British girls' comics

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British girls' comics flourished in the United Kingdom from the 1950s through the 1970s, before beginning to decline in popularity in the 1980s and 1990s. Publishers known for their girls' comics included DC Thomson and Fleetway/IPC. Most titles appeared weekly, with the content primarily in picture-story format. The majority of the stories were serialized, with two or three pages per issue, over eight to twelve issues. They were marketed toward young teen girls.[1]

British girls' comics were often titled after common girls' names.[2] Examples include Judy, Diana, Jackie, June, Penelope, Mandy, Tina, Sally, Tammy, Sandie, Debbie, Misty, Emma, Penny, Tracy, Suzy, and Nikki.

Long-running titles included Bunty, Mandy, and Judy (all DC Thomson) and Tammy (IPC).

History[edit]

Origin[edit]

Girls' comics were the natural evolution of a trend that started with story papers. As boys' story papers like The Magnet and The Gem gained readerships of young teens, publishers like Amalgamated Press looked to expand the market by producing story papers for girls. Titles like School Friend, Schoolgirls' Own, and The Schoolgirl, all launched in the period 1919–1922, established a girls' market.[3]

By the end of World War II, story papers were phasing out in favor of comic books and television. The first girls' comics, Amalgamated Press' School Friend and Hulton Press' Girl, appeared in the early 1950s. (The School Friend comic was in fact the descendant of the School Friend story paper from the 1920s.) The girls' comics trend took off in the latter half of the 1950s, with the long-running titles Bunty and Judy, as well as titles like Boyfriend and Princess, all debuting in the years 1956–1960. (British romance comics, marketed toward older teen girls and young women, also flourished from the mid-1950s to the mid-1960s. Other than a few examples, however, romance titles had petered out by the mid-1970s.)

DC Thomson had published its first girls' magazine, Bunty, in 1958. The success of this title led the company to publish Judy, which was also successful: between them, Bunty and Judy achieved a circulation of over one million.[4] DC Thomson went on to launch other similar titles in the 1960s, including Jackie (1964), Diana (1965), and Mandy (1967).[4]

Industry consolidation[edit]

In the period 1958 to 1968, a series of mergers and acquisitions led to the girls' comics industry consolidating into two main publishers: DC Thomson and the newly created IPC. In January 1959 Cecil Harmsworth King, chairman of the Daily Mirror newspaper group, acquired Amalgamated Press. Within a few months he changed its name to Fleetway Publications, Ltd.[5] Shortly thereafter, Odhams Press absorbed both Newnes/Pearson and the Hulton Press. King saw an opportunity in this to rationalise the overcrowded women's magazine market, in which Fleetway and Newnes/Pearson were the major competitors, and acquired Odhams. Fleetway took over Odhams in March 1961.[6] In consequence, King controlled two national daily and two national Sunday newspapers, almost one hundred consumer magazines (including comics), more than two hundred trade and technical periodicals, and interests in book publishing.

In 1963 all the Mirror Group companies were combined by the creation of a parent (or "holding") company called the International Publishing Company (known informally as IPC). All of the existing companies continued to operate, but as IPC subsidiaries.[7] When the dust cleared, IPC controlled five girls' comics titles — School Friend, Girl, Girls' Crystal, June, and Princess — while DC Thomson controlled three — Bunty, Judy, and Diana. (City Magazines was still in the mix as well, with their title Boyfriend.)

IPC set up a management development department in 1965 so that its various subsidiaries would no longer be in competition with each other for the same markets. This led to a reorganisation of the Group, in 1968, into six divisions, with IPC Magazines in charge of all comics content.

In the period 1960–1970, there were between seven and ten girls' comics in publication in the UK at any one time, with one estimation that the girls' comics market was larger than that of women's magazines.[8]

"Hatch-match-dispatch"[edit]

The 1970s was a period of tumult for the British girls' comics industry. DC Thomson's Bunty, Judy, Jackie, and Mandy (as well as the "little girls'" comic Twinkle) continued strong through the decade. IPC, on the other hand, changed gears editorially — as writer/editor Terence Magee details, "Pat Mills and John Wagner [were brought in] to shake things up. The safe and gentle middle-class stories gave way to gritty, working-class yarns."[8] The company introduced a slew of new titles, most of which lasted a few years before merging into other company titles — IPC's "hatch-match-dispatch" method.[9][a] Examples include Sandie (1972–1973; merged into Tammy), Pixie (1972–1973; merged into June), Lindy (1975; merged into Jinty), and Penny (1979–1980; merged into Jinty).

The IPC Fleetway stablemates Tammy (1971–1984), Jinty (1974–1981), and Misty (1978–1980) existed somewhat outside this trend, although in the end both Misty and Jinty ended up absorbed into Tammy[10] (which absorbed four other titles during its run — Sandie, Sally, June, and Princess vol. 2 — before being merged itself with IPC's Girl vol. 2 in 1984).[b]

By 1974, DC Thomson's girls' comics had fallen off somewhat — Bunty, Judy, Mandy, and Debbie had a combined circulation of 750,000 that year — but remained the market leader.[12] At its height in the late 1970s, Tammy sold 250,000 copies per week.[13]

Transition to slick magazines[edit]

Starting in the mid-1970s, IPC introduced a line of slick girls' magazines that downplayed the traditional comics content, instead featuring mainly product-related articles and photo comics. Titles in this line included Pink (1973–1980; merged into Mates), My Guy (1978–c. 2000), Oh Boy (1976–1985; merged into My Guy), Mates (1975–1981; merged into Oh Boy), Blue Jeans (1977–1991), and the second iteration of Girl (1981–1990; merged into My Guy).

Meanwhile, DC Thomson's girls' titles which had launched in the slick format in the 1960s, such as Jackie, continued in that format; and others, such as Diana (1965–1976; merged into Jackie) and Judy (1960–1991; merged with Mandy), changed to become slicks.

Decline[edit]

By 1980, there were eleven girls' comics titles in publication (not counting the slicks, which had much less comics content), but the last girls' comics of any note to debut happened in 1985: Nikki for Girls, which only lasted until 1989. Even DC Thomson's girls' titles fell victim to "merger mania": Mandy, which began in 1967, absorbed Debbie (which itself had previously absorbed Spellbound, published 1976–1978)[14] in early 1983. Suzy (published 1982–1987) merged into Bunty. And by the time Mandy merged with Judy (launched in 1960) in 1991, that title had previously absorbed Emma (1978–1979) and Tracy (1979–1985).[15]

By 1990, only four girls' comics were in publication, all published by DC Thomson: Bunty, Mandy, Judy, and Twinkle (the latter was a separate category of comics for "little girls"). The last girls' title, Bunty, was canceled in 2001.

Back catalog reprints[edit]

The Fleetway/IPC back-catalog is now owned by Rebellion Developments, which since 2016 has reprinted a number of Tammy, Jinty, and Misty serials,[9][16] and is due to republish further series as part of The Treasury of British Comics.[17]

In October 2017 Rebellion published a Scream! & Misty Halloween Special, which contained all-new stories featuring characters from those comics.

Content[edit]

Girls' comics generally offered a mix of romance, pathos, school, and girl-next-door stories, thriving well into the era when consumer, fashion, and teen idol fare became popular in girls' magazines.[18] The stories were generally moralistic in tone, with long-suffering heroines finally achieving happiness, while villainous relatives or girls who were liars, cheats, and bullies received their comeuppance.[9] Also popular were stories of girls confronting adversity and overcoming it.[10]

One of the earlier titles, Girl, founded by the Rev. Marcus Morris (with the close participation of fellow clergyman Chad Varah), was very much an educational magazine whose heroines, including those who got into scrapes, became involved in tales that had a moral substance. A considerable number of pages were also dedicated to real-life tales of heroic women in various fields.

Common girls' comics storylines included:[10]

  • orphans forced to live with cruel or uncaring relatives
  • girls enduring blackmail, hardship, or unpopularity to protect a secret (often on behalf of their family)
  • girls slaving for cruel employers or criminals
  • saving animals from cruelty
  • cruel factories, shops, boarding schools or workhouses
  • heroines adopting masked identities to secretly help people
  • spiteful girls causing trouble for an unsuspecting cousin, foster-sister or classmate
  • girls becoming unpopular because events keep conspiring to make them appear jealous or selfish
  • blundering girls getting into one scrape after another
  • girls pretending to be disabled in order to take advantage of people
  • girls who were put under a curse or came into possession of apparently supernatural objects which adversely affected their lives, but of which they were unable to rid themselves until they worked out how
  • boyfriend-themed stories (by the 1980s)

The various strips in the girls' comics were usually broken up by letters pages, competitions, featured readers, puzzle pages, promotions, next-week previews, and advertisements.

Bunty's The Four Marys, drawn by Barrie Mitchell, was the longest serial in girls' comics, running from the magazine's creation in 1958 to its end in 2001. It centered on four young teens — each named Mary — in a girls-only boarding school in the fictional location of Elmbury, who often had problems with studying, staying alert, or helping the other girls and teachers. Of the four main characters, two were middle-class, one was the aristocratic daughter of an earl, and one was working-class, attending the school on a scholarship.[19]

Three related Fleetway titles — Tammy (launched 1971), Jinty (launched 1974), and Misty (launched 1978) — had their own particular focus. Tammy concentrated on sadder Cinderella-themed stories[9] and dark tales of tortured heroines. Many stories were full of cruelty and adversity, based on research showing that girls wanted stories that made them cry.[20][10] Jinty concentrated on science fiction or otherwise fantastical stories. Misty concentrated on supernatural and horror stories, featuring plots such as "pacts with the devil, schoolgirl sacrifice, the ghosts of hanged girls, sinister cults, evil scientists experimenting on the innocent and terrifying parallel worlds where the Nazis won the Second World War."[2] Writer Pat Mills, later to become famed for his work on 2000AD, scripted many strips for all three titles.[9]

Writers and artists[edit]

Despite the intended audience for the comics being female, the vast majority of the writers and artists responsible for the girls' comics industry were men.[9] One notable exception was Marion Turner, who wrote hundreds of strips for DC Thomson's line, especially for Mandy, Judy, and M&J.[21]

In general, artists and writers were not credited in girls' comics (or indeed most British comics of that era). As was common practice in the 1960s and 1970s, many illustrators were recruited via art agencies, including ones that specialized in Spanish artists (the UK was a popular market for Spanish artists as the exchange rate meant the work paid well) — notable Spanish girls' comics artists included Luis Bermejo, Purita Campos, Carlos Freixas, Jesus Redondo, and Jordi Badía Romero. Artists can sometimes be identified by their work in Tammy (which moved to a system of crediting creators in the early 1980s)[10] or in boys' comics such as 2000AD, which brought in such a policy from earlier on.[c] In other cases, it is possible to identify the artists from their signatures on the pages of the comics themselves. Identification of writers in girls' comics is currently dependent on information provided by the writers themselves.

Notable writers[edit]

Notable artists[edit]

Notable examples[edit]

Title Starting year Ending year Original publisher Fate Notes
School Friend 1950 1965 Amalgamated Press Merged into June
Girl 1951 1964 Hulton Press Merged into Princess Second volume runs from 1981 to 1990
Girls' Crystal 1953 1963 Amalgamated Press Merged into School Friend Numbering continued from a story paper of the same name, which itself had been continued from The Schoolgirl (dating back to 1922)
Bunty 1958 2001 DC Thomson Canceled
Judy 1960 1991 DC Thomson Merged with Mandy
Princess 1960 1967 Fleetway Merged into Princess Tina. Had a second volume in 1983–1984 which merged into Tammy
June 1961 1974 Fleetway Merged into Tammy Absorbed Poppet, School Friend, and Pixie
Diana[35] 1963 1976 DC Thomson Merged into Jackie
Jackie 1964 1993 DC Thomson Canceled Fewer comics content than most other titles; no comics at all by the 1980s
Lady Penelope 1966 1969 City Magazines Becomes Penelope; merged into Princess Tina
Mandy 1967 1991 DC Thomson Becomes Mandy & Judy; merged into Bunty Continues as Mandy & Judy from 1991 to 1997
Princess Tina 1967 1973 IPC Merged into Pink
Tammy 1971 1984 Fleetway Canceled (merged into Girl vol. 2 in name only) Absorbed Sally, June, Sandie, Jinty, Misty, and Princess vol. 2
Jinty 1974 1981 Fleetway Merged into Tammy
Misty 1978 1980 Fleetway Merged into Tammy Concentrated on supernatural and horror stories
Nikki 1985 1989 DC Thomson Canceled Featured the strip The Comp, which continued in Bunty after Nikki folded

Timeline[edit]

See also[edit]

Notes[edit]

  1. ^ It was standard practice in the twentieth-century British comics industry to merge a comic into another one when it declined in sales. Typically, three stories or strips from the canceled comic would continue for a while in the surviving comic, and both titles would appear on the cover (one in a smaller font than the other) until the title of the canceled comic was eventually dropped.
  2. ^ Tammy was intended to merge with Girl in the summer of 1984, but, according to the Grand Comics Database, "a printer's dispute in June 1984 prevented the final issues being published and it was simply cancelled. Girl did carry the Tammy masthead for several issues from 25th August 1984 but these issues contain no material from Tammy."[11]
  3. ^ 2000 AD began crediting artists beginning with issue #36 (29 October 1977).
  4. ^ Shaw also edited Misty.
  5. ^ Wagner also edited Sandie and Princess Tina.[28]

References[edit]

  1. ^ Newson, Kezia (2014). How Has The Pre–teen Girls' Magazine Influenced Girls From The 1950s To Present Day?. p. 6. Retrieved 2 March 2016.
  2. ^ a b Rayner, Jacqueline (2012-08-17). "Jinty, Tammy, Misty and the golden age of girls' comics". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2020-10-01.
  3. ^ "Schoolgirl's Own," Friardale Website. Retrieved March 10, 2021.
  4. ^ a b "Bunty: 1958 – 2001". 100 Years of Scottish Magazine Publishing. PPA (Professional Publishers Association). Retrieved 3 March 2016.
  5. ^ "Fleetway – A History". Archived from the original on 18 August 2010. Retrieved 15 August 2010.
  6. ^ "Look and Learn History" (PDF). www.lookandlearn.com. Archived (PDF) from the original on 25 June 2016. Retrieved 9 December 2018.
  7. ^ Birch, Paul. "Speaking Frankly," Archived 20 July 2011 at the Wayback Machine Birmingham Mail (14 December 2008).
  8. ^ a b c Terence Magee: Interview, A Resource on Jinty website (May 13, 2014).
  9. ^ a b c d e f Smith, James Cooray. "The dark, forgotten world of British girls’ comics is about to be resurrected: The UK’s most surreal and innovative comic strips have long been gathering dust. As a publisher acquires the archives, they could be heading for a renaissance," The New Statesman (27 September 2016).
  10. ^ a b c d e Rayner, Jac. "Paper Worlds: Why girls' comics were wonderful," BBC (18 June 2014).
  11. ^ Tammy entry, Grand Comics Database. Retrieved March 4, 2021.
  12. ^ Chapman, James (2011). British Comics: A Cultural History. Reaktion Books. p. 185. ISBN 978-1861898555. Retrieved 3 March 2016.
  13. ^ McDade, Jenny. "Creating Tammy: A True Story," Down The Tubes (12 October 2008).
  14. ^ Debbie entry, Grand Comics Database. Retrieved March 4, 2021.
  15. ^ Judy entry, Grand Comics Database. Retrieved March 4, 2021.
  16. ^ "Misty Vol. 1-3 - Rebellion's Treasury of British Comics Brings the Characters of the Cult 1970s Supernatural Weekly to a New Audience". Broken Frontier. 2018-10-31. Retrieved 2020-10-01.
  17. ^ 2000 AD to revive children's comics from the '70s and '80s | The Bookseller
  18. ^ Freeman, John. "Let’s Hear It For the Girls (Comics, that is...)," Memorabilia Magazine (2002). Expanded and archived at DownTheTubes.net (Aug. 2015).
  19. ^ Gibson (2003), p. 92
  20. ^ a b Paul Gravett, Comics Britannia Part 2 - Girls and Boys, paulgravett.com, 2 December 2007.
  21. ^ lorrsadmin. "Marion Turner – DCT writer," Girls Comics of Yesterday (25th October 2019).
  22. ^ Peter Kay at Lambiek Comiclopedia
  23. ^ Shu-fen Tsai, Girlhood Modified in Susan of St. Brides in Girl magazine (1954-1961) (pdf), Dong Hwa Journal of Humanistic Studies 2, July 2000, pp. 259-272
  24. ^ Eagle Writers - Charles Chilton (1917 - ), Eagle Times, 30 July 2008
  25. ^ Steve Holland, Peter Ling (1926-2006), Bear Alley, 21 September 2006
  26. ^ Freeman, John. "All-new Tammy and Jinty Special out in June," DownTheTubes.net (Mar. 26, 2019).
  27. ^ Steve Holland, Betty Roland, Bear Alley, 8 September 2006
  28. ^ David Bishop, "John Wagner: The Quiet American", Judge Dredd Megazine #250, 17 October 2006, pp. 24–30
  29. ^ Alan Clarke, Dictionary of British Comic Artists, Writers and Editors, The British Library, 1998, p. 28
  30. ^ Cloud Chamber 106, June 2000
  31. ^ Eagle writers - Geoffrey Bond (1920 - 2009) aka Alan Jason, Eagle Times, 31 December 2009
  32. ^ Misty Presents The Jordi Badia Romero Collection (Rebellion Graphic Novels, October 17, 2019) ISBN 978-1781086896
  33. ^ John Ryan entry, Lambiek's Comiclopedia. Retrieved 30 Aug 2015.
  34. ^ Michael Molcher, "Brush Strokes of Genius: Ron Smith Part One", Judge Dredd Megazine #288, 15 September 2009, pp. 16–22
  35. ^ Diana (D.C. Thomson, 1963 Series), Grand Comics Database. Retrieved July 26, 2021.

Sources[edit]

Further reading[edit]

External links[edit]

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