Category Archives: Stories

Nell Nobody (1974-75)

22/09/2025StoriesAbusive guardians, acting, Alan Davidson, Cinderella story, circus, drama, Drudgery, Exploitation, Fairground, Little Miss Nothing, Miguel Quesada, Performing arts, Puppets, Schemers, television, troublemaker, ventriloquismmistyfan

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Published: 19 October 1974 to 8 March 1975

Episodes: 18

Artist: Miguel Quesada

Writer: Unknown

Translations/reprints: None known

Plot

Nell Ewart is treaed badly by her sleazy step-parents, known as Uncle Vic and Aunt (not named), who indulge her cousin Rosie and her dreams of being an actress. They call Nell a nobody, make her the household drudge who does all the work they’re clearly too lazy to do themselves, and give her only shabby clothes to wear, which gets her teased at school as “Secondhand Nell”.

Nell’s drama teacher, Miss Anthony, says she has a talent for show business and a flair for puppetry, but is Uncle Vic going to help her along? Not likely. He scorns the very idea of a nobody like her being a star and doesn’t even come to her puppet show at school, which is a huge hit and finally wins Nell respect among her classmates. Miss Anthony offers Nell drama training at school, but her hopes are shattered when Uncle Vic yanks her out of school to work at a hot dog stand – without pay, of course. Every penny the hot dog stand raises is to enable Rosie and her acting dreams with lavish makeovers, paying for her acting school fees and anything else the spoiled girl wants. To help things even further along, the hot dog stand is situated in the showbiz district where interaction with stars will be daily.

One solace is that Nell still has her puppet Willoughby, from her school performance. She now puts the hot dog stand to secret use as a puppet stall with Willoughby, which attracts attention and hopefully extra money to use to pay her own way. She has her eyes set on acting lessons with a Mrs Kaye. She also starts making a female companion for Willoughby, Lola.

Then disaster strikes. Uncle Vic, sensing Nell is up to something, discovers Willoughby and breaks his legs. Nell has no money for repairs, but then discovers a way around the problem when she discovers Rosie’s old toy cart while being forced to weed the garden. Willoughby will be put in the cart for a comedy act with Lola. As we soon discover, the act is also intended to serve as a fund raiser to help Nell make her own money.

Meanwhile, Rosie comes in swanking that Sara Sutherland, the Head of Children’s TV at Saxton, is coming to her stage school, and she’ll have an audition with her. She demands a whole new outfit for it, and it’s to be the works. That’ll cost a lot of money, and to raise it, Nell is forced to work even harder at the hot dog stand, now located at an even busier part of town, plus stay up late to get her new act ready. Ironically, the launch of the new act at the hot dog stand is the same night Rosie gets her big meeting with Sara Sutherland. A mysterious woman turns up among the spectators at the hot dog stand. Noticing her, Nell makes the act extra special. The woman turns out to be Mrs Kaye. She leaves her card and a request for Nell to perform at her niece’s birthday party.

Meanwhile, Rosie gets a rejection letter from Miss Sutherland, and she and her parents are furious. It would come just as Nell is trying to get permission to go to the party, so Uncle Vic’s reply is a predictable bad-tempered refusal. But when he discovers the party’s in the rich part of town he’s suddenly nice and apologetic and insists on taking Nell to the party himself. At the party, Nell impresses Mrs Kaye with her talent and she’s offers to help Nell make her way.

But on the way back, Nell suddenly discovers why her uncle agreed to take her – he was holding out for rich pickings. And he’s swiped a silver cigarette case. She grabs it and rushes off to return it, but her uncle catches up and puts the blame on her, saying she has an absent-minded tendency for this kind of thing. Looks like Uncle Vic has ruined her hopes with Mrs Kane, and at home he beats her for spoiling his plan.

After this, Nell decides to run away with her puppets. Seeing an ad for a travelling fair, she heads down there, hoping her puppets will get her a job. They take her on, but to wear the sandwich board ad. Before long, it’s apparent she isn’t much better off at the fair, which is as sleazy as Uncle Vic and exploiting her as much as he does.

Uncle Vic discovers Nell’s run off and calls the police. Rosie is forced to take over the hot dog stand as he needs the money, and work in disguise so she won’t be recognised in the showbiz district. It’s while the disguised Rosie is working at the hot dog stand that Mrs Kane comes up. Mistaking her for Nell, she says she now believes it was the uncle who took the cigarette case. Rosie recognises Mrs Kane as Miss Sutherland, realises Mrs Kane must be her married name, and discovers she is Nell’s friend. Rosie realises how they could take advantage of this, but it seems Uncle Vic has blown it already with his thievery. Boy, is she mad with him when he turns up! They’ve got to “square things” with Miss Sutherland and get Nell back as she’s her only passport to the TV world with Miss Sutherland.

The police trace Nell to the fair, but she escapes with the help of her companion. Desperate for food and her money stolen, she finds herself back at the hot dog stand, ready to sneak in for a snack. But when Uncle Vic and Rosie arrive, she panics and runs off into the road. Hunger makes her collapse in a faint and she nearly falls under the wheels of a bus. Rosie pulls her to safety.

All of a sudden, the family’s making a big fuss over Nell, feeding her up, loving her, treating her like one of the family, and no more drudgery. Please forgive the cigarette box theft, it was just a poor man being tempted. Nell soon discovers Miss Sutherland and Mrs Kane are one and the same. Her star is on the rise as she is put in charge of Britain’s famous puppet show, “Stringville”. Her family even let her off the hot dog stand to work with Miss Sutherland. Who’s in charge of it now and no money coming in? Perhaps it’s Rosie in disguise again. It looks like Uncle Vic has formed a suspicious habit of using Rosie to run the stand in Nell’s absence instead of doing it himself or bringing in income from another job.

Nell is completely fooled by her family’s sudden niceness as there seem to be logical explanations for it. Her disappearance must have shocked them into changing, and Rosie did save her life. But of course their niceness is all phoney, and it’s intended to get Rosie in with Miss Sutherland. Once they accomplish that, they’ll send Nell back to square one at the hot dog stand.

Nell’s sneaky relatives now start to work on that, beginning with Rosie spinning Nell a sob story on how she can’t afford her acting school fees without the hot dog stand. As hoped, this pricks Nell to have a word with Miss Sutherland. Rosie is taken on as a trainee and share the acting lessons Miss Sutherland has arranged for Nell.

Now that Nell has served her purpose in helping Rosie to get in with Miss Sutherland, Rosie and Uncle Vic scheme to get her dismissed from the studio and back to the hot dog stand. So they pull a series of tricks on Nell, which includes making her late, secretly crafting duplicate keys, stealing props and gaslighting, to make her look unreliable, untrustworthy and even thieving, and they eventually succeed in getting her sacked. In the process, Rosie has obtained a duplicate key to the cupboard where the props are kept.

As Nell can’t figure out what happened she has no chance of setting things straight. But as Uncle Vic has dropped his phoney niceness and gone back to treating her like before, at least she suspects he was just using her.

Meanwhile, Rosie gets an audition with Miss Sutherland, who recognises her as the girl she auditioned before at the stage school. She turns her down for the same reason as before – “ghastly” – and this time, she decides to tell Rosie, straight out, that she has no talent for acting. She kindly offers her an office job at the studio instead, but Rosie’s furious at the rejection and wants revenge. Harry, a shady man from a rival agency wanting details about Miss Sutherland’s upcoming puppet series, overhears Rosie raging and they strike a deal: Rosie will help him steal the props for the show in exchange for a huge cash sum and an acting contract.

When Rosie discovers Nell has a key to the studio itself and Miss Sutherland is asking for it back, she sees her opportunity. She steals the key, leaving Nell to get into more trouble with Miss Sutherland over the missing key. With help from Uncle Vic, Rosie pulls more gaslighting on Nell, including tricks with a note from Miss Sutherland about the key, to make any confused explanation Nell can give sound like lies.

But the schemers have made some mistakes. First, right in front of Nell, they lie to Miss Sutherland’s chauffeur about giving her the note. This lie sets Nell to thinking. Second, Uncle Vic told her people would pay a lot of money for that key, and Nell wonders how he knew that. Finally, while working at the stand, Nell has noticed Rosie hanging around with Harry. With all this, she suspects they are up to something.

Sensing Miss Sutherland’s secret props are in danger, Nell heads to the studio, but too late. The props are gone, and Nell instantly recognises the man making his getaway with them – the man Rosie’s been hanging about with. She tries to tell Miss Sutherland, but Miss Sutherland thinks she is the thief. Determined to prove her innocence, Nell leaps onto the back of Harry’s van as he makes his getaway. Seeing his unwelcome passenger, Harry keeps swerving the van to shake her off, which results in the van crashing into a road block. The police round Harry up, with the stolen studio property on him. Nell is injured and taken to hospital, where Miss Sutherland visits her and tells her that her life-risking act has made her realise the truth.

Everything comes out in court and Nell is cleared. Harry’s fate is not recorded, but presumably he got a jail sentence and his business shut down. Uncle Vic’s fate is unknown, but he is deemed an unfit guardian for Nell, so Miss Sutherland becomes her legal guardian. As for Rosie, she’s the one who’s now slogging at the hot dog stand, still in that disguise. The final panel shows Nell putting on a special show celebrating Willoughby being restored to working order.

Thoughts

Tammy’s 1971 story “Little Miss Nothing” set the Cinderella-inspired template for other stories to follow in Tammy and other IPC titles, and they came thick and fast until the trend faded at IPC after the mid ‘70s (but carried on strong at DCT). But when comparing Nell Nobody to Little Miss Nothing, there’s just too many similarities to discuss here without the entry getting too long. Even the resolutions in the final episodes are similar. Okay, maybe it was the same writer, and enough years had lapsed between the two stories for most readers not to think they were reading an imitation of Little Miss Nothing.

The story itself is a solid read and has an exciting finish where Nell hangs on for dear life at the back of the van while Harry ruthlessly tries to shake her off. It has a long length at 18 episodes, but at no point does it drag or get boring, and the pacing is well thought out. Each turn serves the plot, and there is no unnecessary padding to spin the story out. The characters are strong, but perhaps it is the puppets themselves who really carry the story along. Every time the puppets appear we really engage in the story.

Like so many of her counterparts, Nell has to rely on herself to keep up her dreams against being yanked out of school, denied the coaching she needs, being exploited and forced to make money to indulge Rosie’s acting career without getting a penny in payment. Determination, resourcefulness, creativity, courage, and commitment to the hard work that Rosie doesn’t even bother with all come into play, as does desperation to clear her name, which drives her to risk her life to save Miss Sutherland’s props.

We cheer for Nell as she uses the hot dog stand to keep her dream going by turning it into a puppet theatre after hot dogs are done for the day. The puppets themselves not only provide light relief but also the companionship Nell needs but doesn’t have in people. When they talk we know it’s her ventriloquism, but it sounds as if they are really talking to her, encouraging her and at times, even giving advice.

There’s an irony in Uncle Vic scorning Nell’s dreams to go into drama, calling her a nobody, while investing everything in Rosie’s acting career, when it’s Nell who has the talent and Rosie does not. If he had invested his money in Nell, he would have received the payoff he expected. We have to wonder why Rosie is even staying on at the acting school.

Rosie is despicable, if fairly predictable, as a spoiled brat and a nasty schemer, with a dash of snootiness as well, and she’s also got a criminal streak. She may have no acting talent but could well cut it as a petty criminal as Uncle Vic appears to be. Her tricks on Nell and then her conspiracy with Harry could have launched her in that direction. Unlike some counterparts we’ve seen, such as Dora in Little Miss Nothing, there’s no redemption for her. Her hot dog downfall at the end of the story doesn’t turn her around. There can be no reconciliation or second chance with Nell, or Nell ever trusting her.

It’s a bit confusing to have Nell’s aunt and uncle be her step-parents as well, and does it make Rosie her cousin or her stepsister? It would be easier to have one or the other.

Unlike some Cinderella-based serials, there’s no mystery as to why they treat Nell badly while enabling Rosie. As far as they are concerned, Nell is the nobody, the waste of time and space in the household, but she has one use: they’re too lazy to do any work around the house, so she’s their handy unpaid slave to do it. Rosie’s the golden child and everything must revolve around her, to indulge and pay for everything she wants to achieve her dream of being an actress. And unlike Nell, it’s without her doing anything to achieve it herself with hard work and dedication or considering if she has what it takes. But it costs money that’s way beyond their means, hence using Nell to pay for it all, on top of her already having to do all the work around the house.

It’s illuminating when Uncle Vic has Rosie take over the hot dog stand after Nell runs off because they are nearly broke. Presumably, the same thing happens again when he has to let Nell off the stand during the phoney niceness run. It may also be why Rosie is shown running the hot dog stand, on a more permanent basis, after he loses custody of Nell. Why his spoiled daughter who was never encouraged to lift a finger? Why can’t he or his wife run the stand? We suspect it’s just plain laziness. No surprises there when it comes to Nell, but when there’s nobody else to do the work it’s his spoiled daughter rather than himself, which is a surprise.

The hot dog stand is the only source of family income shown in the episode. There’s no mention of Uncle Vic having a job or what he does for a living. Where did he even get the money to buy the hot dog business? It’s not explained, but there are plenty of hints that Uncle Vic is a petty criminal. Among them is how the duplicate key to the prop cupboard is made: Rosie uses a trick he taught her, using soap to make an impression of the key, and he knows just the guy to make a copy from it.

Moreover, they are far from the only shady people in the story. There’s the unsavoury fair that was as bad as Uncle Vic. We’re almost glad the police caught up with Nell at the fair, as it prompted Nell to escape from it. And there’s shifty Harry and his off-panel but suspicious-sounding agency. He doesn’t even check out Rosie’s acting abilities before offering her an acting contract as part of the deal. We rather suspect his offer to Rosie in exchange for her help in stealing the props was as phoney as the family’s niceness to Nell and he was just using her as they used Nell. That or Rosie would have found his outfit was as dodgy as the circus. Even if he had been genuine in his offer, even he would have soon found out how useless Rosie was as an actress and given her the shove.

It’s poetic justice to see Rosie stuck at the hot dog stand (below), and looking utterly fed up while saying, “I’ll have to watch my step, now, or I’ll be doing this for the rest of my life!” Hmm, that sounds a bit strange. What does she mean by this? Perhaps it’s something to do with probation or her still wearing that disguise while working. Perhaps, considering her personality and her father, she is looking for a sneaky opportunity to help her out. Or perhaps she realises that if she’s going to get out of this, she’ll have to work at it like Nell did. Nothing’s going to be handed to her on a plate anymore, and there’s no unpaid servant doing all the work and paying everything for her. Unlike her counterpart in Little Miss Nothing, there’s no second chance with her former abused sibling taking pity on her. It doesn’t even look like anyone would pity her as she looks more hacked off at dishing out hot dogs than miserable. It all makes her ultimate fate all the more satisfying.

The Sea Witches (1980)

05/10/2024StoriesAir Force, Animal story, environmentalism, horror, Malcolm Shaw, Mario Capaldi, Military, Misty, redemption narrative, Russia, supernatural, witchcraft, witchesmistyfan

Sample Images

Published: Tammy 5 April 1980 – 2 August 1980

Episodes: 14

Artist: Mario Capaldi

Writer: Unknown (Malcolm Shaw?)

Translations/reprints: Translated as “De donderganzen van’t Oldemoer” (The thunder geese of Oldemoer) in Tina #24, 1983.

Special thanks to “Goof” for providing some of the scans.

We continue our Halloween theme with another witch serial, “The Sea Witches”. It is widely believed that the serial, which appeared in the Tammy and Misty merger, was originally intended for Misty as it has four-page spreads like the original Misty stories instead of the usual three as in Tammy. Also, the military (in this case the Air Force) is a heavy plot feature, just as in two previous Misty stories, The Black Widow (the Army) and Spider Woman (the Navy). Malcolm Shaw wrote those stories, so the military presence in this story suggests he may have written it as well.

Plot

Katie Jones has a bad leg following an accident and has to walk with a stick. Her parents are still in hospital from the same accident, so she is sent to her Aunt Mabel in a remote region in Norfolk. She finds everyone oddly jumpy about the nearby marshes, which migrating Brent geese are using for nesting grounds. Katie discovers there is a connection the locals’ fears and a particular flock of Brent geese from Siberia known as “The Sea Witches”. It’s just a nickname, the locals say, but Katie soon discovers it means exactly what it says. The geese are in fact a band of witches from Russia: Olga, Natasha, Svetlana, Tatiana, and their leader, Matushka. When the Witches are in goose form, Matushka is distinguished as the one with a feather tuft crown on her head. If you’re suddenly thinking “mother goose”, you’re right –“matushka” (матушка) is Russian for “mother”. Matushka is the most powerful of the Witches, and so much so that it is extremely difficult for the other Witches to go against her, even as a unit, but more on that later. Before long, it’s obvious that everyone in the locality knows about the Witches and steer well clear of the marshes when the Witches arrive. Among those in the know are Aunt Mabel and the ornithologist who stays with her, Mr Pinter.

There is a new American Airforce base in the neighbourhood. It keeps making jet runs across the marshes, which is environmentally damaging and disrupts the nesting grounds. The jets and the noise they make are a nuisance for the locals too, but the airbase does bring in jobs for the locality.

One of the jets clips the wing of one of the Sea Witches (Natasha). As at this point Katie has not fully realised what is going on, she takes a scarf to help the injured goose, but is stopped by the scared locals. Taking her binoculars she finds one of the witches using the scarf as a sling. Later, she sees the goose wearing the scarf on its wing. This is one of the incidents that helps her to figure the Witches out.

Mr Pinter appeals to the Colonel, John T. Rock, of the Airforce base to redirect the jets away from the nesting grounds, but the Colonel is unmoved by Mr Pinter’s pleas (and later, his petition). As far as the Colonel’s concerned, they’re just “dumb birds”. The Colonel has a daughter, Amy, who is an obnoxious spoiled brat and is equally uncaring about the damage the jets are doing to the marshes and the resident wildlife. Katie saves her when her horse goes out of control, but the little ingrate does not appreciate it.

Katie discovers that the Sea Witches are (understandly) angry about the damage to the nesting grounds and have followed them to the air base to make a far more effective stand against it by means of witchcraft. It begins with the Sea Witches taking objects belonging to the pilots in order to work magic against them. One, Carter, is rendered too scared to fly, causing him to return dangerously to base and a skateboarding Amy almost falls under his wheels. Katie saves her again, but again the little brat doesn’t appreciate it. Next, a jet plane crashes into the swamps. Katie saves the injured pilot, Jones. Bratty Amy steals the credit for it, but Katie knows the Sea Witches know it was really her. So, could Katie become a target of the Witches too? Hmm, it doesn’t seem so, which is odd. Perhaps the Witches are too fixated on the air base. At any rate, the setup is established the story will follow all the way to the climax: Katie using whatever means she can find to monitor, circumvent and even counteract the Sea Witches’ moves against the air base.

After some research at the library Katie discovers a repellent against the Witches: Russian tarragon. She also figures that if she can stop the Witches stealing items belonging to the pilots she can stop them from doing more witchcraft against them. She finds that Amy has also become a target for the Witches. Their first attempt fails because of Katie’s use of Russian tarragon.

Meanwhile, the Witches’ excursions on the air base to steal items for magic against the pilots has alerted air base security. It is tightened up, making it harder for the Witches to get onto the base to steal items. That doesn’t stop them, though. Time for a change of tactics, and they know about one person who frequently leaves the base in pursuit of shopping and sports: Amy. So now the Witches turn their full attention on her. Katie finds this written in the sand on the marshes after saving Amy from the Witches yet again. Translated, it reads, “For the sake of it, Amy.”

Later, the Witches lure Amy into a trap on the water and have her surrounded. They’re very angry birds and start attacking her. Amy was shocked to see the Witches change from human to goose form right in front of her. She had about heard about the Witches mentioned from the injured Jones but of course she didn’t believe it. But now, seeing is believing, isn’t it? All of a sudden, she isn’t so cocky and obnoxious anymore and is now on the road to reform and redemption and an ally for Katie.

Katie goes to the rescue again. Mr Pinter, who was with Katie when it all happened and must know about the Witches, is too shocked to do anything. Katie uses Mr Pinter’s boat to save Amy, but the Witches are in pursuit. However, Mr Pinter brings in help from the air base to rescue the girls, and their flares drive off the Witches.

The Colonel has now realised the strange attacks on the base are coming from the marshes, but he thinks it’s secret agents and sends in teams to root them out. Of course he doesn’t believe Katie’s clains that it is witchcraft. Aunt Mabel and Mr Pinter, whom Katie senses know about the Witches, refuse to back her pleas. Instead, Aunt Mabel tells Katie she is going back home next day as her parents have recovered.

When Katie sees the Witches that night, they look as mad as wet hens, and she has a horrible feeling that the next day is going to be the worst of all. Sure enough, she sees them conjuring up another spell later that night.

Next morning, the airmen’s search of the marshes puts Natasha in danger. She still has a bad arm/wing, grown weak and unable to change into bird form. Katie decides to help Natasha and distracts her pursuers enough for her to escape. Katie is then packed off on the train, but is surprised when Natasha shows up in the train compartment with her. She can speak English and reveals her origin. She was once an ordinary Russian woman in the reign of Catherine the Great, but she was swept out to sea after ice-skating too close to spring and fell through the ice. There she was picked up by Matushka and the other Witches and became a Sea Witch.

Natasha warns Katie that Matushka has brought out her big guns and will unleash the spell of “wind and water” on the airbase. She is telling Katie this because her ice-skating accident made her unwilling to see others suffer in spring. The other Witches arrive and cart Natasha off. Katie jumps off the train and makes her way back to the airbase to warn them.

But by the time Katie arrives at the air base, the Witches have too, holding Natasha captive. Now Matushka demonstrates what she means by “wind and water” – a gigantic tidal wave to flood and destroy the air base. The flood is so strong it not only overwhelms the air base but the low-lying countryside as well, but the Sea Witches don’t hang around to see the results of their handiwork. They’re flying off back to Russia.

Meanwhile, everyone on the base has survived by taking refuge on the control tower, but the flood waters have cut them off from any help. Mr Pinter, Aunt Mabel and the Colonel soon discover their plight but can’t help them. Before long, there’s another problem – the control tower is starting to collapse. The survivors find floating debris, which they use for makeshift rafts, but can’t see their way to the mainland because of the mist. Then four of the Witches come back. They feel Matushka went too far and is growing evil. They want no part of it, so they offer to guide them through the mist.

Then Matushka herself shows up, discovers the desertion of her flock, and takes revenge by raising another tidal wave to destroy everyone. The four Witches combine their powers to stop her. They turn the tidal wave into a wall of ice, and Matushka is frozen within. The ice then breaks apart, washing the entrapped Matushka out to sea in a huge chunk of ice. However, Matushka was so powerful that even combined forces against her was too much for the four Witches. They collapse and are all but dead. This is how Amy and Katie find them in goose form.

Amy’s father finds the girls. He still doesn’t believe about the Witches (or won’t admit he does), saying his superiors would think he was “nuts” if he filed such a report. Nevertheless, he finally agrees to keep the jets away from the marshes and gives the geese a lift home. When the four Witches return next season, they find themselves among friends instead of locals who are scared of them, including Amy, a fully recovered Katie, and Katie’s parents.

Thoughts

The Mario Capaldi artwork really brings the atmosphere and the environment of the story to life. Things like the creepy marshes, the horror of the tidal waves, the menace of the witches, the spell-chanting in the marshes, and even the formidable look of Matushka’s dark clothing are all pulled off with a deft use of shadows, hatching and inking that convey the eeriness of the story so well that even the artwork spooks readers.

The Sea Witches was one of my favourites when it first came out. Returning to it years later (and having studied a bit of Russian along the way), I can see more in it to appreciate. One thing to impress is the authencity of the (phonetically spelled) Russian in the speech balloons, such as the meaning of Matushka’s name, “stoy” (стой) (stop) when the Witches warn about another jet approaching, and “davai” (даваи) (come on) when Matushka summons the flood. Another thing to impress is that the story does not use the Witches’ Russian nationality to make them even more evil or outright villains although the Cold War was still around at the time of publication.

Environmentalism was more Jinty than Misty, but this is an environmental story that Jinty would have been proud of. The Sea Witches may be, well, witches, but they, apart from maybe Matushka, are not the true villains of the piece. The real blame lies with the air base and the damage it is causing to the marshes and the wildlife that live there. The Witches have a justifiable reason to be angry at this and have unleashed their powers to stop the damage and save the birds. The locals are scared of the Witches, but it may be a case of fearing what you do not understand. Natasha tells Katie that they lived in peace in the swamps before the jets started and had no need to use their powers, so it does not sound like the Witches have ever acted malevolently towards the district.

Except maybe Matushka. It’s hard to tell as she gets very little development as a villain or character. She certainly is an imposing figure in her dark robe and hat. Her clothes alone, which differ from what the other Witches wear, and also her name, establish her as a domineering matriarch and make her more intimidating, shadowy and sinister than the other Witches. But she gets little development as a villain or character, one reason being is that there is no direct confrontation or dialogue between her and Katie or the air base. It’s not like she ever comes up to anyone and gives outright threats to lay off or else, nor do we ever see anything from her point of view. There is hardly any development of her relationship with the other Witches, particularly over her reaction to Natasha’s revolt against her plans to flood the base. It’s her final act of revenge, the act of destroying hapless survivors hints she is going too far, but exactly why she is going too far is not explained. Is she truly evil or become a fanatic who is taking things to extremes? Or is it something to do with her being the most powerful of the Witches? Perhaps she has grown too powerful and it’s going to her head, turning her into a tyrant?

Ironically, it is the good Sea Witch Natasha who is the most developed of the Witches, beginning with Katie trying to help Natasha after her wing/arm is injured by the jets. From there Katie has a soft spot for Natasha that not only develops her as a sympathetic character but also helps with the resolution of the story. Natasha’s origin story and how it has made her unwilling to see people suffer because of “wind and water” establish her further as a sympathetic character. Initially terrified of crossing Matushka directly, Natasha finds the courage to do so when Matushka goes too far in trying to kill everyone, and persuades the other Witches to do so. This is tremendous courage on their part, not just because Matushka is so powerful they almost kill themselves to stop her but also because of Matushka’s dominance over them all. Without the development of a friendship between Katie and Natasha, things would have ended less happily for everyone, including the Witches. The Witches, who have been feared for so long in the district, now have friends there.

Katie is the protagonist in the mould of having to act entirely on her own, and unlike everyone else, she’s not afraid to. Everyone knows what is going on with the Witches but nobody does anything because they’re too scared. Aunt Mabel and Mr Pinter, who could be allies for Katie if they were more proactive, do nothing. Drag the pilot to safety through the swamp, take over the boat to go to Amy’s rescue, fend off those attacking Witch geese while trying to help the airbase people, go to help Natasha when she hurts her wing, look up books in the library that could help, jump off the train and struggle all the way back to the air base, and so many other things – all of them Katie has to do herself. Plus she has to do it all with a bad leg and is still weak from the accident that put her in hospital. After all, she was sent to her Aunt’s to recuperate, not find herself with a fight on her hands. Yet she acquits herself admirably throughout it all, and it’s thanks to Katie that things in the end work out for everyone, including the Witches.

If the serial had been scripted for Misty, it’s impressive to see a redemption narrative thrown into the mix as well. Misty favoured unsavoury characters meeting sticky ends rather than putting them through the mill to redeem themselves, but this is what we get with Amy. After we see her father, it’s not hard to see why she’s such a loud, spoiled hard case. Like father, like daughter. Not even Katie saving her twice improves her character much. It’s not until the Witches give her some shock treatment that her pattern shifts, and the change in her comes across as plausible. In the end, Amy’s father redeems himself as well. But if this serial had appeared in the original Misty, we have to wonder if Misty would have had them both drown in the flood Matushka brings down on the air base.

The Loneliest Girl in the World (1980)

01/10/2024StoriesAliens, Artificial reality, book review, Dutch Tina, fiction, Imposters, Jaume Rumeu, Mad scientists, Mental illness, Nuclear war, Robots, sci-fi, science fictionmistyfan

Sample Images

Published: Tammy 19 July 1980 to 11 October 1980

Episodes: 13

Artist: Jaume Rumeu

Writer: Unknown (Malcolm Shaw?)

Translations/reprints: “Het meisje dat achterbleef” (The girl who was left behind), Tina #37, 1983

For the Halloween season we bring you this screaming thriller of a story (and lots of screaming it has too) from the Tammy and Misty merger. The story still attracts comment, especially the conclusion, which stands out as one of the best ever in girls’ comics. The serial is crying out for a reprint volume.

Special thanks to “Goof” for help with scans.

Plot

Karen Chalmers is in hospital, plagued by a recurring nightmare of a mysterious catastrophe where her parents are caught in a house fire, and then everything and everyone disappears from existence, leaving her all alone. Each time she wakes up from the nightmare, she expects everything and everyone around her to be dead. The hospital staff say the nightmare’s a product of Karen irrationally blaming herself for the fire. Karen’s parents say the fire was just an accident. But nobody is saying exactly what happened there or what caused the fire. Hmm….

Everyone says Karen’s mind is confused, but things will sort themselves out in time. For some reason Karen doesn’t find that reassuring and hopes unravelling the meaning of the nightmare will. At any rate, everything looks normal enough outside, and soon Karen’s parents take her back to her home village, where a new house is waiting for her, and her best friend Jilly.

Then, Karen is surprised when her dog Bobby is there to greet her as well. He was supposed to be dead, killed in a road accident over a year ago. Jilly says it’s the confusion in Karen’s mind, but unknown to Karen, her father phones someone to say they made a mistake about the dog – it was supposed to be dead. The parents decide to let the mistake slide, as removing the dog will only complicate things further.

The new house looks fantastic, but Karen notices odd things, which Bobby seemed to keep trying to stop her doing with his barking. All the flowers in the garden smell the same. The vegetables in the garden all taste the same, and they don’t taste much either. Karen wonders if her sense of smell and taste have been affected by the fire. When Karen looks through the encyclopedias at home, she is dumbfounded to find every page is blank. Then she makes the most shocking discovery of all: her parents are not her parents at all – they are robots. The imposture is exposed whenever the face coverings are raised, revealing the robotics beneath, which are so frightening they have Karen going “AAARGH!” Unknown to Karen, but sometimes shown to the reader, are policemen monitoring her on CCTV.

If these parents are robots, where are the real parents? Are they alive, or did they die in the fire Karen keeps dreaming about? She heads back to her old burned-out house. Bobby comes along, but now Karen has come to realise Bobby must be a robot as well. She tries to throw a brick at him to prove it, but Jilly stops her.

Karen tries to tell Jilly what’s going on, but Jilly does not believe her, saying it’s her confused mind. When Karen shows her the blank encyclopedias, every page is now filled. Karen’s mother screams out in pain because she cut her finger and there’s blood, so how can she really be a robot? But we’re not impressed. From what we’ve seen so far, although there are some kinks with these robots, the robot imposture has been so good they can really pass for humans. Even their smell, body temperature and skin appear and feel genuine, and they can shed tears.

However, Karen runs off in terror and confusion. Jilly tells the parents Karen thinks they are robots. Uh-oh, now the robots know they’ve been rumbled. What’s going to happen now? For one, thing, the robot Bobby is soon removed. Karen sees him go into a strange house, where he disappears. A mysterious voice says, “I’m afraid your usefulness has passed, my little machine.”

That night, Karen’s nightmares continue. Now the recurring nightmare of the house fire gets jumbled with her being chased by scores of robot doubles of her parents. After waking up from that, Karen slips into her parents’ bedroom in the hope they are her real parents, but finds them in bed with their eyes open. When she presses on their faces, the flaps open, revealing those terrifying android workings – AAGH! The robots make no reaction to this scream or Karen touching the mechanics on their faces.

Karen flees to Jilly for help, but Jilly calls her parents, saying she is mentally ill. Karen is dragged kicking and screaming to a psychiatric hospital. As she is taken away, the robot parents are in tears, but say she must not find out the truth, even if she has to stay in the hospital for life.

At the hospital, the doctors don’t believe Karen either and say it will take at least two to three years to sort her case out. Also, there is something strange about the hospital. The surroundings look more like a Victorian asylum than a modern hospital, and there are nurses are in nuns’ habits. The other patients are all withered old women. Karen is the only young patient. Karen’s nightmares continue, even in drug-induced sleep. Now she’s having ones where she is the robot, not her parents. AAARRGHH!

Karen makes friends with another patient who believes she is Marie Antoinette. After several months in the hospital, Marie suddenly helps Karen to escape. Somehow, she has acquired a key. As they pass through the corridors, Karen notices that nobody else seems to be around. Not a soul. That’s very odd, especially after months of not being able to find a way out for herself. Unknown to Karen, a policeman stationed at the CCTV, which is monitoring the whole escape, is fast asleep. Is there a connection?

Outside the hospital, Marie is recaptured when the hospital staff suddenly reappear, but Karen manages to escape. As she badly needs to get out of her hospital garb fast, she is forced to make a smash-and-grab at a store for clothes, and she takes a bike as well. The alert goes out for her very quickly (is it that CCTV again?). She spots a car with the robot parents in it and follows them to the strange house where the robot Bobby disappeared. The place is like a fortress, but she manages to get in over the wall. After getting into the grounds she meets the robot Bobby, whose barking raises the alarm. Now Karen finds herself facing…Frankenstein’s monster?! Yup, and we soon learn its name is Brian.

Brian and the robot parents capture Karen and take her inside to a mad scientist. He gives no name, and and he looks like…well, it’s hard to describe. An overgrown toad? A space monster? A cross between a troll and a reptile? Some relative of an Orc from Middle-Earth? He says he got this way because of an accident at a nuclear plant – “‘inadequate safety precautions,’ they said” – and now he’s out for revenge. His revenge is world conquest, using his robot doubles. He then shows Karen a whole gallery filled with robot doubles of everyone in the village, and among them is a double of Karen herself.

Now, we pause the story for a moment to note something:

There is something very odd about Karen’s double, and it’s something she misses entirely. Unlike the other doubles, it’s not shown in full or in clothing. Only the head is visible, poking out of some kind of container that is reminiscent of a steam bath sweater. None of the other doubles have this.

Now, back to the story.

The village doubles, the mad scientist says, are the first stage of his operation. The next stage is a gallery full of robot doubles of all the world leaders, and he is going to use them to conquer the world. To make the imposture complete, he drains the real people of their life forces and puts them into the doubles. Brian was his first test, but proved unsatisfactory. He scored better success with Bobby and then Karen’s parents as his guinea pigs. The parents are still alive but are now vegetables after their life forces were drained. Karen is locked up with them.

The police arrive. Seeing them, Karen uses a light to flash “SOS”, which alerts them. They discover everything, arrest the mad scientist, and have him to reverse the experiment on Karen’s parents, restoring them to normal. Everything seems to be okay now. The mad scientist’s operation is shut down, Karen’s got her parents back, and she goes home happy. The police don’t say anything about Karen’s smash-and-grab, and she is even allowed to keep the clothes.

However, there is one thing that’s niggling at the back of Karen’s mind, something that isn’t quite right. After another night of yet more nightmares, this time over what happened at the house, it clicks: Bobby died over a year ago. So how could the mad scientist have put his life force into a robot?

Unknown to Karen, the mad scientist was a robot himself. As the police take it away, they say it’s done its bit and Karen’s going to think everything is fine now. So, the mad scientist story was nothing more than a ruse to cover up what’s really going on – but just what is going on? And did Karen really walk away with her parents or just another pair of robots? All we know is, the nightmare’s not over for Karen yet, and she will find that out soon enough.

Next day, Karen heads to Jilly’s house and is surprised to see Jilly’s mother walking when she is supposed to be paraplegic. When she tells Jilly about this, Jilly goes crazy, calling Karen “sick, sick, sick” and runs off. She bangs her face on a tree and falls down. When Karen examines her, she discovers it’s not Jilly, it’s – AARRGHH! A robot. Then she falls over backwards when she sees a forest rabbit is a robot too. AARRGHH!

Then, as Karen goes through the village, she finds everyone is acting bonkers (trying to walk through walls, get tangled up in knitting, and other weird things). Evidently, they are robots too, and for some reason they’ve gone on the blink. When Karen tells her parents what is going on and they must leave the village and seek help, they flatly refuse. There can be only one reason why they are doing that, so Karen presses on their faces and…AARRGH! It’s not her parents, it’s another pair of robots. Worse, the first pair of robot parents appear, so now it’s two sets of robot parents now!

Now Karen runs off altogether. As she does so, the robot parents shout that there is nowhere for her to run to. Before long, Karen finds all the robot doubles in the village chasing her. Karen evades her pursuers by hiding in a rubbish bin, and now she’s off to the nearest town, Ashburton, to get help. The mysterious policemen are still watching Karen on their CCTV. One advises on how they can stop her escape, but another says to let her go. This time, she will be allowed to discover the truth.

Things can’t get any more insane? Oh yes they can. Out in the countryside, Karen discovers everything is a fake. All the trees are made of some kind of plastic, all the birds and animals are robots, and all the flowers have the same smell, just like the ones in her home garden. This time, she knows it’s not her sense of smell and taste. She now despairs that anything is real, and now she’s thinking….

What on earth is the purpose of all this fakery? If the mad scientist replaced everyone in the village with robots, why didn’t he do the same with her? After all, there was a robot double of her in the robot gallery – or was there? We have already commented on how it differed to the other doubles. Why is the mad scientist going to all this trouble to convince her that her parents are still alive?

Karen now realises that everything is much bigger than what the mad scientist led her to believe. And to the reader, it must now be clear that whatever this is, it’s aimed at Karen, not the world. What’s more, the technology required to create all this is way beyond a loony 20th century Earth scientist.

Eventually, Karen finds not Ashburton but a strange landscape that looks nothing at all like Britain – or even Earth. It’s a wilderness filled with strange hills with flat tops, and it expands as far as the eye can see. The two pairs of the robot parents appear, along with the other robots, and tell Karen to climb to the top of the highest hill. Seeing no other choice, she does so.

(Full scans on what happens next in the final episode can be found here.)

At the top of the hill, Karen is greeted by the sight of a huge alien city and two suns in the sky. Seeing this, she finally cracks and screams she can’t take any more, she feels like she’s going mad. And by this time, there must be a lot of readers who agree with her. What the heck is behind this non-stop nightmare of a mess that seems to have everything but the kitchen sink thrown into it? And, given how crazy it’s been, does it even have a rational explanation?

Fortunately, explanations are now at hand. Two aliens, Zodak and Modak, appear before Karen, and explain she is on the planet Kirilion, 20 light years from Earth. Taking her into their city, they explain that on 14 April 1985 (an advanced date at the time the serial was published), a worldwide nuclear war broke out on Earth and it was annihilated. The Kirilions rescued Karen from the nuclear holocaust in which her parents were caught in the house fire, the fire she kept having nightmares about. Sadly, they could not save anyone else from Earth. In sum, Karen is the last of the human race and her parents are dead, along with everyone else on Earth. This was what her recurring nightmare meant.

And what was with that fake village, the mad scientist that wasn’t, and the robots? The Kirilions created an Earth simulation for Karen to keep her from knowing the truth and spare her the grief. However, they soon realised they had made mistakes, and having nothing but Karen’s confused, traumatised mind to get data for the simulation did not help matters. Their biggest mistake of all was not realising they could not recreate the substance of Karen’s home (for example, using plastics and machinery to recreate the flora and fauna). They kept adding to cover up as they discovered mistake after mistake, but of course this only made things worse and worse until they eventually decided it was a losing battle.

At least we can finally make sense of this. Well, most of it. Some things are still baffling, like why all the robots in the artifical village suddenly went haywire, why the aliens watching Karen on the CCTV looked like British bobbies, or just what Marie Antoinette really was. She could not have been a real human. Was she a secret Kirilion who took pity on Karen? Or was she a robot with a flaw in its programming that worked in Karen’s favour?

Anyway, what now for Karen?

The Kirilions now decide Karen just can’t live this way and will only die of grief. So they offer to send her back to Earth in a time machine to seize what precious moments the time travel will allow (they can’t be certain just how much) with her parents before the end comes. Karen happily accepts although she knows she will be going to her death and the Kirilions won’t rescue her this time. When she returns to Earth, she’s got a whole month, and she is finally back with her real parents. They are surprised when she suddenly makes a tearful fuss over them.

Thoughts

Well, if your head’s spinning after all that or if you’ve lost the plot somewhere along the way, it’s perfectly understandable. The story pushes everything, including the boundaries of sanity, to such levels of confusion and terror that you don’t know what’s what, what the hell is going on, or where it’s all going to end up.

Where it does end up takes everyone by surprise. It’s not at all what we expected after buildups towards a mad scientist, aliens playing games with the poor kid, someone doing crazy experiments, or maybe the whole thing turning out to be a crazy illusion. Nothing new in any of those, but having it turn out to be benevolent but misguided aliens is a mind-blowing surprise. And after what these supposedly benign aliens put poor Karen through, we’re left reeling even more.

All the way through to the final episode, there’s screams of terror and cries of anguish for poor Karen because of the ceaseless nightmares, the frightening robots, the psychiatric hospital, the lair of the mad scientist, the whole robot village chasing her, and finally discovering a landscape that doesn’t look at all like Earth. Yet Karen manages to hang on to her sanity despite it all and clearly not able to get a decent night’s sleep because of all those nightmares. She does not end up having a nervous breakdown. That’s so impressive.

Loneliest Girl could well top even Winner Loses All! for screams and terrors all the way through the story. At least in Winner Loses All!, we and the protagonist know what it’s all about, even if we dread where it’s going to end up. But in this neither we nor Karen know what’s going on, and we can’t make it out. The confusion it causes and the threats to poor Karen’s sanity compound the terror of the story even further. We’re even wondering if these nightmares Karen keeps having are on the right track after all. Could she really be the robot, not her parents? Did everything really perish in that fire, leaving Karen all alone? Maybe the world got taken over by these robots after this mysterious house fire?

And then all the terror and confusion that have been piling up throughout the story just get swept away. In their place are these friendly aliens. It must be said their calming, almost angelic effect is most welcome after all these horrors. And now the stage is set for one of the most stunning conclusions in girls’ comics, and it still resonates today. The whole thing had been to keep Karen from finding out what happened on Earth. Now realising how misguided and ultimately futile it was, the aliens agree to send Karen home, this time to die together with her parents. Karen will be going to her death, but all parties agree it is better this way. Moreover, unlike a similar alien time-travel reset in The Human Zoo from Jinty, there is no cheesy memory-wiping to make Karen forget it all. When she emerges at the other end, she remembers everything that happened and knows full well what is coming. So we can imagine how this might affect her final days on top of knowing about the impending doom…is everyone but her a robot…does everything smell/taste the same in the garden…are the trees made of plastic…and those nightmares….

Wow. The final episode scores a perfect 10 for a grim, uncompromising ending and yet be utterly satisfying. There are no cop-outs, last-minute saves, deus ex machinas, or everything being a dream or something. And at the time of publication, when the fear of nuclear war hung over the Western world like a mushroom cloud, it was very topical. It’s no wonder that the ending to Loneliest Girl sticks with people so much.

The story may have been originally written for Misty. It is indeed pure Misty, and if it had appeared in the original comic it would have been one of her topmost classics. We can see the story has elements of other memorable Misty serials: End of the Line, Hush, Hush, Sweet Rachel, The Four Faces of Eve, The Black Widow, Spider Woman and The Body Snatchers, plus a complete Misty story, The Experiment. As already commented, there are also elements of The Human Zoo from Jinty. Many of these stories were written by Malcolm Shaw, so we have a strong hunch he wrote Loneliest Girl as well, but there is no confirmation of this.

The TV serial The Prisoner could also have been an influence, where the protagonist finds himself trapped in a mysterious village where nothing makes sense, nothing can be explained (and never is), and there seems to be no escape. Those robot faces may have been inspired by the creepy Fembots in The Bionic Woman. When the Fembots lost their facial coverings and the mechanics on the front of their heads were exposed, it scared the hell out of everyone. This is still one of the most terrifying parts of the show. Another inspiration could have been “The Android Invasion” from Dr Who, which had a fake Earth created by the Kraals. As with the Kirilion simulation, the fake Earth fell short because the Kraals made mistakes and could not recreate the substance of the real Earth. The story had android doubles as well, which were quickly seen through.

Lesson for both the Kirilions and the Kraals: There is room for only one planet Earth. Accept no substitutes.

Home Guard Hero (1994)

25/04/2024StoriesBurden, Commando, Gordon C Livingstone, Home Guard, Ian Kennedy, invasion, Navy, Scotland, U-boats, War, World War IImistyfan

Published: Commando #2791, September 1994; reprinted #5126, May 2018; also available on Kindle.

Artists: Cover – Ian Kennedy; story – Gordon Checkley Livingstone

Writer: Burden

We’ve had stories from comics, including girls’ comics, dealing with Nazi occupation of British territory. The Channel Islands occupation has been popular e.g. Debbie’s “Wendy at War“. One of Misty’s most famous serials, “The Sentinels“, used the concept of alternate reality where the German invasion of Britain succeeded. But what about a story where the Nazis attack British territory totally without warning and take everyone by surprise? Here we bring you an exploration of that premise.

Plot

It’s 1942, World War II. On the small island of Beagsay in Scotland, the majority of the Home Guard head for their neighbouring island, Stromarra, for a 3-day training exercise with Lieutenant Malcolm MacGregor. Corporal Alec Fraser is in charge of the men who are left, and talk about the B team. Just five in total, and Alec is the only one with soldiering experience (WWI veteran), but he has a dodgy foot following an accident and gets seasick, which is rather embarrassing in a community where everyone’s got salt in their veins. The others are 17-year-old Iain Bissett and David MacAskell, and sexagenarian fishermen Jock and Hamish McColl. Alec faces an uphill task of making soldiers out of them. None of them were soldier material to begin with. They are keen, but they’re goofballs who don’t even take cleaning their guns seriously, and they just don’t see the point of Home Guard: “We’re just playing soldiers. The Germans won’t be coming here, that’s certain!”

Oh, no? Even as they speak…

Enter one U-boat on her maiden combat voyage, under the command of Captain Hugo von Stahl. His officers, all of whom play key roles in the story, are First Lieutenant Sigi Gotz, Navigation Officer Rudi Toller, Gunnery Officer Adolf Thun, Torpedo Officer Karl Buchner and Engineering Officer Heini Heuss. Even among his crew, von Stahl has a reputation for ruthlessness, which is fuelled by a bad case of “throat-ache” (no Knight’s Cross around his neck) and frustration at being sidelined for a commission while his fellow officers went on to become aces. He’s also a fanatical Nazi who wouldn’t be out of place in the S.S.

Von Stahl has orders to attack Allied shipping in the North Atlantic, which he intends to do with all his Nazi zeal. No less than ten sunk, he says. He is “prepared go to any lengths to succeed in his mission” – and this includes crimes that would make the S.S. proud. Other problems with his command include him flying off the handle when things don’t go his way (which he does a lot in the story), being single-mindedly stubborn (though sometimes he makes concessions), and taking dangerous risks to succeed in his mission. He starts by ordering the faster but more risky route to the shipping lines via Scottish waters he is familiar with.

Unfortunately for the U-boat, this course takes it too close to the coast, where a Sunderland (flying boat patrol bomber) spots it and fires depth charges. It is forced to break off because of low fuel, an approaching storm and losing its prey, but the sub took serious damage. It now has a bad fuel leak and the starboard diving planes are jammed, making it unable to submerge. This will make it an easy target for the Allies when the storm clears, but mission-obsessed von Stahl won’t hear of turning back. Nope, they’re pressing on, but first they’ll make course for Beagsay to make repairs, and they will overrun the island to make sure of no trouble. Privately, von Stahl’s officers aren’t sure about this because it’s Army stuff and they are the Navy, but they don’t dare argue with their fanatical captain.

Still, Von Stahl’s attack on Beagsay goes very successfully. The first casualty is fisherman Willie Baird, rammed in the harbour to stop him raising the alarm. The reduced Home Guard are training at Alec’s farm when von Stahl dispatches a team, led by Gotz and Thun, to overrun the town and lock the people in the memorial hall. In typical Nazi fashion, von Stahl orders prisoners to be shot if there is any resistance. After killing the constable, von Stahl takes over the police station as his HQ, disables the telephone network, burns the boats in the harbour, and dispatches a unit to deal with the Home Guard.

However, the fires in the harbour alert the Home Guard. Then they find the phone is dead and MacGregor’s van heading their way. Knowing MacGregor never lets anyone use his van but himself and he’s away, Alec gets suspicious and orders his men to lie in wait in ambush. Sure enough, they see Germans get out of it (led by Buchner) and shoot them dead. A recce of the town and harbour tell them all they need to know. They stash the Germans’ guns and their own arsenal in a safe place, and Alec pulls out his old WWI sniper rifle.

The Home Guard get their first taste of the atrocities the Germans can commit when they see a German patrol shoot down a boy, Ronnie Baird, who was out looking for his grandfather. Alec retaliates by shooting them with his sniper rifle, much to the awe of his men, who have never seen what a sniper rifle can do from a distance. Jock volunteers to sail out to Stromarra to raise the alarm. When permission is denied because of the storm, he feigns a sprained ankle in order to slip away to do it.

Alec’s plan is to engage sniper activity against the U-boat while the others rescue the townsfolk. The sniping serves as a distraction to draw the Germans away from the town, reduce the number of Germans, and slow down their repairs, which they are desperate to do before the storm clears and they get spotted by the R.A.F.

However, the Germans’ difficulties and delays in fixing their vessel just pile up. They have to contend with Alec sniping at them, accidentally shooting some of their own men when they returned fire, growing fatigue from sleep deprivation, and no full crew to work on the repairs. A crew that started with 48 men is fast shrinking from mounting casualties and men away to guard the town. In the town, the German patrols are also flagging from exhaustion and no guard change, which gives the Home Guard an advantage.

The plan for rescuing the townsfolk is to draw the patrols off with a fire bomb and knock out the Germans guarding the back door of the hall so they sneak the people out the back. The plan is successful, although Iain runs into trouble with the Germans and has to shake them off, and then he bumps into Gotz. In a panic he hits Gotz so hard he has to be taken back to the sub to be treated for concussion.

Eventually, the Germans complete the repairs by morning and the U-boat is ready to go. Out of pure malice, von Stahl gives orders to burn down the town before they leave, but his officers are reluctant to commit such a crime. Thun flatly refuses to do it and Toller says they must leave at once because the weather has cleared and the R.A.F. may spot them. Von Stahl grudgingly concedes to Toller, but he’s furious and warns them he won’t forget it.

However, von Stahl soon finds himself with far bigger problems. Jock got through, and now a destroyer arrives to intercept the U-boat. After three salvos, all on the ill-fated starboard side, the U-boat is heading for Davy Jones’ locker. The Navy and Home Guard round up survivors, who are taken prisoner. Among them are Thun, Gotz and von Stahl himself, now broken from his mission, dreams and ambitions all washed up.

Thoughts

When we think of the Home Guard, we usually think “Dad’s Army”, which is not too far from how the Home Guard was generally viewed in the story. The German lieutenant sent to dispose of them “had nothing but contempt” for what he regarded as “only amateurs”. By the time he discovers otherwise, he and his team are the first to die at their hands. The destroyer’s First Lieutenant admits he has revised his opinion of the Home Guard as “old men and kids playing at soldiers” after hearing the Home Guard heroics. Even our heroes regarded themselves as a bunch of olds playing soldiers and underage teens just gaining work experience in soldiering until they’re old enough to enlist (Iain and David). Being in the Home Guard’s hardly likely to get you real action.

But you never know what fate might throw your way, do you? As our heroes finds out, one minute the war seems far away, and the next it can be right on your doorstep. Beagsay got an actual taste of what it would be like if the Germans invaded. They were very lucky that this micro-version of a successful Nazi takeover of Britain was only temporary. It was definitely a cruel twist of fate that the U-boat had von Stahl as its captain, who not only made a series of blunders that brought the sub to Beagsay but was also familiar with Beagsay from his private yachting days and knew where to go for repairs.

When we hear von Stahl is a ruthless Nazi fanatic who is hell-bent on succeeding in his mission, we know that this is what will really destroy him, for all the trouble he gets from his foes. Sure enough, he’s hardly assumed command when it all begins to happen. To highlight his shortcomings as captain even more, he is surrounded by officers who serve as foil, showing themselves to be more sensible and level-headed than he is. If any of them had been in charge, the U-boat would have been more successful in its mission. When von Stahl is captured at the end of the story, even he must have been wishing he’d turned back instead of heading for Beagsay. Still, to be fair, his decision to head for Beagsay for repairs would have paid off if Alec, the only experienced Home Guard soldier remaining, hadn’t stayed behind because of his bad foot and being prone seasickness.

Ironically, von Stahl’s shortcomings as captain (Nazi fanaticism, arrogance, bad temper, obsession) are his very strengths as a villain. At the heart of it all, he’s a ruthless man who’ll go to any lengths for a Knight’s Cross. Until he gets the comeuppance we know is coming, we know there’s going to be very nasty Nazi stuff from him, and even his own crew may suffer at his hands. We certainly see it, but it could have been worse. For example, when Gotz gets injured, von Stahl orders ten prisoners to be shot in retaliation. This couldn’t be done because they’ve escaped, but what if they hadn’t? Von Stahl said earlier that he would kill everyone on the island if necessary. When his officers don’t want to carry out the order to burn the town, he almost draws his gun on them, but settles for a warning that he’ll deal with them after they leave. Knowing him, he would have had something very vindictive for them. We are relieved for them that von Stahl doesn’t get the chance to carry out his threat.

Our Home Guard laddies start out with not much hope for soldiering. They’re also naive and inexperienced about what war’s really like, much less what it’s like to meet Nazi Germany. But as they discover, there is nothing like the real thing to bring out your mettle. They are flung right into the thick of how lightning fast reflexes can make the difference between life and death, kill when necessary, and learning the hard way how merciless Hitler’s lot can be. It’s a real shock to the system, but by the end of it they’re showing a lot more steel. Afterwards, Alec thinks David, Iain, Jock and Hamish still have a long way to go to become real soldiers, so it’s back to the training, laddies. But after what they went through with von Stahl, we’re confident Alec will see a vast improvement in their soldiering.

Patsy on the Warpath (1969)

22/01/2024Storiesbullying, John Armstrong, June, Schemers, school story, Tammy annualmistyfan

Sample Images

Published: June 13 September 1969 – 13 December 1969

Episodes: 15

Artist: John Armstrong

Writer: Unknown

Translations/reprints: Tammy annual 1977 as “Patsy and the Beast of Banchester”

Plot

It’s Patsy Dean’s new term at Banchester Comprehensive. Telling her own story, she tells us she has many good friends, especially her Indian friend Muna, but some pupils in her class are real toughs, particularly Johnny Bedford, a “mean, spiteful” bully nicknamed “the Beast of Banchester”. Bedford has a crony called Ginger Nokes and others to form a gang to avoid. Patsy is one who stands up to Bedford.

A new teacher, Miss Rabbitt, starts at the school as their form and biology teacher. Her name, inexperience over it being her first job, and confiscating Bedford’s knife instantly mark her out for bullying and trouble from Bedford and his gang. They start with drawing rabbits on the blackboard and planting biology mice in her desk. The ensuing chaos when the mice get loose gets Miss Rabbitt a reprimand from Mr Slattery, a headmaster who demands order and discipline, which he enforces with caning (yup, those were the days). Patsy and Muna rally around Miss Rabbitt, determined to help her against the bullies any way they can. Miss Rabbitt also finds an ally in another teacher, Mr Peters.

Miss Rabbitt has lodgings above a sweet shop, where she and Patsy discover Bedford and Nokes shoplifting. It is at this point that Miss Rabbit starts standing up to Bedford, and it’s over some stolen chocolate. Forced to pay for the chocolate, Bedford hates Miss Rabbitt more than ever and vows to get her kicked out of the school. Patsy sees his tricks on Miss Rabbitt grow worse, such as setting off a firework to scare her and spiking her mince pie with mustard (after a switch from Patsy, he is the one to cop the mustard pie), but he really gets nasty when she takes the class to the city museum. Disguising themselves as cannibals, the Bedford gang set upon Miss Rabbitt, and museum valuables get broken in the attack. The gang gets punished at school when Miss Rabbitt reports them, but Bedford is smirking over his success in getting Miss Rabbitt in further trouble with Mr Slattery for failing to keep order.

Fearing Miss Rabbitt might get sacked, Patsy and Muna decide to get the decent kids together to rally around Miss Rabbitt and help her against the bullies. But there’s a problem: Bedford is running for form captain, and school rules forbid Miss Rabbitt from interfering with the nominations for form captain. If he wins (which he is making sure of with bullying and bribery), he really will cause trouble for Miss Rabbitt. Patsy decides to run for form captain as well to help her. Bedford is confident his tactics will secure him the position: “I’ve got twenty votes in the bag already!” As usual, Patsy has a barb for him: “Maybe you’ve counted them wrong, Johnny. You always were a dimwit at sums!” All the same, Patsy knows she has to electioneer like crazy to beat him.

Things heat up even more when Bedford and his gang start attacking Miss Rabbitt’s lodgings and the sweet shop in revenge for being reported over the museum incident. Patsy organises a counterattack. She and her friends repel one attack, but things get dangerous when the bullies throw a stone at her. So Patsy gets some rugger friends to help, and they heave the bullies into a fountain the next time they try an attack. At school, Patsy distributes satirical posters of Bedford to make him a laughing stock and put pupils off voting for him.

Miss Rabbitt doesn’t show up for a school swimming gala, which gives the bullies an opening to make more trouble by painting Miss Rabbitt in a bad light with the class. Then Patsy finds out why Miss Rabbitt didn’t show up: she needs her weekends to take her disabled brother Michael out, and she took the teaching job to be near him. Michael’s also a science whiz with gadgets, which will be a major plot point later on. Meanwhile, Patsy spreads the word about why Miss Rabbitt didn’t come to the gala, to set the class straight. After hearing how badly Miss Rabbitt needs her job, Patsy becomes even more determined to protect her from the bullies.

Patsy wins the election by one vote. But there’s more trouble when Bedford angrily accuses Miss Rabbitt of tampering with the votes and gets violent towards her. When Patsy intervenes, there is a near fight. Mr Slattery sees this and gives Miss Rabbitt another reprimand for failing to keep order. When the staff hear what happened, they also question her ability to keep order. Mr Peters defends her, saying it’s her first job and she’s got some really tough pupils.

Bedford gets even more nasty when Miss Rabbitt catches him out with a fake sick note after he dodges class. But Bedford thinks Patsy sneaked on him and plots a terrible revenge. Disguising their faces, he and his gang set upon Patsy, bind and gag her, and lock her in the old watermill. They don’t realise their stomping has weakened the floor, which begins to collapse. Patsy loosens the gag and screams for help. Her cries are picked up by Michael’s new gadget for detecting sounds, and Miss Rabbitt rescues her in the nick of time. Patsy can guess who was responsible for the attack. She can’t prove it, but that doesn’t stop her from confronting Bedford and giving him a duffing over it the following day. Mr Peters stops the fight, but guesses what was behind it and sides with Patsy.

Meanwhile, there is big trouble at school when a policeman spots two Banchester boys sneaking into a sleazy night club. Mr Slattery says the club is out of bounds and he will expel any pupil caught going there. Bedford sees his opportunity to get rid of Miss Rabbitt. He tricks her into going to the night club and, with the help of his brother, makes it look like she danced with a bloke there, with one of his pals to take a photograph of it. A police raid catches Miss Rabbitt and the ‘incriminating’ photo is sent to Mr Slattery. Miss Rabbitt is suspended.

When Patsy hears what happened, she realises Bedford set Miss Rabbitt up. Unable to convince Mr Slattery, she organises a protest rally, classroom strike and then a petition to get Miss Rabbitt reinstated. Her determination is the name of the game to keep it going, especially when things begin to stack against them, such as bad weather and ensuing chills. It certainly grabs a lot of public attention, including press attention. However, Mr Slattery remains firm in his position and Miss Rabbitt has decided to look elsewhere for a job. Besides, they can’t prove anything.

Things come to a head when Bedford overhears Miss Rabbitt saying she is coming back to the school to collect some items from the lab, including a model Michael loaned her. He decides on one final act of spite against her: burn down the lab and destroy the model with it. However, the fire gets out of control and the biology lab animals are in danger. Bedford just says, “Oh, blow them!”, but Nokes goes back to rescue them. He manages to get some of them out but is getting overwhelmed by the smoke. Miss Rabbitt rescues him but gets overwhelmed herself when she tries to rescue the model and remaining animals. She has to be rescued by Patsy.

In return for Miss Rabbitt saving his life, Nokes confesses everything to Mr Peters. Bedford is expelled and Miss Rabbitt gets her job back. The fate of Nokes is not recorded. Miss Rabbitt and Mr Peters are now very friendly, and Patsy suspects wedding bells will be ringing before long.

Thoughts

There is so much in this story to make it a standout and one of June’s very best. It has a cracking plot, powerful characters, and a feisty heroine who can really give a bully what for, whether it’s with her tongue or with her fists, and instantly stands up for what she believes is right. This makes a nice change from so many heroines in girls’ stories who don’t seem to have any brains or backbone and give in too readily to bullying/blackmail. Patsy’s retorts against Bedford always make us smile. And he’s one heck of a bully to stand up to as he’s not only tough but also vicious and even dangerous, capable of using knives, bricks, stones, ambushes and even arson. From what we see of his older brother who’s willing to help him frame Miss Rabbitt, his home environment is to blame. We would not be surprised if Bedford’s father was one heck of a thug and well known to the police.

Bedford has no redeeming qualities; when Nokes warns the biology lab animals are in danger of being burned to death, he doesn’t help them. Nokes does, and for once he finds himself not “following Johnny’s lead”. He further redeems himself by confessing everything. Another striking feature in this story is the dash of ethnicity, with Patsy having an Indian girl as her best friend.

But what makes this story stand out the most is using an aspect of bullying that isn’t explored much in girls’ comics though it is all too familiar in real life – a bullied teacher. We have seen plenty of stories about bully teachers in girls’ comics, but the reversal has appeared less frequently. Yes, examples have appeared, such as the form and maths teacher Miss Peeble from “Pam of Pond Hill”. In Pam’s very first story, Miss Peeble’s lack of confidence and experience made her a target of the resident class larrikins Fred and Terry, who dubbed her “Feeble Peeble”. In the end, with help from Pam, she finds her feet and the class are forever friends with her. Perhaps we have the same writer here. As it is, Miss Rabbitt has it even tougher than Miss Peeble. These are not your average bullies the teacher is up against – these are vicious toughs who get so nasty they are scheming to get her removed from the school. She isn’t exactly a big strong guy who can strike fear into cowardly bullies. It’s kudos to her and admiration from Patsy when she does begin to stand up to the toughs.

It is a brilliant touch to add a backstory to Miss Rabbitt that not only makes her an even more sympathetic character but also becomes a major plot point. After hearing how badly Miss Rabbitt needs her job and how much she cares for her disabled brother Michael (always takes him out on weekends, never misses), Patsy becomes even more determined to protect her from Bedford. Michael’s inventions also add to the plot. One saves Patsy’s life, and it is Michael’s model that instigates the final act of spite, the one that proves Bedford’s undoing. He pulled one trick too many when he already had it all sewn up, which has been the downfall of many troublemakers in girls’ comics. It is a pity the gadgets didn’t play a bigger part in the plot, such as helping to set a trap for Bedford or proving Miss Rabbitt’s innocence.

Still, Miss Rabbitt would have been well and truly sunk without Patsy. She is the sort of pupil any teacher would give their right arm to have – a decent sort who is willing to be a good friend and help, regardless of how the bullies get. And never once does Patsy get called teacher’s pet, not even by Bedford. Patsy has more than earned her right to be form captain. We know Patsy’s form will be a much happier place with her as captain and Bedford expelled.

The Venetian Looking Glass (1980)

24/10/2023StoriesDutch Tina, evil influence, Evil object, ghosts, Phil Gascoine, revenge, supernaturalmistyfan

Sample Images

Published: 8 March 1980 – 19 July 1980

Episodes: 16

Artist: Phil Gascoine

Writer: Unknown (possibly same writer as “Slave of the Mirror”)

Translations/reprints: Het gezicht in de spiegel (The face in the mirror) Tina #3, 1983.

It’s Halloween, which means it’s time to spotlight some of the spooky stuff from girls’ comics. So we bring you this Jinty spine-tingler from 1980.

Plot

After losing her parents, Lucy Craven goes to live with her relatives, the Fairfaxes, at Craven Castle. In the hallway there is a wedding portrait of another Lucy Craven, the original owner of the castle. There seems to be something unhappy about her expression.

While exploring a disused tower, Lucy opens an old trunk containing a comb, a candlestick, a pair of jewel-studded shoes, and a mirror that has been painted over with black paint. When the paint flakes off the mirror, Lucy is shocked to find the reflection is not hers – it is the other Lucy Craven! The presence of another Lucy Craven in the castle has roused the ghost, and she starts controlling Lucy Jr through the mirror and the shoes. For what purpose? Revenge on the Fairfax family, says Lucy Sr. Revenge for what? The ghost doesn’t say, but there is a clue when cousin Rosalind reveals that Lucy Sr’s wedding never took place because she died on that very day. Now that’s tragic and enough to spark any haunting. Could the circumstances of her death be at the root of her revenge?

The ghost then bequeaths the other items in the trunk to Lucy Jr, and when she takes hold over her, she turns really nasty and willing to commit acts of revenge, starting with wrecking cousin Rosalind’s briar rose embroidery. Lucy Jr also goes through bouts of confusion and terror as she seems to lose all memory of what happens and then remember it again.

It turns out the ghost had a particular reason for wrecking Rosalind’s embroidery. Her own cousin Rosalind was working on a similar embroidery, but Lucy Sr wrecked it because she thought Rosalind was competing with her for her sweetheart Roger’s attention. Rosalind Sr tearfully explains it was meant to be a wedding present for her.

This is the first of a series of flashbacks to inform us of differences between the two cousins that led to the trouble. Lucy Sr was, to put it bluntly, bitchy. She was also prone to jealousy, a nasty temper and violence, and had little regard for her actions and how they could hurt others. By contrast, Rosalind Sr was a gentle, sweet soul, but this made her a “milksop” in her cousin’s view.

Rosalind Sr’s diary is pulled from the castle library. When Lucy Jr reads it, it sounds like Rosalind Sr married Roger instead of Lucy Sr. This could explain why the ghost is out for revenge. After this, Lucy Jr tries to plead with the ghost that it was all so long ago and has nothing to do with the current family, but her pleas fall on deaf ears. And the ghost’s powers are growing; for example, it can now appear to her in any reflective surface. Lucy Sr’s expressions in her portrait also seem to be changing, but it’s not until the climax of the story that the portrait actually speaks to Lucy Jr as well.

Next, the ghost forces Lucy Jr to cause Rosalind Jr to have a riding accident. Fortunately, Rosalind suffers little more than bruising and shock, but there’s worse to follow. The ghost wants Lucy Jr to harm Rosalind Jr’s horse, Topaz. In the candle, the ghost shows her the reason for this. She caught her sweetheart Roger using her horse to teach Rosalind Sr to ride (didn’t the lady know how to already?). Furious, she lashed out, causing Rosalind to fall off and knock her out. At this, Roger told Lucy Sr she had a “wicked temper” and could have killed her cousin. After that, he went off her.

Lucy Jr refuses to harm Topaz and successfully fights the power of the shoes and strips them off. But later she realises she left the candle in the stable and now it’s on fire! She braves the flames to get Topaz out. But have the candle and shoes been burned in the fire? No chance. Lucy Jr is shocked to see them back in her bedroom. More than once they have demonstrated powers of teleportation. And now the ghost wants Lucy to destroy the Fairfaxes, who are descended from the cousin she considers stole her sweetheart and then her castle, which passed to Rosalind Sr with Lucy Sr’s death.

But just how did Lucy Sr die, anyway? Rosalind Sr’s diary reveals this too. On the day of her wedding, Lucy Sr was informed that Rosalind had eloped with Roger, and they went to the church to marry. Furious, she wildly rode off to stop the wedding, but her recklessness drove her to take a jump that was too dangerous, and she was killed. Roger and Rosalind Sr found themselves holding a funeral instead of a wedding feast.

Lucy Jr feels sorry for the ghost after learning this, but she has had enough of her haunting. She decides to run off. Before doing so, she tries to return the items to the tower – an unwise move, because the ghost locks her in, and nobody is around to hear her shout. She escapes through a secret passage but unwittingly causes Uncle John’s car to crash. He isn’t too badly hurt, but the family are demanding why the hell Lucy’s unhappy and why she tried to run off. Of course poor Lucy can’t tell them.

Recalling she found the mirror painted over, Lucy Jr wonders if painting it over again will stop the haunting. While hunting for paint, a cat causes her to break the mirror, and now it’s in three pieces. Does this end the haunting? Nope. It causes the ghost’s power to treble, with her face appearing in each of the three pieces! Now we really know an utterly terrible thing is about to happen, which will undoubtedly lead to the climax.

The two Lucys overhear the Fairfaxes planning to open up Craven Castle as a stately home to visitors and make money for restorations. The ghost takes umbrage at this, and now her power overwhelms Lucy Jr completely. It’s so strong that she sets fire to the place – and Rosalind Jr sees her do it. Lucy Jr runs off, and being at a distance from the ghost causes her power to ebb, but the ghost’s power will not allow the fire to be extinguished.

Now the influence has worn off, Lucy Jr is shocked to see what the ghost has forced her to do. She urges her to do something about the fire, and this time she makes an argument that has an effect on the ghost: “…you may have your revenge but you will be condemned to walk the earth forever! Don’t you want to find rest and peace?”

The thought of rest and peace makes the ghost stop and think. She explains that the candlestick, comb and shoes were essential to her transition to the afterlife while she was lying in state, but they were removed by her cousins and maid between them because of her conduct, making her earthbound. Returning them to her coffin will redress this. As for the painted-over mirror, it was just an old custom that was performed in the wake of a violent death.

There’s a memorable panel when Lucy Jr opens the coffin and gets a fright from the skeleton inside. She quickly restores the items, enabling Lucy Sr to move on. The ghost now realises, “Revenge means little if I may not rest in peace.” The fire goes out, without much damage done.

Lucy Jr has some explaining to do about starting the fire. She decides to just tell the truth. Backed by Rosalind Sr’s diary, in which she recorded a premonition of the ghost’s revenge, the family believe her. Now she is no longer plagued by the ghost, Lucy Jr can settle in happily at Craven Castle.

The portrait of Lucy Craven looks happier too.

Thoughts

This is the second time Jinty has used the theme of a hapless girl who becomes the slave of a haunted mirror, which forces her to commit evil acts in the name of vengeance. The first was the 1974–1975 story “Slave of the Mirror”. Both stories climax with the ghost’s power overwhelming the girl to such an extent that she sets fire to the place. The same writer, maybe?

However, there are differences between how the two mirrors haunt her victim. In SOTM the ghost in the mirror does not speak, her identity is unknown, and just what she wants in forcing her victim Mia to commit nasty acts against innocent people is unknown. Finding the answers to these questions is all part of finding the key to end the haunting. It looks like the ghost is doing it because she is just plain evil. But when we finally learn her name (Isabella) and backstory (she wanted revenge because she had been badly treated) it is a surprise to find her a sympathetic character.

In TVLG, the ghost is fully interactive with her victim, and there is no question as to who she is and what she wants. The question is just why she wants revenge, and this is progressively unravelled through the diary and flashback. Her story is tragic and does arouse pity, but unlike Isabella, Lucy Sr is not a sympathetic character. For one thing, the people she is attacking are totally innocent. Their only crime is to be descended from the “milksop” cousin Lucy Sr regarded as stealing her man and then her castle. Second, the tragedy that struck Lucy Sr was all her own making because her conduct. When Roger saw how vicious she could be, it was no wonder he went off her and married Rosalind instead. Her reckless riding led to her death. And the way she treated people led to them taking revenge at her funeral and stopping her from finding rest and peace. At least in the end she saw reason, something we have to wonder she was even capable of.

The plotting is tighter and more logical than in SOTM because we are shown the ghost has a reason (albeit not a particularly justified one) for each of her attacks on the Fairfax family. By contrast, in SOTM, the ghost’s attacks through Mia don’t seem to have a reason behind them other than to be malicious, which also makes the plot look a bit meandering and drawn-out at times.

The setting (a castle) and the Gascoine artwork really add to the horror of the story because they give it such a Gothic feel. There are other wonderful bits to further enhance the Gothic atmosphere, such as the rugged landscape when Lucy Jr tries to run away, the cobwebbed, dusty tower that nobody goes near, the secret passage, the portrait with the face that keeps changing expression, the chapel, the gruesome panel showing the skeleton in the coffin, and Lucy Jr so often being clad in her nightdress during the action of the story, a lot of which takes place at night. A Victorian setting would not be out of place in the serial.

Clancy on Trial (1978)

16/09/2023StoriesComeback, disability, Family Feuds, Family problems, Ron Lumsden, sportsmistyfan

Sample Images

Published: Jinty 20 May 1978 – 21 October 1978

Episodes: 23

Artist: Ron Lumsden

Writer: Unknown

Translations/reprints: Nancy op proef (Nancy on Trial), Dutch Tina #23, 1979

Plot

Rich Grandfather Staynes disowned his daughter because he disapproved of her marriage to a bus driver and never had anything to do with the offspring of that marriage, Clancy Clarke. However, he is impressed at how Clancy is learning to walk again after a hit-and-run accident left her an invalid, not realising her cousin, Sandra Porton, is helping her. When he sees her for the first time when she moves in with him, he is further impressed at what a fighter she is. She refuses to use wheelchairs or other constructed apparatus for invalids. She’s going to walk, which she begins to do with canes Sandra found.

But there is another reason why grandfather wants to be part of Clancy’s life for the first time: he is looking for a suitable heir for his business and thinks Clancy could be the one. Apparently he rejected Sandra as his heir because he does not regard her as a true Staynes – “too sensitive”. It looks like Sandra’s parents, Charles and May Porton, are out of the running as well although they live with him and help him run his business, as he doesn’t think they have the Staynes streak either. However, it looks like Clancy has inherited the fighting streak of “drive and determination” the Stayneses are so proud of.

To test Clancy’s worth, grandfather decides to put her through a series of trials. Since he’s a stern man, these trials are not going to be easy for Clancy, who has not even recovered from the accident. However, Clancy, being a strong-willed girl and does not hesitate to stand up to her grandfather (much to her mother’s surprise, who never did that with the fearsome old geezer), is rising to the occasion to prove to him how tough she can be. She’s her grandfather’s granddaughter all right!

His first test is whether Clancy will give in and use the wheelchair he provided. Sandra’s banned from her room after an attempt to help her caused an accident and can’t help. Ironically, Clancy finds the wheelchair useful after all. It gives her access to the bridge in the garden, where she secretly begins to train her legs. Soon she is able to walk with the canes. Grandfather discovers her secret. He says nothing, but is further impressed.

Grandfather overhears Clancy saying she wants to go home, but he isn’t having that. He wants her to stay with him so he can test her further. He arranges to have Clancy’s father transferred to another bus job, miles away. He then turns to Clancy’s education, and his next test: see if Clancy will find a way to get to Sandra’s school. Sandra cycles but Clancy can’t yet, and he won’t let Clancy use the chauffeur. Clancy uses the bus and there’s a sensation at the school, a snobby establishment, when she uses a refuse cart for the last leg of the journey up a hill, which has the headmistress phoning grandfather. But there are the problems of bus fares and Clancy not able to always get help with the hill, which is a struggle for her on canes.

It’s Sandra to the rescue when she trades her bike for a tandem. Her parents are not pleased about Sandra trading her nice bike for such a rusty old contraption. At least Clancy’s beginning to cycle again, which further strengthens her legs. But the headmistress believes a disabled girl in the school is a hazard and advises she be sent to a specialised school, Greyfriars Lodge, which is unacceptable to Clancy, who does not want to be treated as a cripple.

The only other school Clancy can turn to is Berkeley Comprehensive, but grandfather would have a fit if he knew – he hates Berkeley Comp because it’s become rough and rundown, and he didn’t like it being built so close to his property. But at least it’s close and easy for Clancy to get to, so she defies him to secretly enrol there instead of going to Greyfriars.

Clancy encounters further problems at Berkeley. The kids are tough, and when they hear who her grandfather is, she makes enemies, as he is not popular with them – a skinflint in their view, who’s got plenty of money but never uses it to benefit the community (and is it coincidence that one of his ancestors was called Ebenezer?). His latest issue with the school is the vandalism on his wall.

Not all the kids are hostile to Clancy. Brenda secretly wants to be friends, but is unsure of approaching Clancy. Also, Clancy won’t ask for help, even when she badly needs it. For example, she can’t carry a tray at lunchtime but won’t ask anyone to help. At least nobody there treats her like an object of pity, which she appreciates. Of course Grandfather finds out Clancy is at Berkeley, but he gets her back up when he says she won’t last a week there and will be begging for Greyfriars Lodge (another test?). So she’s going to stick it out, bullies and all.

Things take a turn at Berkeley when the bullies throw Clancy’s sticks in the school swimming pool and nobody is around to help. Rather than wait for someone to come, Clancy puts on a swimming costume and braves the pool. In so doing, she discovers the therapeutic benefits of a swimming pool for her condition and she can swim comfortably. The girls, repenting their trick, bring the sports teacher Miss Jenkins along, and they are stunned to see Clancy has swimming talent. They are also impressed Clancy didn’t let on about the trick, so Clancy has finally found friends at Berkeley. Miss Jenkins believes Clancy could have a place in the school team.

Meanwhile, Sandra is getting dangerously exhausted from cycling the tandem to school (meant for two, not one, after all) and her parents can’t afford a replacement. Clancy asks her grandfather to help, but although he caused the tandem trouble with all his testing of Clancy without regard for the consequences, he refuses. Instead, he says he will buy the bike if Clancy helps to pay for it. And Sandra is not know about their bargain because she is “too sensitive”. Clancy accepts his terms because she refuses to admit she can’t pay because of her condition. So his latest test for Clancy is to somehow raise the money – on top of everything else? Groan… no wonder he’s got such a hard reputation at Berkeley Comp.

Clancy gets a job at a riding stables, but did not realise the wage was free riding lessons, not cash. However, she enjoys the free riding lesson although grandfather disapproves when he hears. Worse, there’s no instalment for him, so Clancy gives him some of the money Sandra entrusted her with for safe-keeping instead. Now it’s even more imperative for her to find a job, to replace the money, but it leads to even more complications, including a clash between a babysitting job and competing in the swimming gala. And Clancy has got to compete because her parents are coming and she’ll be able to prove to them she’s not a cripple. At length Brenda agrees to do the babysitting, so that’s that problem solved.

Clancy’s aunt and uncle are worried about Clancy competing in a swimming gala when she has not recovered from the accident. But grandfather doesn’t listen, angrily saying Clancy has the Staynes streak. Obviously, he never heard of “the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak”. Nor does he seem to understand that even Stayneses have their limits or that drive and determination don’t make them superhuman.

Indeed, warning signs are soon showing. Clancy has nightmares over sudden paralysis in the pool and wakes up to feel her legs really are paralysed. To help Clancy along, Sandra gives her a bottle of herbal tonic from the village herbalist, Granny Frost. It seems to help, but Clancy begins to experience odd bouts of dizziness, weakness in the legs, and loud heart palpitations. At the swimming gala, she feels her legs going again, and in the pool she blacks out and has to be rescued. Seeing this, grandfather realises he should have listened to the warnings that Clancy wasn’t ready. Clancy is confined to bed, now realising she took on too much when she was still in recovery from the accident. She loses heart for the first time in the story, which causes grandfather to lose faith in her. But what worries Clancy the most is that she hasn’t been able to replace the money she took from Sandra’s savings. And there is still the matter of coming up with the money for Sandra’s new bike.

After prodding and encouragement from Sandra, Clancy rallies and gets out of bed. Grandfather, still disillusioned with her, grumpily says she can have a ring that was meant to be an heirloom for her mother, but he couldn’t care less about it now, as he’s still sore over the bus driver marriage. Clancy takes the ring to sell and pay off her debts.

The ring is sold and clears all the debts, but the shop called grandfather in. He allows the sale but is shattered over what he considers lack of family loyalty on Clancy’s part. However, he cracks into a rare smile and laughter when Clancy comes up with the idea of investing what’s left of the money in her father’s new business. Looks like the gal has his nose for business! So at least things are better between them now.

As Clancy leaves grandfather’s study, she feels that dizziness and loud thumping of her heart again, and ends up in bed once more. She turns to the tonic, and the doctor can’t diagnose the problem. Clancy recovers and gets out of bed. Without a diagnosis the problem could return, but Clancy believes a dose of the tonic will fix it.

Sandra takes Clancy to her table tennis club, where Clancy, stung once more by people saying she’s a cripple, shows everyone what an ace player she is. Before long, Clancy makes such progress on her leg that she can now walk normally. She is chosen for the “A” team at the table tennis club, but Sandra tells Clancy she wanted to be on that team, and she’s very upset. Clancy is upset too, but she couldn’t pass the chance to show everyone she is a winner. Hearing this, grandfather is satisfied Clancy has passed the final test. In his view, you have to be ruthless to get where you want to be and not let other feelings get in the way, and that’s how he got where he was.

Grandfather finally tells Clancy what he was doing all along to see if she was fit to be his heir. Satisfied she is the only relative fit to carry on after him, he openly pronounces her his heir. Sandra’s parents are very upset at this after helping to run the Staynes business for years. They become embittered towards Clancy, and she falls out with Sandra as well because of it. They all think Clancy planned the whole thing with grandfather and don’t listen to her pleas that she had no idea what he was up to. So Clancy is not happy with the announcement either. Then, at a celebratory party with grandfather’s business colleagues, Clancy collapses and is taken to hospital, and heart trouble is diagnosed.

Grandfather fears he demanded too much of Clancy and it strained her heart, but it turns out the tonic was responsible. It contained a poison that affects the heart and nearly killed Clancy. Now Sandra and her parents are suspected of poisoning Clancy and under police investigation. Mum and grandfather believe they are guilty, but after due consideration and remembering how Sandra helped her to walk again, Clancy decides to help clear things up. She encourages Sandra to come along with her to Granny Frost to investigate, where they find the police doing their own investigation. After probing from Clancy, the poisoning is traced to the hedgegrows, where Granny Frost picked up some bits and pieces for her brews.

Once Sandra and her parents are cleared, Clancy tells grandfather that she and Sandra should be joint heirs because Sandra helped her to walk again. He takes umbrage at this, leading to a huge row between them. The family are confident Clancy will win the argument and are amused at how grandfather, who wanted a relative who shared his strength of character, has really met his match in Clancy.

Happy now, gramps?

Thoughts

An entry on Clancy has been due for a while, as she was one of Jinty’s most popular and enduring stories. The artwork from the ever-popular Ron Lumsden, best remembered for “The Comp” from Nikki/Bunty, is a further selling point. Lumsden artwork did not appear often at IPC, and this was the only story he drew for Jinty, so it would have been a treat for readers. Jim Baikie or Phil Townsend would also have been good fits for the story, but it is a delight to have Ron Lumsden and some different artwork in Jinty.

Comeback stories and overcoming disability are always a guaranteed success with readers, and having the difficult grandfather who devises further challenges to test Clancy’s worth as his heir on top of her rocky road to recovery really spices up the mix and makes it even more exciting than if it were a mere comeback story. Also, it is a nice change to have no enemies out to hamper Clancy out of jealousy or whatever. She does have brief trouble with bullies, but that’s about it.

The Staynes streak that grandfather is so proud of is definitely key to Clancy’s recovery, for it helps to make her a fighter who constantly wants to prove herself despite her condition and show everyone that she’s no useless cripple. But by itself it’s not enough (something grandfather fails to understand), and at times it is detrimental. It makes Clancy too proud to seek help at times and puts her on the defensive at being regarded as a cripple or seen as weak.

Clancy also needs human support and encouragement if she is to recover, something grandfather is not really giving her because he is too self-absorbed in testing her worth as his heir. Fortunately, Sandra provides more than enough of this, ranging from offering help to a deliberate prodding of pride to get Clancy going. Without Sandra, Clancy would have had far less chance of making a full recovery or passing grandfather’s secret tests.

Grandfather certainly is an intimidating character, but he is also intriguing and complex. As Clancy begins to know him, we begin to see there is more to him than a strict, formidable rich man. He believes that only the drive and determination streak of the Staynes is what will make a worthy successor to his business and none of his relatives seem to have it before he meets Clancy. The trouble is, he is so single-minded in his view that only the Staynes streak makes a worthy heir that he underestimates his relatives, is blind to qualities they do possess that he should respect more, and as they are part of the business he should consider them a whole lot more. Yet the Portons have been passed over for inheritance despite helping with grandfather’s business, just because they don’t seem to have the Staynes streak. Sandra’s mother has been passed over too in inheriting the ring when Clancy’s mother was disinherited, although she was next in line and had a right to inheritance. If Clancy herself had not had the accident and been fighting to walk again, grandfather would have continued to ignore her and not even realise she could be a suitable heir.

His single-mindedness in testing Clancy also blinds him to the fact that she is still not fit after the accident and adding his tests on top of that could lead to trouble. Moreover, he is not even thinking of helping her to recuperate. All he can think about is testing her suitability to be his heir. Nor does he realise that he is unwittingly causing other problems with his tests. One example is the tandem. Grandfather turns replacing the tandem into another test for Clancy, without thought that the tandem riding is wearing Sandra out and quick action should be taken to replace the bike before something serious happens. To make things easier for Sandra, he could have replaced the bike quickly and then asked Clancy to help pay for it afterwards. But no, he just has to turn it into one great big test for Clancy on top of all her other problems before he will even consider buying the new bike. And in the meantime, poor Sandra has to continue to struggle with the tandem for goodness knows how long.

Even without the toxic tonic, it is a wonder grandfather didn’t cause a calamity with his drive to test Clancy and put too many burdens on her. Clancy herself begins to wonder if she is taking on too much and readers must have been worried that the strange spells she was experiencing were warnings of it. Before the tonic is diagnosed as the cause of Clancy’s second hospitalisation, grandfather becomes more human when he fears he demanded too much and then is in a state of shock when he thinks his relatives poisoned her. It is a pity the story didn’t take things further with this and show whether grandfather realises he focuses too much on business, suitable heirs and the Staynes streak, and should look at the bigger picture.

Grandfather also doesn’t realise that even Stayneses are only human and there are limits to drive and determination. For example, when Clancy collapses and becomes depressed, grandfather loses faith in her because of this one lapse after the many successes she had before Sandra prods Clancy into action again. He disapproved of his daughter’s marriage and disinherited her just because he thought she was being disloyal (not for snobbish reasons as readers must have first thought) in defying him to marry the man she loved. Doesn’t he recall any times when he himself felt discouraged, depressed or fed up and needed help to get back into action?

To grandfather’s credit, he never shows any real sign he is a snob, though things like disinheriting Clancy’s mother because she married a bus driver or disapproving of the construction of Berkeley Comprehensive give the impression he is one. Also, there is no actual evidence he is a miser as the Berkeley Comp kids think although he does not share his wealth with the community. His refusal to simply shell out for a new bike for Sandra gives a hint as to why he doesn’t share his wealth – he does not believe in people getting things without personal effort. In other words, he does not hand out things on a plate. Or maybe he just doesn’t want people to treat him like a bank.

Is grandfather’s heart in the right place despite his severity? More or less, we think, but he could open it and his mind a bit more. One certainly hopes that Clancy will make him realise the Staynes streak and business aren’t everything, especially if he is persuaded to make Sandra his heir too. Sandra may not have the Staynes streak, but she has shown her own strength of character and intelligence. Moreover, unlike her grandfather, who loses faith too easily for one failing, she does not give up on people.

Wild Rose (1978)

11/09/2023StoriesAcrobatics, circus, Dutch Tina, fugitive story, Girl Picture Library, gymnastics, Jim Baikie, Lost parents, Mystery story, Questmistyfan

Sample Images

Published: Jinty 12 August 1978 – 28 October 1978

Episodes: 12

Artist: Jim Baikie

Writer: Unknown

Translations/reprints: Waar hoor ik thuis? [Where do I belong?], in Dutch Tina, from #16/1980 – #33/1980, in 18 instalments; Girl Picture Library #9 as “Circus Waif”

Plot

Rose Harding is very happy in the circus where she was brought up by the Harding family, a family of acrobats. She’s also a proud girl, especially of the family name, which can really get her temper up when someone wounds it – as the Williams family find out when they try to push the Hardings out as top of the bill. The Williams-Harding rivalry could easily be what shapes the rest of the story, but instead it brings a skeleton rattling out of the Harding closet, which sets the story in another direction.

The Hardings now feel compelled to finally tell Rose they are not her natural family. She was left on their caravan doorstep as a baby by a poor gypsy woman who had a moon scar on her right cheek. The only clues to Rose’s past are shabby baby clothes she wore at the time and a gold locket that was on her. The locket contains two pictures: one of Rose as a baby (in much better baby clothes) and one of a woman wearing a silver star pendant (but no moon scar on her face).

As the mystery woman was a gypsy, Rose decides to ask some local gypsies for help. Their fortune teller, Madame Cora, consults her crystal ball and says Rose’s search will initially lead to heartbreak (uh-oh, can of worms?), but she will find happiness and her true home in the end. The gypsies are going to Bencombe Fair where there will be plenty of other gypsies. Rose goes with them, hoping to find leads there, without stopping to tell the Hardings first.

At the fair, a shady-looking couple tell Rose they saw the gypsy with the moon scar recently, but of course they’re just out to take advantage of her. They bill her in an act, “The Snake Girl”, and blackmail her into it with threats they won’t help her with the gypsy woman unless she complies. But their daughter Betty is jealous and plants itching powder in Rose’s costume, turning her performance into a laughing stock.

Rose storms off into town in search of Betty. But Betty pulls a prank on her by posing as the gypsy woman. When Rose angrily reacts to the trick, Betty and her cronies are about to duff her up when another girl, Angie, intervenes. Betty is sent packing, and tells Rose her parents lied about seeing the gypsy woman. She then tells her father Rose now knows this, but he isn’t letting Rose go that easily. He has plans to recapture her for the snake girl act.

Meanwhile, Rose accepts Angie’s offer of staying at her house and is introduced to Angie’s sport, gymnastics. But Rose, having been brought up in a circus, isn’t used to living in houses and Angie’s mother soon feels she has to go. Angie takes Rose along to a gymnastics contest, where she watches the famous gymnast Lady Vere in action. Rose doesn’t realise Betty is shadowing her. After watching the gymnastics, she can’t resist butting in to do her own although she is not entered. And when she sees Lady Vere up close, she realises she is the woman in the locket and must be her mother.

Then Betty’s Dad interrupts. He has brought a child care officer along, claiming Rose is his own daughter, but when Rose yells that she isn’t and the man has no proof she is, the child welfare officer gets suspicious. When he says he can check with records to verify things, Betty and her father beat a fast exit and don’t bother Rose again.

However, as Rose won’t disclose her identity, the child welfare officer senses she is a runaway and puts her in welfare custody. Rose escapes and heads back to Angie’s, and tells Angie what she has discovered about Lady Vere. Lady Vere, she is informed, runs the best gymnastics school in the country. So Rose is now headed for the gymnastics school. Angie insists on coming along, but soon regrets running away from home. Seeing this, Rose quietly phones Angie’s parents and leaves Angie with a farewell note.

The Lady Vere school is an exclusive gymnastics school, with scholarships for poorer gymnasts. But Lady Vere has a daughter, Susanne, and never had another, so what’s with the locket? Rose collapses from shock, and the school takes her in while she recovers. Rose also discovers there is another woman at the school, called Aunt Maria although she is no blood relative, who has the moon scar. She learns Aunt Maria came to the school as a penniless gypsy when Susanne was a baby and never left. Rumour has it she has some hold over Lady Vere. At this, Rose decides to hide the locket from Aunt Maria and say nothing in case Aunt Maria is dodgy.

When Rose recovers, Lady Vere takes her on for a trial period. Rose likes the gymnastics, but she is not warming to Lady Vere because she’s very strict about discipline. Discipline is something the proud, rebellious Rose is finding very hard to take and it’s tyranny to her. (You ought to meet some of the gymnastics coaches Bella Barlow has had, Rose!)

Then Aunt Maria discovers the locket and tells Rose to meet her quietly in a section of the school that was burned by fire years ago. She tells Rose that one night she and her baby took shelter there. When she saw the fine clothes baby Rose was in, she couldn’t help but switch them with the shabby ones her own baby was wearing. Then a fire broke out and she took both babies to safety. Forgetting the switch in clothes, she took the finely dressed baby to see who it belonged to, and it was Lady Vere. It was only then that she remembered the switch in clothes and realised she had mistakenly given her own baby to Lady Vere. As the babies looked alike, neither noticed it was the wrong baby. When Lady Vere insisted Maria stay on as the baby’s nanny as a reward, she couldn’t resist taking that opportunity to lift herself and her daughter out of poverty. So she said nothing about the mistake (and apparently didn’t think of quietly switching the babies back). Not wishing to pretend that Lady Vere’s baby was her own, she took it to the only home she could think of – the Hardings. Only she forgot the tell-tale locket, which Lady Vere’s baby was still wearing.

Oh dear, it’s the old mixed-up babies situation, always guaranteed to make a mess with no easy solutions. So Rose is Lady Vere’s daughter, Susanne is really Aunt Maria’s daughter, and Aunt Maria found that not redressing her mistake condemned her to years of living a lie and a guilty secret that might be discovered, and she is crying for Rose’s forgiveness.

Well, there’s the heartbreak Madame Cora warned Rose about. Rose finally knows the truth, but what to do about it? Aunt Maria is willing to own up if Rose wants it, but Rose wants to think first. She doesn’t relate to the stern Lady Vere, so she doesn’t know how they can live as mother and daughter. Moreover, Rose can see Susanne is very happy with Lady Vere, who means a lot to her as her own mother, so will revealing the truth bring the happiness and true home that Madame Cora said would lie at the end of the road?

Rose meets up with Madame Cora again and asks her for advice. Madame Cora takes her back to the circus, where she discovers the Hardings are missing her badly and desperately trying to find her. At this, Rose realises the status quo is the answer. So she returns to the Hardings, where she finds the happiness and true home Madame Cora predicted. Aunt Maria feels more at peace when Rose tells her she will keep the secret.

Thoughts

Unravelling the past is always a popular theme in girls’ comics. However, the story would have been better to have opened that way instead of with the rivalry where the Williamses threaten to push out the Hardings as top billing, which would been a worthy serial in itself and shaped the rest of the story had Jinty continued with it. The situation is not resolved by the time Rose runs off to discover her past, leaving the reader with a thread left dangling, which is rather annoying.

Rose’s quest to find her past includes other elements familiar to readers of fugitive/quest stories, such as the dodgy fairground couple out to exploit her and child welfare sniffing around. However, it is refreshing to see they are not used to the point where they become repetitive and drawn-out. Once they are used, they pass out of the story pretty quickly, and it is good to see that not too many elements are thrown into the mix, which could slow the story down and make it ponderous. Rose also has strokes of luck that make things pretty quick in tracking down the right place and people. So the pace of the story is strong and impressive.

The overall story is a solid read with a feisty heroine who is capable of amazing feats as an acrobat to engage the reader. The ending is one of Jinty’s most brilliant, as it takes an unexpected turn for Rose to find happiness instead of risking a lot of bother in opening up the truth. There is much in it to keep the reader going.

Jinty would have a strong affinity with gypsies with the presence of her spooky storyteller, Gypsy Rose, who at the time was back with more stories (reprinted from Strange Stories instead). The gypsy element is a perfect blend with the circus and fairground elements, and it also adds a dash of the ominous, with a foreshadowing that the search would lead to initial heartbreak. It sounds like a warning that Rose might discover something better left alone. But of course Rose wanted to know her past and who she really was.

The mixed-up baby situation is always trouble, especially if it remains that way for years. Aunt Maria had her chance to sort it out (by confessing or quietly changing the babies back) but did not do so. In so doing, she condemned herself to a guilty secret overshadowing her entire life, and there was always the risk it might come out one way or other. Even with Rose’s forgiveness it could well do so, so it is unlikely Aunt Maria will ever know full peace.

Although the mixup had the benefit of a happy life with the Hardings, one is always left wondering what life Rose would have had if she had grown up as Lady Vere’s daughter. Growing up with the Hardings has given her a rebelliousness and sense of pride that make her a spunky character we can empathise with. It is less likely she would have turned out that way if she had grown up under the strict Lady Vere. But the other side of it is that knowing nothing but circus has given her a very narrow outlook on life. For example, she doesn’t even know what trophies are (when she saw Angie’s, she thought they were vases), what gymnastics are, or how competitions work. One can only hope her adventures have broadened her horizons more.

25 Things You May (or May Not) Have Noticed in Girls Comics – and Non-Girls Comics

12/05/2023Spoof, story structuremistyfan

We have all noticed certain things in comics. Things about plot, character and setting that always seem to crop up and we comment on them a lot. Then again, there are other things about plot, character and setting that always crop up as well, but we hardly even notice them. At least, not until someone else points them out. We have already presented three volumes on this subject that focused exclusively on girls’ comics, but for this new edition we expand the repertoire to include material from non-girls’ comics.

Now, to give you the idea of what we mean, we present:

25 Things You May (or May Not) Have Noticed in Girls Comics – and Non-Girls Comics

1: Some parents expect you to just selflessly help them all the time, regardless of workload or inconvenience, because that’s what they do for others.

2: But you’re the one person they never help.

3: No matter how good a schemer you are, you always make the slip that trips you up.

4: Evil scientists have a really bad habit of falling at the hands of their own creation.

5: Even if you’re the villain who’s the world’s worst dictator, you can still meet your match in a kid.

6: Someone always seems to have just what you need – even if they seem to have conjured it out of thin air, without any explanation.

7: When a teacher makes a teacher’s pet out of a pupil, it’s not because they like them.

8: Parents who don’t want to listen never hear you properly.

9: When it suits them, all of a sudden they hear you perfectly.

10: But it’s not to listen to you – it’s to spout utter bulls**t at you.

11: Bombers use alarm clocks as jury-rigged bomb timers, which just look plain silly.

12: When they must know there are much better bomb timers available.

13: Villains always seem to pick the wrong person as the latest recruit into their gang.

14: But for some reason they don’t realise it until it’s too late.

15: Never underestimate good guys with glasses.

16: Never underestimate bad guys with glasses.

17: Never underestimate a nerd, whether good or bad.

18: Antagonists are not admired for good looks – except when the plot requires them to be.

19: Bad guys who feed on fear strike it into the hearts of everyone in every panel they appear in.

20: Until they come to the panel where they’re up against the wall.

21: Victims don’t seem to recognise the mysterious shadowy figure that’s about to strike at them – even if the reveal shows it should have struck them as familiar in some way.

22: No matter how many enemies are set against you, not keeping your end of the bargain is what will be your downfall by the end of the story.

23: Bullied girls get no support from classmates if the plot does not require it.

24: But they do if the plot does require it.

25: Some outfits (or names) have an amazing power to change completely between panels without explanation.

Image credits

Black Beth – Scream Holiday Special 1988

Commandos vs Zombies – Commando #5277, 2019

Concrete Surfer – Jinty 1978

Hard Times for Helen – Judy 1984–85

Heartbreaker – Nikki 1989

The Nightmare – Battle 1985

No Haven for Hayley – Tammy 1981

Pam of Pond Hill – Tammy & Jinty 1982

Revenge! – Commando #1268, 1978

Teacher’s Pet – Judy 1990

Tears of a Clown – Jinty 1980

Traitor’s War – Commando #2472, 1991, #4085, 2008

Nazi Nightmare (1991)

27/01/2023StoriesAlan Hebden, Cold War, Gordon Checkley Livingstone, Holocaust, Nuclear war, World War 2mistyfan

Nazi Nightmare (1991)

Published: Commando #2480 (June 1991)

Artist: Gordon Checkley Livingstone

Writer: Alan Hebden

For World Holocaust Memorial Day we present this Commando, with comparison to Jinty’s Holocaust story, “Song of the Fir Tree”.

Plot

In the closing days of World War II, Nazi Germany is being fast invaded by the Allies from the West and the Russians from the East. However, in between are territories still under German control and lingering pockets of Nazi evil that intend to survive one way or other. Among them is the Secret Research Centre at Badfelden, run by the “hardened” S.S. Colonel Hartmann and “merciless” (but “abject coward”) nuclear physicist Bernhard (or Hans on the back cover) Gruber, and slave labour consisting of concentration camp prisoners and Airman Carlo Fabrizzi, an Italian who defected to the Allies and then got captured. As well as the usual Belsen-style treatment, the prisoners suffer an additional cruelty that adds to the high death toll: being forced to handle radioactive material without protection.

Gruber and Hartmann been trying to develop an A-bomb to score victory for the Reich, but Gruber hasn’t had much success, and now they’re out of time with enemy closing in so fast on Badfelden. So they activate “Plan Cuckoo”. As part of this plan, Gruber is to immediately head south and surrender to the approaching Allies. But they left an office window open, and it’s right next to where the prisoners are working, so Fabrizzi overhears them. Dummköpfe! Didn’t they ever read the posters? Vorsicht bei Gesprächen! Feind hört mit! [Careful when talking! Enemy is listening!].

Realising Gruber and Hartmann plan to dispose of the prisoners and the sinking ship before the Allies arrive, Fabrizzi organises the prisoners into a revolt against the guards, which takes Badfelden by storm. However, after the initial surprise, the guards are quick to recover, and they are soon on the verge of crushing the revolt. Fortunately, the Allies arrive in the nick of time, and Badfelden is liberated. However, Hartmann has already fled, and there is still the matter of Gruber and Plan Cuckoo.

Fabrizzi informs the Allied Commander, Ken Horton, about Gruber and his heading south to surrender to the Allies. Horton says Gruber is more likely to bump into the Russians, who are in between, and they are in a very nasty mood against Germans. They head off together to find Gruber and bring him to justice. Gruber is cornered by the Russians and, being the coward he is, starts snivelling, blubbering and grovelling for the Russians to spare his life. He is saved by Fabrizzi and Horton, who persuade the Russians to let them take him into custody. The mystery of Plan Cuckoo still puzzles Fabrizzi, but it looks like Plan Cuckoo is a dead duck now that Gruber is all set to stand trial.

Unfortunately, the Americans have other ideas. They are secretly recruiting scientists, engineers and technicians from the former Third Reich for employment, to gain advantage in the Space Race and Cold War (Operation Paperclip). They want Gruber for their own A-bomb development. Under pretext of wanting him for special interrogation, they smuggle him to the US. Under a new name (Smith), Gruber is soon working for the Manhattan Project. The Americans put up a false report in the press that Gruber killed himself in American custody. Horton is surprised to read it, as he thought Gruber was too gutless to commit suicide.

Meanwhile, the Americans don’t realise their actions have unwittingly put Plan Cuckoo back on course. Gruber is cribbing as much top secret information from the Manhattan Project as he can for Plan Cuckoo to succeed. As soon as he is ready, Gruber makes a call to Germany, and a car is sent for him. He nearly gets caught, as he is carrying an implosion trigger and suspicious guards want a search, but then his car arrives. His helpers whisk him away to Nazi haven Argentina and an old friend, shooting the guards as they do so.

Two years later, Fabrizzi summons Horton to Argentina, where he is running an air freight business. At Buenos Aires airport, Horton sadly reads about the growing Cold War in the paper, and now the Soviets have the A-bomb. Then he is surprised to spot Gruber, whom he thought was dead. Gruber boards a private plane. In exchange for a nice sum of money, a mechanic tells Horton the plane is bound for San Miguel, Patagonia, Southern Argentina.

When Horton meets Fabrizzi, he is shocked to see him in a wasted state. Fabrizzi says it’s radiation sickness from being forced to handle radioactive material unprotected in Badfelden. He won’t last much longer and has summoned Horton to carry on his work after he dies. No, not the air freight service – Nazi hunting. Gruber is at the top of the list. There’ve been other sightings of Gruber, and US contacts have told him what happened. But Horton’s lead is the first to link Gruber to San Miguel. Fabrizzi is still able to fly despite his illness, so they fly to San Miguel.

They arrive at San Miguel, but there is no sign of Gruber’s plane at the airport. They soon learn that many ranches have private planes and airstrips, and they file a flight plan for the airport for the sake of convenience. To find the plane, Fabrizzi and Horton have to do some aerial reconnaissance around the area. But at the airport, a Nazi spy spots them, recognises Fabrizzi, and reports them to the boss. He then plants a bomb on their plane. The explosion has the plane crash on a ranch belonging to Rhys Griffith and his son Manuel, who save the men from the crash.

The Griffiths tell Horton and Fabrizzi about a landowner named Alfonse Klein, a dangerous man of suspected German origin, who arrived straight after the war with a group of thugs. Klein forces his neighbours into selling their ranches to him by threatening to set them on fire. When Horton and Fabrizzi investigate Klein, they discover he is Colonel Hartmann from Badfelden.

Everything fits now, and the answer to Plan Cuckoo must be on Klein’s ranch. But when Horton, Fabrizzi and Manuel Griffith try to infiltrate the ranch, they discover it is fortified to the teeth and booby-trapped to set off any intruder alarms. When they try to cut through the wire fence, they discover it’s electrified and rigged to set off an alarm, which alerts Klein’s thugs. They manage to shake off the thugs, but they take revenge by setting fire to the Griffith ranch, killing Rhys.

The men take refuge at a ruin and decide they need reinforcements. No problem – Klein has made more than enough enemies for that. Manuel calls in his father’s friends and the local people who fell foul of Klein. Fabrizzi calls up his fellow ex-prisoners from Badfelden, and his airline flies them in. The black market supplies weapons and explosives.

Alerted to the booby traps, Horton and Manuel take a team of gauchos on a more planned infiltration of the ranch. This time they get past the fence and come in distance of the ranch, where they see barracks and Gruber’s plane. They decide to withdraw, but one of the gauchos trips an alarm, alerting Klein and his heavies. Only Horton and Manuel escape the slaughter. Manuel is dispatched to get help while Horton draws Klein off. He is captured, and Klein, instead of finishing him off quickly, decides to take him alive and show off his little Nazi operation to him.

Yes, Gruber and Klein have a cosy Nazi shrine/bunker set up in the cellar for building the A-bomb they had failed to construct at Badfelden. They had known from German intelligence how advanced the Americans were in developing the A-bomb and their being on the lookout for German scientists to help them. Hence Plan Cuckoo: plant Gruber “like a cuckoo’s egg” to learn their secrets and then fly him to their secret base to develop their own A-bombs. Now their first test bomb is ready. Their plan is to take advantage of the growing Cold War by using their A-bombs to trick the Soviets and the West into an atomic war so “the three wartime Allies will be laid waste”. Then they will move in with their new Nazi order. “It sounds crazy enough to work,” Horton thinks.

Klein then tells Horton that in the morning that he and his heavies will make sport of him in a great manhunt – they will give him 15 minutes and then chase after him. Yes, when he could have just finished Horton with a bullet there and then…and it’s given Horton one advantage – more time for his rescuers to organise themselves.

Manuel has made it to airstrip where Fabrizzi’s Badfelden buddies have arrived. They are all like Fabrizzi: living skeletons dying from radiation sickness, out for Gruber’s hide, and have nothing to lose by joining a deadly fight. They call themselves The Society of the Living Dead. Fabrizzi flies them into the ranch by planes fitted with machine guns to quickly clear the area. They and their guns soon have the manhunt on the run and rescue Horton.

They head for the cellar, where Gruber threatens to detonate the bomb if they come any closer. Knowing the cowardly Gruber doesn’t have the guts for that, Horton calls his bluff and seizes him.

There is now the question of what to do with the atomic arsenal, as they don’t trust the local authorities. Fabrizzi comes up with an idea, and as Horton wouldn’t agree, he has to apply strong arm tactics to get his way. He will give them 15 minutes to clear the area. Then he himself, who is already doomed anyway, will detonate the test bomb, taking himself and Gruber with it. Horton reluctantly respects Fabrizzi’s wishes.

Most of the men clear the area by plane, but Manuel and Horton are trying to leave by jeep, where they run into Klein, who blocks their escape route. Their two jeeps head on a collision course with each other, in a crazed game of chicken, guns at the ready. Klein’s driver is the one to crack and swerve, giving Horton the scope to shoot Klein dead. It’s then a mad drive to get clear before the coming of the mushroom cloud and the fallout.

The authorities never report the atomic explosion, so the world never learns what happened or how close things came to an atomic war. Fabrizzi dies an unsung hero.

Thoughts

It was a surprise to find a Commando that not only uses the Holocaust theme, an extremely rare thing in Commando, but also shares some parallels with Jinty’s “Song of the Fir Tree”.

Both stories open in a concentration camp setting where its days are numbered because of the approaching Allied-Soviet advance into Nazi Germany. Although the concentration camp itself is swiftly liberated early in the story, it establishes the setup for the rest of the story. Its legacy casts casts a long shadow, which refuses to be dispelled until the final panels, and in both cases it is told against the backdrop of post-WW2 and its fallout. In Fir Tree, it’s a war-shattered Europe and the emergent Palestinian-Israeli conflict. In Nightmare, it’s the growing Cold War and its companion threat of nuclear war, and post-war obstacles in bringing down Nazi war criminals.

The setup for both stories are very similar. It’s Nazis vs their former victims, which takes the form of pursuit and conflict between them right up until the end of the story. The victims may have been liberated from their concentration camps, but there are lingering unresolved issues from the concentration camp because the Nazis responsible were not caught and punished. They escaped and are still on the loose, getting away with their crimes and committing even more. Justice has been denied for their former victims, but it’s not just the past that affects their lives – it’s also the present. In Fir Tree, the two liberated children from the camp have to run for their lives from the Nazi collaborator Grendelsen, who is out to silence them. In Nightmare, Fabrizzi and his friends have to live with radiation sickness from their Badfelden days.

Though the setup of both stories is very similar, the two types of pursuit between the Nazis and their former victims are on opposite ends of the spectrum. In Fir Tree, Grendelsen is the pursuer and his former victims are the quarry. He wants to silence those meddling kids because they are the only ones who can identify him as a war criminal. In Nightmare, the former victims are the pursuers and the Nazis are the quarry, in a Nazi hunt. In both cases, the authorities can’t be trusted to help. In Fir Tree, it’s because they think Grendelsen is respectable and wouldn’t listen to stories that he is a Nazi collaborator. In Nightmare, it’s because they are helping the Nazi fugitives, out of connivance, greed, sympathies, or even fear. In both cases, the victims can only depend on each other, whatever help they manage to find, and strokes of luck. When it comes to dealing with the Nazis, in both cases it’s a final confrontation and fight with them. Conventional legal proceedings are of no use, but in both cases the Nazis receive poetic justice that satisfies all round. Grendelsen is killed by a falling fir tree just as he is about to kill his victims. Klein dies in conflict and Gruber by his own bomb, and their victims, both old and new, finally get the chance to settle the scores.

Commando often drew on historical events for inspiration and realism, and this story is no exception. Even Klein and Gruber’s secret atomic bunker was based on something real – the Huemul Project in Patagonia. Unlike Klein and Gruber, it is questionable as to whether the Huemul Project was even serious atomic research, much less producing a bomb. The threat of nuclear war makes the story even more intense although the Nazis’ plan to carry it out sounds more like television than reality.

Having Fabrizzi die an unsung hero when he deserved so much more seems so unfair and sad. Still, one of the strengths of Commando was that not all its heroes ended up with military honours. As with Fabrizzi, the only recognition they received was in the grateful hearts of their companions, and some Commando heroes did not achieve even that. Some died with their feats unknown, for security reasons, the authorities not knowing what happened, or whatever. Such a thing must happen so often in warfare.

A Resource on Jinty: Artists, Writers, Stories

Excellent and weird stories from the past – with amazing art to boot

Category Archives: Stories

Nell Nobody (1974-75)

The Sea Witches (1980)

The Loneliest Girl in the World (1980)

Home Guard Hero (1994)

Patsy on the Warpath (1969)

The Venetian Looking Glass (1980)

Clancy on Trial (1978)

Wild Rose (1978)

25 Things You May (or May Not) Have Noticed in Girls Comics – and Non-Girls Comics

Nazi Nightmare (1991)

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