Tag Archives: Cándido Ruiz Pueyo

Fran – Friend for a Year / Prisoner of Time [1979]

Nikki, Tracy, , , ,
  • Fran – Friend for a Year – Tracy: #03 (20 October 1979) – #15 (12 January 1980)
  • Reprinted as Prisoner of Time – Nikki: #171 (28 May 1988) – #185 (3 September 1988)
  • Main Artist: Carlos Laffond
  • Second Artist: Candido Ruiz Pueyo

Plot

On a Halloween night, Julie Jackson has a party on top of Holly Hill, a place where witches were legend to meet in olden times. Julie has brought an old spell she found in the library which is meant to summon spirits. She is startled by sudden appearance of a girl, causing her to drop the paper into bonfire, before she can recite it. The girl, Fran Gray, joins the party, she has some strange old fashioned sayings and seems to know more about history than modern things. She tells Julie she used to live here a long time ago and has recently returned. She also tells her that 300 years ago witches met at this place and their influence lingers. Julie invites Fran back to her house when it starts to rain. Later after everyone leaves, the Jacksons discover Fran has no home, so invite her to stay. Fran is grateful but she can only be friends with Julie for a time.

The Jacksons end up fostering Fran, but there are many puzzling things about Fran. Julie notices her marking the calendar, she says a year goes by quickly. Fran seems to very knowledgeable, on the first day of school Fran evacuates everyone when she realises the new school has been built on an old mine. Everyone gets out before the school collapses. Reporters want to do a story on her heroism, but Fran shies away from photos and doesn’t want any interviews. At the newspaper office the reporters find an old story about a girl saving children during a bombing, the think the similarities with Fran is curious. With the school closed, Julie and Fran go to stay with her cousin. When they arrive, Fran sees the door plaque for Dr Hawkforth, then when Carol greets them, Fran throws silver dust on her to protect herself from evil. Talking to her family Dr. Hawkforth remembers stories about witches in his family and Fran refuses to stay with them. So they have to leave.

More mysterious behaviour when they go out riding and Fran uses a side sidle. She saves a fox from a hunt as she says she knows what it is like to be hunted. Time passes and soon it is Christmas. Wanting to show her gratitude to the Jacksons Fran digs up old heirlooms to give to them as presents. Christmas is not happy time for Fran though as when the Hawkforths visit, Fran will not interact with them and draws circle around her bed to protect from evil. Seeing the presents Fran gave, Uncle John says he has an old painting of  a woman with the brooch and when Julie tells Fran about it, she says it was her mother, but then says she has no mother and no family. When Julie tries to comfort her saying she has them now, Fran replies that it’s only for a year.  Fran causes more trouble at a New Year when she hypnotizes a rude girl causing her to throw trifle over herself. She says its one of the many things  she learned over the years. When Fran wants to go to Brinton Julie accompanies her and she puts flowers on an ancestors grave. It seems a reporter and pastor are waiting to find out who the mysterious mourner is who leaves flower on the same day over the years on a gravestone too faded to read. On another family outing the girls meet an old woman who is shocked to see Fran as she looks like the girl, Fanny, that they adopted. But Fanny disappeared after a year leaving only a thank you note. They bring some comfort to Mrs Palmer, but Julie again wonders what is Fran’s connection with Fanny.

At home Julie catches Fran putting on make-up to try and look older, and again Fran makes some mysterious comments about some people not getting to be old. Later when out with some friends Fran saves girl from drowning. It seem for a minute, after saving the girl, Fran is going to let the water take her, but then changes her mind, she tells Julie she must follow life through to it’s natural end. Julie begins to get more pieces of the puzzle,when Fran is knocked out by tree rambles about “Don’t burn the witch, spare Sarah Hawkforth until she has freed me”. Then when the Jacksons go looking for a birth certificate for Fran in village she was born in, they can only find a Fran Gray from over 300 years ago. As Fran’s birthday approaches she becomes more unhappy, she promises to reveal everything to Julie soon. Mrs Jackson makes Fran a cake but  the 14th candle won’t light. That night Fran sneaks down to grandfather clock and Julie follows her.  At midnight the hands spin backwards, Fran tells Julie the spell still holds.

Carol Hawkforth arrives soon after Fran’s birthday, she has been doing some digging  into her ancestors and has found out about Black Sarah a witch burnt at the stake. A black cat arrives at the house, Fran says it’s reminding her she can’t stay longer. Finally Fran tells her story – Sarah Hawkforth lodged with her family, but when her father found out she was a witch he cast her out, she cursed Fran with living forever. Sarah was burnt at stake before Fran could get her to reverse the spell. So as Fran stayed 13 forever all her family and friends grew old and died around her. She then for the next stage of her  endless journey.

Thoughts

It’s that time of year again, to look at some spooky stories. When this story was first printed it started appropriately around Halloween although the reprint started in May! There were two artists for the story, perhaps because I had gotten used to Laffond but I think he did a better job at portraying the wise qualities of Fran and spookier atmosphere. [Update: Thanks for Goof for the artist names, also I just noticed that the Nikki reprint has 2 extra episodes, I don’t know which episodes are extra as I don’t have the Tracy issues to compare but presumably those that were cut didn’t affect the story and may have to do with Lafford’s early death] Of the story titles, I prefer Prisoner of Time, as it keeps more with the mysterious tone. The first episode in Nikki had a cover that  promises it to be the strangest story ever read. I don’t know if that is true but it does come close and the cover was very intriguing. That cover actually takes a lot from the last 2 episodes  so readers must have been anticipating when these story elements would be revealed.

It is quite a detailed story, so my summary just covers main points, but there is lot of strange behaviour and sayings like “love apples” for tomatoes that Fran use. It is very interesting that it turns out Fran was cursed by a witch, as she displays some witchy qualities herself, such as saying a spell on Holly Hill to protect Julie from spirits, her use of silver and circles to ward off evil and her putting girl “under a spell” by hypnotizing her. Early in the story I thought it would be revealed that she was persecuted as a witch by the Hawkforths, especially as she mentioned she knew what is was like to hunted like the fox. So the reveal that she was actually cursed by a Hawkforth witch was well done.  I do wonder if she met some good witches over her time, and that’s where she learned some spells, perhaps she has sought help to break the curse before. We don’t get to learn much about Fran’s past as we only get hints of it throughout the story, so it does leave room for readers to imagine what the last 300 years has been like for Fran, once her secret is revealed.

Some things don’t quite add up though, such as if she has been alive all this time, even if she still likes old fashion things its odd that she is not also knowledgable about modern things. The ending also leaves some questions, as it plays up the difference in age of Julie and Fran, making out that she is so much younger and naive which contrasts to her worldly presence (The switch in artist for the last 6 parts also makes Fran look younger, I don’t know if that is intentional or just their style). With the Jackson’s knowing the truth and ancestor of Black Sarah among them, you’d think they might try to help Fran instead of letting her go, but maybe that would lead to too many questions by authorities. There are some dark tones in the stories, Fran is certainly a tragic and sympathetic figure, having to watch her family die, to never have permanent friends, it clearly distresses her, so much that she even contemplates suicide at one point! Quite heavy stuff. It is a story that feels fresh in comparison to some other witch stories and a captivating read.

 

 

The £100,000 Headache (1980)

Picture Story Library, , , ,

Published: Debbie Picture Library #33

Artist: Ian Kennedy (cover); Candido Ruiz Pueyo (story)

Plot

Sandra Painter’s family are not rich; her bicycle, for example, is getting ancient. But she’s got lots of friends and happy with her lot. Then Dad tells her and her brother Billy that they’ve won £100,000 on the pools. Sandra and Billy are all set to shout it to the world when Dad stops them. He’s heard stories on how the lotto curse has ruined lives and is not going to have that happen to him. So they’re going to keep their win a secret. They are not going to get carried away with flash cars, posh houses and such. The new things and renovations they will get will be done discreetly and the story will be that they have had a bit of luck, and they’ll show that having money makes no difference at all.

But as they soon discover, it does make a difference. The neighbours and kids at school can’t help but notice things the renovations being done professionally instead of Mr Painter doing it himself, which they think is strange. And it’s showing the rest of the neighbourhood up too. The kids at school see Sandra’s got flash new clothes and bicycle and we can sense jealousy in the way they comment on it. The worst is Edna Egon, who is constantly making nasty remarks about it and Sandra.

The new dudes are making Sandra a standout in school, but it’s proving awkward and causing embarrassments. For example, the teachers keep picking out Sandra for answering questions or running unwelcome errands because they are now noticing her too much. Sandra has to lock her new bicycle whereas she didn’t need to with the old one because it was not worth stealing. Then she loses the key and has to borrow a hacksaw! She comments that such things would never have happened with her old bicycle. On top of that, it causes her to mess up the errand teach lumbered her with, and when she gets home she messes up her new clothes on the paint being used for the redecorating. Dad comments that she wouldn’t have been so careless in the old days. Sandra finds she is beginning to miss things from the old days and she preferred some of the old things to everything they have bought anew.

Dad is encountering the same problems as Sandra; he says he is not going to darts club because everyone is getting wary of him. Later on in the story Billy says it’s just the same for him: everyone is picking on him. Sandra suggests they try sharing their good fortune, but in ways without hurting people’s pride.

They start with Dad offering his friend George Clark a lift in his new car. Sandra tries treating everyone at the canteen, but they accuse her of trying to buy popularity and will pay for themselves, thank you very much. Then Dad presents two new athletics trophies to the school. But Dad forgot that athletics are Sandra’s forte and it would be conflict of interest if she wins the trophy. Moreover, people remark that the competitors will let Sandra win because her dad donated the trophy. Sandra tries deliberately losing, and let her friend Wendy (George Clark’s daughter) win, but everyone realises what she did. Wendy is furious with Sandra for what she thought was favours, as it was not an honest win for her. Meanwhile, Dad messes things up even more when he generously has the Clarks’ car taken away for repairs at his expense – without consulting them first. The Clarks are furious, not only because they are proud but also because they thought their car had been stolen. After this, Sandra finds none of her friends are speaking to her at the leisure centre.

Dad miscalculates yet again when he sees Sandra standing miserably outside a ballet shop and assumes she wants ballet lessons. So without consulting her, he gets her expensive ballet gear and lessons at the more posh part of town. In fact, Sandra hates ballet, proves completely hopeless at it at her first lesson, and the other ballet students are a snobbish lot who won’t have anything to do with her. On top of that, her new bicycle got stolen while she was having the lesson.

The whole family is finding that everything has been going wrong since they won the money. It’s spilling out into frayed nerves and constant rows, which they never had before they won the money. For example, Dad unfairly accuses Sandra of letting the money go to her head and being careless over the bike theft. He’s a fine one to talk about being careless – he was saying this instead of watching his driving, and his new car hits a gatepost! Sandra has had enough of her classmates making such nasty remarks about her turning into Miss Posh, especially Edna, and lashes out at them. Billy is in a bad temper because everyone is picking on him, and when he’s in a bad mood he does something stupid. In this case it’s flying his new motor plane in the school playing fields out of hours. Sandra knows this could lead to trouble. She realises that giving the motor plane to Billy was another of Dad’s bad moves, which was compounded by Dad being too busy to teach Billy how to use it properly. Sure enough, Billy can’t control the plane properly and it smashes into a neighbour’s greenhouse. The neighbour is furious and the school janitor says they are in big trouble for trespass and damage. Now their parents are even worse, and there will be the headmistress to face next morning.

Next day, Billy runs away because of what happened. Sandra goes in search of him. Her classmates stop making their unkind remarks when they hear Billy’s missing. Even Edna changes her attitude. They promise to help if they can. Sandra decides the places to check are Billy’s favourite haunts. She soon locates him, and when they get home they find his disappearance has helped to patch things up with the people the Painters fell out with.

Dad comes home and says he has lost the money. He made a stupid investment with it – “didn’t take proper advice” – with a dodgy firm, who have now disappeared and being hunted by the police. However, Sandra and Billy cheer and tell Dad that losing the money was the cleverest thing he ever did with it. The Painters are now pretty much back to the way they were and glad for it. Their friends are back and now everyone knows the whole story.

 

Thoughts

When Dad wins the fortune he comes across as a whole lot more sensible than the Mill parents in Judy’s Minnie the Meanie, who lost the whole fortune they won on the pools because they did everything wrong: they broadcast the news of their good fortune to everyone in town, which made them prey to vultures out to take advantage; they did not save, invest or put any of the money where it would generate further income for them; worst of all, they just wouldn’t stop spending the money, despite danger signals that it was running out because of this.

Dad has clearly learned from stories like these and he tries to do everything right. But we know from the title of the story that things are not going to work out that way. Dad’s decisions on what to do with the money prove to be ill-conceived because he is not thinking things through or checking them out properly, and everything he does with the money blows up in his face one way or other. He turns out to be as incapable of handling a vast sum of money as the Mill parents.

Although the Painters are sensible enough not to flaunt the money and throw it around like confetti as the Mill parents do, they soon find out they are mistaken in believing money makes no difference. The overhaul they make to their entire household makes them stand apart too much from their less-wealthy neighbours. Instead of being just one of the gang as they were before, they look too far above themselves for their friends and neighbours to take. And of course people get jealous and resentful. The Painters try to win them over with generosity and sharing their good fortune with them. But rather than people getting greedy and taking advantage, as they do in Minnie the Meanie, it all just goes wrong all the time. In the end, the best thing for the Painters to do with the money was lose it altogether, and give the old adage “money does not buy happiness” a whole new appreciation.

Destiny Calls Rosita

Bunty, , , ,

Plot

Rosita, a gypsy girl, is a pupil at Priory Ballet School. Signora Barelli hates Rosita for some reason and is trying to get rid of her. But Rosita’s grandmother is on hand when needed, and Rosita is also getting help from grandmother’s special powder which enables one to see visions in smoke when the powder is thrown into fire. One such vision gives a clue as to why Signora Barelli hates Rosita.

destiny calls rosita

Notes

  • Art: Candido Ruiz Pueyo (?)

Appeared

  • Destiny Calls Rosita–  Bunty: # 926 (11 October 1975) – #961 (12 June 1976)

The Forbidden Beach

Debbie, , ,

Plot

Alison Cooper is staying with a distant relative, “Aunt” Moira Hewitt. Alison finds the house  creepy and Aunt Moira is behaving strangely, in that she has banned Alison from the beach in front of the house and won’t say why. Alison disobeys orders to rescue a baby seal, which she has kept hidden and named Flippers. But a well-meaning photographer takes a photograph of Alison and Flippers on the beach, and Alison’s secret is in danger when he pushes the best shot through the mail slot.

Beach

Notes

  • Artist: Cándido Ruiz Pueyo  (also used the pseudonym Emilia Prieto)

Appeared

  • The Forbidden Beach –  Debbie: #252  (10 December 1977) – #262 (18 February 1978)

Plain Jane

Bunty, , ,

Plot:

Jane Grant has always known her mother favoured her younger sister Elizabeth, but when her father dies she discovers that she is adopted and her mother no longer feels she has a responsibility for her. The sisters are sent to school, Elizabeth is to be educated but Jane is to be a servant.

plain jane

Notes:

  • Art: Candido Ruiz Pueyo

Appeared:

  • Plain Jane–  Bunty: #1054 (24 March 24 1978) – #1066 (17 June 1978)

 

“I Want to Dance!”

Bunty, , , , ,
  • I Want to Dance!”–  Bunty:  #1275 (19 June 1982) – #1291 (09 October 1982)
  • Artist: Cándido Ruiz Pueyo  (also used the pseudonym Emilia Prieto)

Plot/ Thoughts

These comics were known for their ballet stories, so I thought it was about time I talked about one. The title may suggest this is the type of story where a young girl is forbidden to dance by her bitter aunt/guardian/whoever, but actually this is set in the future where everyone is forbidden to dance or listen to music.

Yes, music damages your life by encouraging slothful behaviour…so in the year 2082  I guess there’s no TV shows, films, humorous websites, social networking or any other thing that people use these days to procrastinate instead of study/work.

Our  protagonist Denny Dacre, feels different to to her friends and family.  She wants to rebel against study and work and this worries her. Her closest friend is a robot named Miki.

It’s amusing to see in the 80s what the world was imagined to be like in the future. Films like Back to the Future II and even Blade Runner, while being over optimistic in some aspects, in other ways could not guess what technological achievements would be made. Even though we’re still 70 years away from the  setting of this story, there are no Kindles or iPad type devices instead it is imagined that we will have robots to carry our heavy paper books.

So Denny discovers why she feels so different when she finds an old cassette player at some market. When she takes it home and plays it she discovers the music of Swan Lake and she is enthralled by its beauty and wants to learn how to dance to it.

She gets into trouble at school when she can’t concentrate on her work. Later she hears a group of teens talking about wanting to dance. She sneaks out to meet them but is disappointed when they play some illegal disco music and “stamp” around the place.

After listening to one piece of music, already she’s a critic!

Luckily when she’s sent to a boarding school, she finds people who like to dance ballet and is admitted into a secret ballet class that takes place in the basement at night time. The class is run by the mysterious Alana and everyone wears hoods to protect their identities. Hence this kind of creepy image:

Denny figures out who one of the other girls is when she sees a burn on her hand. She thinks that Joanna is a spy as her mother is the Minister for Juvenile Education. She confronts Joanna, but discovers that she is genuinely passionate about ballet too.

There is a lot of sneaking around to try and keep things secret, but Miki learns of the Ballet class. As he is programmed to protect Denny, his logical conclusion is that he must know more about the class. As he is also programmed to obey Denny, she commands him to block out what he knows. This causes him to overload.

 

 Later at the ballet class, the basement floods during a storm, Denny is nearly swept away but luckily Miki revives himself and comes to rescue her. The whole class are brought to the creepy caretaker, Alice’s room. Everyone’s identities are revealed and Denny figures out that Alana and Alice are the same person.

When Joanna goes home she develops pneumonia and ends up blurting out everything about the dance class and who is involved in it. Her mother proceeds to arrest everyone involved and says that her daughter will be punished along with them.

On the day of the trial Joanne takes a turn for the worse and is asking for Denny. So the trial is suspended while Denny goes to see her.  So we never find out what the punishment was going to be, were they going to  be imprisoned, exiled, shunned from society? Joanna is going to die as there is nothing to live for in this world, but Denny gets the idea to save her with the power of dance!

This actually works and the mother is so impressed that the power of dance has brought her daughter back from near death, that she reconsiders the value of music and dance. Just hope she’s not considering it for medical purposes! So the girls are set free and they now have a minister behind them to help overturn anti-music laws.

Ballet, robots, mysterious teacher, oppressive governments, what’s not to like in this story!