When her archaeologist father became ill, Sandra Small decided to take his place on an expedition into the South American jungle. It was 1950 and Mr. Small had hoped to find the fabulous stone of Solomon, a tablet as ancient as time itself. Sandra realised her task would not be easy.
Five Edgecombe Girls’ School pupils were stranded in the African jungle after a plane crash. Their tough teacher Miss Hardiman, known as “The Dragon” was determined to lead them to safety.
Eileen Masters, one of a team of British gymnasts, was left behind in Lobovia to look after the team’s baggage. In one of the equipment baskets she found Valerie Dimitric the star gymnast of Lobovia. The authorities had refused Valerie permission to leave the country, so with Eileen’s help, Valerie tried to escape.
Bonnie and Claude Plank are a pair of ballroom dancers who kidnap Laura Balmain for a ransom to start their own dance studio. She outwits them but then they save her from another kidnapper. Her father gives them money for saving Laura, but they have to teach her to dance during Summer Holidays. The return in other series where they always seem to find trouble, luckily they are helped out by their young friend, Laura.
Other Appearances:
Annual Appearances
Summer Specials
Picture Story Library
The story of a doll with a defect searching for a home, told from the doll’s point of view.
Nan and Sue Foster are sisters who perform stunt flying and parachute jumping.
Other Appearances:
Annual Appearances
Follows the adventures of Eskimo, Noona and her faithful husky, White Fang.
Valda was a long running and popular character from Mandy. She is a mysterious girl, who gained long lasting life, youth and powers from the fire of life. She has to bathe in the flames regularly to replenish her youth and strength, whenever she exhausts her powers. The powers and skills that Valda primarily is shown to have are; a youthful appearance, strength, ability to leap great distances, mental influence, a knowledge of herbs and a rapport with animals. As a baby over 200 years ago, she was found by an old gypsy woman Dorcas. Dorcas raised her and taught her about herbs and potions and shared with the water of life. After Dorcas died, Valda continued her quest to find the fire of life. While the flames will restore Valda when she is weak, she also has temporary restoration methods, gained from a crystal pendant she wears.
Due to her long life, she appeared many times over the years. She had adventures with hidden tribes and lost worlds, she fought evil forces and sometimes she competed against athletes to prove her skills. In her first appearance she challenges the world champion ice skater, and other stories saw her compete in sports such as tennis and diving. When the Valda serial appeared in Mandy it would usually come under different names such as; “The Amazing Valda” “The Ten Tests of Valda” and “The Return of Valda”. In 1974 her origin was told in the “The Girlhood of Valda“.
She was an interesting character, and her original inspiration may have been from a boys comic strip from the 1940s “The Truth about Wilson” in The Wizard, which had some similarities. Obviously she was quite popular character, and is well remembered. She appeared in a lot of the annuals and in the 2002 annual she was updated with a more cartoony and superhero look.
Full list of appearances are below.
Other Appearances:
Plot
The Mini Morgans are Little People, that perform as a circus act in 1885, along with their friend Martha Little. Unfortunately the circus has to close and while the owner thinks he can get Martha another job, for the Morgans he says the only option is to join a freak show. The Morgans are not happy with being considered freaks and Martha decides she will help find them jobs. The Morgans consist of Ada and Bert the older parental couple, Danny their son, Holly and Jake a younger couple and Frank and Freddy.
Along the way to find new jobs they have to deal with people’s prejudices as well as DeVere the owner of the Freak show trying to capture them. Danny is the first to get job when he comes across a young catatonic girl Emily and manages to entertain her. The grandparents are so grateful that the offer him a place to live and to train him up as a tailor to work with the grandfather. Soon after that, a scheme by DeVere to capture the Morgans leads Ada getting hurt. They get her to a doctor, who tries to scam them saying she will need an operation. Luckily Martha also does some research on Dr. Dakin, and finds out he’s a scam artist, Ada will be fine she just had a concussion
Later Madame DeVere convinces Frank and Freddy to give her a chance only for her to steal their horse and burn their caravan. Holly is the romantic of the group while her boyfriend Jake is more gruff and is not one to show his feelings. They get a job looking after chickens but on their first night a wild dog attacks the chickens, while trying to scare it off Jake is hurt. Unfortunately he doesn’t make it. Holly is devastated and doesn’t want to stay at the farm, but soon after Martha gets gets Holly a job with a family of acrobats. Frank finds a girlfriend, Sally and gets married. Freddy rescues a girl in a fire, and in doing so catches the attention of a rodeo manager who gives him a job. So that only leaves Burt and Ada. Martha does some temporary acrobatics with family. When the parents decide it’s time to retire the son Davy suggests him and Martha could start their own trapeze act. Burt and Ada, see Martha has a chance of love and job and decide to leave before she turns it down. Martha goes after them, she catches up with them just when Burt is nearly killed when he rescues a dog from a flood. Burt and Ada get jobs as gardener and housekeeper with the dogs owner, and Martha feels she can move on now.
Thoughts
There is a lot going on in this story. There is obvious drama but also some comic relief, with the way characters interact with each other, particularly with Frank and Freddy and Holly and Jake. There is also a good sense of family and closeness between the characters.
Holly and Jake are fun with her gushing romance and Jake being more of the gruff type but there is still the sense that he cares about her . His death is really unexpected and touching. We don’t actually see him die, but a doctor says it does not look good for him. It is well done with him declaring his love for Holly, then the next scene cuts to the next day Holly crying wanting to leave and a wordless panel with the Morgans comforting each other.
While that is well done, it is strange that the next issue Jake never gets mentioned, presumably a bit of time has passed but still even in the caption box it basically says there is now only 5 Morgans left but doesn’t mention what happens. Though I suppose it seems that once a Morgan has moved on no matter what the circumstances they aren’t spoken of again. Ada and Bert have a tearful goodbye with their son Danny only for him never to come up in conversation again.
DeVere drops off pretty suddenly as well. just before Holly gets her job, DeVere locks Martha up in order to convince the Morgans that she has abandoned them. She leaves them with her card in hopes they will join her. Martha escapes of course and then the move on, and DeVere is never heard from again. Perhaps she thinks with only 4 of them its not worth her trouble any more as the whole point was to get the entire group, but its never explained what happened to her.
It is a nice story, the Morgans do have to deal with prejudice and being mocked. When things get tough, some of them even feel that maybe being in a freak show is their only option. Clearly Martha is a good friend and very close to them, but its also a bit sad that they sometimes feel a burden to her and that without her help they wouldn’t get much of a chance. I did like that when Martha is upset that Bert and Ada have left and she has to go find them, Davy points out that they are adults and would maybe like to look out for themselves. (Also its one of the few stories featuring little people that doesn’t involve magic, or some hidden society!)
The artwork is good, especially at portraying some of the more emotional scenes. There is plenty of action, drama as well as some humour to keep the story entertaining. The characters are very likeable and their is a nice sense of family and comradeship between them.
It’s in the Book! – Bunty PSL: #336 (1991)Plot
Sally Barton is a bookworm but her parents believe she should be out meeting new people and getting fresh air, so they sign her up for an adventure holiday on an American island. There are 7 girls signed up and their holiday leader is Miss Tuffnell. For no sensible reason (other than to serve the plot), Miss Tuffnell sails on in a powerboat leaving the girls by themselves following in a motor boat. Fog splits the girls up from Miss Tuffnell and the end up drifting of course and landing on an uninhabited island. Janice a regular holiday adventurer and a bossy girl decides to take charge but it is Sally with all her book knowledge that is the better equipped to handle the situation.
After Janice leads them to the other side of the island where there is little food and only cliffs, Janice overhears Sally telling Liz they would be better off on the beach where they can fish and have better chance of being seen. Janice decides to present this idea to the rest of the girls as if it was hers. On their way back they run into a swamp with a crocodile but luckily get safely back to the beach. Janice does not like that Sally is taking control of things. While looking for firewood Janice sees she is being watched by some unidentified animal and runs back to camp. The situation starts taking its toll on her, Janice seems defeated and stops giving the orders. Sally and Liz discover Janice’s mysterious animal was a lost dog. The dog comes in handy when a storm washes away their supplies and he finds them again. Also he leads his owners back to help the girls. Sally and the girls get home safely and promise to stay friends and keep in contact.
Thoughts
This isn’t the most original story, a bunch of people being stranded on an island has been told often enough, but it is still a good adventure story. Visually the island is interesting and well represented, from the swamps and dense forests to the open beaches and cliffs. There are no mysterious smoke monsters, just the normal hazards of islands like animals, storms and poisonous food. While the girls do not crash on the island the boat does get swept away onto the rocks, which serves putting them in a difficult situation without dealing with injuries on top of it.
There are 7 characters and while visually distinctive most of them don’t have a lot to do. Of course the focus is on both Sally and Janice. Liz as Sally’s close friend gets to be supportive of her and put down Janice when needed. One other girl Eunice seems to have the trait of making things worse by scaring the other girls.
The other girls seem to be there just to complain or switch allegiances from Janice and Sally and follow who ever is favourable at the moment, like sheep. It is a short book so I supose can’t expect everyone to form distinct personalities. Both Janice and Sally get time to develop. Janice actually gets the most development. She goes from being bossy, arrogant and jealous to scared and unsure. She gets back to taking charge again but it is more driven by fear after the dog runs off and she forms a group to follow him. While bossy and jealous she is never shown to be nasty and softens up a lot by the end. Sally throughout maintains her practical and level headed attitude. She does gain friends that will take some of her time from reading and she is happier about the holiday than she was in the beginning but overall she stays the same. It is nice to see the bookworm triumph!
I do find Sally’s parents attitude quite funny. When they send her on holiday, I get that they want to her to socialise and exercise and such, but you wouldn’t think having a daughter that likes to read would be such a problem.
I don’t think reading too much is something that needs to be cured, it’s not something I want to be cured of anyway!