Category Archives: Bunty

Bimbo and her Baby / Bimbo

Bunty,

Plot:

Bimbo, a french girl, is living on her own in Paris having just finished school. She finds a baby abandoned on a park bench and decides to take him home and care for him. She calls the baby Tiny and she gets some help looking after him from her landlady Madame Bourjou, a rich lady Madame Cotin, and her old school teacher Monsieur Minet. Eventually they find a permanent home for Tiny

She returns in a sequel, simply called Bimbo where she works for an advertising agency, and is given the job of selling a new type of glue.

Notes:

Appeared:

  • Bimbo and her Baby –  Bunty: #01 (18 January 1958) – #22 (14 June 1958)
  • Bimbo – Bunty: #37 (27 September 1958) – #50 (27 December 1958)

Lyn Raymond – Air Stewardess

Bunty, ,

Plot:

The story follows career girl Lyn Raymond on her job as an air stewardess. Lyn is a quick thinker and problem solver and gets into many adventures in her job.

Notes:

  • Text story – Spot art by Ron Forbes
  • It was later updated to a picture story.

Appeared:

  • Lyn Raymond – Air Stewardess (text story)-  Bunty: #01 (18 January 1958) –  #9 (15 March 1958)
  • Lyn Raymond – Air Stewardess (text story)-  Bunty: #31 (16 August 1958)
  • Lyn Raymond – Air Stewardess (picture story)-  Bunty: #37 (27 September 1958) – #50 (27 December 1958)

 

Other Appearances:

  • Lyn Raymond – Air Stewardess – Bunty Annual 1960

 

The Girl of the Islands

Bunty

Plot:

After a storm a toddler is washed up near the Pacific island of Tekalo, the  girl is raised by a tribal queen, Zemba, who names her Marina. The only clue to her past is a locket with miniature picture of a lady, which she assumes is her mother. She hopes one day to be reunited with her parents.

Notes:

  • Artist: James Walker

Appeared:

  • The Girl of the Islands –  Bunty: #01 (18 Jan 1958) – #18 (17 May 1958)

 

Uncle Tom’s Cabin

Bunty

Plot:

An adaptation of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s anti-slavery novel.  A Kentucky farmer Arthur Shelby, facing debt, decides to sell two enslaved people, Uncle Tom and young Harry, to a slave trader.  When Eliza, Harry’s mother, overhears the plan and fears losing her only surviving child, she escapes that night with her son, making a perilous journey across the icy Ohio River toward freedom. Meanwhile, Uncle Tom is sold “down the river” and transported south, on the journey he saves the life of a white child, Eva, leading her grateful father, Augustine St. Clare, to buy Tom and take him to New Orleans.

Notes:

  • Artist: Paddy Brennan
  • Writer: Harriet Beecher Stowe
  • The tagline for the first episode states “Here we present to you — a world famous story, in pictures drawn by a famous artist” (though they still do not credit artist!)

Appeared:

  • The Story in Pictures of Uncle Tom’s Cabin –  Bunty: #01 (18 Jan 1958) – #20 (31 May 1958)

 

School’s Out!

Bunty, ,

Plot

Follows the lives, families, romances and friendships of a group of students  including Patti Wheeler, Ellie Lane, Deepa Shastri, and Gladys Bates.

school's out

Notes

  • Artist: Terry Aspin

Appeared

  • School’s Out!–  Bunty: #1553 (17 October 1987) – #1649 (19 August 1989)

Other Appearances

Annual Appearances

  • School’s Out! –  Bunty Annual 1989 [Art: Terry Aspin]
  • School’s Out! –  Bunty Annual 1990 [Art: Terry Aspin]
  • The K.O. Kids – Bunty Annual 1991 [Art: Terry Aspin]

Summer Specials

  • School’s Out! –  Bunty Summer Special 1988 [Art: Terry Aspin]
  • School’s Out! –  Bunty Summer Special 1989 [Art: Terry Aspin]

The Millpark Mystery! \ Help….

Bunty, Mandy, , , ,
  • M240_millpark_mysteryThe Millpark Mystery! – Mandy PSL: #240 (1996)
  • Artist: Carlos Freixas

Plot

Three friends Ruth, Anne and Teri are starting a new school after their old school closes down. They are a bit nervous about their first day and it does not start out well. They have a run in with a group of troublemakers, led by a girl named Mel.  They don’t make a good impression with the other students either or with one of the teachers, Mrs. Stead.  The only highlight of their first day is for Anne who is a computer fanatic, she is happy to see that Millpark has better computer facilities than their old school. The girls think they will get in more trouble when another teacher catches them in the computer room. They are pleasantly surprised when Miss. Brown is friendly with them, she is a French teacher and while she says she doesn’t know much about computers but she does encourage Anne’s interest.

The next day they run into the two girls Mel and Patti, but are surprised when some other girls come to their defence. Even Mrs Stead turns out to be more friendly, she was just stressed the first day. They still think Miss Brown is the nicest teacher and are surprised to hear that no other students or teachers seem to like her. They see a different side to Miss Brown when she sticks up for Mel’s gang over their new friends and later they see her giving money to Mel. They follow Miss Brown and see her going for French lessons. They decide they have to solve this mystery. Miss Brown seeing them nosing around, tells them she’s not really a teacher but a policewoman, undercover.

millpark_04

Although she doesn’t tell them what she’s investigating the girl’s suspect it has something to do with Mel. Later Anne meets Mel at computer shop and gets talking to her, she tells her that Miss Brown buys her games, one is particularly difficult where you play a hacker. When they are at the school and see police talking about fraud, they see Miss Brown is ready to make a run for it and a phone call proves she is not actually a policewoman. The girls get Mel and her gang to delay Miss Brown while they get the police. Realising Miss Brown was going to let Mel take the fall for the money fraud, Mel is grateful to the girls. The girls are glad to settle into Millpark, although Anne has been put off computers knowing that she must have been  Miss Brown’s second choice to use her computer skills.

Help….

  • B347_helpHelp… – Bunty PSL: #347 (1992)
  • Artist: Eduardo Feito

Plot

Leon a computer whizz, has gone missing. While everyone believes he ran off due to school pressure, his brother Rick thinks that something has happened to him. He confides in Kim of his theory and later in computer studies she believes him. when she sees a message from Leon on her computer screen, it says “Help my name is Leon I am being held prisoner”.  Unfortunately instead of taking the time to read the rest of the message, she runs to show Rick the message but it has disappeared by the time they comes back. Neither her friend Zoe nor teacher Mr. King believe it was there. Kim and Rick have a lead as they know the message came from a striped disk.  Having met the delivery guy earlier, they track him down, and find out that there was 6 disks altogether, 3 were delivered to the school, another 2 to a scientist and the last one to a hospital.

Both Kim and Rick work together to try and find the disks. They find the second disk at the school but it is blank. They track down the scientist, but he wiped the disks as he thought the message was just some game. Kim is reluctant to go to the hospital as her mother works there. Also she worries that Rick’s interest in her is only because he wants her to help him. When she finds his notebook, she finds out a bit more about Rick’s relationship with his brother. He was jealous of Leon and he hopes he can find him and put things right between them. He also mentions how he feels about Kim and wishes they could go out under normal circumstances.  This is enough to convince Kim to sneak around the hospital.

help_01

They find the message from Leon and discover Mr. King is involved with the kidnappers who want Leon to crack a bank code. Before they can read the message further they have to hide from a woman coming into the room. She accidentally spills coffee onto the disk ruining it. Rick and Kim are caught and Kim gets in trouble with her mother. They are taken to see the headmaster, coincidentally at the same time his secretary is about to use the last disk. Seeing the message, Leon is rescued, Mr King is arrested and of course Kim and Rick don’t get into any trouble now the full story is known.

Thoughts

These two short stories have some similarities as they are both set around school and have computer related mysteries. Both seem to have the theme that if a teacher takes an interest in your computer skills you should not trust them! Also both the antagonists are also using computers to try and hack banks.

help_03millpark_03

In The Millpark Mystery the jumping point for the mystery is Miss Brown’s behaviour and the computer references are more in the background. Early on there is a newspaper headline about money being wrongly transferred into someone’s account. Both Mel and Anne are computer geeks and of course Miss Brown takes quite an interest in the girls computers skills. Miss Brown seems to have a better plan in place than Mr. King. She has a good cover in pretending to be clueless about computers, and has already got Mel set up to be the fall girl. When the girls start investigating her, she is quick to come up with the story of being an undercover police woman.

millpark_02

Meanwhile Help… jumps straight into the mystery with Leon missing and Kim and Rick having to try and track down the disks with his message. Unlike Miss Brown,  he has no pretence of being nice, Mr King’s nickname is Cannibal King and he looks very shady from the start.  I’m not sure what his plan with Leon was after he got the bank code, presumably he would have him killed as he could identify him, or maybe once he had the money he figured he could skip the country, still it’s not as neat as Miss Brown’s plan.

In Millpark, I like Anne’s attempt to connect with Mel over their common interest, even after the girls think Miss Brown is investigating her. She thinks someone that likes computers can’t be all bad! The girl’s are all very active in trying to discover what is Miss Brown’s story.  Meanwhile Kim’s motives for trying to track down the disks are a bit more blurry. Understandably she’s a bit cautious about wanting to find the hospital disks as she doesn’t want to get into trouble. But a lot of her motive seems to be about Rick rather than helping Leon.  She is worried that Rick is only using her to help find his brother and that he doesn’t really like her as a girlfriend. Once she reads his notepad she is happy to go to the hospital.  It seems a bit self centred, shouldn’t she want to help someone who’s been kidnapped regardless of Rick’s feelings for her!

help_04

I suppose it is a typical teenage reaction (although it is under unusual circumstances). Another teenage response from Kim is she doesn’t tell her parents about the disks so when she gets caught sneaking around the hospital of course she gets in trouble. It’s funny that once the truth comes out, the mother is like if she told her the story from the beginning then she would have gone and gotten the hospital disk for Kim herself! Maybe she should have given her parents more credit!

Both stories are nice little mystery/ adventure stories. The art is fine in both, but I do like Feito’s extra work put into the backgrounds. Of the two stories, I think, Miss Brown makes the better more craftier antagonist. As for the protagonists I think the Millpark girls also win due to Kim being more concerned about her potential romance than Leon. That said I do like Rick, he obviously feels guilty about being jealous and not supportive of his brother. It’s nice that they have a good talk (although it’s off-panel) after Leon is rescued. I also liked the plot of them trying to track down the disks. The story does play up the romance angle, which isn’t bad, it just sometimes makes Kim look like she should get some priorities straight.  I prefer the ending of Help… with her and Rick together rather than Millpark’s  oddly anti-computer message.

millpark_01

Balloon of Doom

Bunty, Lucky Charm, ,
  • Balloon of Doom – #981 (30 October 1976) – #1003 (2 April 1977)
  • Reprinted – Bunty:  #1468 (01 March 1986) – #1489 (26 July 1986)
  • Reprinted – Lucky Charm #3 (1979)
  • Artist:  Robert MacGillivray

Plot

Katherine Wilson’s younger sister, Sarah, arrives home one day with a sinister looking balloon. Sarah describes the balloon as a wizard, and it makes Katherine very uneasy to be around. Some strange weather starts to occur soon after the Balloon’s arrival. The family have to evacuate their house for a time after flooding hits the town. Katherine is the only person to suspect the Balloon in these strange weather occurrences.  She tries to get rid of the Balloon, but finds that she can’t burst it like a normal balloon, and she ends up getting in trouble when she tries. Such as when she catapults a stone at it, the stone bounces off and breaks a church window. Her attempts to burst it only anger the Balloon and it retaliates against her.

When the Wilson’s return home after the flooding  things don’t get any better. Katherine keeps having dreams about a genie, but she doesn’t understand how they can help her. Sarah is turning into a greedy and malicious child. She gets the Balloon to steal a bike for her and it is implied that the Balloon to set fire to the bike shop because the owner wasn’t nice to her.  She also threatens Katherine, because with the “wizard” she can do whatever she wants.

 ballon of doom_01

About halfway into the serial there is shift in the story when Sarah gets sick and Katherine agrees to look after the Balloon. Soon Katherine actually begins to feel sorry for it and though it continues to cause destruction, she believes it isn’t evil. Part of this change of heart is after it saves her life. In the meantime, Katherine’s cousin Nita has come to stay. She is a bit of a Know-It-All, and she is suspicious that Katherine is hiding something. The Balloon seems to have an aversion to bottles, so Nita comes up with her theory that there is a poltergeist in the house, after several bottles smash while she’s holding them. Katherine accidentally discovers that tying a knot in the Balloon leaves it powerless, but Nita while snooping around, unties it and is carried off by the Balloon.

ballon of doom_05

Katherine goes to stay with her aunt in London, while there she visits a professor for advice. Katherine has the Balloon string knotted again, to keep it powerless but the professor unties it and is carried off by the Balloon. Later at her aunts flat, Katherine loses her temper with the Balloon, after he smashes a precious vase of her aunts. It fixes the vase, so Katherine again thinks it can’t be all bad.  Katherine gets arrested, due to suspicion of involvement with the professor’s disappearance. The Balloon causes more trouble by stealing a plane with the Prime Minister on board. He then breaks Katherine out of jail and she finally gets to communicate with the Balloon, previous to this it had started writing messages, but now it actually talks. Apparently it hasn’t spoken before as “words are weapons of your world”. Katherine points out all the destruction it’s caused, it apparently can’t help the destruction because it is in conflict with our world’s elements. It needs to be attached to a human and not be rejected to stay in control. It does try and redeem itself by saving a family trapped in a fire.

ballon of doom_06

It then takes her to a mountain where Nita, the professor and the Prime Minister and all the other passengers are all safe. The Balloon is actually a little alien, who’s ship crashed on the way to Venus. His whole alien race were relocating in a small ship filled with bottles. He took the form of the balloon to fit in on earth, but if he got trapped in any bottle he would be helpless, which is why he was scared of bottles. He needs to trust  Katherine to put him in the ships spare phial and lock it into the correct position to re-power the ship. Katherine does this and he flies away, thanking her. A rescue helicopter arrives soon after that.

ballon of doom_07

Thoughts

The art is great, the balloon really feels threatening, especially in the larger panels when it is given more space. Often the Balloon takes up the majority of the panel, making it look like a very looming threat. Also very effective, is in its original printing, the use of red on the balloon really makes it stand out. Something of note is the reprinted Lucky Charm version is just all black and white and there are some slight changes. Obviously the recap boxes are gone as it is told in one story, but there is also some dialogue missing as well, nothing major, but interesting to note the differences. One example of this is when Katherine is thinking “It’s following us! I knew it was evil. But where is it from?” the next line; “And what is it’s sinister plan?” is left out.

ballon of doom_02

The first half of the story does great at building up the balloon as a serious threat. Even Katherine’s dreams about a genie are quite creepy. In her dream she tries to make a wish and the genie tells her he can’t grant any good wishes as he is an evil genie. Parallel to this Sarah has the Balloon grant her wishes but these involve stealing and hurting dogs! The Balloon continues to look sinister and cause destruction.  So after all that has happened in the first part of the story, it’s a bit jarring to have him turn into a misunderstood character that we are supposed to feel sorry for. When he attacks a helicopter with Katherine in it, his expression looking down on the wreckage is clearly him looking pleased. The pilot dies in this crash, so basically by the end of the story we are meant to sympathise with a killer!

ballon of doom_03

All his actions are supposed to be explained away, as being in conflict with earth’s element makes him destructive. But this again doesn’t explain Sarah’s actions.  If a human grounds him, then why was she acting so malicious? Either Sarah was too young to ground him and was being influenced by his (unintentional) destructive nature or else she is just a brat on her own! There is no resolution for this plot point, as suddenly Sarah gets a tummy ache and is never seen again.

ballon of doom_04

Some other plot issues, is the Balloon/alien’s unwillingness to communicate at first, with the vague reasoning that words are destructive, when he’s been going around destroying houses and killing people. Also towards the end, the Balloon takes the plane with the Prime Minister which really seems unnecessary. The only thing it contributes to the story, is that the rescue helicopter at the end finds Katherine and the others after seeing the plane on the mountain. I’m sure there was another way around getting Katherine and Nita rescued.

It’s some of those plot points that makes me think that initially the story was going in a different direction and the writer/editor decided to change it partway through for some reason. I do find it amusing that such an ominous looking balloon turns out to be a very cute looking alien! I do like a lot of the bizarre elements in this story, the balloon itself, the genie dreams, strange weather and the time the balloon left Katherine in the Sahara desert! The first half of the story is definitely the strongest part but it is still a good read and like I said before the art is great throughout.

Hateful Harriet \ “Be Nice to Nancy!”

Bunty, Judy, M&J, ,

Girls comics were full of bullying, blackmail and nasty girls. As evidenced in this interesting article: http://www.booksmonthly.co.uk/bully.html. So I thought I’d take a look at some of these, starting with two similar stories:

Hateful Harriet

  • Hateful Harriet–  Bunty:  #668 (31 Oct 1970) – # 677 (02 Jan 1971)
  • Reprinted- Bunty: #1164 (03 May 1980) – #1173 (05 July 1980)
  • Art: Andy Tew

Plot

Peg Roberts has to keep Harriet Marlowe out of trouble in school, or else her widowed mother will be fired by middle manager, Mr. Carrick.  Harriet has been expelled from many schools, and is sent to live with the Roberts as well. At the same time as this, Peg   is competing for a drama scholarship, which also relies on her getting a good character reference from her teachers. Of course Harriet causes Peg all sorts of trouble, and has the teachers fooled that she is a sweet girl.   Mrs. Roberts can’t do anything to help as she is also at the beck and call of Harriet. Finally Harriet gets caught out and expelled and Mr. Carrick  fires Mrs. Roberts. Luckily for her she gets a job in a travel agents. Harriet is to be sent to school in Switzerland, though she doesn’t seem happy about it.  On the day of Peg’s big interview for her scholarship, Harriet is in an accident with a bridge collapse. After Peg misses her interview to save her life, Harriet turns over new leaf and helps Peg get a second chance with the scholarship. She in turn is given a second chance with the school and is allowed to come back.

hateful_harriet_03

 

“Be Nice to Nancy!”

  • “Be Nice to Nancy!” – Judy: #1559 (25 Nov. 1989) – #1573 (03 Mar. 1990)
  • Reprinted as Be Nice to Nikki – M&J: #288 (16 Nov. 1996) – #300 (08 Feb. 1997)
  • Artist:  Andy Tew

Plot

Yvonne Baxter has to be nice to Nancy Norden (Nikki in the reprint), or she fears her father will lose his job. Nancy is openly nasty and a bully and is not popular at school. This of course causes many troubles for Yvonne as she keeps covering for her. She loses friends and gets in trouble in school.  When she tries to explain how nasty Nancy is to her parents, they don’t listen. Only her best friend Maggie knows what’s going on. Eventually Mr. Norden catches Nancy out and he apologises to Yvonne. He was hoping that she would be a good influence on Nancy. He is going to send her to a special school instead and of course Mr. Baxter isn’t going to be fired.

be nice to nancy_02

Thoughts

A girl forced to be friends with a nasty girl for fear of a parent’s job is a common theme. There were ,any variations of this theme such as the family’s reputation, rather than a job, being in jeopardy. The link at the start of this post discusses a lot of the different types of bullying that went on in these stories.

Both Hateful Harriet and Be Nice to Nancy have an overall similar storyline. Even their looks correspond with the long blonde hair for the antagonist and the shorter dark hair of the protagonist. Both Harriet and Nancy get up to similar trouble and share a lot of the same personality traits. At the same time Peg and Yvonne both feel helpless and dislike having to cover for the other girls. There are differences though, in how the stories develop and conclude. In the case of Hateful Harriet, Mrs. Brown knows what Harriet is like but not only can she not help Peg she also has to give into Harriet’s demands. (Incidentally this story would not work today, as Mrs. Roberts boss could be charged with wrongful dismissal, at first he wants to fire her because of her age and only keeps her on as long as she keeps his boss’s daughter out of trouble).

hateful_harriet_02

Yvonne on the other hand tries to tell her parents what Nancy is like but they don’t listen. Her father in particular keeps the pressure on her to be friendly with Nancy. While Nancy does use this to her advantage,  Yvonne seems to feel the most pressure from her father and Mr. Norden rather than Nancy herself.  Harriet likes to constantly remind the Roberts that they have to keep her happy.

be nice to nancy_03

Harriet does get redeemed in the end but Nancy hasn’t learned her lesson. This contrast could be to do with the way their fathers deal with their daughters. While Nancy’s father is actively trying to help her out (though he may be going about it the wrong way!). Harriet’s father doesn’t appear at all, instead his orders are passed through lower manager Mr. Carrick. Clearly Harriet is not used to people being kind to her for no reason, she seems to be following her father’s behaviour of using power and threats to get what she wants. She is used to being shipped around and her behaviour becomes more understandable when it seems she hasn’t had a very caring home life. When Peg shows her friendship, even after Mrs. Roberts gets a new job and then saves her life, Harriet turns her life around and starts to appreciate her friendship.

hateful_harriet_01

Nancy is a less sympathetic character. Mr. Norden does try to help his daughter but he goes about it the wrong way. He puts the pressure on Yvonne to be friends with her thinking that if she is not with a bad crowd then she will be a better person and stay out of trouble. He dosen’t realise that she needs more help than that and that it is unfair to expect Yvonne to be responsible for keeping his daughter on the right path. At least Nancy does get the chance to go to a school that will help her, but she doesn’t have the excuses of Harriet for her bad behaviour.

be nice to nancy_01

Hateful Harriet is a bit more dated, and Peg is such a good person that she goes to support Harriet in a play that she should have been lead in (this is after Mrs. Roberts gets her new job). It’s a bit unbelievable that a girl could be this nice! Harriet’s change of heart may be a bit sudden but after a near death experience not unlikely. Be Nice to Nancy is a story that is remembered pretty well so it must have stuck in people’s mind. It is more realistic in it’s portrayal of characters and everything isn’t all wrapped up neatly in the end. Still most importantly the protagonist gets a happy ending, free of Nancy!

It’s interesting to see how a similar theme can develop differently, and of course very telling is the different time periods as they were first published nearly 2 decades apart.

Codey

Bunty, ,
  • Codey – Bunty Picture Story Library #343 (1991)

Plot

B343_codeyAmy inherits her Great Uncle Harry’s ventriloquist dummy, which surprises her as she didn’t know him that well. What surprises her more though, is when Codey (the dummy) starts talking to her. He gets her in trouble when people think she is throwing her voice, saying nasty things. He wants to make it big, but Amy tries to refuse. He  threatens her family, so she has to go along with things.

She unsuccessfully tries to get rid of him a few times, which doesn’t make Codey to happy. It seems he is getting stronger, and has the power to get inside her head and make her say things like she was the Dummy!  At a show, she runs into an old man, Mr Morton, who claims Harry stole Codey from him years ago. Codey says horrible things to Morton and the old man collapses. Later Amy goes to visit Mr Morton in hospital, she talks to his daughter who tells her that Codey is a jinx and she should get rid of him. Amy decides to donate him to a museum, but Codey doesn’t want that. Amy puts him down stairs so she won’t have to listen to him all night. The living room catches on fire that night. Luckily Amy and her family escape but Codey is burnt up.

B343_codey_06

Thoughts

Evil dolls/ventriloquist dummies another common theme for these comics. As I’ve mentioned before, the picture story libraries were more limited in what they could compared to ongoing weekly issues . So a story like Charlie Chatterbox, had more depth to his character and the story had more of a build up to his motivations. Codey is simply evil and there is a lot of unanswered questions in the story.

It is unclear why Uncle Harry left the dummy to Amy in the first place, although it could be because he was still under the influence of  Codey. How Codey could not only talk but also make Amy say things and influence her dreams is a mystery. The idea of a dummy making words coming out of someone else, is interesting but it is only used once, so it’s hardly developed. It seems to be a  just a throwaway power for the convenience of one scene.

The parents are a bit pushy, they do relent in the end when Amy says she doesn’t want to do ventriloquism anymore, but first they just sign her up for talent contests and don’t even listen to her. So Amy has a hard time, with being scared by Codey and pushed by her parents. She does try to stand up for herself at times and she is concerned about keeping her family safe, but a lot of time she just seems helpless.

B343_codey_02

Codey’s motives just seem to be to get famous, but he doesn’t help himself by being rude and sometimes nasty to  everyone including the agents that are there to help him. There is no potential nice side to him. He is just nasty and evil. His act usually involves him being cruel. He doesn’t want to end up in a museum, but you’d think if he was that powerful he could find some way around it, he sat up in Harry’s attic for so long, you’d thing he had patience. Somehow he throws himself on to the electric fire, so he can avoid going to museum and probably hopes to take whole family with him.

B343_codey_07

I quite like the cover art, it is not crowded and looks interesting, the dummy looks mean and creepy. The art inside isn’t bad but again, I think “Charlie Chatterbox” made better use of shadows and angles to make a dummy seem bigger and more threatening.  Codey is a menacing character and the story isn’t bad but it is a story that has been done better before.