Schoolgirl Eileen Lawson discovers that she can hypnotise people, but she can only do this when she takes off her glasses and then she can hardly see who she is hypnotising!
Hattie Benson is nicknamed Fatty Hattie because she is tubby. She is not bothered by the nickname, but her friends are trying to find ways to slim her down without her realising it. However, they are not having much success.
Rhoda Martin’s scientist father invents Pearl, a robot to look after her while he is away. But being a robot, Pearl takes her duties a bit too literally. This leads to all sorts of situations, usually with hilarious results.
Young Polly Perkins often helps her mother by taking baby out in the pram. Baby ends up causing trouble along the way.
(Polly and her Pram – 1964)
(Polly and her Pram – 1968)
Other Appearances:
A humorous episodic telling of the Cinderella story (in a modern setting). Cinders nasty stepsisters, like to make her life miserable while they go off enjoying themselves. Good things start happening for Cinders, when a good fairy starts secretly helping her.
Cinders – Judy: #36 (17 September 1960) – #56 (04 February 1961)
Plot:
A humour strip with twins, Penny and Jenny. When people try to con them they usually get the better of them. Although sometimes they not as clever as they like to think! Their mother is a film star and they travel around the world with her. Later they join a drama school and come in conflict with their teacher a lot. More bizarre adventures have them befriending an alien, time travelling and getting stuck in Stone Age and in the future and finding a magical imp.
Judy had a number of short humour cartoon strips over the years. While they had a long runs, they could also appear quite sporadically and many had reprints in later years. Some were full length pages, others were shorter. Note some long running strips are in seperate posts:
The rest of the humour strips are listed below
A humour strip with a girl Janie B. Quick and as the title suggests, she is very fast. She has problems slowing down to anything which usually ends in her upsetting a lot of people. Initially she stared as a 1 page strip but later was reduced to half a page.
(Art: George Martin [2] )
Young Polly Perkins often helps her mother by taking baby out in the pram. Baby ends up causing trouble along the way. Notably there were two distinct artist for this strip.
(Polly and her Pram – 1964)
(Polly and her Pram – 1968, Art: Gordon Bell)
A humour strip about a rough and naughty schoolgirl Dotty. This had a short run, but later Judy would have a longer run with a humour strip called “Naughty Dottie“, this was drawn by a different artist but she wore a similar uniform to Dotty, so perhaps it was a reworking of this earlier strip.
A humour strip about a girl Daisy, who tries to avoid work or anything that would require effort. Although often her quick solutions end up being more work.
A humour strip about a girl Cora and her attempts to get a boyfriend. The character also appeared in the Make and Do features in Judy.
A humour strip, usually three panels, narrated by a dog. It usually appeared in the Mini Mag section.
Short humour strip about a young girl, usually appeared in the Mini Mag section of Judy. It was later reprinted in M&J when that comic had a cartoon section, that featured different 3 panel humour strips, this included a Little Sister strip.
A humour strip that usually took up half a page. Nothing ever seems to go right for Jinxy!
Dinah wants a dog but her father is determined not to have a pet.
Aunt Tess tended to let her imagination run away with her when telling stories of her past.
A humour strip about a horses and horse riding, sometimes with helpful tips about owning horse.
Appeared for short period in the 1970s, no relation to the famous Andrew Wilson story.
Ann always has problems with her brother Dave. This started as a strip on the back cover then moved into the mini-mag in the centre pages. It had a short run.
Adventures of a witch named Zsa Zsa.
3 panel strip about a young girl.
Other Appearances:
The comic’s namesake ‘Mandy’ stayed on the cover of the comic for its whole run with just a few changes along the way. The first issues were more concerned with advertising free gifts and that it was a new paper. After this it settled into the pattern of a full-shot of Mandy on a mostly white background. Mandy is instantly recognisable with her bobbed dark hair, her clothes changed but are always colourful and kept up with 70s fashions. Accompanying her, is her red and white dog, Patch. The main picture set up the theme for the story. Each issue had a theme usually involving a play on words. As well as the large picture there was one small panel in the corner, often this would be a contrast to the calmer/ happier main picture. For example one cover has Mandy admiring a dalmatian, the smaller panel then has her running away from the bad tempered dog. Also on the cover a pun usually encouraged you to continue reading on the back cover like when Mandy gets sunburned and the line is “Have you “red” it all girls? Then turn to the back cover -”
These covers were very eye-catching, the colourful Mandy stands out from the white background. Also I think the cover is so effective by keeping it quite simple the expressions of Mandy and Patch with just a few props sets up the theme without over crowding the page. Even the corner box isn’t intrusive but a nice hint of what’s to come. The back page consists of 6 panels often with the panels in pairs, continuing the theme. Sometimes the last panel would have things work out for Mandy but not always.
A breakdown of one story; it starts with Mandy skating on the ice on the cover, the smaller panel has her in trouble getting stuck when the ice melts. The bottom of the cover tells us to skate round to the back cover for more fun with Mandy. The first panel on the back page has Mandy leaving the house to go babysitting, the next panel has Mandy covered in snow because the snow on the roof melted. The third panel Mandy is having trouble with her sitting charge who won’t stop crying. The next panel reveals she is crying because her snowman melted. On her way home in the next panel Mandy complains she has had nothing but trouble with melting things all day. Things work out for in the last panel as her Mum has backed her favourite biscuits Melting Moments.
By the middle of 1978 there was a slight change to the format. Mandy’s still on the cover but now there is no other panels, dialogue and the picture is usually a more close up shot. The front cover slogan encourages potential readers to buy the comic, like when Mandy in on a boat the slogan is “All Aboard for the best picture stories “or when she is playing catch with Patch the slogan is “There’s No Catch – if you like picture stories you’ll like Mandy”. Sometimes the story continued inside the cover rather than the back cover but the format stayed the same. The last few years of Mandy the character had a bit of a makeover. A new artist takes over and now Mandy has longer hair in a pony tail but the format stays the same. After Mandy ends and joins with Judy their new strip M&J- Friends and Neighbours drops the play on words and is more ordinary life mishaps for the friends.
I’ve already talked about the Bunty and Judy characters previously and while they are enjoyable, I think Mandy has the more interesting strip. The play on words is a fun angle instead of the usual straightforward mishaps characters have. A lot of other character strips like Judy & Co., Life with Bunty, Debbie weren’t very different from each other, so Mandy made a nice change. The art is also really good. My favourites are the early covers, like I said above these were very eye catching. The artist really captures a lot of expressions throughout the strip and there are more detailed backgrounds on the back page but he still keeps things quite simplistic. I enjoy the different outfits Mandy wears, which are nice look back at the time period.
The character must have been a good selling point as she consistently stayed on the cover while other comic covers changed over the years. Although later issues would advertise some inside stories as well, these only took up a small portion of the page while Mandy still kept her place as the main focus of the cover. When Mandy comic merged with Judy comic the two characters became friends in a new strip M&J – neighbours and friends.
Other Appearances:
A humour strip featuring dim witted girl. The regular tag line was “She’s Daft! She’s Dozy! She’s just plain Stoopid”
Mighty Mo is the strongest girl in Cactus Creek.
Other Appearances:
Annual Appearances
Summer Specials