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FAQ:
- Where can I buy these comics?
- This is just a fansite I like to talk about these comics but I don’t sell comics on this site. There are a few places that you can find these comics, the big places are ebay and London shop 30th century comic. Check out their website here. There are a few other specialist shops, car boot sales and websites that you may get lucky with too.
- I’m looking for the name of a story?
- Happy to help if I can, but good to note the more detail you can give the better, even if its just when you would have read the story. For example “A talented girl that is mistreated by cruel relatives” could be the plot summary for many stories! The comics uk forum is also full of helpful people: http://comicsuk.co.uk/forum/index.php as well as facebook groups like “Girls Comics – UK”.
I’m trying to remember a story where a girl’s eyes get damaged from contact with aliens. They give her a potion for it but she must not cry for a month while it takes effect. And guess what happens during that month – yep, a whole heap of trouble and misunderstandings caused by her not being able to cry. Artist was the one who drew Mandy’s “Teddy”. I’m pretty sure the story was a Tracy story. Any help appreciated. Thank you.
It is indeed a Tracy story, No Tears for Tina:
http://girlscomicsofyesterday.com/2019/05/no-tears-for-tina/
Thank you.
The artist for Mandy’s Teddy (shown here):
http://girlscomicsofyesterday.com/2015/03/teddy
– looks rather like Stanley Houghton.
Hi there, I am trying to find the name of a story from an annual I loved when I was a little girl. It would have been between 1978 and 1985. The story was a comic strip one and it was about a girl who was told all her life she was ugly. She wasn’t allowed to look in a mirror. But she runs away and sees herself in some water and realises she has been lied to by the people who kept her at their house. I thought it might be in a Mandy annual as I know I owned three of those. I have one from 1979 and it’s not in that. The only other annuals I had were Jackie, girl and blue jeans but I remember my favourites were Mandy.
I know it’s a long shot but I thought that if anyone would know you would. Thanks so much, Kate.
I think this may be “The Girl in the Mirror” from Mandy Annual 1980. Here are the first two pages. Does this look like the one?
https://i.imgur.com/qixlgPy.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/ZPDW1I0.jpg
Hi Kate,
The story is The Girl in the Mirror from the Mandy 1980 annual. It was a 4 part story.
http://girlscomicsofyesterday.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/M80_Girl-inMirror1.jpg
http://girlscomicsofyesterday.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/M80_Girl-inMirror2.jpg
I wonder if it inspired the Mandy serial The Girl in the Mask http://girlscomicsofyesterday.com/2017/02/the-girl-in-the-mask-1983-84/
which had similar premise, even some same plot points like both girls ending up in a Hall of Mirrors at a funfair!
Edit: Thanks Goof, I see we were replying at same time!
Yes, my apologies, we seem to have collided in the doorway – we were even posting the same two pages of the story!
Say, why was the old bag fooling our heroine in this way? Jealous of her good looks?
And thanks for the info about Stanley Houghton.
Oddly enough, we’re never really told. Apart from her being a miser and general miseryguts (and no oil painting herself), she isn’t given any definite motive for preventing the heroine meeting other people, other than that she can use her as an unpaid household drudge. The ending implies that she was mentally ill.
The punchline and main point of the story is that the heroine needn’t have worried about her looks anyway, as people would like her for herself.
Thank-you so, so much Lorrsadmin and Goof, that is it. That’s made my day!
What a wonderful resource you are running. Reading through some of the posts it is clear how much impact some of these stories had on people’s lives; that they remember them so many years later. I think it is fantastic that you have archived them like this. Thank-you the service you are providing. 🙂
A miser, a miseryguts, mentally ill, no beauty and keeping the girl in her power as unpaid help? Ok, good enough for me. Thank you for the info. BTW, what happens to miseryguts in the end?
Packed off to “a special home, where they will take good care of her.” Taken out of context, this has a rather Orwellian ring, but as these stories usually let the villains get away with murder, this presumably wasn’t intended. I interpreted it as some kind of mental home.
Thank you. Do you have any idea who the artist is?
Sadly, no. I wish I did. He/she did quite a lot for Mandy around this time, and is one of several artists that I’m hoping might rate a mention in David Roach’s book.
I remember a story in Tracy, “The Prisoner of [something] Manor” or something like that. An artistic girl is held prisoner in the mansion but befriends another girl. Eventually she convinces her parents and art teacher there is a prisoner being held there. They arrive in time to foil a murder plot to burn her alive in the mansion. I think the artist was the one who drew “I’ll Get Rid of Rona!”, also in Tracy. Can anyone shed light on the story, please?
It doesn’t seem to be a Tracy story, so must be in another comic, guessing it is around the same time as Tracy’s publication, so early to mid 80s. I will check if anything else matches.
Thank you. Funny, I thought it was in a Tracy. Another possibility could be Mandy. I doubt it was Bunty.
Thinking about it, I am sure it was M***** Manor, well, something alliterative to go with manor, perhaps the name of the manor. The story ends with the ex-prisoner returning to the manor, this time happy and becoming a celebrity. Her friend comments that she’s already forgetting she was the prisoner of M**** Manor.
One story with a similar title is ‘The Prisoner Of Craven Castle’ in DEBBIE 232 (July 23 1977) – 241 (September 24 1977). It may well be a false trail anyway but I’ll have to leave the search to others as I won’t have time to pull those issues until this coming weekend at the earliest.
Thank you, Derek. Yes, I know the story you mean. Sorry, definitely not it, and anyway the story was set in modern times. I think Judy and Bunty can be ruled out. If it was not Tracy, it must have been Mandy.
It must have been a story where I have gap in collection, as I haven’t had any luck finding it so far!
I suppose it couldn’t be a picture library? I’ve not come across it, but there are several “Manor” PSLs I don’t know:
Mandy #36 Mystery of the Manor
Judy #155 The Menace of the Manor
Bunty #435 Mystery in Manor Park
I was just looking at finishing off my Debbie entries and there is a story
The Prisoner of Misty Manor, I don’t have any details about the imprisoned girl being an artist, but the title fits with what you remember.
http://girlscomicsofyesterday.com/2020/02/the-prisoner-of-misty-manor/
I’m just wondering, Briony, if the story you are seeking could be a one-off, such as a Damian Darke tale. Alternatively, could it have appeared as a serial, or indeed as a one-off, in TAMMY or JINTY?
The story we are seeking is indeed ‘The Prisoner Of Misty Manor’. It starts in DEBBIE 473 (March 6 1982), replacing ‘Poor Little Rich Girl’, and ends in 484 (May 22 1982). I don’t have 473 but the preamble prior to the episode in 474 is revelatory. This is what it says:- ‘Kim Foley’s parents had recently left an industrial town to run a smallholding in the country. Out walking, Kim found her way into the overgrown garden of an old manor house, which was full of wildlife. A mysterious girl, who was a brilliant artist, was shut up in one of the rooms. She claimed she was an invalid but it seemed to Kim that Anne-Marie’s illness was an excuse for her two older cousins to keep her a prisoner, especially as local inhabitants claimed that a Mr and Mrs Harrison were the sole occupants of the house they called “Misty Manor”.’
I’m trying to remember the title and annual of a story where a girl visits a village where people still have witch superstitions and think a recently deceased lady was one. They hear horrible noises from her old house and think it’s haunted. The girl investigates and finds it’s trapped Siamese felines. She rescues them and keeps one, naming it Spook. It was drawn by Oliver Passingham and I am pretty sure it was a Judy annual. Can anyone identify, please? Thank you.
Judy 1983: “Well-Kept Secret”. Nice bit of artwork from Passingham.
Thank you, Goof.
Thank you, Lorrsadmin, for finding the Manor story.
This morning’s post brought me a package from a Lancashire dealer, which contained eight issues of DEBBIE. They were all from 1978, and were numbered 292-298 and 303. The cost was £5.95 plus £2.95 p&p. I only needed 293, 297 and a much more presentable version of 296, but I figured that the total outlay of £8.90, roughly £3 a comic was eminently justifiable. I am also expecting delivery, either on Saturday or Monday, of a free gift from DIANA from 1964, a 16-page booklet called ‘The Rainbow Book Of Stars’. I will be adding it to my collection, many items from which will appear in B&HS.
Say, what’s the website of this dealer, please?
It’s printed like this, Briony, on my DEBBIE receipt(http://myworld.ebay.co.uk/jconstantine-uk). I have bought story papers from this seller on several previous occasions without any problems arising.
Thank you.
‘The Rainbow Book Of Stars’ duly arrived yesterday morning. Another item that came yesterday was a DVD of songs sung by the American band Lady Antebellum, my granddaughter Lois’s favourite group. I sourced it from a platform called BONANZA. The seller ‘madmusickid’ posted it from Alicante on the coast of Spain. I took it round to hers more or less straightaway, and I won’t be surprised to learn when I next see her that she has been listening to it ever since.
I’ve just bought issue 51 of DIANA this morning, which gives me virtually the full run from issue 1 to issue 197, although issues 2, 53, 77, 114, 128, and 173 are still hiding from me. It cost £3.99 plus £2.95 p&p, and is slated to arrive here next Wednesday or Thursday. I’ve more or less given up on ever acquiring issues 199 – 224, because they contain episodes of ‘The Avengers’. I do have 213 and 215 but clearly they are a fat lot of use on their own. I suppose I’ll have to go up to the British Library again in late spring/early summer, if only to take notes on the other serials running contiguously. Hopefully I’ll be able to fit in a couple of jars and a gossip with Steve (Zodiac) Mitchell as we did a year or two back, not forgetting a visit to 30th Century where I usually manage to buy something or other from Rob or Will. I’ll take my Wants List with me.
I’ve just spotted a comment in the notebook where I list all the as yet missing issues of the eleven story titles for girls, which says that I already have issues 214 and 216 scanned on my computer under ‘DIANA STORIES’. I’m pretty sure that they were both sent directly to my computer a year or two back by the same kind person. Regrettably I can’t remember who it was.
Nice additions to your collection Derek. While I am not buying much comics these days I did get 2 Judy issues that filled some gaps recently, #314 and #329 for just £5.90 in total.
Well done, Lorraine. It’s always very satisfying when you chip away at your Wants List and fill some gaps. Curiously, apart from 304, 329 is the only issue that I don’t have in the first twelve years of JUDY. Any chance of a photocopy?
Hi Derek, yes I can do a copy for you, I’ll PM you when I have it ready.
Issue 51 of DIANA arrived this morning. I’ve had a good look through it so I will be slotting it into my collection of DIANA when I’ve had some lunch.
On a different matter, yesterday I couldn’t find my copy of ‘THE ENCYCLOPAEDIA OF GIRLS’ SCHOOL STORIES’ by Sue Sims & Hilary Clare, which I had bought brand new in 2000 for £40, at the same time as I bought the equivalent volume for boys for the same price. Thinking I might well have to buy a replacement, I Googled the title. Result, it is now £400, a figure that I was not prepared to pay. Fortunately, later in the day I went upstairs to the spare bedroom to extract all my novels written for girls, with a view to deciding which of them would deserve a mention in the Introduction to B&HS, and found it in one of the boxes. I’ve never met Sue but several years ago, when she was teaching at Bournemouth Grammar School For Girls, she lent me her copy of ‘The Prize Essay’ by Kathleen Wallace, which is a fascinating imagining of the life of the Bronte sisters. I think I must have advertised for a copy in the WANTS section of BOOK AND MAGAZINE COLLECTOR. I photocopied the whole book at Maghull Library over three or four visits as at that time you were not allowed more than a certain number of copies in any one day, at which point I returned it to her with my grateful thanks and a postal order covering her postage costs, which she may well have donated to a charity. I think I’m recalling that more or less correctly.
Lorrsadmin, I have done the artists’ names for the rest of the Judy Annuals, but can’t post them on the website as the entries for these years don’t have a “Leave a Reply” box for messages posts. The years in question are:
1969-1971, 1976, 1977, 1979, 1981–1989 & 1991
Would you like me to send you the names lists for these years by email? If so, I suggest I put them in a Word document attachment, but I can send them by another means if you would prefer.
Hi Goof, I’ll pm you. Thanks!
I couldn’t find any entry for “June and Schoolfriend”
“Schoolfriend” was the biggest-selling girls’ comic throughout the ’50s, followed closely by the slightly more modern “June”, then publishers Fleetway combined the two in the 1960s. Certainly still around in The 1970s not sure when it closed.
June closed 15 June 1974 and merged with Tammy the following week.
Hi Mark, I concentrate on the DC Thomson comics, although I have dipped into Fleetway/IPC occasionally. For the moment the DC Thomson comics are a big enough project for me, but who knows sometime in the future I may be able to expand out more. The Jinty website has covered some June and other IPC titles before https://jintycomic.wordpress.com/
Also for an overview of IPC/Fleetway girls comics you can find family tree here:
https://michaelowencarroll.wordpress.com/2018/06/30/eaglution-of-british-comics-part-3/
For the benefit of anyone who may be interested, I have decided to expand significantly my book ‘BUNTY AND HER SISTERS – The Great Stories’, which I have been working on for some time now. The expansion will allow me to present a synopsis for all the serial stories (no completes) from DCT’s eleven titles for girls that I consider to be ‘great’, which, apart from the Introduction, was originally to have been the entire content. I will now be adding a synopsis of similar length for every suitable novel in my collection written specifically for girls (about 500 titles as of today). The alphabetical order of titles will be maintained regardless of which story paper they appeared in, the summaries of the novels being integrated at the appropriate points.
I’m really surprised that it has taken me so long to see the appropriateness of the amalgamation. I’d started to watch an episode of ‘Scott And Bailey’ last night when I realised it was a repeat so I switched the TV off, plonked myself back in my armchair, wondering whether to go to bed or read for half an hour first. During that brief period of meditation it struck me that any instalment of any serial in any copy of MANDY or DIANA or whatever is in essence exactly the same as a chapter in novels such as ‘Air Girls At School’ by Eileen Marsh, ‘The Only Day Girl’ by Dorothea Moore, ‘Well Done, Denehurst! by Gwendoline Courtney or ‘Three New Girls’ by Joanna Lloyd etc. etc.. All I will need to add to the titles and authors will be to state that that title is a book, although the name of the author should be information enough as DCT chose not to acknowledge theirs.
The expansion sounds a great idea. And you would have plenty of time for your books now we’re in lockdown.
Apart from one leisurely trundle through my local park, Briony, I’ve been self isolating since I got up on Wednesday March 18th. You are of course correct that I will have plenty of time for writing. Nevertheless from time to time I do take a chair through the conservatory into the paved area at the back of my house and either read a book or try to think a problem through. The weather here in Cornwall is currently sunny by and large, so it seems to encourage me. Hopefully the hot summery weather that you can enjoy in your area of the world is behaving itself. Above all, I just miss seeing my grandchildren, driving them down to the swimming baths in Penzance, and taking Lois to her ballet class on Wednesdays. I really miss our chats in the car. Like everywhere else, such places are closed. I can’t even go down to the local pub at lunchtime because they are closed as well. My ex-wife gave Lois and Alex £40 each because they can’t go over to hers for tea once a week. They used that money really sensibly to buy a trampoline so they can get out of their house, have a lot of fun, and enjoy some much-needed exercise.
I was interested to see Dorothea Moore’s name among the authors that you will be including in the book, Derek. I know very little about girls’ novels of this period, but I read one of hers and liked her gutsy, down-to-earth style; pithy dialogue that reminded me of Edith Nesbit, and quite witty in places. Personally, I preferred her to the better-known Angela Brazil.
Five novels by Dorothea Moore will feature in the book, Goof, those being ‘The Only Day Girl’, ‘Judy, Patrol Leader’, ‘Terry The Girl Guide’, ‘Wanted, An English Girl’, and ‘A Rough Night’ which, being about wreckers, is an appropriate historical theme down here in Cornwall. Edith Nesbit will be represented by ‘Five Children And It’, ‘The Phoenix And The Carpet’, and ‘The Wouldbegoods’. Angela Brazil, whose surname, according to her at least, should be pronounced as if it were spelt ‘Brazzle’, rather than the normal pronunciation of the South American country, will supply ‘For The Sake Of The School’, ‘Jean’s Golden Term’, ‘The School At The Turrets’, ‘Jill’s Jolliest School’, ‘The School In The South’ and ‘The New School At Scawdale’. Perhaps surprisingly, you may feel, I am including a selection of novels by Enid Blyton, who would not get into too many people’s list of favourite authors these days, but some of her incredibly large output of books are still being purchased. In the last few days I have reread ‘Five On A Treasure Island’ and ‘Five Go Adventuring Again’, and I’m halfway through ‘Five Run Away Together’, at which point I had got heartily sick of the Stick family, so I went in to get ‘The Island Of Adventure’. When I finish this post, I will take my chair outside as I did yesterday, and because there isn’t a cloud in the sky, I will continue from the beginning of chapter 6 of the latter. As there are 29 chapters, I’ll be out there for a while, sustained this morning at least by cups of coffee.
I’m not surprised that you’re including Enid Blyton, in fact I’d say this seems quite appropriate. Apart from the continuing popularity of her books, she is as far as I know one of the few well-known writers of girls’ novels who had a direct connection with girls’ comics. I’ve not come across her work in DCT comics, but she wrote some stories for early numbers of “Princess”, and I’ve seen picture story adaptations of her books in “Pixie” and “Penny”.
I hope you enjoy “The Island of Adventure”. I have a fond memory of this book from when I read it as a young child, on a rather wet holiday in a guest house in North Wales.
I did enjoy ‘The Island Of Adventure’ yesterday, Goof, and by the time I got weary, I had also read the first four chapters of ‘The Castle Of Adventure’, the second of the eight-book series. I do have the complete set. Today I plan to finish ‘Castle’, and as I am a postponer rather than a quitter, I will engage again at some point with the Stick family in ‘Five Run Away Together’. One thing I did do last night was extract from the relevant cupboard, actually a large wardrobe to be truthful, all my books about Enid, [‘Enid Blyton – A Biography’ by Barbara Stoney, ‘The Blyton Phenomenon’ by Sheila Ray, ‘A Childhood At Green Hedges’ by Imogen Smallwood, one of Enid’s daughters, ‘Enid Blyton And The Mystery Of Children’s Literature’ by David Rudd, ‘The Enid Blyton Story’ by Bob Mullan, and ‘The Story Of My Life’ by Enid Blyton, which only runs for 121 pages. Thinking that was very short, I Googled the title, but the search only threw up ‘Die Geschichte Meines Lebens’ by Erika Klopp Verlag for 9.42 euros (approx. £8.26), those about fiction for girls, [‘A World Of Girls’ by Rosemary Auchmuty and ‘A World Of Women – Growing Up In The Girls’ School Story’ by the same author, and ‘You’re A Brick, Angela!’ by Mary Cadogan and Patricia Craig], plus a couple about girls, a genus I like but have never entirely understood, ‘Just Like A Girl – How Girls Learn To Be Women’ by Sue Sharpe, and ‘Truth, Dare Or Promise – Growing Up In The Fifties’ edited by Liz Heron. I also have a copy of a book called ‘Looking For Enid – The Mysterious And Inventive Life Of Enid Blyton’ by someone called Duncan McLaren, who I had never heard of before parting with my £15.99 plus p&p. Nor since. Nor would I wish to. It’s a hardback with a colourful dustwrapper showing George looking at Kirrin Island through a telescope on what looks like a tripod, with Julian and Anne on her right, and Dick on her left, all three looking at her, and possibly wondering why the telescope is the wrong way round. The rear cover has exactly the same picture, but reversed, with Julian and Anne to the left of George, Dick to her right. More offputting than the dustwrapper is the text, which varies in size even within individual chapters!!!!!!!! In order to better facilitate your search for this title on whatever platform you choose to use, the publisher was Portobello Books.
My first acquaintance with the works of Enid Blyton, Goof, was her novel ‘Five Go Off To Camp’, which was either a birthday or a Christmas present from my Auntie Ivy and Uncle John, who at the time were living in the house that is right at the end of Washington Lane, Euxton, near Chorley in Lancashire, although later they were to relocate to Brockham, near Betchworth in Surrey. I no longer have that book, but I have bought a replacement. At the end of my first year at the University of Birmingham, they invited me down to Brockham to stay with them for a couple of ‘chilling out’ weeks. I certainly appreciated them. There was a bookcase in my bedroom there in which there was a Penguin book by Marghanita Laski, its title long forgotten, which I read cover to cover during my downtime that week. I’d never heard of her before that day, although I might have done had I been reading English rather than Spanish, Portuguese and French. During most vacations I lived in Lancaster with my father, mother, and younger brother.
Early memories of books we’ve read and enjoyed can be very powerful. Personally speaking, I wish I had more of them. My reading as a boy was not very discriminating. “The Island of Adventure” was the only Enid Blyton I recall reading as a child, and I first read many of the classics of children’s literature – Ransome, Narnia, Edith Nesbit – as an adult.
It was the same story with comics. Perhaps because my parents rather disapproved of the genre, I read none beyond a few Dandys and Beanos, and knew the likes of Lion and Eagle only through the occasional annual. I suppose that’s one reason why I’ve been so impressed by the quality of many of the girls’ comics stories, as I’m reading them now for the first time.
I spent a few bob on eBay today, buying in all five of the first twelve ‘Famous Five’ novels by Enid Blyton that I didn’t already have. I stopped at ‘Five Go Down To The Sea’ (1953) because as a child I never read any after that, and in any case by that time I was seriously into the serial stories in ADVENTURE, The ROVER, The HOTSPUR etcetera.
I bought most of the novels from different sellers in my quest for examples that dealers would describe as ‘Near Fine’ or Fine’, which in all cases meant a clean, intact dustwrapper as a minimum requirement, a more fundamental one being that all the novels had to have been published by Hodder & Stoughton in order to match the ones already in my collection. Trust me, there are no ‘Mint’ copies to be had, but hopefully the copies I bought can at least be described as ‘pre-loved’. On the scans provided by the sellers, the ones I bought all looked very acceptable.
I wasn’t remotely discriminating, Goof, when I first joined Lancaster Junior Library at the age of 9. I was like a child in a sweetshop. I think my earliest borrowings were about Fuzzypeg and his animal friends, all fully dressed. Eventually I explored the entire content of the library, which led me quite quickly to stories by Enid Blyton, novels by Frank Richards about Billy Bunter, and, more fruitfully, The Hardy Boys, whose stories were apparently written by Franklin W. Dixon. I had moved on to the Senior Library well before I discovered that there was no such person as Franklin W. Dixon, the he was just a name made up by a member of the Stratemeyer Syndicate, who also produced the novels about Nancy Drew, nominally written by Carolyn Keene. The stories by both Dixon and Keene were nevertheless highly involving. Frank and his brother, Joe, were the sons of a detective called Fenton Hardy, and with the help, and occasional hindrance, of their chubby friend, Chet Morton, they regularly helped him solve some of his cases. On the front flap of the dustwrapper to ‘The Secret Panel’, nineteen other Hardy Boys titles are listed. It’s quite easy to imagine the inner workings of the office. The gaffer would come in, turn to a couple of his writers who had finished writing their novels the previous day, and say, “Right Carl, I want a Nancy Drew novel ready for the printers by Friday, and you, Frederick, a Hardy Boys mystery. I need to get that to the printers sometime next week. Oh, and for you, Martha, I really, really need another Dana Girls adventure. So if you can get a bit of a lick on, we won’t have to lay off anybody in the print room.”
Just for clarification, in my book I will not be dealing with Enid’s series as series (St Clare’s / Malory Towers/ Naughtiest Girl), but by title, so for example, ‘Claudine At St Clare’s’ will appear under ‘C’ not under ‘S’.
Hi I was wondering if you can help me with an old story I read in my sister’s comic as a kid. I am sure it was Misty and a girl is turned into a tree!! It really creeped me out dor some reason
The story is “The Treatment” from Misty #75.
Hi thanks for the answer I will have a look for it
Hi all, if anyone has either issues 347 to 360 (1973) or 701 to 714 (1980) and is willing to scan the complete story of The Secret Song of Kate Darby it would make my friend very happy. She started reading it in 1973 at a friend’s house but never found out how it finished and says she’s been haunted by it all her life. I’d love to help her lay it to rest, with the help of someone here. I’ve tried tracking down the issues in all the usual places but apart from issue 357, I’ve had no luck. Thanks.
Hi Sarah,
Regarding the request you made on 26 April, Sarah, for a copy of ‘The Sacred Song Of Kate Darby’, have you had a satisfactory response from anybody? If not, I have issues 701 – 714, and would be willing to scan them for you.
Regards,
Derek Marsden
Hi all, delighted to find this site.
I’ve happily kept my girls annuals (albeit incomplete collections) and a few girls comics. Misty annuals and the June book of strange stories are still my favourites.
Lorrsadmin, I see this site doesn’t have the cover pics/story lists of the following annuals:
Bunty 1981
Mandy 1973; 1975; 1985; 1988; 1990; 1991
Would you like me to prep and send these via e-mail?
Thank you that’s a kind offer, I’ll pm you.
I’m trying to remember a story about a girl called Chloe. She wants to be a runner but her father has banned it for some reason, so she does it in secret. Things get worse when she develops an allergy to sunlight and has to wear a special suit, which makes her the laughingstock of the sports field and a mystery girl to boot. A reporter is determined to unravel the mystery and succeeds in unmasking her, but she becomes a friend. Then the allergy gets worse, and now Chloe reacts to fluorescent light as well as sunlight. I think the story was in Suzy. Can anyone identify it and how it ended please? I never saw how it ended. Thanks for any help.
I’m not familiar with this story, but I can rule out it being in Suzy, must have been another comic.
Are you able to rule it out from SUZY, Lorraine, because you have every issue?
I only own a few issues but have catalogued all the stories after trips to the National Library.
It may have been another comic. I think it wasn’t printed on the cheap newsprint of, say, Mandy, but a more fancy print.
Hmm, maybe the story was in Girl II?
O.K. thank you for your reply. As you would seem to have all the details about the issue numbers and dates of SUZY, I am quite certain that I will need to contact you over some of them. My problem this evening though, which has been annoying the hell out of me for several hours today, is that I cannot figure out the starting number and date of the ‘Jane Model Miss’ serial that ended in DIANA 532 (April 28 1973). Any help from you or any other member will be greatly appreciated.
For those who are interested, the entire concept of BUNTY AND HER SISTERS, the book that I had planned to write on what I consider to be the best serial stories in the eleven titles for girls produced by DCT, has undergone a fundamental revision, a complete makeover you might call it. The title has only been modified slightly to BUNTY AND HER MANY SISTERS, but the content will be much more revolutionary because in addition to the summaries of the best serial stories, I propose to include summaries of novels written specifically for girls, which I have been buying in from eBay sellers for well over a year now. At the last count I had bought in 573 of them, with a handful more due to arrive at my home either tomorrow or Monday. The reasoning behind the above-mentioned decision is that apart from the obvious fact that novels communicate with words whereas the story papers use pictures, they are both presenting stories, and essentially both are in chapters, the only difference being that readers of the story papers had to wait a week to read that next chapter.
Regarding their presentation, if you recall, my plan was to match the method I used in THIS WAS THE WIZARD, which had a heading in bold type for the title of each story, followed by a three-line synopsis of the story in normal type. What is going to happen now will remove those restrictions. First and foremost, the stories will be presented in alphabetical order, which will naturally remove the need for a glossary at the end of the book. Secondly, the presentation of each story will not be restricted to a specific number of lines, but will therefore allow me to develop the individual summaries to the point where I will have said all that I want to say, which I believe will amount to more or less exactly what the reader would like me to say. This naturally means that the synopses will not necessarily end at the bottom of any page if I have more to add, and will therefore continue at the top of the following page. The only allowance I am making for the novels is to give the name of the author, which would not be relevanf for the fiction in the story papers as DCT never revealed the names of their authors, leaving their readers to wonder whether they had all been written by the same person.
Because I was more than a smidgen uncertain about the plan expressed above, I rang my friend Ray Moore (Kashgar (guru) on Comics UK) on Saturday to ask his opinion on my proposed book. In fact, we spoke three times over four days. He is very much in favour of my plan. One thing he did ask was how long I thought it would take me to write the book. I told him that I thought I could have it ready for the printers by late November/early December. Well that remains to be seen because I have not yet quite made all my selections from DIANA, and I still have to decide which stories will make the cut from SUZY and from DEBBIE. Any or all reactions from members on any of my above comments are of course welcome.
Yesterday I completed my list of selected serials from DIANA and SUZY. Just DEBBIE to complete. I had reached issue 20 yesterday evening when weariness overcame me.
I have now reached issue 202 of DEBBIE with the listing of my selected serials. Onward and upward!!
A long shot, for sure, but I am searching for a Picture Story Library book (I think) that was about a girl who left her house and there was nothing outside. She was trapped in a place where there was absolutely nothing at all. Obviously a godsend for the artist, as no backgrounds needed to be drawn (!), but this story had a huge impact on me as a child in the early eighties and is the only comic book story that I can remember. The notion of being stuck in a white landscape of nothing and no-one, where there is not even a sky, petrified me as a youngster. I always thought it was from Misty, but in recent days have come to the conclusion that it was more likely in a Picture Story Book.
I wonder if this might be the short story “Slave of Time..” from Misty (24/2/79).
A girl steals an old clock from an eccentric recluse, only to find that it controls time itself. Therefore when the clock stops, she finds herself in nothingness – her figure is seen alone in blank white space. She is therefore cursed, as the old man used to be, with the job of constantly tending the clock to keep time going.
Does this sound like the story? Happy to post a page from it, if this would help.
There was a recent query about a World War I nursing story, which turned out to be from Diana. A nurse named Anna has trouble handling the job until matron gives her a talking-to. And there was a link to a page of it. What were the links again, please? I need the page for something. Thanks for any help.
I’ve no idea but if it was a recent query with links, as you say, then it surely won’t be that difficult to find, will it?
That’s what I thought, but I can’t seem to find it.
http://girlscomicsofyesterday.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/Diana78_All-for-Love-of-Lucy.jpg
This is the one you mean I think from Diana 1978
Thanks, Lorrsadmin.
It’s no wonder I couldn’t find the story because I thought I had the final issue of DIANA, that being 720 (4 December 1976). The following week, according to the rear cover of 720, DIANA was to be swallowed up, becoming the minor partner therefore, in the amalgamation with JACKIE, which was also dated 4 December 1976, but I imagine that first amalgamated issue came out later that same week. As JACKIE was for older girls than those that bought DIANA, BUNTY, JUDY, MANDY etcetera, there was no way I would have been interested in collecting it. I’m not curious about it even now, so consequently there will be no reference to it in BUNTY AND HER MANY SISTERS.
Hi, hope it’s ok to post a query here. I have a lot of annuals and ‘picture story library’ comics and I’d like to research how much I should sell them for. I’ve had a look online and prices seem to vary a lot for the same edition (eg a Bunty annual could be £1 or £15). Is there a way I can research what appropriate prices might be?
Thanks so much
It might be worth looking at the website of 30th Century Comics, who are probably the best and biggest dealers in girls’ comics and annuals in the UK:
https://30thcenturycomics.co.uk/
They have a big online catalogue which shows the condition of each item (according to a fairly detailed grading system) as well as price. You may find it a useful way to get a feel for how the market price of annuals and picture story libraries varies according to age and condition.
Thank you, that’s really helpful 🙂
I can report that where the subtitle of ‘BUNTY AND HER MANY SISTERS’ is concerned, I have replaced ‘Great Stories’ with ‘A Nostalgic Retrospective’. It looks as though there will be about 1,950 story entries from across the eleven titles, each one of which will be summarized in three lines. There will also be an ‘Introduction’, b/w scans of the drawing accompanying the first instalment in all instances, and several tranches of colour covers, which will be dispersed roughly equidistantly within the ‘story entries’ section. I recall mentioning fairly recently that I was going to integrate summaries of novels written for girls into BUNTY AND HER MANY SISTERS on the grounds that there isn’t a significant difference in their presentation, although readers of the stories in the story papers did have to wait a week before being able to read the next chapter. I will be keeping that promise, and I will of course indicate clearly which titles ARE novels. A reasonable selection of THEIR colour covers will also feature. Over the last two years I have bought in 650 of them, mainly from eBay sellers. Just ‘Jandy Mac Comes Back’ by Elsie Oxenham still to arrive. As my thoughts and plans are not yet set in stone, I may also include some scans of flyers and free gifts, and if any members would like to put forward a suggestion or two, they do still have time. I am aiming for a publication date sometime this coming November, and will be starting to write the book tomorrow morning.
Looking forward to Bunty and Her Sisters!
Hi Briony,
Just a query regarding my message to you on 4 March 2020 at 9.46 pm, in which I gave you the email address of Mr Constantine. Did you ever contact him and buy any story papers from him?
best regards,
Derek
Mr Constantine? Sorry, doesn’t ring any bells.
Scroll back on this thread to 4th March 2020, Briony. The answer to your question about Mr Constantine is there.
You’ll be ‘looking forward’ for a very long time, Briony, because my book will be called ‘BUNTY AND HER MANY SISTERS’, as I stated clearly yesterday!!!!!