and Jill is pig-headed herself. For example, when Mrs Budge sprains her ankle, she won’t listen to Jill’s urgings to call in a doctor: “Why waste money when a swollen ankle will heal in its own good time?” Nor does she take it easy because of her swollen ankle; she turns to jobs that she can do while sitting down. When fully able-bodied, Mrs Budge works even harder than Jill, and she works Jill far harder than necessary because of her insistence on old-fashioned ways. And Jill notes Mrs Budge never has a word of praise for her; she treats Jill in a grumpy fashion, especially when Jill doesn’t quite come up to the mark at times.

But Jill refuses to leave Mrs Budge, and nobody can understand why. The neighbouring farmer thinks she is a “rum ‘un” for declining his offer to leave the drudgery of Mrs Budge and join his own team. At times, Jill herself is tempted to walk out on Mrs Budge – except for… but she doesn’t reveal what. Even Mrs Budge asks why, and Jill replies: “Some day, I’ll tell you. I-I’m afraid the time hasn’t come yet, though.”

The time comes when two letters arrive. The first, for Mrs Budge, says her old farmhand Owen is being invalidated out of the catering corps. He will now be returning to the farm, so there is no further need for Jill. Jill is dismayed that she is leaving, but the second letter, for her, puts her mind at rest. It says that her father has been released from a Japanese POW camp. Jill then explains to Mrs Budge that when her father was captured, she made a bargain with herself to find the toughest job she could find as a land girl. She believed that if she did not quit, her father would keep fighting to survive as well. “Dad and I are two of a kind, you see. Not very big or very strong, but plenty pig-headed!”

Mrs Budge finds it a bit of a cheek that Jill used her farm for a substitute prison camp. But she decides to take it in good part because she realises she got the best of the bargain. They hold a celebratory toast together.

Thoughts

It is refreshing to see a World War II story tackle the subject of Land Girls, something that doesn’t get much attention in girls’ comics. More often, their WW2 stories deal with female soldiers, resistance fighters, fugitives, evacuees and war orphans.

The moment we see the cover, we expect to be geared up for a story where a cruel slave driver works a poor hapless Land Girl to the bone. So, along with everyone else, we are taken aback when Jill volunteers for the Budge assignment while already knowing what she is getting into (unlike a lot of unsuspecting heroines who discover too late that they have ended up with an abusive slave driver). And we also have to wonder why Jill won’t quit her job as she learns just how tough and gruelling it is. When we find out why – to parallel with her father’s suffering and struggle for survival in a Japanese prison camp – we have to applaud, but do we laugh or cry about it as well?

When we see Mrs Budge on the cover, we expect her to be a cruel, slave driving abuser, like countless other villains that have appeared in girls comics, such as Gert and Jed Barlow from Tammy’s “Bella”. So it is a surprise and delight to see that once we (and Jill) get to know Mrs Budge better, we find she is a more complex, layered character who is difficult but not totally unlikeable, and she is not a cardboard villain. There is no denying that she is cantankerous, demanding and slave driving, and she makes it all the harder by clinging to old-fashioned methods and eschewing modernisation. It is easy to see why no Land Girl had stayed with her more than a week until Jill volunteered. We also have to wonder why Owen the farmhand stayed on with her until the catering corps called him up. But she only demands of them the same thing that she does herself, and Jill admits that Mrs Budge works even harder than herself. Mrs Budge makes no allowances for herself either; when she sprains her ankle, she insists on carrying on. And when the accident happens, she insists that Jill do the milking than tend to her: “Leave me be! The milking’s more important than I am!”

The story is also a clash of wills between two people who are both pig-headed; Mrs Budge in her obstinacy about clinging to traditional ways and Jill in her obstinacy to stay, despite how tough it is. It is hard to say who was a match for the other in stubbornness, but we are all rooting for Jill’s stubbornness to win out against Mrs Budge. And it does, because Jill’s tenacity was motivated by love for her father while Mrs Budge’s stubbornness was motivated by pride and extreme conservatism (and perhaps fear of change and new technology).

There is a dash of eccentricity about Mrs Budge’s obstinacy and stick-in-the mud ways that gives her a touch of humour. For example, she always wears the same raincoat, regardless of the weather. And while she always seems to be a grouch, signs of her having a heart do slip through. One of the most touching is when Mrs Budge tends to Jill when she burns her arm on the steam thresher: “Girl, girl – I wouldn’t have had you hurt, not for all the world.” Jill is really astonished at this tender remark after having endured Mrs Budge’s grumpiness with never a single word of praise. And when Mrs Budge find out why Jill stuck out at her job, she really does show that she is a human being: “Fancy using my farm as a substitute prison camp. There’s cheek for you! Still, I reckon we ought to celebrate – because to my way of thinking, I was the one who got the best of the bargain!” We see that Mrs Budge has come a long way from first dismissing Jill as “a tiddler” and setting her extra-tough tests to drive her off to liking and respecting her, and appreciating Jill’s work on the farm after all. We get the impression that Mrs Budge is really going to miss Jill when she goes.

The Shop at Shudder Corner (1983)

28th February 2016Debbie, SpellboundAdventure, Debbie Picture Library, Jade Jenkins' Stall, Norman Lee, Period story, Polly's Patches, time travelmistyfan

Debbie Picture Library: #64

Published: 1983

Artist: Norman Lee

Plot

Jean Marsh and Sheila Hawkins are best friends. Sheila’s uncle runs an antique shop at Shudder Corner, and they earn extra pocket money from cleaning the antiques.

One day Sheila loses a lens from her torch in the shop and quickly finds a replacement on the floor. She does not realise the lens has a strange, mystical design.

Edited to add: the origin of the lens is slightly different from the original. In the original version, the girls found the lens beside a lightning-struck bush.

But the girls soon find that the lens turns the torch into a time travel device. Whenever it shines on an object that has a strange history attached to it (and in an antique shop, they are surrounded by such objects), the torch transports them to that moment in the past, where they become part of that particular chain of events. They have to stay for the duration, because the torch will not allow them to return – by being switched on again – until the adventure runs its course. Afterwards, Jean’s uncle (who is unaware of the time travel adventures) provides them with context on the object and their adventure.

Jean is always telling Sheila not to use the torch in the shop in case it shines on something with a history. But of course Sheila always ends up turning the torch on for some reason or other. And then they are off again…

In this story, the girls go on three time travel trips with the torch:

Trip 1: The Danson dog collar

In the 19^th century, Sheila and Jean meet Bettina Danson. She is running away because her guardian, Sir Charles Danson, is out to kill her and claim her inheritance. There is a legend in the Danson family about a demon dog known as the Hound of the Dansons. Sir Charles capitalises on the legend to unleash a vicious dog (who is wearing the collar) on Bettina as a fake ghost dog to kill her. The dog and Sir Charles trap Bettina and the girls at the edge of a quarry, but then they find a ledge and start climbing down it. Sheila blinds the dog with the torch, and it gets such a fright that it knocks Sir Charles over and he falls to his death in the quarry.

Back in the present, Uncle tells the girls that the dog collar belonged to the Danson family. There is some tale about a ghost hound and a wicked guardian who was out to inherit a fortune by killing the rightful heir. But “something went wrong” and he “came to a sticky end”. The girls know what went wrong but can’t tell him.

Trip 2: The rose goblet

Sheila shines the torch on a crystal goblet with a rose motif. They are transported to an 18^th century manor called Rose Manor, and roses are everywhere: the garden, the hedges, and even the stonework. But then an unpleasant servant takes them for gypsies and seizes them. The master, Squire Allwood, is just as surly and thinks they are gypsy kids who belong to “Mad Meg”. He is about to lock them in the cellar and send for the magistrate when Mad Meg shows up. The squire had driven the gypsies off and Mad Meg takes revenge by cursing Rose Manor with – roses. Immediately the roses start growing and spreading at terrifying rates that threaten to overwhelm the manor. People start fleeing, but Sheila and Jean are trapped in the manor with the roses threatening to smother them. They escape via a secret passage, but outside the nasty squire is about to recapture them. However, the torch comes back on and they return to the present.

Uncle tells them the goblet came from an 18^th century manor that became overwhelmed with roses; it was the gypsies’ revenge when the squire upset them. Ironically, the site where the manor once stood is now part of a famous rose nursery.

Trip 3: The horse brass

Sheila and Jean are working in the antique shop while pondering over a challenging homework assignment on chimney sweep boys. Jean’s notes go under a chest of drawers, and when Sheila pulls out the torch for them, the light shines on an old horse brass that got lost there.

The girls arrive at a canal at a time when horses pulled narrow boats. The women of the narrow boat are cordial and offer them some food. The girls offer to sell some pegs in return, and the women suggest the big houses. On the way they encounter a climbing boy and his cruel master. The girls overhear the sweep telling the boy to help him and a man named Hobbs steal from the big house, or else. The girls report back to the women, who say the crooks are taking advantage of the boy being small and nimble to break into the house. They hatch a plan to foil them.

So, when the crooks head to the house that night, the girls distract them, rescue the boy and bring him to the narrow boat. But then the crooks seize the girls and force them to help with the robbery in the boy’s place. The girls strike back by throwing the bags of loot downstairs to knock the crooks down, but it rouses the household. The crooks are captured, and claim the girls are their accomplices. The girls are climbing their way down the wall, but the owner sees them and says the magistrate will decide their fate. Fortunately the torch comes back on and everyone below is stunned to see them just disappear.

Back in the present, Uncle is very pleased that the girls have found his missing horse brass, and they will be rewarded. He tells them it comes from a narrow boat, whose master used to be a climbing boy. “By some miracle he bettered himself” and became “quite famous”. The girls realise that the climbing boy stayed with the narrow boat women and “made good”. And their encounter with a real climbing boy helps their homework assignment so much that the teacher is impressed with the end result.

Thoughts

“The Shop at Shudder Corner” was originally a serial in Spellbound. When Spellbound merged with Debbie, Shudder Corner only lasted a few episodes, which is a bit surprising. However, Shudder Corner later resurfaced in the Debbie Picture Libraries and also scored an appearance in the 1984 Debbie annual.

The picture library completely restarts Shudder Corner at the beginning. The origin of the time travel torch is shown to the reader, rather than its powers being briefly explained with a text box before girls plunge into their latest adventure. This is an excellent move that quickly brings readers up to speed with the concept, and those who are not familiar with the original can just enjoy the time travel adventures in the picture library without even knowing its Spellbound origins. The altered origin is also more effective than the original, because it is much simpler, straightforward, and tying the lens directly with the shop makes more sense.

Storytelling about objects is not new. M&J’s “Jade Jenkins’ Stall” and “The Button Box” from Tammy both starred narrators who would tell the stories behind various objects, such as the items on Jade’s stall or the buttons in Bev’s box. But instead of narration, we see the story itself as the protagonists not only relive it but also become part of it, shaping the events themselves and the history of the object. This approach turns the concept into an adventure strip that makes it even more exciting. It also avoids the moralising and condescending tones that can permeate the narrative versions of “objects with a history” stories.

Time travelling to the moment in an object’s past is not a new concept. For example, Debbie had “Polly’s Patches”. Polly time travels to a period in the past in accordance with whichever patch she rubs on her trousers, which comes from that period. But while Polly is more of a lightweight story aimed at fun, Shudder Corner is a darker take on the concept, beginning with the shop itself. Its Tudor architecture makes it look creepy with the right atmosphere, and the name of the corner it stands on – Shudder Corner – makes it even more spine chilling.

When you enter the shop, a lot of those objects – such as a stuffed raven in a cage or a necklace in a goblet – can make the ambiance even creepier, especially when you enter the shop while it is dark. This is not surprising for a story that began in Spellbound, and it also gives Shudder Corner a bit more of an edge as a time travel story. The artwork of Norman Lee also lends itself brilliantly to the spooky vibes and the period settings the girls end up in. Lee has long experience in drawing both supernatural and period stories, so he is a sensible choice to draw Shudder Corner.

The girls always end up in trouble and even risk their lives in whatever period they land in. The torch always rescues them when it’s time to go home – but not before then. Until then, they are in constant danger while they relive the history of the object. It is a shame that Shudder Corner was not carried much further in Debbie.

Eve All Alone (1996)

23rd February 2016BuntyAbusive guardians, Period story, World War IImistyfan

Published: Bunty Picture Library #425

Artist: Unknown

Year: 1996

Plot

Gemma Halliday comes home from school one day to good news – her father’s company wants him and mum to spend the summer in Hong Kong. But the bad news is that Gemma can’t come as well. The company isn’t paying for her and the parents can’t afford it. Instead, Gemma will be spending the summer with Great Aunt Lyn in the country. Gemma is very disappointed to hear she won’t be going with her parents and is bracing herself for a summer holiday of boredom in the countryside with a great aunt she hardly knows.

Aunt Lyn is very nice, but Gemma still wishes to be with her parents, and her boredom increases when bad weather sets in. Aunt Lyn suggests she go up to the attic for something to read. Gemma is not hopeful that there will be anything decent to read, but is pleasantly surprised to come across an old diary. It starts in September 1939, when a twelve-and-a-half girl called Eve writes that she has just decided to start it.

Eve and her parents live in London. World War II has broken out, and there are tearful goodbyes to Dad as he departs to go into the army. Eve promises her father that she will look after Mum while he is away.

At school the teacher distributes letters for parents about children being evacuated to the countryside in case Germany bombs London. Mum declines the offer because she and Eve want to stay together. But then their home is destroyed in the Blitz. At this, Mum changes her mind and tells Eve that she is joining the next round of evacuees. Eve is horrified, but Mum is adamant. So Eve resolves to be brave and not cry over leaving her and going to an unknown fate.

Lunch interrupts Gemma’s reading. But now she is feeling less upset because her own separation from her parents is nowhere near as bad as Eve’s.

Upon the resumption, Gemma reads that at their destination, the evacuees were all taken in except Eve – Mrs McDonald, who was meant for her, has been taken ill. Evacuee organiser Mrs Barford hastily sets Eve up with Mrs Pettigrew, a reclusive-sounding woman living alone in a big house with a housekeeper.

Right from the start, Mrs Pettigrew’s is not the place Eve wants to be; the house looks “gloomy and scary”. Mrs Pettigrew herself “looks like a witch” and doesn’t behave much better. She has never welcomed lodgers – Mrs Barford virtually blackmails her into taking Eve by threatening to get her house commandeered for army barracks or hospital services if she refuses an evacuee.

But Mrs Pettigrew immediately goes to spiteful lengths to show Eve how unwelcome she is. She gives Eve the attic bedroom (tiny and cold) when the more kindly housekeeper offered her the more plush spare room. When the housekeeper offers Eve porridge for breakfast, Mrs Pettigrew directs her to make Eve’s porridge with water because she wants all the creamy milk. Then she forces Eve to do the washing up although Eve protests that it will make her late for school, and she suspects that was precisely Mrs Pettigrew’s intention.

Soon Mrs Pettigrew is making Eve work like a slave. All the while she allows Eve so little food that Eve cannot sleep for hunger, even though she is worn out because of the work. Added to that, Eve starts hearing strange noises (a door banging for no reason, mysterious footsteps) and Mrs Pettigrew starts winding her up about the house being haunted.

Meanwhile, an enemy plane is shot down and one of the pilots escapes. Now there is a manhunt for him and everyone is on the lookout, but so far the airman is evading capture.

In between reads, Gemma learns not to turn up her nose at food she doesn’t like (better than going to bed hungry like Eve), and introduces Aunt Lyn to bowling. She is delighted to see Aunt Lyn enjoying it and thinks her childhood must have been really boring. But Gemma can’t wait to get back to the diary; it is a riveting read now.

Now food goes missing. Mrs Pettigrew blames Eve and punishes her by allowing her no breakfast for a week, and the work gets harder. More food goes missing, but the kindly housekeeper agrees not to mention it to Mrs Pettigrew; she reckons Mrs Pettigrew is taking it herself. Where possible, the housekeeper shows Eve kindness.

Then Eve finds a man’s footprints on the kitchen floor she just cleaned, and they go straight to the larder. Eve realises there is a man creeping about in the house, which explains the strange noises and missing food. Assuming that Mrs Pettigrew is hiding the missing German airman, Eve goes to the police. But it is not the airman (who gets captured later) but Mrs Pettigrew’s son Peter. She had been hiding Peter in the cellar to keep him away from the fighting, but now he is arrested for “shirking”. Following this, Mrs Barford takes Eve away from Mrs Pettigrew, saying something else has turned up for her anyway.

And in the next village, Eve is surprised to be reunited with Mum! Mum didn’t like being on her own, so she got herself a job as a cook at a big house in the countryside in order to be with Eve again. They are going to stay there until the war ends – and there ends the diary. Gemma wishes she could know if Eve’s Dad ever came home.

But next day Gemma discovers that Eve is Aunt Lyn (Eve and Lyn are short for Evelyn). Aunt Lyn does not mind Gemma reading the diary one bit. Yes, Dad did come home, and there was “quite a to-do” when she exposed Mrs Pettigrew and Peter. Recalling her earlier assumptions about Aunt Lyn having a boring childhood, Gemma realises how wrong you can be about people.

Thoughts

This story is certainly a lesson in expectations and not making assumptions about anyone or anything until you know more about them. Gemma came in with expectations of a boring, miserable summer with no parents, and she came away with a whole new appreciation for the things she has, her aunt, and also family history. And Gemma reciprocated her aunt as well, such as introducing her to bowling for the first time in her life. So grownups can learn from kids as well.

It is also a story about two girls undergoing the pain of separation but being united through the diary. As Gemma reads, her own pain of separation lessens as she learns that there are others who are worse off than herself, including the girl she is reading about. Eve has no idea when – or even if – her father will return from the fighting. Then she loses her home in the Blitz and the forced separation from her mother to an uncertain fate as an evacuee. Things go from bad to worse when Eve endures starvation, drudgery and misery under the spiteful Mrs Pettigrew. Mrs Pettigrew’s motives for abusing Eve are more rounded than most adults who treat their charges badly in similar stories. She was clearly selfish and mean by nature, but she was also a reclusive woman who understandably resented having Eve forced upon her, and she was no doubt worried about her secret being discovered. But of course that is no excuse for her treatment of Eve or helping Peter with “shirking”. After the punishment of the Pettigrews, it’s a happy ending for Eve when her mother moves to the country to be with her. The diary is the stuff of fairy tales.

Eve All Alone is an engaging story and one you could read again and again. World War II is always a theme that can guarantee engrossing stories about emotion, separation, hardship, courage, adventure and warfare, and this one is no exception. It also reminds us that the war didn’t bring out the best in everyone, especially if they were not the best of people to begin with. Eve’s story as an evacuee still resonates even generations later in her family, and the lessons it teaches come across in a heart-warming manner that is not preachy.

Curiously, the son Peter has exactly the same name as a Harry Potter villain – Peter Pettigrew. Yet Eve came out three years before Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. An anticipatory moment or a popular choice of name?

Deceived! (1995)

16th February 2016M&Jboyfriends, Deception, J. Badesa, Two-Timermistyfan

Published: M&J #233 (28 October 1995) – #240 (16 December 1995)

Artist: J. Badesa

Plot

Amy Davis and Diane Carlton are best friends. Amy has a boyfriend called Gary. Diane has always fancied Gary too because she thinks he looks really nice. One day Amy and her family go away for a while because grandmother is ill. Amy asks Diane to deliver a message that she cannot meet Gary for their date that night because of this. Diane goes to tell Gary, while wishing it was a date with him instead. But it’s a dream come true for Diane when Gary offers to take her to the disco in Amy’s place, so as not to waste the tickets. Afterwards, she takes Gary for a treat in return.

Okay, so that’s innocent and reasonable enough – but then it leads to things that aren’t. Now Gary tells Diane he has gotten to like her and wants to go out with her properly. Diane is horrified because he is currently Amy’s boyfriend, and she does not want to hurt her best friend. But Gary gets around her with that nice smile of his, which she can’t say “no” to. She agrees to it, so long as Amy never gets hurt. Gary says Amy won’t get hurt because he will not dump her so he can go out with Diane freely; rather, he will carry on with Amy to keep her happy. In other words, he will two-time Amy by going out with her best friend behind her back. Diane knows it’s wrong, but she can’t help herself because “Gary’s just so nice!” (hmm, would a really nice boy suggest a thing like that?).

So while Amy is away, Diane goes out with Gary. Predictably, she gets herself more and more entangled in a horrible two-timing trap and webs of deceit and dishonesty towards her best friend. She cannot escape her guilty conscience, and there are constant reminders about the wrongs of what she is doing. For example, Diane finds an old toy that was a present from Amy for her 10^th birthday, and it was at that time that they swore to remain best friends forever. This makes Diane feel so guilty that she stands Gary up. Diane’s sister Marcie also gives her a hard time when she finds out (their parents don’t know).

And of course there is the constant fear of being found out; she knows Amy would never forgive her. Marcie knows and makes her disapproval clear, but she does not sneak. However, Diane has several close calls when seen with Gary, but fortunately for her she can explain them away.

However, stopping it is not easy. Several times Diane resolves to stop seeing Gary because it isn’t right while he is Amy’s boyfriend. But Gary always sweet talks her into continuing. Or something else occurs that stops Diane from speaking to Gary. Eventually, Gary suggests another way out of the mess: he will dump Amy and then he and Diane go out freely once Amy gets over it.

Then Amy returns early, and all of a sudden Gary says he cannot dump her. Amy is grieving because her grandmother died, and Diane assumes this is the reason Gary refused to dump Amy.

Amy goes away again, for the funeral. Diane resolves that this time she will not go out with Gary until he has finished with Amy. But Gary works his way around Diane again; she agrees to go out with him while Amy is absent, and he will finish with Amy upon her return so they can date freely.

However, while Diane is at Gary’s house, Amy phones him. Gary gets rid of her quickly, but Diane gets pangs of guilt and leaves, and decides not to go out with him again while Amy is away. But then Amy phones Diane, saying she suspects that Gary is two-timing her after she phoned him earlier. She asks Diane to keep an eye on Gary. So Diane decides she might as well carry on with Gary after all. She also informs Gary of what Amy suspects and instructed her to do.

Gary now dumps Amy. She is devastated of course, and she suspects it is because he is seeing another girl. Gary is now a free man, but Diane tells him to allow some time before they start dating freely. But she can’t resist phoning him, and he agrees to meet her in the coffee bar after seeing his mates.

Next day, Amy tells Diane that she saw Gary with another girl last night. Thinking Amy means her and Gary, Diane panics and blurts out an apology over what she did – which reveals her transgression! But it was not Diane that Amy saw with Gary – it was Tracey in the bowling alley, when Gary was seeing his ‘mates’. Diane now realises Gary has two-timed her as well!

But this does not make Amy forgive Diane. No, they are not “in the same boat” – Diane (and Tracey) had only been deceived by Gary; she, Amy, had been deceived by them both. Ah, so Diane could not help herself because Gary was so nice? It doesn’t sound like she tried. Diane loses her best friend forever, and knows she only has herself to blame.

Thoughts

There must have been a lot of readers wincing when they read this story; so many of them would have encountered a similar situation one way or other, or read about one in an agony aunt column or real-life story in a teen magazine. I myself once read a real-life story in a magazine where the correspondent did exactly the same thing as Diane and ended up the same way. Readers must have been screaming at Diane not to date her best friend’s boyfriend and, once things got sticky for Diane, to get the hell out of there before it’s too late. No doubt they would have followed the story in the hope that Diane would see the light and stop what she is doing in the nick of time.

From the start there are warning signs about Gary. To begin with, asking Diane to go out with him while he is already going out with her best friend is despicable. He does not express any guilt over it either, nor does he respect Diane’s bad feelings about going through with it. That nice smile and smooth talk of his that keep getting around Diane are ominous signs of a master manipulator. Diane thinks he is so nice, but does not stop to think that a really nice boy would never do a thing like that to his girlfriend. It does not help that she has always fancied Gary herself; no doubt it would have been a factor in her not trying hard enough to say no to Gary. It is no surprise at all that Gary two-times Diane as well; all the red flags have been there that Gary is a creep and a love rat in the making. He probably makes a regular habit of stringing several girls along at once.

The ending is strong and realistic. There are no deux ex machina resolutions that extricate Diane from the whole ghastly mess she has gotten herself into without losing Amy’s friendship and give her a happy ending to her story. It could have ended with Diane finding out about the two-timing herself, chucking Gary, and she carries on with Amy. It could have ended with Diane finally putting her foot down with Gary. Or it could have ended with Diane falling for another boy and dumping Gary to go out with him instead. But it does nothing of the sort.

Diane does not get away with it, nor does she receive the glib forgiveness that so many serials have ended with. Nor does she get out of the situation with her friend never finding out and they carry on being best friends. No, the friend finds out and is so hurt and betrayed that she never wants to see her again – just as it would have been (and is) in real life. This is what makes the story so effective, and a sterling warning to any readers who might be tempted to go out with their best friend’s boyfriend.

That Girl Next Door! (1986)

15th February 2016MandyMandy Picture Library, schemers, Troublemakersmistyfan

Appeared: Mandy Picture Library #105

Published: 1986

Artist: Unknown

Plot

Twelve-year-old Jennifer Jack is the most popular girl in the neighbourhood because she has a sunny personality and is well known for her helpfulness, kindness and cheeriness. She also bears a lot of responsibility for her age because her mother is an invalid and there is no father (his absence is not explained). She has to collect her younger sister Cindy from school, do the shopping, cook the tea, manage the house, and do a paper round, and it is all on a limited income for the Jacks. But she does not complain; she is always positive and brings a smile to everyone else. She also does a lot of favours for people and participates in plenty of community work.

Yes, Jennifer Jack is hardly the type of girl to make an enemy. But things begin to change when the antithesis to Jennifer moves in next door…

Her name is Freda Lindsay. Everyone says the Lindsays are lucky to have the Jacks for neighbours and Freda and Jennifer are sure to be great friends. Mrs Lindsay is impressed at how nice and helpful Jennifer is – she even welcomes the Lindsays with some freshly made tea.

But what nobody realises is that Freda is the opposite of Jennifer. She is surly, unpleasant and selfish. She has no thought for others, never helps anyone and loathes the very idea of helping. She doesn’t even help around the house. Freda is snobby too; she wants to go to the posh-sounding Woodgrove Academy, not the “common” Billenhall Comprehensive. But once Mum and Dad hear about Billenhall being Jennifer’s school and its community service scheme, they settle on Billenhall for Freda, with Freda in Jennifer’s form. Freda does not intend to stay for long, though; she means to find a way to transfer to Woodgrove.

Freda can’t stand Jennifer being such a goody-two shoes, and how everyone keeps putting her on a pedestal and praising her virtues. Worse, she hates how her mother keeps comparing her unfavourably to Jennifer – “Why can’t you be more like Jennifer Jack?” – and nagging her about being more helpful and considerate like Jennifer. But of course it is having the opposite effect – causing Freda to react against Jennifer and downright hate her. However, Freda does not express her hatred openly. Instead she keeps her hatred of Jennifer to herself while pretending to be friendly with her.

At first Freda pretty much strings Jennifer along with her phoney friendship, hoping to take advantage of her. It looks promising, because once the other pupils think she is Jennifer’s friend, they go to extra lengths to be nice and friendly to her too. And Jennifer is a good friend – she even helps Freda against some boys who start picking on her once they realise what a snob Freda is: “You Billenhall scruff!” But Jennifer doesn’t know Freda had deliberately provoked the scrap in the hopes her parents would remove her from Billenhall, and now she hates Jennifer even more for ruining it.

Then, once Freda has had enough of the high praises for Jennifer, she sets out to undermine Jennifer’s popularity and takes advantage of their ‘friendship’ to secretly cause trouble for her. Even before this, Freda had made an early start by manipulating Jennifer into keeping her company while shopping, although Jennifer protests she has an appointment to pick apples for Mr Benson. As a result, Jennifer runs late and Mr Benson breaks his leg while trying to pick the apples himself.

Now Freda starts in earnest by tagging along while Jennifer helps out a pensioner (a drag for Freda, who can’t stand participating in charity or helping other people), and makes sure Jennifer ‘loses’ the pension – which Freda will ‘find’ later and steal the credit. Later, when they take a toddler for a walk, Freda arranges a near ‘accident’ for the child that Jennifer gets the blame for. Sure enough, Jennifer’s reputation begins to suffer. She finds herself reduced to reserve on the school community service rota, while her sister Cindy finds nobody wants to play with her all of a sudden.

But Mum is still comparing Freda unfavourably to Jennifer and rubbing her nose into how helpful Jennifer is, while Freda is selfish and won’t help anyone. Resenting this, Freda decides to work harder on Jennifer, and plots to have Jennifer mess up her mother’s birthday. She talks Mrs Jack into letting Jennifer go to the disco that is scheduled for the same night, while making an enormous fuss over her own mother for her birthday. As planned, this has Mrs Lindsay thinking badly of Jennifer for apparently neglecting her mother’s birthday, and she spreads the word around.

However, Freda finds that Jennifer’s helpfulness is still making her popular at school and decides she needs to work on that. She vandalises scenery and puts the blame on Jennifer, which gets her into trouble with the headmaster. However, the pupils are still friendly with Jennifer, so Freda finds sneaky ways to turn them against her. These include spreading gossip that Jennifer is blamed for, and causing her to hold up the swimming class so there is not enough time for long distance swimming tests. These and other tricks achieve Freda’s design: Jennifer is sent to Coventry, and thinking that Freda is a good friend who sticks by her in all the trouble. Freda’s tricks have her pinching all of Jennifer’s friends as well. To ingratiate herself with them further, she invites them to a party.

Despite everything, Mrs Lindsay still compares Freda unfavourably with Jennifer. When Mrs Lindsay does it again, Freda pulls out her big guns to destroy Jennifer completely. She pilfers some of her classmates’ belongings to convey the impression there is a thief around. Once that is established, she sets out to pin the blame on Jennifer by stealing money from a school charity collection box and planting the box in Jennifer’s desk.

Following this, Freda carelessly bumps into two boys. This causes their mouse cage to burst open, and the mice get away. The boys are further outraged when selfish Freda refuses to help them catch the mice that she is responsible for being loose. Little does she know what the consequences of this will be…

Next day, Freda’s plan works: Jennifer is blamed for stealing the money when the charity box is found in her desk, and she is suspended from school. The pupils think Jennifer stole the other items as well. Freda is confident her parents will stop comparing her with Jennifer and send her to Woodgrove.

But there is one thing Freda overlooked…

And it comes to light when the mice boys take revenge by planting spiders in Freda’s schoolbag. In class, Freda gets such a fright at the spiders that she drops her schoolbag on the floor and the items spill out – including the items that Freda had pilfered from her classmates. She had forgotten to dispose of that evidence and carelessly left it in her schoolbag! Seeing this, the pupils realise Freda is the thief. In the headmaster’s office, Freda confesses to all the thefts and is expelled.

Jennifer is back in favour with everyone and now knows the reason for the trouble she has been having. She is relieved that soon she won’t be living next door to her enemy – the Lindsays are moving out. So Freda never gets her party or sets foot in Woodgrove Academy.

Thoughts

Girls who secretly cause trouble for another (out of jealousy, spite, personal gain or revenge) are one of the most frequent formulas in DCT titles. Stories with the theme appeared constantly in DCT. Mandy herself didn’t go past many weeks without running such a story. But no matter how many times the theme would appear, what would hook the reader into the story was to see how the troublemaker would be caught out. Would someone get suspicious and set a trap for her? Would she make a mistake that would catch her out, as was the case with Freda? Or would she repent? All these things have happened with this type of story.

Both Freda and Jennifer are more rounded characters for this type of story than most (the victim is nice but naïve and the villain just plain spiteful). No doubt this is because they are deliberately set up as polar opposites to each other, and we even see the psychology and background that goes into it. Freda’s background clearly plays a huge role in making her the selfish person she is. Her parents are wealthy and it looks like they have spoiled her. They don’t seem to have encouraged her to help around the home; it’s only after Mrs Lindsay sees Jennifer’s example that she starts making suggestions to Freda about helping out more. Pushing Freda towards Jennifer in the hope it will make Freda a better person must have also played a huge role in the parents’ decision to send Freda to Billenhall.

But Mrs Lindsay’s constant nagging to Freda about Jennifer and comparing Freda with her all the time was a bad mistake. Anyone who knows about human psychology can tell you it is more likely to have the opposite effect and cause the person to build up feelings of resentment towards the person they are being compared to. This is precisely what happens with Freda. So Mrs Lindsay must take some of the blame for Freda’s spiteful campaign to destroy Jennifer.

It is more likely that the shock and shame of being caught and expelled would change Freda, but we don’t know for sure. We are shown a panel of her in tears (for the first and only time in the story) in the headmaster’s office, but no thought bubbles of what is going through her mind. And this is the last panel in which she appears. But it shows her crying, not arrogant or defiant, so we are left with a hint that she will never be the same selfish girl again.

Even the appearances of the two girls emphasise how different they are. Freda is blonde and has a long, beaky nose that also hints at what a toffee-nose she is. Jennifer is dark-haired and has a short nose. The artist who brings their differences to life is not known, but was a mainstay on the Mandy team for pretty much all of Mandy’s life. His/her style lent itself well to science fiction, humour, school and family stories. He or she drew “Slave to the Space Princess”, “Copy Kate!”, and “The Sorrows of Laughing Anne” among others. “Glenda the Guide” marked the end of his or her run.

Although this is never explicitly stated, jealousy must have also played a part in Freda’s hatred of Jennifer. It is quite likely that Freda was jealous of Jennifer for being so popular with everyone – something Freda is not likely to have ever been.

Jennifer not only arouses admiration but sympathy as well, and not just because of Freda’s campaign against her. It is because Jennifer has to bear a lot of responsibility at home as her invalid mother is incapable of doing housework. We see Jennifer doing all the housework, the cooking, collecting her sister, shopping – and she is only twelve! Sure, Jennifer’s personality enables her to take it all cheerfully, but it would be fairer to Jennifer for the household to get some home help in looking after her mother. Plus, there are all the favours she does, the paper round (hmm, shouldn’t she be 14 before she can have a paper round?), and the community work. They must eat up a lot of her time, though she loves doing it and everyone (well, nearly everyone) loves her for it. At least we are given a hint that eventually Mrs Jack will return to health and take over from Jennifer again; the doctor said that all she needed was rest.

But like so many good-natured people, Jennifer tends to be naïve, over-trusting, and easy to be taken advantage of. These are the qualities that Freda uses to lure her into several of her traps that are so cunningly and insidiously crafted that it is difficult for anyone to even realise that it is a trick. One example is where Freda makes Jennifer late for her apple-picking appointment with Mr Benson by pleading with her to come along: “Please, Jenny! I’m so bored here all on my own. Looking around the town wouldn’t take long and I could help you with the apples afterwards.” But of course Freda has no intention of helping Jennifer with the apples, and no doubt she found sly ways to keep Jennifer in town past the appointed time.

Just two things mar the story. The first is Jennifer being twelve years old. Legally, that is too young for her to have a job, so how can she have a paper round at all? Adding a couple of years to her age (or not stating her age) would have made more sense, and also made it more reasonable for her to have such responsibility at her age. Second, the day Freda takes the charity collection box is “on Friday morning”. This cannot be correct because two more school days follow (the first for Jennifer’s suspension and the second for Freda’s expulsion). It would have been more logical for Freda to take the box on, say “Wednesday morning” or not state the day at all. Otherwise, this is an engaging story, which extends beyond the average formula of a spiteful girl causing trouble for an unsuspecting innocent one to convey a stark lesson not to rub someone’s nose in it by comparing them with another person all the time.

The Long Sleep (1968)

14th February 2016MandyLen Potts, schemers, Sleeping Beauty, time travelmistyfan

Plot

In 1668 (updated to 1675 and then 1683 in the reprints), 14-year-old Trudy Wain is taking a legal document to a lawyer in Chesterton. On the way, she gets lost and comes across an empty cottage. She pricks her finger on a spinning wheel and falls asleep for 300 years, waking up in 1968 (1975) Chesterton. Time shock and culture shock ensue, both for her and those who see her, and Trudy is also shocked to see her parents’ graves. She is taken in by the Carrs, and proves useful in identifying genuine 17th-century artefacts for Mr Carr at auctions.

The document Trudy was taking to the lawyer proved her father’s ownership of a certain piece of land. This happens to be the land that the Carrs are now renting from a nasty landlord, Mr Hamble, who will stop at nothing to evict them. However, the legality of the document is accepted and makes Trudy the nominal landlady of the Carrs. She just lets them have the property, and they ask Trudy to become a member of their family.

Notes

Artist: Len Potts

Appeared

The Long Sleep – Mandy: #76 (29 June 1968) – #85 (31 August 1968)
Reprinted – Mandy: #456 (11 October 1975) – #469 (10 January 1976)
Reprinted – (?) – #883 (17 December 1983)

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