When Linda Lee’s father, Charlie, re-married, she discovered that her snooty new stepsister, Carol, was opposed to the match and was out to discredit Linda’s dad. Secretly, Linda became her father’s guardian angel and did all she could to prevent Carol from causing him trouble.
The girl with no name lived a life of drudgery a prisoner of Sir Clifford and Lady Manning, who kept a wild-life park. Her only friend was Tomb, a chimp. When Delia Greenwood, a newcomer to the area, had visited the house with her father, a blacksmith, to shoe the Mannings’ horses, the girl tried to pass her message which was intercepted by Sir Clifford.
In the days of the ancient Britons, Messalina Potts tried to save her dad’s black pudding lunch by hiding aboard the galley of Captain Antonius the slave trader – and found herself heading for Ostia, a part of ancient Rome. The Emperor Nero thought the black pudding was a powerful magic charm and locked it in a treasure vault.
Jill Danvers brilliantly clever attended St Hilda school where her cousin Marie blackmailed her into doing badly in her own lessons, while doing Marie’s schoolwork for her. Marie had a letter accusing Jill’s father of theft and Jill was desperate to try and get the letter back.
A short panel humour strip about a girl named Beryl who is a wiz at computers. It ran for a short time and appeared at the end of the letters page.
T
he Treasury of British Comics from Rebellion continue to release a wide variety of books, which are always a treat to receive. This latest addition is a book of stories from the Cat Girl series that first appeared in the Sally comic. We are given a lot here, with four adventures from that comic, a story from the Sally 1971 Annual and the newest Cat Girl story that appeared in the Tammy & Jinty 2020 special, as well as an article on artist Giorgio Giorgetti.
While Cat Girl first appeared in 1969 in Sally until its end in 1971 and then only appeared for a short time in Tammy when Sally comic merged with it, the character obviously made a lasting impression. More recent revivals saw a version of the character in The Vigilant: Legacy comic and as mentioned, the Tammy & Jinty special where her daughter takes up the mantle. John Freeman over two years ago made a case for a collection on his website here: downthetubes.net and it seems Rebellion publishers have taken note and released a collection.
Characters dressing as cats to fight crime were common in these comics, Diana had The Laughing Cats – twins who dressed as cats and used their agile ballet skills to help them investigate crime and Bunty had Catch the Cat! – where a girl, Marie, dons a cat costume in order to secretly fight against the Nazis with the French Resistance. Certainly there is an appeal to these costumed crime fighters and an agile cat seems a perfect choice to represent them. Unlike the aforementioned series, in Cat Girl – Cathy Carter doesn’t have a natural agility or gymnastic abilities, all her powers come directly from the suit, and we see instances when she has it off and she can’t even manage a handstand! The mysterious suit doesn’t get much of an explanation, she finds it in the attic a present sent from Africa by an associate of her private detective father and we never delve further into it in this collection. After she tries it on she finds she acts more cat-like, with enhanced senses, agility and quickness. She uses it to help her absent-minded father on his cases in secret. While Cathy is trying to help catch criminals (often been led by the nefarious Eagle) and there are tricky situations she find herself in, it is also light-hearted in tone, with humourous expressions done by Giorgetti. The stories are fast paced and fun, episodes generally ending on cliffhanger to keep you turning the pages!
The stories covered in this collection showcase Cathy’s first appearance where she discovers the suit and helps her father foil a robbery orchestrated by the Eagle. The next story the Eagle is back and this time he has his sights on a train. After that Cathy infiltrates a theatre to try and recover stolen jewels, next sees her completely change locations as she helps take down a blackmailing gang in South America. Lastly an adventure at the circus as she tries to find out who has a vendetta against one of the trapeze artists. While these are all the classic adventures of Cathy the book’s opening story is actually Cat Girl Returns from the Tammy & Jinty special, where we see a grown up Cathy now a police officer and her daughter Claire discovering the cat suits powers when she uses it for a costume part and helps foil a kidnapping. It’s a fun continuation for the story.
Other than the story an appeal of this collection will be the art of Georgio Giorgetti, which is gorgeous to look at. It is very expressive and he captures all Cathy’s acrobatics and cat-like tendencies perfectly. Included in the back of this collection is article about the artist, this first appeared in the Tammy & Jinty special but it is fitting to add it here too. While I did get the paperback version (which has a cover done by Elkys Nova, who also drew the new story following Cathy’s daughter Claire), the Treasury of British Comics shop does have a lovely hardback addition with Giorgetti’s design. With a growing catalogue of books it will be difficult to afford all the wonderful collections that are available, but this one was a definite must for me and I have not been disappointed.
Fiona Taylor wins a Miss Popularity contest sponsored by a perfume company, to promote a new teen perfume named Popularity. However, an unknown enemy starts causing trouble for Fiona at the functions she attends and even turns her friends against her. Fiona suspects Amanda Brown, who was upset at losing the contest, but finds Amanda isn’t around when some of the damage occurs.
When the Islanders of lonely Inisban off the wild Irish Coast rescued a ship’s doctor, Micheal O’Meara, from the sea they decided to keep him prisoner to doctor them, helped by Pegean Myne who was versed in herbal lore.
Nell Norton’s ambition was to be a newspaper reporter when she left school and she was getting in some practice on her local paper, the Daily Clarion.
The seven Knight sisters helped their widowed mother to run the Oakfield Hotel. Their mother married again, and while the parents were away on honeymoon, the girls’ new step-brother, Simon, arrived, bringing problems.
