Favourite Stories from Girls Comics

[bookmum08]

Inspired by the favourite children's books thread I was interested in people's fave stories from the old weekly girls comics - Bunty, Mandy, Tammy etc.
My favourite was definitely Angel in Mandy Comic. The story of a rich Victorian girl who discovers she only has a year to live so she fakes her death, runs away from home so she can devote her time to caring for homeless waifs and strays in the poor part of London.

I loved Patty's World in Girl Magazine. I was gutted when they suddenly changed the format of Girl without warning and got rid of Patty's World without any kind of conclusion.

Other random ones I remember are "She IS my sister" about two sisters who are orphaned at a young age and the younger one is adopted by a wealthy couple. The older one isn't as lucky so the workhouse and then a life in service beckon. Anyway she ends up a maid in the household of the couple and recognises her sister and then has to try and make her remember her.

Then there was another one about two girls in an orphanage who are sent to stay with a man who's the father of one of them but doesn't know who. It ends with him deciding not to open the letter stating which of them is there child as he wants to keep them both.

Great thread!

I started with Twinkle when I was very young, I loved Nancy the Nurse.

I did read the likes of Bunty etc but my absolute fave comic of the 80s was Girl. Picking it up from the newsagent was the highlight of my week. I loved the ballet stories specially - Sally's Dance of Sorrow, Lucy's Dancing Dream. But some of the stories were quite dark and scary. Loved Patty's World too

Another comic called Dreamer came out in the early 80s, it eventually merged with Girl but then disappeared completely. Some great stories in there - My Strange Sister (girl causes an accident and her sister ends up in a wheelchair), Who Stole Samantha ('mystery' involving a missing doll), Rose among Thorns (rich girl's family loses their money and she has to go to a comprehensive, shock horror )

I read Tracy for a while too, there was always a poem on the front about Tracy and her pet budgie Elton. I loved the story about Bella the Gymnast.

Happy days!

@Comefromaway do you remember Doreen Snyder from Patty's World? I always had trouble believing she was the same age as Patty and best friend Sharon. She was drawn as a middle aged woman

Oooh there was a story in Dreamer called No Mother for Marty where an orphaned girl is looked after a machine called M.U.M

If someone comes to raid my coronavirus hoard...

@HearMeSnore

The ending of Looking For Lucy is explained on the girls comics of yesterday website. I remember that story too but I'd forgotten how it finished.

girlscomicsofyesterday.com/2016/04/looking-for-lucy-distant-cousin

Yes, and there was the boy she dreamed about. What was his name?

IPityThePontipines I remember ‘Come Home Kathleen’ from Bunty wasn’t she a girl who had been tricked by some relatives to leave her poor family in Ireland and live with them in England. Her parents only agreed because relatives said she would be a companion for their own daughter and have a life of luxury, however once in England they treated her like a servant. Kathleen then spent her time trying to make the best of it and finding a way to return home.

Come Home Kathleen
Lee- A Dancer She’ll Be Melody Lee a dancer she’ll be
I wish they’d do an annual of all the stories mentioned it would be lovely to be nine again

I had Dreamer! I remember a story where a girl kept being chased by an alien spacecraft. Turned out she was the twelfth part of an alien who had been hidden on earth in the form of twelve identical girls.

I was most perplexed when my subscription suddenly changed to Girl

Johnny.

Anyone who wants a good trip down memory lane there are currently some reproductions of stories from Tammy, Jinty and Misty available in book form. They are published by Rebellion Publishers. Also some from Battle Comic* if you fancy a war story.
There was also some Best of annuals published in 2014. Some were published by Egmont, some by Pedigree.
*Battle was the boys equivalent of Tammy.

CatChant sorry I didn't see you had mentioned the reprint books already. I got Fran of the Floods for xmas. Brilliant story. The bit when the headmistress is explaining global warming - in the 1970s. Just wow!

@FoulMouthedMotherFigure Found it! Mentioned on TV tropes, of all places. Second-Best Babs

girlscomicsofyesterday.com/2014/02/second-best-babs/

Only has one picture, but I recognise the hat and her name was definitely Babs.

Goodness @bookmum08, don't apologise. You started this lovely thread just when I think a lot of us are very grateful for some light relief.

I may, ahem, have a couple of old Jinty annuals on the way to me now because of this thread. I am looking forward to introducing DD to them. It's such a shame all the old girls comics had gone to the last midnight feast in the sky (as one IPC writer put it) when she was the right age for them.

The Phoenix, and its earlier incarnation The DFC, are great. My DS loves them and so did my DD, but it is a pity there is nothing in the same mould as Jinty, Misty, Bunty et al any more. I know my DD would have been every bit as hooked as I was once.

I have just been enjoying refreshing my memory of The Slave of Form 3B in which wicked horror Stacey outdoes any Enid Blyton girls' school villain to hypnotise the drippy new girl. Great fun.

I am glad sorry many people are enjoying this thread.
Ebay and Amazon are going to be wondering why sales of dusty old annuals have shot up!

I am so glad
Not sure why a random sorry appeared in that sentence.

This thread has brought back so many memories, including how much I hated it when my favourite comics merged. Mandy & Judy, Jinty & Penny, Patches & Blue Jeans.

My sister and I would devour them as soon as they were delivered, with a dessert of Whizzer & Chips, Shiver & Shake and The Topper.

Misty was definitely my favourite with all its 'woo', I'm going to have to have a rummage in my parents' loft for my annuals and My Guy Monthlies.

I was reminiscing last night, prompted by this thread, and I remembered that when my sister and I were tiny we had a comic called 'Pippin in Playland'. The only characters I remember were 'Sonny and Sally' a brother and sister. I was only just learning to read and mispronounced Sonny with the 'Son' as in 'sonic' not 'sun'.

I grew out of 'Pippin' without realising why I was finding it boring but I remember how thrilled I was to discover the Beano which became my weekly comic for several years until I discovered the joys of Mandy.

Does anyone remember Slaves of the Nightmare Factory in Girl? I thought it was a really good serial with a real twist to the story.

Hugh Grant was in some of the old My Guy/ Oh Boy photo stories!

I loved the Lying Eyes of Linda - Mandy story about a girl who pretends to be blind. I can’t remember the reason though!

@merryhouse - thank you! A bag of Jelly Tots is on its way to you, and I'll be your best friend for ever.

I've just looked up Second Best Babs on the Girls' Comics of Yesterday site and that claims it came out in 1982. Well, I know for absolute certain that I read it in 1972, as a nine-year-old, and the artwork looks dated enough to support the supposition that the publishers repeated it ten years later.

The same publishers also did that with the more grown-up strips in The Dandy - in 1968/69 I was enthralled by the adventure of The Purple Cloud, which could destroy all metals except silver, and around 2005 I finally made contact online with two other Dandy readers who remembered it as fondly as I did...but one of them was a respectable county surveyor in his mid-50s who had read it during its 1958/59 run!

I bought some old Twinkles from ebay for dd a few years ago. The magazines now for children are awful and dd absolutely devoured the Twinkles. My favourite story when I was little was the girl who had a magic flower on her pocket, and she had three wishes a day when she touched it. Of course she always touched it four times... My mum had to make me a dress with the same pocket!!

Does anyone remember Slaves of the Nightmare Factory in Girl? I thought it was a really good serial with a real twist to the story

Yes! It was really creepy. I can't remember how it ended though...