Tag Archives: fantasy

The Rainbow Girls/ Prisoners of the Rainbow

Bunty,

Plot:

By a strange quirk of fate, Raine Franklin and her little sister Wendy, had stumbled through the Spectrum Door which had led them to an invisible universe on the other side of the rainbow.  But the door had vanished and there seemed no way back home again. To make matters worse, time was travelling backwards at incredible speed.

prisoners of rainbow

Notes:

Appeared:

  • The Rainbow Girls –  Bunty: #755 (1 July 1972) – #765 (9 September 1972)
  • Reprinted as Prisoners Of The Rainbow –  Bunty:   #1206 (21 February 1981) – #1216 (2 May 1981)

 

Maisie Mercury

Bunty, , , ,

Plot:

Maisie Mercury was banished from the School of Gods to Earth because she was badly behaved. She was set a number of tasks by Jupiter, the chief god. She was doing well , but she didn’t realise her school teacher, Somnus,  was trying to sabotage her efforts so that she wouldn’t return to his classroom.  She returns in  other stories where she is put in charge of new wishing well,  and another time a crystal ball, but again a rival tries to strip her of her post.

Maisie Mercury

Notes:

  • Artist: Terry Aspin
  • Reprinted in Dutch as “Het meisje van Mercurius” – Debbie Parade Album #50,

Appeared:

  • Maisie Mercury –  Bunty: #1451 (2 November 1985) – #1474 (12 April 1986)
  • Maisie Mercury –  Bunty: #1615 (24 December 1988) – #1626 (11 March 1989)
  • Maisie Mercury –  Bunty: #1735 ( 13 April 1991) – #1742 (1 June 1991)

Other Appearances:

Annual Appearances

  • Maisie Mercury –  Bunty Annual 1988 [Art: Terry Aspin]
  • Maisie Mercury –  Bunty Annual 1992 [Art: Terry Aspin]

Summer Specials

  • Maisie Mercury –  Bunty Summer Special 1987 [Art: Terry Aspin]

Picture Story Library

  • Maisie Mercury –  Debbie  Picture Story Library: #173

The Secrets of Charlie Chatterbox

Bunty, , ,
  • The Secrets of Charlie Chatterbox – Bunty: #1603 (1 Oct 1988) – #1615 (24 Dec 1988)
  • Artist:  Norman Lee

Plot

Fiona Parker is given an old ventriloquist dummy named Charlie. Only Charlie can really talk and he convinces Fiona to start performing with him. Money is tight for her and her mother, who is a widow. Mrs. Parker is working all hours to provide for them, so Fiona sees this as an opportunity to help out. Things don’t run smoothly for Fiona when Charlie  causes problems by insulting people. Also she is worried as he seems to have an agenda of his own.

They make an enemy of a wealthy influential woman, Mrs. Grant, when Charlie insults her. When Mrs. Grant tries to get her own back, Charlie  soon puts her in her place as he knows some of her family secrets. Charlie is eager to tour about the old theatres, and when Fiona catches the eye of agent Ted Alcorn, they get their opportunity to tour.  Fiona starts to suspect Charlie is up to something when she finds him rooting around Alcorn’s office.

He also scares Fiona at times, and he comes across as threatening. She is particularly cautious after an old stage hand, Bob,  appears to have been attacked and Charlie has blood on his sleeve. Fiona gains some advantage with Charlie as she realises he needs her to carry him around. Then they get an opportunity to appear on TV, while on TV he sings his special song and it appears to have affect on another doll Daisy-Belle, who is owned by two old ladies. Meanwhile Mike Harris, a reporter, is investigating Charlie, after a magician  Solesto who tried to steal Charlie, and who claimed Charlie could talk. Harris follows Charlie, but Charlie gets the better of him locks him in a shed. He goes for Daisy Belle who is delighted to see him. He wants Fiona to perform with both of them. Instead Fiona decides to retire and gives Charlie to the old ladies. Mrs. Parker has put away enough money to open up a shop, so money won’t be a problem any more. Mike not being able to report on the talking dummy, writes a “fictional” novel about Charlie, which gets turned into a film. He shares the profits with Fiona and also ends up marrying her mother.

Thoughts

This is a story that can go in the classic list. It is mysterious and creepy, with good characters and nice atmospheric art. The story was published around the same time as horror film Child’s Play came out. The film has Charles “Chucky” Lee Ray a serial killer possess a doll. So while there is no serial killer aspects to this story there does seem to be a few similarities. But The Secret of Charlie Chatterbox is actually the scarier of the two and definitely the better story.

There is a slow build up to what it is Charlie is after, you also don’t know what he is capable of doing to get what he wants and Fiona definitely doesn’t know whether to trust him. He is quite nasty to Fiona at times, calling her stupid and threatening/blackmailing her. The readers do see some sort of a redemptive side to him when the old stage hand sees Charlie walking around, he has a heart attack and Charlie tries to help him. Charlie calls an ambulance, but he does let Fiona believe it was him that attacked him to keep her doing what he wants.

He makes trouble for Fiona with other people on the theatre tour, being rude to them. Charlie also keeps Fiona going along with things by making her feel guilty about her mother working all the time. When Fiona gives out to him about his rudeness, he makes things difficult by not speaking on stage. In the end though he has a rough manner, his objective is to find his love Daisy Belle.  He would not really go through with any threats.

The story is developed well. There is a nice progression in the story. Even hints of what Charlie is after, such as when he gets upset when Fiona says she doesn’t care who he used to sing his song to. The character of  Mrs Grant and her daughter could have been the typical snobs and antagonists throughout the whole thing, instead she is quickly dealt with and the plot moves on focusing more on Charlie. Mrs. Grant after being insulted, fires Mrs. Parker so you are glad to see her get her comeuppance when Charlie reveals her family secrets on stage. But it also shows Charlie’s nasty streak and that he obviously has a lot of knowledge and history.

The dynamic between Charlie and Fiona is well done. Fiona is doing the gig to help her mother and sometimes Charlie scares her. But at the same time she isn’t afraid to argue with him and point out his rudeness. She also gets the better of him at times like when he won’t speak she starts singing his song to get a reaction out of him. Charlie can be scary particularly in the early issues. But he also is very set on achieving his goal. So rather than any real maliciousness on his part, he is just trying to reunite with his love, which sometimes makes him oblivious to others around him. Its interesting to see how Fiona and Charlie interact together.

While Fiona and Charlie have the main dynamic, side characters do get a bit of time too. Mike is an ambitious reporter, knowing he could have a great story on his hand, but he is also a nice guy he is actually concerned about ruining Fiona’s career if he tells Charlie’s story.  Eddie and Liz are acting as chaporones to Fiona, they seem to mostly be there to get the brunt of Charlie’s rudeness, but they do try to help Fiona out.

How Charlie and Daisy Belle could talk in the first place is never explained. They touch on it in the last issue but it is a  bit of a cop out as they say we’ll never know!

 

But on the other hand the focus of the story is more concerned with Charlie finding Daisy Belle and his relationship with Fiona. So I guess there really isn’t a need to know why he can talk and it can be fun to come up with theories.

So my verdict is this was a good strong story, nice build up to its conclusion, a good mystery and creepy in parts. It is also well drawn, the framing and use of shadows to make Charlie more imposing despite his size, is good and the character of Charlie should be remembered as one of the greats.

 

Amber

Judy, , ,
  • Amber – Judy Picture Story Library: #348
  • Artist: ?

Plot/Thoughts


I really like the cover for this book.  The colours, the overall image just really catches my eye. This was also one of my favourite ‘psl’ when I was younger.  I liked the mystical, mythological elements and the treasure hunt had a sense of urgency about it.  The characters are likeable and the art is simple but effective. I particularly like the drawings of Amber the mystical princess.

The story involves a school trip to the Greek Islands. Susan Barlow is an eager scuba diver so she is looking forward to exploring. She is is not so excited when the class is allocated  rooms alphabetically and she is stuck with Helen Basnet, a history geek. As school trips go its not very well organised or else the teachers are just very irresponsible! I’m guessing the protagonists are meant to be 16ish as they seem old enough to do their own thing but still be in school. At the same time they have no supervision. The teacher allocates the rooms at the start and then we don’t see any teacher again. I guess they are old enough to wander around themselves in their free time, but there doesn’t seem to be any group trips, they just bring the class to the Islands and dump them there, for all they know half the class could be sneaking drinks instead of exploring. Even some of the stuff Susan gets up to isn’t exactly safe,  and yet no adult supervision!

So Susan goes off scuba diving on her own. She discovers a cave that has been revealed after an earth tremor. She comes across a bock of amber with a girl inside, and is naturally freaked out when the girl opens her eyes. She swims back to surface and rationalizes that she must be over tired. Still a bit unsure she goes back to check. The girl is still there and this time she speaks to Susan. She introduces herself as Princess Diocastelyros and tells Susan she was trapped in the Amber by enemies and the only way she can be freed is when the stars are rightly aligned and combined with certain ingredients and a spell. Susan decides to call her Amber for short which the Princess isn’t happy with and is about to be nasty about it until she realizes she needs Susan’s help.

Susan first needs to get the list of ingredients “in the place of wisdom where Apollo lies at dusk”. As she can’t figure out what it means she enlists Helen’s help by pretending it’s a treasure hunt. “Apollo lies at dusk” means sunset and “place of wisdom”  is a temple dedicated to Athena. So they go to the temple and at sunset and a stone is illuminated, so Susan goes to touch it and it turns out to be booby trapped.

So this is the first time Susan is nearly killed or seriously injured. Both girls take the near death experience well and rig up some planks so they can get the scroll. Susan tells Helen about Amber but she thinks she’s just playing a joke on her, but she agrees to help anyway. Some of the ingredients seem unusual such as a “unicorn’s mane” and a “piece of Sea King’s Throne” so Susan goes to ask Amber for help. Amber calls them idiots for not knowing what the stuff is. A great way to treat people that are helping you! She plays the sympathy card of being stuck in Amber, so Susan will keep on helping her. She helps her get to the Sea King’s Throne by telling Susan where to swim up from the water. Helen meanwhile gets help from a local girl and finds out the a unicorns mane is actually a nickname for a local jellyfish.  They track down the rest of the ingredients except for a black rose and a seafire ring.

Amber decides to remind Susan how important the ring is by suddenly speaking in her head. This leads to second time Susan is nearly killed because of Amber, when she is nearly hit by a car.

They find the black rose with help from the local girl, Kristina. Helen also finds the legend of Amber so she now believes Susan about her existence. Amber came from an underwater empire that was conquered by an evil sorcerer. Amber and her twin escaped and they would have both became ordinary mortals if  a person helped them onto land. At the time there was only a shepherd around and he chose to help Amber’s sister, so Amber ended up getting caught and imprisoned by the sorcerer.

I really liked the legend, although Amber doesn’t seem too distressed to be caught in that picture! Amber tells Susan that her sister had the Seafire Ring and that the stars  will be aligned that night. Helen and Susan go to the beach with all the other ingredients and hope inspiration will strike them about the ring. Luckily Kristina is nearby and the figure out that she is a descendant of Amber’s sister and the shepherd and that her ring is the seafire ring.  So Amber is freed and Kristina accepts Amber into the family, convenient for Susan and Helen too as then they don’t have to worry about the whole adjusting Amber to modern life.

There is a lot I really liked the story; the legend of Amber,  figuring out what the ingredients were, Susan and Helen becoming good friends and that Amber, because of her situation, was a sympathetic  character but she could also be a haughty princess at times, so she wasn’t  always nice and sweet, so a realistic character.

 

The Valley of Fear

Debbie

Plot

On a flight across a South American jungle, the plane carrying the Ramsey family went off course, and crashed. The three children, Anne, Bob and little Judy, and their injured father were stranded in a strange valley of peculiar creatures . Unknown to the family, Maxwell a ruthless scientist was also in the valley and instead of helping them, he was studying their reactions to the strange environment.

valley-of-fear

Notes

  • In some episodes “the” is dropped from the title, making it just “Valley of Fear”

Appeared

  • The Valley of Fear – Debbie: #297 (21 October 1978) – #308 (6 June 1979)

The Stone Dancers

Nikki, ,

Plot

The Stone Dancers were an ancient circle of stones, which came to life during a violent thunderstorm. When one of their number was captured by the evil Sinistar, the dancers appealed to young Katie Bailey to help them rescue her.

Notes

  • Artists: Guy Peeters

Appeared

  • The Stone Dancers – Nikki: #223 (27 May 1989) – #229 (8 July 1989)