On her travels, Space Cadet Troyah, had picked up schoolgirl Katy Summers thinking that Katy was a nice earth witch. The two had retrieved the amazing magic touchstone from Malevola a wicked space witch who was now on their trail determined to get it back.
A girl named Mary, of course, has a pet lamb. Lenny the lamb gets injured and is rebuilt by vet scientists. They have the technology, the capability to build the world’s first bionic lamb. Better than he was before. Better, stronger, faster. Along with being super fast and strong, Lenny has heat powers, x-ray vision and once after being hit by lightning he became super magnetic for a while. He gets Mary into trouble sometimes but usually everything works out for the best in the end. In one instance he gets trapped in a school oven, he breaks out destroying the oven. Luckily the Home Economics teacher, Miss Dixon, is glad as she can get the school to invest in a new cooker!
Lenny gets into trouble again when he gets hold of a hang-glider, Mary grabs hold of him to try and stop him but they are both swept up into the sky. They crash into a tree and Mary is left hanging on for her life. Lenny cuts the tree down and takes the brunt of the tree falling in order to save Mary. She takes him to the vet who says he has exhausted his bionic powers and he’ll just be an ordinary lamb now, though never growing old. But as Mary walks him home, Lenny turns invisible. It seems that he has gained other powers to make up for his lost ones! So the story ends on the possibility of more adventures with Lenny.
Making a character, bionic, was a popular way to gain powers. Supergirl (Bunty’s version, not Superman’s cousin!) also had a similar origin. At times Lenny gets to be a hero, he helps capture some burglars and joy-riders.
For the most part though Lenny’s powers are not used for super-heroics. He is often just mischievous. Causing trouble in the first place. It is a fun story and ridiculous (in a good way). The ending doesn’t really make a lot of sense, as super strength, speed and even x-ray vision seem possible after bionic enhancements, but I’ve never heard of bionic invisibility! But this is a world where you leave all thoughts of reality behind and just enjoy the fun. The lamb is cutely drawn, and the art throughout is good.
Mary’s main purpose seems to be tying to keep Lenny, and herself, out of trouble and giving exposition on his powers. So she doesn’t get a whole lot of character arc, but she shows how much she cares about Lenny, when she tries to protect him and is concerned when he is sick. She also knows when to use his powers to his advantage, such as helping her carry newspapers and with mowing the lawn. As well as that she continues the tradition of being a Bunty character, that reads Bunty!
Other Appearances
Annual Appearances
Summer Specials
Picture Story Library
This is the last Mandy annual to have art on the cover, rather than a photo of a cover girl. It is also the first cover not to depict the Mandy character. There are 22 picture stores, 2 text stories and 6 features. There are no photo stories, and as usual with Mandy there is one longer picture story split into 3 parts. There is also a symbol beside each story to show what type of story it is; drama, humour, spooky or romance, so there is a nice mix here and the layout is nicely done.
When this was published, Mandy and Judy had already combined in the week issues to become M&J and Judy’s last annual was published the previous year, so it makes sense that some traditional Judy characters continue to show up here; Cinderella Jones, Wee Slavey and Pepper the Pony. Angel as an original Mandy character, is the focus of the long picture story. Along with these regular characters there is also a lot of original stories. (For just a list of contents click here)
Rhymes for our Times (Pages: 4/ 39/ 64/ 97)
Art: Wilf Street
These humorous one page strips update the old rhymes of Little Miss Muffet, The Queen of Hearts, Mary had a little Lamb and Little Bo Peep. In Little Miss Muffet, Muffet refuses curds and whey in preference of a strawberry yoghurt, she isn’t scared off when a fake spider appears beside her and excepts the trickster John’s offer of a date.
In the Queen of Hearts, pop star Gloria Hart bakes some tarts but they are rock hard so no one wants to steal them. Only the local paper boy accepts the tarts to give to his boxer to chew.
Next Mary helps out at a local farm and with a young lamb, Larry, when he follows her to school there isn’t laughing and playing instead she gets 200 lines.
Lastly, Betty “Bo” Peep helps look after her dad’s sheep and is quite taken by the handsome new shepherd. He is too busy to talk to her and a bit of a know it all, so Bo hides the sheep in order to help him find them later!
Angel (Pages: 5-10, 33-38, 113-118)
Angel is a well remembered tragic heroine that appeared in the Mandy and M&J comics. When Angela Hamilton a wealthy young woman discovers she has only a year to live, she leaves home and dedicates her life to helping the poor. After she dies her parents dedicate a home to help the poor children and have a statue built in her memory. Here the story set up is that 3 older people meet at the statue to pay their respects to Angel, each tell their story of how she helped them.
Firstly is Peter, who as a young boy grew up with wealth, but after losing his parents he ends up on the streets. His pride makes him refuse Miss Angel’s offer of a home, because it is in a stables, which he believes is only fit for animals. Angel worries about him, then realising it is Christmas time, takes Peter to a church to see a Nativity scene and if a stable was good enough for Jesus, then Peter can accept her offer. This fits in with religious tones of the original story.
The next story is from Annie and actually takes place after Miss Angel’s death. She was given a violin by Angel’s parents which she then used to busk on the streets. She also tried to live up to Angel’s goodness by helping out the family living next door to her. When the money she earns to buy a Christmas feast for the family is stolen, she goes to sell off her violin. A customer hearing her play gives her a job in the orchestra.
The last story is told by the youngest woman, Peter points out that she couldn’t remember Miss Angel, as she has been dead over 40 years. But she actually owes Angel, her life. She was born under a railway at Christmas and Miss Angel paid for her and her mother’s medical bills. Years later when the family is doing well they recognise the statue.
The art and the inking are great a like the soft pastel colours used. A lot of browns and greys are used, though it does not look dull. Also this helps to make Miss Angel stand out more with her green dress.
A Shy Romance (Pages: 11-15)
One of the many romance stories in this book. Trina is a shy girl and is delighted when a boy she likes Ross asks her out. She is nervous about the date but seeing a tv programme about “the shy guide to dating” gives her confidence. Another girl Sophie, a jealous, tries to interfere with her plans with Ross. Because of this, Trina arrives to the date late and things don’t seem to be going well. Taking the advice of the TV show she leans in, to show her interest only to knock heads with Ross.
She tries to follow the rest of programme’s advice but Ross gets in before her, asking about her hobbies. She realises he also saw the show, meaning that he is shy too and wants to make a good impression. This is a sweet story with some humour, the artist is good at humorous expressions.
Cinderella Jones (Pages: 17-22)
Arnold Jones, Cindy’s father has been made redundant and Agnes is making sure he doesn’t laze around the house by putting him hard at work. As a Christmas present, Cindy helps him stand up for himself, when she gets someone to pretend to be from the tourist board, who expects a male in charge. This leads to him ordering Agnes around for a change! The last panel has the characters looking out of panel saying Happy Christmas. In this annual there is actually a few times where characters address the reader directly..
M&J (Pages: 23-25/ 59-61)
Mandy and Judy, best friends have some small adventures. In the first story, Mandy is worried when her dog Patch goes missing. It turns out he sneaked into Judy’s family car and had a great trip to the country, while Mandy was searching for him.
In the second story Judy arranges a tennis game with Mandy but can’t find her racquet. She visits various friends that she may have lent it to. They don’t have the racquet, but they do have other things she lent them. Judy arrives at court with various things but without a racquet, but it turns out she had lent racquet to Mandy! Both stories have a lost theme, and it is nice to see a focus on both characters in the different stories.
The Perfect Pony (Pages: 27-32)
Julie has an old pony, Pixie, who is not a show jumper or a very fast horse, then Julie sees the opportunity to get a better horse in a competition. She wins an Arab horse, Desert Prince, in the competition. Her parents tell her they can’t afford to keep both horses, so she advertises to sell Pixie. In the meantime when Desert Prince arrives, Julie is very excited at the prospect of entering competitions. But soon she notices other differences in the horses, such as Pixie comes to greet her when she arrives at the field and comes to comfort her when she hurts herself. Julie realises that she wants a sweet pony that she has a bond with, more than a fast competitive one and ends up selling Desert Prince instead.
A Fairy Story (Pages: 43-47)
A more fantastical romance story. Carrie and Bill, are dating and unknown to them they are also getting help from Carrie’s good fairy and Bill’s elf whispering in their ears. Carrie can be hotheaded, so her fairy helps calm her down. While Bill is easygoing and his elf encourages him to be more honest, like not agreeing to see a romance film when he doesn’t like them. It seems the advice they are giving is causing arguments between Carrie and Bill which also leads the Fairy and Elf to argue about each others methods. They are so busy arguing that it takes them a while to notice that Bill and Carrie are getting on great without their help. They wonder who could they help instead and so breaking the fourth wall, they say to could help the girl reading the story!
This is a fun story, the similar looks of the fairy/elf with their protagonists seem like they may be part of Carrie and Bill’s conscious, a part of them. Maybe when they find a new person to help their looks will change!
Wee Slavey (Pages: 49-56)
Trouble for Nellie when the family buy the Little Wizard (an early vaccum cleaner model)! It’s meant to save her time for housework but actually it is so big, bulky and hard to carry that it creates more work for her. Then a diamond clasp goes missing, Nellie has idea to solve 2 problems at once by reversing hoover. So they find the clasp had been accidentally sucked up by the Wizard and the family get rid of the “faulty” machine.
Big ‘n’ Bertha (Page: 57)
Dad kicks Big out of the house, saying he’ll be fine in the shed with his basket. But when Dad get locked out of the house one night, and ends up sharing Big’s bed, he agrees the shed is too cold. So Big can stay in the house again.
Love Next Door (Pages: 65-69)
Tony and Julie are neighbours and also boyfriend and girlfriend, but they have a falling out. Their younger siblings John and Jane try to get them back together but seem to make things worse. Only after Tony rescues Julie from a ladder do they get back together. A couple of months later they get married. Some neighbours comment that they will miss the romance across the fence, but it seems John and Jane’s friendship is changing to something more. The story is fine, although not very memorable, still the art is very good.
Bunty had a long run of annuals, up to 1988 Bunty appeared on the covers, after that cover girls were used instead. There was still plenty of picture stories inside, long running popular characters like The Four Marys and The Comp are present, along with complete new stories. In this book, there are 17 picture stories altogether, only 1 text story though. By this time photo stories were a common element, still there are only 2 photo stories present here. There isn’t a lot of features only 5 here. Overall there’s a nice variety here. (For just a list of contents click here)
The Four Marys (Pages: 5-12/ 76-80)
Artist: Jim Eldridge
Probably the most famous of school stories and the longest running, the Four Marys was about 4 friends that attended a boarding school, St. Elmos. For the most part they went by nicknames to avoid confusion (though in early stories they did not). Raddy was the down to earth- daughter of an Earl, Simpy was the scholarship girl, who often got a hard time from the snobs Mabel and Veronica, Cotty was the artistic one and also sometimes a klutz, and finally Fieldy was the sporty one.
In this annual there are two stories about the girls. The first is a Christmas themed story. While most of the school has gone home for the holidays, a group including the four Marys and snobs Mabel and Veronica are left behind for a few extra days as their parents aren’t around yet. It starts to snow and the girls have great fun the first day having snowball fights and sledding. Then it continues to snow and the girls wake up to find the electricity gone. While Mabel and Veronica complain about everything, everyone else gets on with things. Later when the girls are out, another pupil Andrea has an accident and hurts her leg. The girls get her back to the school but she will need to get to hospital. The phones are down and the roads have yet to be cleared, but luckily Raddy is a great skier and manages to go for help. They get Andrea to hospital and also get supplies for the school. The roads still won’t be cleared for Christmas though so they will have to stay. The girls don’t mind so much. Though Mabel and Veronica amusingly do.
The second story has Raddy become a snob after a skiing accident. A blow to her head causes amnesia, while her memories return, her personality changes. Her parents hope that being around friends will help her recover. While Miss Mitchell and Creef are aware of this plan they don’t actually think it would be helpful to inform the other Marys about Raddy’s accident, so they get a surprise when Raddy comes in and starts ordering them around. and insist everyone refers to her as Lady Mary. Another knock on the head cures her, though when Simpy accidentally drops a book on her head.
Secret Schoolgirl (Pages: 17-20, 71-74, 97-100)
This is a story in 3 parts which was a more common trait for Mandy annuals. Amy is at boarding school when she hears her parent’s plane has crashed and they likely haven’t survived. She has to go live with her aunt who is mean to her and treats her like a free maid. The people at her new school aren’t any nicer, so Amy goes back to Blackstone and her friends agree to hide her. They find the perfect place in the drama room, which is situated near a classroom so she can hear lessons and also she can dress up in disguise quickly when needed. When Amy sees a new girl stealing she make sure she’s caught but also the police are called. She thinks it’s too much of a risk to stay and runs away when she sees the police coming. She trips and knocks herself unconscious. When she wakes up in hospital her parents are there they had survives the crash after all. This was common when someone says that no-one is likely to have survived a crash, the dead people would turn up by the end of the story!
Annie’s Story (Pages: 21-25)
Artist: Don Walker
The opening caption box for this story places the time period as April 1985 but judging by their dress and background it is meant to say 1895. Unless it’s some time warped village which would put an interesting spin on the reading or a reminder of Shyamalan’s The Village! Annie is new to the village but has fitted in well as she is a friendly, nice girl. This does lead to some trouble with two girls; Mary and Ellen. They are especially mad when it comes to picking the May Queen, Annie makes sure a young disabled girl gets to be the Queen. This leads to a fight where Annie gets knocked onto an oncoming horse and cart. It is revealed that the family had moved to the village after Annie had nearly died from an illness and her eagerness to help of others is mostly due to her gratitude of surviving. On hearing this Mary and Ellen see the error of their ways and are very sorry about the accident. By the next summer Annie is recovered and the 3 are good friends visiting sick kids in the hospital.
A Dancer’s Dream (Pages: 26-32)
Artist: Guy Peeters
Hannah longs to be a ballerina and when she gets an audition for a scholarship at a famous ballet school she is thrilled. The audition is to take place over a weekend and Hannah is to room with 2 other candidates, Stephanie and Nicola. Hannah quickly becomes friends with Stephanie but Nicola is quite a nasty person, who makes sure to suck up to the teachers while trying to sabotage the other girls on the side. Hannah ends up being late for her audition as she tries to comfort a girl Gail that Nicola upset.
Hannah thinks she may have lost her chance but it turns out Stephanie is already a student at the school and she was there to make sure that as well as being talented, a generous and kind pupil was chosen. Predictable that Nicola would be found out, but still a decent story with decent art.
My Pen Pal From Pluto (Pages: 33-39)
Artist: Matias Alonso
Alien antics are always fun! Karen’s brother Martin customises a satellite dish so he can get channels from all over the world. It turns out the dish doesn’t just pick up transmissions from our world, as Karen finds herself communicating with a girl from Pluto; Aurora. No one believes her as she can never get Aurora to appear when people are around. Aurora comes to visit for a day, and of course causes trouble when she does such things as put food samples in her bag saying they will be interesting for scientific study.
Before a French lesson Karen tries to use Aurora’s language translator to help her, but Aurora’s too late in explaining you need to point it at the person who is fluent in that language. Aurora is beamed back to her ship before fixing it and Karen is left only able to speak Pluto. Luckily at their next transmission Aurora is able to fix Karen, just in time because the neighbours have complained and Martin has to take down dish.
I like the alien Aurora design, though she still looks close to human, it is still fun, which matches the fun, light-hearted tone of the story.
Bunty- A Girl Like You (Pages: 48/123)
Artist: Andy Tew
Bunty gets up to her usual amusing antics. In the first strip Bunty and her friends are annoyed by people in the cinema talking and eating loudly. Lisa convinces the girls that they can watch a video quietly while babysitting her cousins, but of course things don’t work out that way as the kids stay up banging on drums while the girls try to watch their film.
In the second strip Bunty builds a snowman but the next morning all the snow has melted. It starts snowing again so she build another one. Her mother tells her next morning her snowman is gone again but Bunty isn’t disappointed as this time it is because it snowed even more during the night and now she can build even more snowmen.
Also of note is that Bunty appears on the first 2 pages and the last 2 pages inside the cover. It is more like the traditional way of the old Bunty; an amusing rhyme goes along with the images.
Plot/Thoughts
Jane Cook is happy when she finds out her friend Claire is moving back to the neighbourhood, but Claire seems to have changed in her time away and has it out for Jane’s family. She starts out with small things, such as knocking over Jane’s books so Jane misses the bus, of course she acts all nice afterwards claiming it was accidental. It’s not just Jane she’s making trouble for though, Jane’s Dad’s car gets scratched and Claire causes Jane to break her Mum’s favourite teapot. After Claire turns the class against Jane, Jane is determined not to get tricked again and also get to the bottom of why Claire has changed.
When Jane’s cousin Andy comes to stay, his dog goes missing, Jane believes Claire has something to do with it she confronts Claire. It seems Claire has mistook Andy for Jane’s brother Mike. Jane begins to wonder if Claire has something against Mike in particular. After a trip to a funfair, Claire appears to be getting more dangerous, nearly pushing Claire’s Mum out of a ferris wheel carriage, while pretending to have vertigo.
Claire’s little tricks have now become more psychotic as she actually tries to injure some of Jane’s family. While out riding with her cousin Jenny, Claire startles the horse causing Jenny to fall off and get injured. She reveals to Jane that her change seems to be something to do with her sister Sara/Fay. ( It seems the writer/editors, had a hard time keeping track of Claire’s sister’s name. In issue 1697 it is Sarah, then in issue 1704, she is called Fay and in 1707-1708 she is back to being called Sara, though without a h!)
Continuing on the road of nearly killing the Cooks, Claire invites them over to the house while her parents are out. She acts all nice for a while, then pops out. She leaves the central heating on full blast, then locks all the doors and windows so they can’t escape.
Luckily Claire’s parents come home in time. Meanwhile Jane has discovered that Claire’s room is covered with pictures of Sara. (Jane describes it as a shrine, creepy much!?) Later Claire confirms that she is making the Cooks pay for what they did to her sister. Jane not having any idea what that could be, is happy that her brother Mike is coming home from college so she can talk about Claire with him.
Claire is excited her sister Sara is coming home too, she boasts a lot about her. Mike goes cycling on his new bike but Claire cuts the breaks, even though Jane can’t prove it. So another kill attempt, the girl is seeming like potential bunny boiler material! After the accident Jane remembers that Mike and Sara had been on an adventure holiday together a few years ago. Mike is reluctant to tell her the story, but does eventually.
His version of the story is that him and Sara were friends, but then she started to tell everyone they were engaged and Mike didn’t know how to handle it. (So I wonder how much of a casual “friendship” this was, either way Sara is delusional to announce their engagement. Seems this family is full of issues! ) So Mike not wanting to embarrass her waited til he was home and wrote to her saying he wasn’t ready for that sort of thing. I would think so, as Mike is just in college now and the holiday was a a year ago how old were they when Sara created this engagement? I’m guessing way too young to be planning a wedding.
So Jane tells Mike what has been happening. They go to see Claire. Sara is home and they are surprised to see her in a wheelchair. Turns out Sara had an accident on her horse a couple of weeks after Mike’s letter and Claire has blamed Mike and hated his family since, because its rational to hold a vendetta against the entire family over what she perceived Mike did wrong. Anyway Sara knows it was just bad luck, and she was over the Mike break-up at that stage (would have been nice if she told Claire that!) Claire’s upset at this revelation.
In a few weeks everyone’s feeling better and apparently there are hints of Sara and Mike getting together, yep because nothing is more attractive than a delusional girl and her psychotic sister, that nearly killed you and your family. Seriously hope Claire got some professional help, her obsession with her sister and basically attempts to kill people isn’t something that should be that easy to get over in a few weeks….in the real world at least!
Plot/ Thoughts
Titles in girl comics sometimes weren’t the most imaginative at times, they loved alliteration and other times they liked a title so much they would just reuse it for different stories! This is the case, with this story where the same title was used in Bunty within just a space of a year, for two very different stories. The first story (published in 1978) involved a poor girl, whose mother convinces her and everyone else that she is a lost heir to a throne. The second story was about a queen who becomes ill and is replaced by a mechanical wax model. I do have a more fondness for the more bizarre stories which is why I’m going to discuss the wax model Queen story.
Unfortunately as artists went un-credited back in the day it can be quite hard to
track down which artists drew what. [Update: I had previously credited this story to artist Vitor Peon a Portuguese artist, who has had similar work credited to him elsewhere on the web. Apparently it is not certain this is his artwork, again it reiterates the fact that its hard to track down these artists! Particularly in the girl comics industry. It is now thought be the work of Matías Alonso, who worked on other British comics like Victor] Whoever did draw this I always found the style pretty and eye catching. One common feature of his characters they always had big eyes. While I wouldn’t call it a Manga style I do think his artwork could appeal to those Manga reading fans.
So the story is set in the fictional Kingdom of Gretenberg. (Between the fictional kingdoms and Exotic Islands, Girls Comics could make up an entire world!). It is set in modern times (i.e. the 80s rather than 1800s). The people in this kingdom are unhappy with taxes and unemployment and are pretty close to revolting. Meanwhile Ella lives with her father ( no mention of her mother) who owns a wax museum. Apparently business is good for him, because who wouldn’t want to visit wax museums when they are not busy protesting about unemployment and high taxes!
Getting into the elaborate schemes of the story, the Queen has to have an operation so her staff “employ” Ella’s father to make a wax mechanical model of the queen with voice recordings to temporarily replace her. When I say “employ” I mean they are keeping him in a dungeon and threatening him. Hmm I wonder why people are ready to revolt!
Unfortunately this mechanical wax model of the queen has the brain box of a child, which causes mishaps. It’s all a bit vague, it seems like she is half childlike A.I. and half controlled by Ella. I suppose like most sci-fi/fantasy stories you just have to move past vague explanations and just go with the flow.
So the big bad guy in the story is General Maximilian. He’s worse than the people locking old men in dungeons apparently.He comes complete with bald head, eye patch and a beard he probably devilishly strokes when he’s coming up with devious plans. He’s waiting to see any weakness from the queen so he can over throw her. While he and his sidekick try to kill the queen with such schemes as making her horse buck and poisoning her dessert, Ella is trying to keep control of the Queen and explain away some of her childlike tendencies, such as sliding down banisters.
Ella figures out what the General is up to an tries to expose him. General Maximilian also figures out the queen is made of wax when she doesn’t die from cyanide poisoning and he learn of Ella’s father been brought to the castle. Luckily he is exposed, the real queen recovers and everything works out in the end.
Interestingly some of the visuals changed from the first issue, Ella changed from dark haired to fair haired, the queen also changes hair colour and looks older in later issues. Other than these inconsistencies, the art is always lovely to look at and while the mechanics of the childlike wax queen don’t make a lot of sense, it is harmless fun in the end!
In this annual there are 22 picture stories, 2 text stories and 23 features. That’s a lot of entertainment for one book.
While annuals like Mandy often had long picture stories, commonly split in 4 parts throughout the annual, Judy seemed to favour shorter stories and therefore more of them. Comic strips ranged from 2 to 6 pages.
There are a nice variety of stories, some humorous strips, and regular characters such as Wee Slavey and Cora Cupid in new adventures and then there are new complete stories especially for the annual. Stories with twist endings seemed to be a favourite, perhaps because these fitted better with telling a story in a few pages. For more details on the featured stories read on… (For just a list of contents click here)
Silver Star (Pages: 5-9)
This story seems to start out as any other average horse story, an untameable horse and the only person who ever could ride him in a coma after an unnamed tragic accident. But it quickly turns to the more bizarre side when it the next panel states the story really starts a year ago with an alien scouting ship. While the alien, Captain Zoros’, ship is on a collision course to Earth, we see the stable owner’s daughter Megan, being a spoilt brat (though it’s clear she will get her comeuppance as a year later she’s in coma).
That evening a meteorite crashes near the stables of a pregnant horse. The horse’s foal is born and Megan names him Silver Star and claims him as her own. The other stable workers notice something unusual about the horse, after a few months he looks like a 2 year old, and he seems too intelligent.
Finally Zoros fellow aliens track him down and bring Megan and the horse to their ship. They extract Zoros but accidently put Megan’s personality into Silver Star. So the comatose Megan is empty and the spirited horse is actually Megan, though it’s decided that a lifetime of punishment as a horse is a bit much for being a spoilt brat, so the aliens realise their mistake (how they realise it a whole year later isn’t explained!) and come back and fix it, so happy ending for Megan who becomes a nicer person after that.
Bobby Dazzler (Pages: 12-15)
Artist: Matías Alonso
This was a regular strip in Judy, though it isn’t drawn by the regular artist. This strip like all the artist’s work is lovely looking. The only flaw I find is that Bobby a bit too pretty and girly then I’m used to.
Basically Bobby is the only girl at an all-boys boarding school where her mother works. She usually ends up having to prove that she can do anything the boys can (and she usually does it better!). This story follows a typical set up where her main antagonists, Mike and Don, sign up for a model plane building competition and laugh at Bobby when she says she’ll enter. They tell her she should stick to flower arranging (this piece of dialogue will be a set up for the end punchline).
Of course when they realise she’s actually good at making model planes they decide to interfere as they can’t lose to a girl! So when Bobby volunteers to do the flower display for the hall, the boys decide to lock her into the room so she hasn’t time to finish her model. Of course quick thinking Bobby uses the flowers and some wire to make a unique model plane and ends up winning the competition.
I liked Bobby Dazzler, she could always hold her own with the boys and the boys while sounding a bit chauvinistic were usually aware that Bobby could beat them at most things.
The Time Machine (Pages: 17-21)
Artist: Ken Houghton
Ann lives with her brilliant inventor uncle, who of course has no money, still waiting for the invention that will make them millions. He thinks he finally has it when he makes a time machine. Ann isn’t too convinced. Later she sees a paper headline about a painting that sold for a million pounds by Leonardo. (Presumably Da Vinci though they never say his second name specifically for some reason, they just leave it at Leonardo, Italian painter from 1498). So when she sees that the painting was part of a pair she decides to try out her uncle’s time machine.
Somehow the vague location of Milan lands her right in his studio. We also get the classic swirling numbers when travelling back in time (this is also where this site’s banner comes from). So Ann does a deal with Leonardo, through gestures as he’s Italian and doesn’t speak English.
So she takes the painting back and then goes to contact an art dealer. Straight away the dealer tells her it can’t be the original painting as the paint’s too fresh, he gives her £50 for it anyway for its curiosity value. Of course time as a loop means that she was the cause of the painting being “lost”.
Simple Simon (Pages: 23-25)
Pencils: Sean Phillips Inker: Ken Houghton
As this is only 3 pages long the set-up, conflict and resolution all come pretty quick. Sandra Brown and her horse, Simon, are accepted into a riding club and she delighted. She has a great time on the outings with the club and seems oblivious that the girls are annoyed that her horse is too slow to keep up with the rest of them.
So she is surprised and disappointed a few weeks later when one of the girls, Moira, tells her she has been voted out of the club. She is still loyal to Simon telling him he’s better than any of the faster ponies and then the next day he gets to prove himself when Moira’s horse gets in trouble. Simon helps pull Moira’s horse out of the bog and Moira is so grateful she and the rest of the club vote for Sandra and Simon to join again. Sandra accepts it enthusiastically with no conflict about been kicked out 2 days before.
Schoolgirl Vet (Pages: 27-31)
This was another regular Judy feature about a girl Kay Burrows who wanted to be a vet and helped her vet brother David a lot of the time. In this story the set-up is that Constable Clark’s dog Rex who is trained to protect him and not accept anything from strangers, gets poisoned. They don’t know what could have happened but Kay figures out that the stick Clark has being using to play fetch with Rex is Laburnum, a poisonous plant.
So Rex is cured, but a mere poisoning doesn’t make for enough of a thrilling story, so a runaway truck has to be added. Constable Clark performs an impressive and improbable bit of policing.
But wouldn’t you know it after that amazing feat, the brakes have failed so all Clark and Rex can do is steer it clear of the populated area and use their amazing reflexes to jump clear of the truck
Clark is hurt and needs to be gotten clear of the truck before it explodes but Rex won’t let anyone near him. While some guy gets ready to shoot the dog, Kay and David arrive. Kay convinces the police to let her try and get the dog and Rex recognises her and lets her put a lead on him so everyone’s okay.
A Year and a Day (Pages: 33-37)
Artist: Martin Puigagut?
The year is 1738 and a Squire Jonas and his new wife Althea, are heading home when the coach nearly hits an old woman. Now the Squire doesn’t seem like a bad guy he had told his driver to go slower and shows concern about the old woman though he does mention that people call her a witch. Woodtrope (the witch) decides to place a curse on him, which seems somewhat unfair after all it was his driver’s fault not his, unless she was more pissed off by being called a witch, in which instance she doesn’t help her case by cursing his first born child.
So for those of you who are history buffs you might spot a flaw in her curse, for everyone else prepare for the twist ending.
So the couple have a daughter, Alona, and pretty much forget about the curse until Woodthorpe turns up to remind them on Alona’s 13th birthday. While Jonas is sceptical about Woodthorpe’s powers, Althea decides she should spend the night of the 2nd with her daughter. Just as midnight approaches Death appears. Looking like the stereotypical Death with a cloak and scythe, and also wings and a horse and lots of smoke. Then the clock strikes midnight and he just disappears. The next day Alona’s tutor comes with the news that Woodthorpe was heard to be carried off screaming in the night and also provides the reason for Death’s disappearance.
Apparently Death follows the Gregorian calendar too.
A Fast Learner (Pages: 40-44)
Marie Reagan is part of a travelling community and is told she will have to go to school by the government. She insists on bringing her parrot to school and of course she runs into some bullies the first day. The bullies leave the parrot out of the cage and she flies away. For someone that was so insistent that she couldn’t be parted from her bird she isn’t too upset about her flying off. She doesn’t even look for her; she just leaves the cage open at school and goes home to study. Meanwhile the bullies decide to set Marie up by stealing stuff and put it in Marie’s locker.
So the police arrive and Marie is happy to see Polly has returned to the locker room. She is surprised when the police search the lockers and find the stolen stuff in her locker. Luckily there is a witness to the crime, as Polly quotes the bullies.
The policeman takes the word of the parrot. The bullies get taken to the station to meet their parents and Marie does well on her first test, so everything works out.
The Hero (Pages 49-51)
Two sisters, Susan and Rachel, decide to avoid any more dates with two boys who bored them by talking about cowboys and rock climbing respectively. The perfect distraction comes in the form of a film star who is part of film being shot in their town. A big crowd gathers around and Jason James the film star chooses the girls to go on a boat with him for publicity shots. Of course when things go wrong, it’s the boys to the rescue with their skills of rock climbing and ah… cowboy related lassoing.
Of course Jason James makes a complete idiot of himself. The boys are enjoying attention from some girls when Susan and Rachel come over to set them straight, that it’s theirboyfriends the girls are hitting on. So being fickle girls, they are now fascinated by their boyfriends interests the minute some other girls show and interest in them.
Cora Cupid (Pages: 55-57)
Artist: Giorgio Letteri
Another regular Judy story about a girl, Cora’s, attempts to play matchmaker. As she is an already established character with Judy fans, other than a small caption box there is no need for a big story set up. This also means that a short 3 page story works better here than the previously mentioned “Simple Simon”. In this story she tries to matchmaker an overzealous first aider with a guy who wants to be a doctor. It doesn’t quite work as she hoped.
Romance and boyfriends became a more common story plot in the 70s/80s/90s then when these comics first started.
Rain (Pages: 62-63)
Art: Oliver Passingham
Marie Patin and her father a doctor live in a log cabin where there neighbours are a tribe of “Red Indians”. Anuak, one of the neighbours apparently has interest in becoming a doctor but thinks his elders wouldn’t approve as they are set in their ways. He is disparaging of their plans for a ritual to the rain god to stop the recent flooding. That night Marie awakens to find an old man outside in the rain. She invites him in gives him shelter. The next morning he has gone and so has the rain. Anuak has a quick change of opinion about his elders with these revelations.
Junior Nanny (Pages: 65-67)
Art: Oliver Passingham
Junior Nanny, Chris Johnson, works in a residential nursery, solving little kids problems. Donny one of the recent additions is having problems settling in. His father’s dead, his mother’s in hospital and he can’t talk well. Presumably in frustration with the way his life is going so far, he starts tearing the legs off kid’s teddies. Chris’s boyfriend, Andrew, decides terrifying the kid will help…
…it doesn’t.
Apparently honey was a high commodity 1984, was there a shortage in the 80s or something? I definitely remember having honey at home in the 80s.
So they get the “precious” honey but Donny smashes it. That night one of the kids asks to be read a story about the bear who really likes honey (wonder who that refers to!). Donny gets upset. Chris figures out that Donny’s missing his teddy bear named Honey. So Donny and Honey are reunited and Andrew gets to slip in some suggestive comments to Chris about having his own honey to cuddle.
The Girl in the Looking Glass (Pages: 69-73)
Artist: “B Jackson”
Jane Martin is on holidays with her parents but is very bored. She is interested in the local Chateau, but it is closed to public. She decides to take a closer look anyway, so she hops over the wall and is found by the caretaker’s son
I think she needs to look up definition trespassing, jumping the wall for a closer look at the chateau still constitutes trespassing. So it turns out the Chateau was originally owned by the LaMartins and Jane’s last name being Martin thinks they might be ancestors of hers, and the boy Jean also thinks this is remarkable (because you know Martin being such an unusual name to have!)
Years ago a curse placed on the Chateau, that if intruders ever stole anything from the chateau and went un-punished, the whole place would be destroyed. It seems like an odd curse, was the old woman who placed the curse a really vigilant law keeper that wanted to ensure thieves did not go unpunished? Or was it that she hoped that the place would not only get robbed but get destroyed in the process? Why the old woman placed the curse in the first place is never explained either.
So while Jean is checking on one of the burglary alarm he lets Jane into one of the rooms for a few minutes. Jane admires one of the pictures but then as she turns to leave she sees the portrait in the mirror but it reflects her own face. She panics trips over a stool, knocks herself unconcious and sets off an alarm. This turns out to be a lucky thing as burglers had broken in and captured Jean and tried to get him to turn off the alarms. Later her seeing herself in the mirror is explained away.
You know those old trick mirrors, set a precise angles to old paintings, that every rich person keeps in their house.
The owner are so grateful to Jane that they invite her and her family to stay. Jane looks in the mirror again and sees the portrait is smiling so is not convinced that it’s just a trick of the mirror. There is a bit of ambiguity to whether she’s just over imaginative or whether the Lamartins were actually her ancestors.
Big ‘n’ Bertha (Pages: 74-75)
Judy also had humorous regular features that were more in the style of Beono/Dandy type comic. Bertha is a young girl and Big is her dog and that usually end up being a source of irritation of her father. The father looks a lot like teacher from Bash street kids, I’m not entirely sure if it was the same artist. Of course artists and writers hardly ever got credited for their work with these comics so it can be hard to track down who drew what.
In this strip Bertha sets up a paddle pool but Dad ties Big up so he won’t splash around and dirty Mum’s washing. When Dad tries to show off his diving skills of course it ends in disaster for him when he trips over Big.
Wee Slavey (Pages: 78-79)
Artist: John Higson
This was a popular feature in Judy. It was about a young Victorian maid, Nellie Perks. While often stories about maids in Victorian times showed a hard life of drudgery, this was a more light-hearted funny strip. In this short story on her afternoon off she tries to help out a struggling artist, to sell his paintings. He doesn’t have much luck but he paints a portrait of Nellie and signs it for her. Later when Nellie is working she drops the picture in front of some of the family’s guests. In a big coincidence style, it turns out the guests are the parents of the artist.
It is never explained did Ian actually go to Australia and come back or just take the fare money to do his own thing. Either way the parents are so happy to be reunited with him that they help him get famous and he has an exhibition to a crowded galley which includes Nellie’s picture.
For All to See (Pages: 82-85)
Lucy Weston’s estranged rich Uncle is dying. He emigrated from England to Canada in the 40s. Now that he’s dying, he is feeling bad about disowning his sister after her marriage. So he wants to make it up to his sister and niece Lucy by leaving them an inheritance. He is afraid that his family would contest a legacy so his sends something open for “all to see”. Sure enough after his death, his pompous son, Alan, comes to check what his father sent his aunt and cousin. The document Uncle Charles sent them is deeds to a property in Canada. Alan informs them it’s worthless, it was flooded in 1973 by the government to make a reservoir. So Alan throws the paper back at them and leaves. They are disappointed, but Lucy refuses to believe it was some joke. While in a newsagents she figures out what the document is all about. She shows the document to the newsagent a keen stamp collector. Turns out the document has a rare stamp attached to it worth nearly 50,000.
The Helpers (Pages: 88-93)
Artist: Ian Kennedy
A new take on the history of Britain, two aliens Petra and Anya land on Earth during the early Stone Age. Their mission is to help primitive people. They begin to show the people how to make fire, tools, wheels, and apparently teach them English.
So the people are amazed by this “teknajee” and want the “Gods” to stay with them. Anya and Petra decide its time to leave before they become to dependent on them. So the tribe name the land after them; Petranya.
Then centuries later the Romans come to conquer them. I guess the tribe could have used their alien helpers then!
So after some kind of chinese whispers like hijinks Petranya become Britannia. Not exactly the most historical accurate depiction of Britain, but the last panel asks anyway “Just a story. But could it be how Britain and London got their names?”
The Theatre (Pages: 97-101)
Artist: Russ Nicholson
I just love the artwork in this story particularly the opening panel. Often I think these stories benefited from not being in colour, the simple green/black/white works beautifully here.
So the set up is Grace has time to kill before getting her train and seeks shelter in a theatre. Often short stories with a twist, used the situation of the protagonist hanging out with ghosts without realising it. This story has the good double bluff, where Grace freaks out as she thinks the theatre people are ghosts when she sees they are dressed in old fashioned clothes. She runs away but some of the people catch up to her.
So this is explained away, and Grace ends up staying until the second half, then goes to get her train. She forgets her gloves though, so she runs back to get them, only to find…
Danger, Min at Work! (Pages: 104-105)
Another humour strip, this involves a girl Min who can never keep a job. Her story-lines had her trying out a variety of jobs, that always end in disaster. Here she gets a job on a farm and typical mayhem ensues. She decides the quickest way to weed turnips is to use a tractor. She ends up losing control of the tractor and crashing into a milk tanker.
Betty’s Bloodhound Butler (Pages: 107-109)
Betty has a dog that is called Butler and is also dressed liked one. He also talks like a butler, but only Betty can understand him (or else she is completely delusional!). Kind of reminds me of the recent Australian/US TV show Wilfred, only Butler is more dignified than Wilfred and Betty was never suicidal.
Betty is out getting a birthday present for her Neighbour’s little girl, Susie. She buys her a stuffed dog, but Susie the ungrateful brat decides she wants Butler instead. Since she’s told she can’t have Butler she goes into a pet shop to get a puppy. The owner understands as he has a daughter who is similar to Susie. The daughter proves this by demanding to have Susie’s stuffed dog.
Butler’s suggestion to Betty is that the pet shop owner may accept the stuffed dog as payment for the puppy. The owner apparently is all for the bartering system agrees to this.
The Black Dog (Pages: 110-111)
Artist: Oliver Passingham
Linda Llyod has a sixth sense and helps her uncle out whom as a member of Society for Psychical Research, investigates ghosts and haunted houses. A new client is upset that her son, Toby, has invented an imaginary dog and more upsetting for her is that she saw it herself go into his room before disappearing. Linda goes to talk to Toby and he is able to summon the dog at will. Linda figures out that Toby is very lonely, so she solves the problem by getting him a puppy. (Puppies, they solve all kids’ problems!). She also persuades him to let the ghost dog go back to where he belongs.
Photo Finish (Pages:112-117)
Artist: Claude Berridge
June Simons finds an old instant camera in a local junk shop.But it turns out the camera is cursed; June soon figures out that anything she takes a picture of gets destroyed. A vase breaks, her dad’s new car crashes etc. Presumably the camera was always doing this so I’ve got to wonder why the previous owner would pass it on to a junk shop.
So, while babysitting the little kid Jimmy goes to take a photo of Jane. She panics and decides to get rid of it but instead of just smashing she decides to run in the rain to throw it over the junk dealer’s wall
So that could have ended in a disaster but luckily the last photo taken was not of Jane but of the mirror, so as it took a photo of itself it had to destroy itself. Which is pretty lucky as if she had just tossed it away presumably there’d be some kind of “jumanji” situation, where the junk dealer would just sell it on to some unsuspecting person again.
Reluctant Heroine (Pages: 120-125)
This is another romance type story. While on holiday with parents Fran meets a boy Keith. She is happy to spend time with him at first but she isn’t too happy when he suggests they go diving.
She confesses that she has been scared of being underwater since a bad experience as a toddler. (Although she has no problem with swimming). Keith offers to help her with her phobia, but she declines. Later they go exploring some caves but they are trapped when the tide starts to come in. Keith decides to climb up to an opening at the top of the cave. He slips and hurts himself. Fran decides to the only way to get help is to swim out the entrance. So she ignores her fears, swims out and gets help to rescue Keith. This is a nice contrast to the earlier story “The Hero”; it means that both sexes have had a chance to save their love interests.
Kay Carrington, a junior groom at the famous Silver Horseshoe Riding School, had ridden Kingcup, a young show jumper, in several events but the horse was proving unreliable.
Karina Crosbie was determined that her new boyfriend, Dean Easson, would not meet her large, eccentric, chaotic family in case they put him off her.
The adventures of a toy named Cuddles, narrated by Cuddles himself.
Cuddles – M&J: #177 (1 October 1994) – #188 (17 December 1994)