Mergers were often a disliked policy  known as “hatch match and dispatch”. Pat Mills has talked on the topic before  (in an interview with Jinty blogger – comixminx) and the policy did lead to the end of some good comics, that would soon fade into the background of the dominant title. I think there could have been alternative solutions but at the end of the day the publishers are a business and if a comic isn’t making money then it’s not very viable to continue it (though in certain cases it seems a book could have succeeded given the right marketing etc.) . But at least a merger may see popular stories continue on in another book. How successful that merger was handled could vary.

I’m just going to look at the 11 DCT  girls comics and what they brought to the comics they merged with.

Merger Chart (click on image to see a larger image):

Diana (23/02/63 – 04/12/76) [720 issues]

Diana was the third girls comic launched by D.C. Thomson.  It differed from it’s predecessors; Bunty and Judy straight away with it’s bigger, more colourful format. It was more expensive (by 1½d) and actually had less pages but it had a full colour pull out magazine, full of factual features and stories. Closer to the end of it’s run it became more feature heavy and seemed to be making the transition to a more teen magazine. Teen romance comic Romeo merged with it in 1974 (Romeo had already encompassed Cherie at this point). Diana merged with teen magazine Jackie (issue #674). I don’t have later issues of Diana but I did think it’s move towards teen mag and it’s eventual merge with Jackie was an odd choice. The last issue only had 3 picture stories and one text story, the rest of issue was dedicated to features such as pop gossip and personality quiz.  Maybe because it was more pricy and other titles dominating the pre-teen market, it was thought it would be more profitable to aim the comic at teenagers instead.

The “Diana Jackie” banner title stayed for 7 issues before being dropped and Diana’s presence was soon forgotten in the title. Even the first merger issue Diana barely makes itself known, other than the name on the cover, a mention in the letter from the editor. and a Jackie Starscope offer to celebrate. Picture story “If Love had Wings” that started in the last Diana issues continued in Jackie. Oddly enough some of Diana‘s popular stories ended up in other comics. Debbie gained “Mary Brown’s Schooldays” and “Up to Date Kate”. The new Spellbound comic gained “Supercats” which had first appeared in Diana annuals under the name “The Fabulous Four”,  also the spooky storyteller “Damian Darke” was quite similar to Diana‘s “Man in Black”, as well as serials like “Paula and the Wasps of Terror” being reprinted in the comic.

Spellbound (25/09/76 – 14/01/78) [69 issues]
The sixth DCT girls comic took an unusual approach compared to it’s predecessors. There was no girl’s name in the title and it’s stories had the specific theme of being spooky with mystery, thrills. While it is often considered a lighter version of the IPC Misty it actually finished a month before Misty arrived. I’m sure Misty would have gained some of the Spellbound fans when it launched, as the latter was unfortunately short lived. For the end of its run there seemed to be a bit of pressure to finish stories, with no new stories launching, some stories ran for 5 to 6 pages (rather than the average 3 pages).

The comic started not long before Diana ended and gained a lot from that title, as addressed earlier. Looking at the comics in the 70s, it seemed to be a time when DCT were being more experimental with it’s publications. Despite being short-lived, it did produce some memorable stories and unlike Misty it did have a good number of regular characters. The spooky storyteller “Damian Darke”, “The Supercats” and “The Shop at Shudder Corner” were a strong presence throughout it’s run. So when it merged with Debbie (in issue #258) the “Supercats” and “Damian Darke” became regular stories and “The Shop at Shudder Corner” briefly appeared in the comic and made appearances in annuals and picture story library books. “Damian Darke” even continued in Mandy, after Debbie merged with it. At first the Spellbound stories had their own section at the back of the book which also included Supercats Club and complete spooky text stories.The Spellbound logo stayed on the cover for over a year (until #349), although it did get smaller over time. While Supercats didn’t last as long as Damian Darke, it was replaced by more spooky stories that fitted the Spellbound theme, these were new stories and had the Spellbound logo on them like “The Power Over Patti”.

Emma (25/02/78 – 08/09/79) [81 issues]

A month after Spellbound finished, a new comic Emma emerged, but it wasn’t much more successful than the former only lasting a year and a half. Back to the traditional girl name title, Emma had a different approach in that it’s namesake was a reporter who interviewed people for the comic, as well as having her own strip “The Emma Report”.  When it merged with Judy (issue #1027) it brought two regular stories “Jodie and the Otter” and “Sue Spiker”. The first part of “Jodie and the Otter” actually started in the previous issue of Judy and at the same time the last issue of Emma, giving readers an extra incentive to pick up Judy (as well as  that there was a 2nd part of a competition). Two other new stories start in the issue “The Frightening Fours” and “Run, Rabbit, Run!” while 4 Judy stories continued.

The merger also  came with an increase of price by 1p. Another important aspect of the merger was Emma’s Mag, the 4 page centre magazine full of features came over from Emma (Judy features like Pony Clinic would also appear in the mag). The mag had the most lasting impact, continuing well after Emma was dropped from the banner, it was eventually renamed Mini Mag and lasted until Judy ended in 1991.  When a “Judy & Co.” strip started it involved Judy and her 2 friends. These friends were Tracy and Emma obvious nods to the comics that had merged with it (although Emma was no longer a reporter instead she was a pupil).

Debbie  (17/02/73 – 15/01/83) [518 issues]

Debbie didn’t gain as much momentum as it’s predecessor’s but it still had some gems of stories like “Wendy at War” and “Trixie’s Treasure Chest” (Trixie finished in the last issue of Debbie and surprisingly wasn’t carried over to Mandy). Unfortunately it seems to be more remembered for it’s increase of low quality photo stories towards the end of it’s run. It merged with Mandy (issue #836). Two stories came over to Mandy for the initial merger. The photo story “The Randell Road Girls” was a school soap story but didn’t last too long.  The other story was “No Rest for Rosie”.

The spooky storyteller “Damian Darke” was popular enough to survive a second merger, although it didn’t appear until a few issues after the merger (#841). The Debbie logo stayed on the masthead for 24 issues and was dropped in issue #860. Overall Debbie didn’t have a lasting impact on Mandy.

Tracy  (6/10/79 – 19/01/85) [277 issues]

Tracy launched after the poorly received Spellbound and Emma and stuck more to the successful formula of Bunty, Judy and Mandy.  It ran for a respectable 277 issues before merging with Judy (issue #1306).  The Judy and Tracy banner stayed for over 2 years and both characters, Judy and Tracy (along with pet kits and budgie, Elton) appeared on the cover. Previous to this the cover depicted a story in the comic. Tracy brought three stories with the merger; “Microgirl”, “Georgie and the Dragon”, “Harvey -Go Home!”. Beside each of these stories a caption “a Tracy Story” ran beside the titles for a while. “Little Amy” also started in the last issue of Tracy and simultaneously in the previous issue of Judy, again this encouraged Tracy readers to make the switch over to Judy.  “Harvey” was the longest lasting story, still going in 1987.

As with many of these mergers, there was also a competition to entice people to give the “new” comic a go. The other impact Tracy had was in Judy’s Mini Mag Elton (the budgie) sometimes had a feature: Elton’s Bird Talk. Also as mentioned before, Tracy stayed around in the comic strip Judy & Co. until the end of Judy’s run.

Suzy  (11/09/82 – 13/06/87) [249 issues]

Suzy launched after Tracy and was more glossy, colourful and it was more feature heavy and had a lot more photo stories (the first issue has 4 photo stories and 2 picture stories). It seemed to fit somewhere between a teen mag and a girl’s comic.  It is maybe because of this that it has been the more forgotten publication of the DCT Girls titles. The photo stories were more suited to the glossy paper rather than Debbie’s newspaper quality (which may be one of the reasons Debbie didn’t last too long after Suzy’s launch). While Suzy started off  with the standard 6-7 stories, later this decreased to 4 stories per issue. Before the end of it’s run the number of stories per issue, actually increased again. I suspect, like Diana,  this was to make it fit better with the publication it was to be merged with. When they increased the number of stories in issue #236, it also came with a free picture story library book.  Again a competition appears for the merger. Suzy brings two stories “Broken Hearts” a series of short stories with the connecting theme of character having the heart broken (often due to a romantic situation). Due to it’s short story format this would appear sporadically for a while. The other story was the soap like “Suzy’s Scene”. On the cover Bunty gained a friend Suzy for a while but she soon faded away like the Suzy logo which only lasted 8 issues before disappearing.

Other serials from Suzy did turn up in other DCT publications later, most notably “The Jordans of Jedworth”, a story about triplet girls in a boarding school, appeared in Judy.

Nikki  (23/02/85 – 02/09/89) [237 issues]

Nikki had a strong school theme running throughout the comic. It had features such as messages on the Bike School Wall, and What Every Girl  Should Know About….(teachers/ boys etc). A lot of it’s stories were based around schools, most famously of course was it’s long running soap story “The Comp”.

The merger with Bunty was well handled I think. The main pull of Nikki was fan favourite “The Comp”, the story had lots of characters and ongoing story-lines, so two weeks before the merger Bunty published “Nikki at the Comp” where new character Nikki (named as homage to the comic) moves to Redvale and joins the Comp, it is through her eyes we are first introduced to the regular characters. Meanwhile the Nikki comic continued it’s own story lines of the regular characters, with the new Nikki character only in the background. So when Nikki actually merged with Bunty (issue #1652) “The Comp” was already established and the story proved to be as popular as it had been in Nikki lasting nearly up to the last issue of Bunty.

Other stories that came over was  “Short Story” which  is basically what you would think it would be; one issue complete stories. It lasted for a while and would often pop up later, usually convenient to fill space before a new serial started, or for around the holidays. Also Nikki’s cover girls Lucy and Liz of  “Girls Talk” came over. They ended up extremely reduced in size but did stay present a long time, changing their name to “Girl’s Talking” and having a 2 panel strip in the corner of Bunty’s letters/features page. A new serial started in the issue as well, “I’ll Never Forgive You”.

Talk Shop (a letter’s page) also came over from Nikki and lasted a while, unlike the Bike Shed Wall (messages page) which only featured for a short period.  The Nikki logo didn’t last pass Bunty’s revamped look in issue #1658. Other consequences of the merge was Bunty’s long running school story “School’s Out!” ended to make way for “The Comp” which may have disappointed some fans but like I said “The Comp” soon became a firm favourite.

Judy  (16/01/60 – 11/05/91) [1635 issues]

Judy launched as companion paper to Bunty. It had a lot of career driven stories and long running humorous stories. Unlike the other mergers Mandy & Judy was launched as a new comic with an issue #1, because of this most of the stories were new. The exception was the M&J classic section which featured reprints of old Mandy and Judy favourites. The first reprint was the Judy story “The Honourable S.J.”, later issues would feature “Wee Slavey” and “Junior Nanny” among others. Judy also brought it’s humour strip “Pepper the Pony”. “Skeleton Corner” while not in the first issue, it did turn up later and had a very long run.  A later story “Nurses” seems like it may have been influenced by a Judy story “Nightingales”. The characters Mandy and Judy also gained their own strip “M&J – Neighbours and Friends”.  After that finished for a while “The Diaries of M&J” took it’s place.

A free pen was given away with the first issue to entice readers to pick up the new comic and for a few issues after that, other gifts were offered. It had the advantage being an issue #1, so it could entice new readers to buy it, as well as try to bring over old Judy and Mandy readers. Although on the downside it was 5p more expensive (35p) than Judy or Mandy had been.

Mandy (21/01/67 – 11/05/91) [1269 issues]

Along with Bunty and Judy, Mandy was one of the longest running comics and well remembered particularly for long running stories “Angel” and “Valda”.  It had a lot of drama stories and also had a lot of text stories even after text stories became infrequent in its counterparts.

As stated above Mandy and Judy merged together to make a new comic, with lots of new stories. The first issue featured a new story with the Mandy classic “The Diary of Angel”, also it brought it’s own humour strip to rival “Pepper the Pony”; “Glenda the Guide”, it seems Pepper won that battle as Glenda did not last too long. Over the years the classic section featured such Mandy stories as “Valda” and “Little Stranger”. Other than the classic section M&J was keen to develop it’s own stories with such long running stories as “Penny’s Place”, “Nurses” and “Stage School”.

M&J (18/05/91 – 24/05/97) [315 issues]

When M&J merged with Bunty (issue #2055) it really showed how much the publications were  struggling. The only thing  Bunty gained was the long running soap “Penny’s Place” It didn’t really encourage M&J readers to stay on. They didn’t even keep up the classic section. Oddly enough 3 issues before M&J finished a new story “Four in the Saddle” started, it didn’t appear in the last issue of M&J and did not continue in Bunty either. The last issue of M&J had 2 stories doubled up in order to complete them, so it may indicate the merger happened sooner than originally planned. The M&J logo appeared only briefly and was very small compared to the rest of the masthead. I’ve already talked about  M&J  here and clearly there was lots to like about it so it was a pity that Bunty didn’t gain more from its merger.

Bunty  (18/01/58 – 17/02/01) [2249 issues]

Of course when Bunty ended there was no comic for it to merge into. Over the years it had taken in many other comics and it evolved over time, so it was quite different from it’s early years. It’s only mainstay was “The Four Marys” who changed along with the comic although they still had chances to solve a mystery or two. By the end the comic was becoming more reliant on reprints. So it made sense that when the Bunty Monthly comic launched the next month (March 2001) it was all reprints.

Bunty Monthly was 64 pages and cost £1.50 (compared to the 80p the last issue of the weekly Bunty cost) and had love hearts sweets as a free gift in the first issue.  The format seemed to be to reprint one serial in full and have 2 other serials along with the occasional “Toots”. It’s first issue had reprints of “The Four Marys”, “Jenny the Gymnast” (the entire serial) and “Wendy’s Wishing Well”.  There seemed to be a move by the 3rd issue to entice some nostalgic fans, it was renamed The Best of Bunty and the masthead changed to the classic Bunty logo. Also added was the slogan of “classic stories from the 50s, 60s, 70s”  along with pictures of old covers.  This didn’t work out though and after just 5 issues, Bunty Monthly ended in July 2001.

 Final Thoughts

While it may seem that some titles got lost in the dominant comic, even if the comic kept going it would have still evolved over time. Long running comics like Bunty and Judy had a different focus in the 80s or 90s compared to the 60s. I think mergers like Bunty and Nikki, Judy and Tracy, Mandy & Judy were quite well handled, others not so much. Of course it would have been nice to see our favourite comics continue on and I think the drop off of readers wasn’t all about new distractions like TV and computers, there was a variety of reasons, including a decline in quality. It is a shame that it’s been 13 years since the last of the classic girls comic was published (excluding annuals). But rumours that Misty stories are going to be reprinted and even comics such as the American Ms Marvel doing so well, makes me hope that this won’t be the end of girls comics and wish that there may be a revival!

I’m guessing not a lot of people are familiar with this annual. Unfortunately, the annual I own is missing half its pages but I still think its worth talking about as it seems to be a rare item! This book was published in Ireland, it’s written and illustrated by Irish people and it actually credits the writers and artists. It’s 72 pages long (including covers) and cost £2.95 at the time. Other than this annual I do not know anything about the publication of Tara, the back cover says “see you soon girls”, which would imply it was going to be a regular book. This is the only Tara annual/comic I’ve come across though.

The contents are typical of a girls’ annual with picture stories ranging from the dramatic to the humorous, text stories involving heroic horses and informative features and art/craft items. Again my copy is missing a lot of pages but I will look at the 4 complete picture stories in the annual:

A Romance for Doris Karloff    (Pages: 4-5)

Story & Art: John Byrne

This is a cute little story told in rhyme. Doris goes to the local disco hoping to meet a guy, but the potential “handsome hunks” either already have a girlfriend or obsessed with bikes. She is happy when she meets a guy who wants to walk her home. Alone outside the disco he tells her his name is Vince. Doris is delighted until she sees his pointy teeth and realises he’s a vampire.  She is nearly done for but then the full moon rises and she shows that she has secrets of her own. She changes into a werewolf and chases Vince with the conclusion that True Love Conquers All! This is a fun story with some great cartoon illustrations.

“Crowning Glory”     (Pages: 9-16)

Story: Emily Austin

In Paris 1650, fashion and beauty mean everything. Madame Clopin is a person of high society that has many admirers and jealous rivals. She is a vain creature and is not pleased at rumours  that her looks are due to cosmetic skills of her young servant Marie, rather than natural beauty. Madame Clopin is a hard mistress and does not like that Marie could rival her beauty.

Marie is in love with a struggling artist, Paul, who protests at her giving him half her meagre wages. He promises when he makes his money they will be married and all her sacrifices will be repaid. Later back working at Chopin’s house, Marie takes in an old street seller and feeds her a good meal. She asks her to leave quietly so Chopin doesn’t find out she was there. The old woman tells her she can help her, and that a cruel mistress could put lines on a pretty face. She gives her a a potion that she says will perserve her good looks and give her good fortune. Marie is too polite to refuse but after the woman has gone she goes to dispose of the bottle. Madame Chopin catches her and thinks she is hiding good cosmetics for herself. She drinks the potion. The next day there are big shocks as all her hair has fallen out.

She fires Marie blaming her for the evil potion and she blacklists her so no one will hire her. She sends for doctors all over Paris to try and restore her hair. With no money left Paul has been taken to debtors jail. Marie comes up with the idea to make Clopin a wig from her own hair, and bargain for Paul’s freedom. Clopin gives her money and Marie and Paul are married. He becomes a famous artist and her a famous wig maker. Madame Clopin is still as vain as ever.

Aisling    (Pages: 17-24)

Story & Art: Thomas McGee

In Ancient Ireland an assassin tries to kill the King, he fails and is killed for his treachery This is seen by his servant sister Morgyn and she promises to avenge his death. She gets her chance a few months later when the King and Queen give birth to a baby girl, Aisling. While everyone is at a feast celebrating the birth, Morgyn steals the child away and prepares to kill her in the woods. But she finds that she cannot go through with it and has to return the child. On her return they are attacked by wolves, she manages to save Aisling but not herself.

Later a huntsman finds Aisling and assumes the dead body near her, is her mothers. He takes her home to his wife and they call the girl Síona and they raise her. Years later when Síona is out gathering fruit,  tragedy strikes as her home is attacked and she returns to find her parents dead. Passing warriors find her and take her back to the castle. She works as a servant there and one night she over hears some men planing to kill the king and boasting about killing her adoptive parents. She attacks them and alerts the guards. She is knocked unconscious but the guards turn up and  kill the conspirators. The queen looks after Síona and notices she has the family birthmark and so she is their long lost daughter Aisling. (the family birthmark a common occurrence in stories of lost children!)

In the story I think Aisling/Siona could have spared more distress over the death of her adoptive parents and her comment at the end about finding her “real family” also seems dismissive of the people who raised her. Otherwise it is an interesting story. It really shows the Irish roots of the book and it is nice and unusual to see a story in a girls comic set in ancient Ireland with references to such things as Badhb (Irish Goddess of War).  Of course Sláine started in 2000AD in 1983 as well so maybe that was an influence for the story. The art could be better in some areas such as awkward hand actions in places, but it has some nice atmospheric pieces like when Morgyn is attacked and the outside scenery is quite nice. .

Wonder Worm   (Pages 49-56)

Story & Art: John Bryne

The cover girl for the annual gets her origin story told here. Obviously this is a parody of Wonder Woman and is full of puns. It takes place in Toadstool City and also features frog reporter, Croak Kent. It starts with evil Dr. Medusa ready to change her dimwitted dustbin henchmen into Supermen when they are interrupted by Wonder Worm. While wondering where she came from it flashes back to a newspaper office (Tadpole Times) where Croak Kent is given his assignment to interview Dr Issac Newt inventor of the Super formula.

While there Dr. Medusa breaks in and manages to steal a small amount of the formula. Dr. Issac explains to Kent the direness of this falling into the wrong hands. Kent is eating an apple at the time and throws it away in disgust when he sees a worm in it. Of course it lands right in the remaining potion. The worm after hearing the conversations decides the potion is too dangerous to keep around and drinks the whole lot. Kent meanwhile tracks down Medusa and her gang but passes out when actually confronted by them.

This brings us back to the start where the Worm having drank the potion has now grown in size and gained powers. Wonder Worm also finds she can shrink back down her size which she uses to her advantage, sneaking into a gun and throwing the bullet of balance so it destroys the stolen potion. She then proceeds to beat the baddies up and disappears before the police turn up.

A few days later newly promoted Croak Kent thinks he must have beat the criminals up during his blackout. Luckily Wonder Worm has stuck around and become his private secretary to help him out! It is an absurd little story but also a lot of fun.

Other contents in the annual include two text stories “Trixie Saves the Day”  and “Tiger’s Adventure” both written by E. Colohan with spot art by E. Shaw-Smith. There’s some interesting features on elaborate doll houses, how cats were depicted in art and writing throughout history,  and how to interpret dreams. There is also a drawing in grids lesson with a picture of Wonder Worm & Croak Kent.

Overall I don’t think it met the competitive standards of D.C. Thomson or IPC.  Although it would be better to judge it if it wasn’t missing pages. That being said there is some fun stuff here and it’s nice to see Irish writers/artists trying to do their own thing. The book while having similar elements to other girls comics did still have it’s own style. Being Irish it’s nice to see some of  myths being used like in Aisling and the John Bryne stuff is particularly fun. Also it’s always good to see people getting credited for their work. I wonder if it gained more popularity, bigger budget etc. would it have attracted more high profile writers and artists and could it have actually become a solid competitor in the girls comics market.

So I’ve been to Edinburgh for a few days, which was great. What was even better was that I came across a lovely nostalgic book shop. The Old Children’s Bookshelf,  is a small shop near the end of the royal mile (specifically: 175 Canongate
Edinburgh EH8 8BN)

It is full of old children’s books with lots of first edition hardcopies at reasonable prices. You’ll find books by Enid Blyton, Elinor Brent-Dyer, Carolyn Keen, J.M. Barrie among many others. More relevant to this blog is the collection of British comics. Of course there are plenty of comics like Beano, Topper and Wizard, but also there is a nice selection of comics aimed at girls.

The shop isn’t very big but it does have a good variety of books. The front of the shop has a collection of books and annuals including Bunty, Diana, Jackie, Judy, Mandy and School Friend. A small back room has a selection of comics and prints, including Beano, Girl’s Crystal, Diana, Judy and Twinkle.

It’s a nice shop with friendly staff.  Even if you don’t buy anything, it felt very comfortable just browsing. So I’d definitely recommend a visit if you are in the area.

UPDATE: Since writing this post, unfortunately the shop has closed down, but thought it should still be remembered anyway.

In the past Girls Comics has been a neglected subject in the comic world. There are many websites, blogs, books, articles dedicated to US comics and even to boy UK comics. In the last few years though, there has been more recognition for girls comics. Hopefully this will become a continuing trend. I was quite pleased when I found this book “The History of Girls’ Comics” I thought it was great to have a book fill the gap of information on this subject. While I did enjoy reading it, I  did find it didn’t exactly deliver  what it promised to be.

It is a nice read and there are a lot of positive things to this book, but it has it flaws too. First the title, it  says “a history” of girls comics, rather than a historical view of these comics it is written in a more nostalgic framework. There is nothing wrong with being anecdotal and nostalgic, but makes the history part of the title a bit misleading. Although Brewer does touch on the historical context a little, again the tone is more casual, not very analytical. This is not necessarily a bad thing depending on what you are looking for from the book.

Its not a large book only just over 200 pages, but there is a lot of subjects covered even if some is a bit more briefly than I would of liked. Some other problems I had  was some of the repetitiveness, for example in one chapter; using the example of Bunty as a first issue, there is a detailed description of the first cover. When talking about the Bunty comic a page later there is yet another long description of the cover page. Then there are some mistakes that should have been caught by editors,  like in one part  Bunty is said to have been released on Wednesdays, though previously the correct day Tuesdays had been mentioned. These are small issues but can be a bit annoying.

What the book actually covers is quite a lot, although it can be a bit limited at times, I know there is a large amount of comics out there, so Brewer can’t go into great detail with every one.  Some comics just get a paragraph whereas others like Bunty get page and a half,  so maybe would have liked some more details, on the less known comics. While I am most familiar with golden and silver age comics, Brewer also has chapters dedicated to comics for tots and early comics and teen magazines and I did learn interesting things about these comics/magazines that  I did not know.  There is also a chapter dedicated to Brewer’s personal talk of favourite characters which was a nice addition, yes some of my favourite characters weren’t mentioned but it was nice to see a bit more detail on characters. The chapters on comics; the descriptions break down into general what to expect from the book looking at early and later issues.  I found the book only touches on things it could have been bigger, more detailed (i.e. dates, artists) and analytical. But for what it is it is a nice and informative read. So that covers the first half of the book, which was the part I was most interested in.

The second half of the book covers features such as the clubs, freebies, problem pages, newspaper strips, toys and annual tie ins.  It ends on a chapter about going about collecting comics. These were an enjoyable addition to the book, but one chapter I thought didn’t need to be included was the part works chapter, and its appendix at the back. I wouldn’t have considered them as girls comics, and it seemed strange to have a whole chapter dedicated to them, but maybe that’s just me. I just thought that chapter could have been used to talk about other things, like the publishing companies or creators or even just expanding on the previous chapters.

While I was slightly disappointed that some of my expectations of the book weren’t met, it is still a good book for anyone interested in the subject to look through. The nostalgic tone is nice and easy to read. The book does actually cover a lot even if it what it covers is a bit brief in some cases.  Overall for what it is, its a nice read, if you want to have a nostalgic look at these comics, you may find new information and there is enough detail to keep you interested as long as you aren’t looking for a complete critical analysis of the subject. It’s a good read and I’d recommend it to any comic lovers.

Diana 1982

Welcome to the World of Yesterday! If you haven’t guessed, this is a site about UK girls’ comics that ran from the late 50s to the early 00s. At the height of their popularity there were tons of comics available, Bunty, Debbie, Diana, Girl, Jinty, Judy, Mandy, Misty, Tammy……. By the time I was reading them in the late 80s/early 90s a lot of these comics had disappeared or merged into one of their successful competitors.  This site is primarily addressing the 3 publications that I am most familiar with; Bunty, Mandy and Judy. While it is in the early stages at the moment updates will include descriptions/observations about the annuals, picture library stories and stories that were published by these comics.  So put on some nostalgia goggles and enjoy!  🙂

Just for some fun to start off, here are some out of context panels:

When I was growing up I had the excitement of going to the newsagent and getting my weekly dose of girls comics, filled with stories about girls in boarding schools, girls starving on the Victorian era streets of London, girls who had drank invisible or shrinking potions, girls who had mysterious neighbours to investigate and many other stories that pulled me in each week.

While I never aspired to be a ballerina or to own a horse, there were lots of other stories to appeal to me. Whether you liked ghost stories, sci-fi, mysteries, historical stories, tragedy, drama, romance, or the stories about ballerinas and horses, there was a wide variety of stories that appeared during the comics’ long run. Unfortunately the last of these types of comics ended ten years ago, although the Christmas annuals were still alive up to 2009. Of course these stories weren’t perfect, often plots were recycled, so many stories saw the tragic heroine denied to dance/skate/sing by their strict parents/cruel aunt and uncle or some variation on that. Sometimes the protagonist were ridiculously good and the bullies unredeemable. Often the story was resolved suddenly with some sort of a deus ex machina. Despite these flaws these comics did provide some gems of stories, beautiful artwork and great entertainment all around.  I mean where else would you find a story about a girl finding a talking rabbit shaped spaceship that flies her around exploring new planets?