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Anyone interested in a geeky discussion about 70s girls' comics, particularly Misty?

169 replies

Wreath21 · 02/01/2022 23:09

I managed to find a website which has the ENTIRE print run of Misty comic available to read for free. Have been being enthralled by it (even though a lot of it was just after my comic-loving years - as so many of the artists and writers were the ones who had contributed to Tammy and Jinty comics...)
I'm clearly one of the older MNers but I just wondered if anyone else wants a 70s-girls-comics chatter?

OP posts:
WouldBeGood · 03/01/2022 09:56

I too used to be so excited to get Twinkle. I still think of it when getting dressed, as there was a thing about a wee girl getting dressed in dark blue and light blue 😃 I also used to want my hair in a “high hook” like the girl on the cover.

I then read all the ones talked about above, including Misty. I seem to temper a story about a girl being told she was ugly, but it was a mirror..??? Something like that

toomanyplants · 03/01/2022 09:56

Oh wow!!
I stayed with my grandfather every weekend, from as young as I can remember until he died.
I remember racing in for the Mandy every week! It was always left on a cliffhanger!
Looking back, the comics must have cost him a fortune!
Every week I had Mandy, beano, dandy, beezer and look-in
Oh Thankyou for taking me back instantly!!!!

chipshopElvis · 03/01/2022 09:59

I was an 80s kid but my mum had kept her stash of comics presumably from the 60s mainly Bunty but also Twinkle, Misty etc. I bought 80s Buntys whenever I could, the Three Mary's were at that school for a loooong time!

Interested in this thread?

Then you might like threads about this subject:

BornOnTwelfthNight · 03/01/2022 10:02

Yes I’m also born mid 70s so my comics were from the 80s too.

I started with Twinkle and Playhour my mum actually found a random Twinkle comic and a Playhour annual lurking in one of her cupboards which I still have, I think we’re dated 1980/81

Then it was The Beano and Dandy which were regular with (I think) the odd Bunty/ Misty/Mandy thrown in sporadically. (I’m sure I have a Bunty annual somewhere in the depths of my loft! )

I absolutely loved Nikki, I got it every week religiously right from the first copy in which I remember they gave a free gift with the first three or four issues. I can still see the red and white double love heart brooch given with the first or second issue!
I used to read them over and over and wished I’d kept them!

I’ve got a vague memory of Jackie but know I moved onto smash hits and Just 17.

Wearegoingtoneedabiggerboat · 03/01/2022 10:03

Loved Misty, I think it only ran for a couple of years though. Favourite part of Christmas was the Misty annual which continued after the comic stopped.
Stories I remember were
The girl with the 🌙 on her face.
The teacher who came back from the dead and had pupils dressing in Victorian clothes, the jist off the story was that she drowned along with her pupils in a boating accident.
Something about a possessed tree in the garden

BornOnTwelfthNight · 03/01/2022 10:04

Every week I had Mandy, beano, dandy, beezer and look-in

Oh my, I forgot about Beezer and Look-in…..got those as well!

TroysMammy · 03/01/2022 10:05

@BaronessBomburst do you mean Drag A Chair pussycat?

WorkingItOutAsIGo · 03/01/2022 10:07

It was so lovely getting the physical comic. I remember sitting on the doormat just waiting for the paperboy to deliver it. And the thrill of coming back from holiday and the newsagent would have kept your copies so you could go and collect them and have two to read at once!

Iamthewombat · 03/01/2022 10:22

Thanks OP for that link. Brilliant!

I loved, loved, loved Misty (I’m 50). Some of the stories were properly terrifying.

Iamthewombat · 03/01/2022 10:25

@Mudday

Oooh chills!! Misty wouldn't get away with its properly weird storytelling and evocative artwork to such a young audience now I suspect! I remember some of the main characters of stories disappearing into a terrible ending full of absolute dread followed by darkly imaginative guesswork... No wonder I was more interested in Gillian Cross' 'Demon Headmaster' than Blyton's 'Famous Five'. Great stuff 😂
100% this. Really scary stuff!

There was one story in which a girl was absorbed by a tree, punishment for some sort of bad behaviour, and the bark had the shape of her screaming face in it.

The one about the school with a vampire headmistress (Nightstair Academy, adjusted to Nightmare Academy) was also terrifying.

Swirlywoo · 03/01/2022 10:28

I used to have Bunty and Judy annuals, plus with a big sister had access to old ones.

The ones I really loved though were my mum's or possibly even my Gran's. They were a small comic, A5 sized and they had stories of girls living at a boarding school in the alps doing things like catching murderers. I can't remember what it was called but they are in my mum's loft!

Iamthewombat · 03/01/2022 10:31

@Wearegoingtoneedabiggerboat

Loved Misty, I think it only ran for a couple of years though. Favourite part of Christmas was the Misty annual which continued after the comic stopped. Stories I remember were The girl with the 🌙 on her face. The teacher who came back from the dead and had pupils dressing in Victorian clothes, the jist off the story was that she drowned along with her pupils in a boating accident. Something about a possessed tree in the garden
I kept on getting the annuals too, after Misty got folded into Tammy (and the only trace of Misty left after a few months in Tammy was a comedy thing about a witch called Miss T, boo).

The story about the girl with the moon mark was ‘Moonchild’. A PP suggested that Rosemary, the protagonist,had dark hair in a bob, but she didn’t. She had long blonde hair then later cut it to a blonde bob just before her birthday party was wrecked by the awful Norma (who was a frightening tough girl, brilliantly drawn).

The teacher who made the modern day pupils wear Victorian stuff was trying to recreate a boating accident from the late 1800s in which a load of schoolgirls drowned, hoping for a better outcome. One of the schoolgirls cunningly pretended to fall under her influence and asked for Victorian clothes (‘something more comely and decent’)

The one about the tree was about leaves falling from the tree being lucky for the girl who lived there. Her dad had lost his job and started drinking and they had moved to a not very nice house. The tree was the only thing in the garden. She would run home in the hope of a leaf getting stuck on her hair.

Iamthewombat · 03/01/2022 10:35

@cannotfindanickname

I remember reading a story where humans were captured and kept in cages like animals in a zoo. The girl who was captured had a collar put around her neck that hurt her if she tried to escape. Was that in Misty? I think it was.
That was in Jinty. The three comics from the same stable all had distinct identies.

Jinty: sci fi type stories (not exclusively, it had some humorous stories about ordinary girls too)

Misty: spooky (very spooky in some stories!)

Tammy: plucky heroines triumphing over difficult circumstances.

80sballetgirl · 03/01/2022 10:39

Loved Misty!! Thank you for the link! Still like the darker side of things!
Moved onto Just 17 which I appeared in for a feature article!!

MmeSosostris · 03/01/2022 10:50

Which one had the story about an alarm clock/picture/mirror that would tell the girl (Lucy?) bad things about herself whilst she slept? That still stays with me. Dark stuff

Bounty girl here but does anyone remember Nutty magazine? Banana man? Used to do the free gifts on the cover - fizzy sparkling space dust and a frisbee type thing.

Happy days. Until Lost and the Hound and Watership Down destroyed everything.

Iamthewombat · 03/01/2022 10:58

Are you thinking about the book, ‘Come Back Lucy’?

Iamthewombat · 03/01/2022 10:58

@80sballetgirl

Loved Misty!! Thank you for the link! Still like the darker side of things! Moved onto Just 17 which I appeared in for a feature article!!
Doing what? Tell us!
Wreath21 · 03/01/2022 11:00

@Usernamenotavailabletryanother

I’m 44, but collected annuals from the 60s and 70s as a child- I remember Misty having a creepy but thrilling story about a girl with a crescent moon shaped birthmark, does that ring any bells?
That was Moonchild (in the first half dozen or so issues). Definitely a kid-friendly version of Carrie by Stephen King right down to the religious-nut mother and the climactic party-wrecking scene...
OP posts:
MmeSosostris · 03/01/2022 11:08

Some dark stuff in them, wasn’t there?

Not sure @Iamthewombat maybe? Left an impression, anyway! Which one was The Four Mary’s? Bounty?

MmeSosostris · 03/01/2022 11:08

Bunty !!!

EricCartmansGoatee · 03/01/2022 11:11

Loving the revisiting of this. Have given the link to teen daughter to explore.

MistyGreenAndBlue · 03/01/2022 11:14

Misty was cool. But does anyone remember Patty's World in Girl Magazine? I loved those stories

Wreath21 · 03/01/2022 11:15

Looking back I think Misty grew out of Tammy, which had some pretty dark stories in the mid-70s (The Slave of Form 5B, where a bully hypnotised the nervous new girl into doing increasingly awful things, and of course Glenda's Glossy Pages - evil mail-order catalogue).
I've really been enjoying the Misty stuff now, though I do think I probably stopped reading it before the end, having moved on to Jackie - and 2000AD (was anyone else FURIOUS when they had that ad campaign insisting that 200AD was 'not for girls'?) What I definitely hadn't realised at the time was that quite a few of the artists and writers who worked on Misty also worked on 200AD.

OP posts:
Iamthewombat · 03/01/2022 11:22

Yes, the four Marys were in Bunty. The spooky story you have described doesn’t sound like Bunty territory though.

Usernamenotavailabletryanother · 03/01/2022 11:56

@MistyGreenAndBlue

Misty was cool. But does anyone remember Patty's World in Girl Magazine? I loved those stories
Yes!! I loved that- would love to see it, can’t find it anywhere