Tag Archives: Miguel Quesada

Nell Nobody (1974-75)

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Sample Images

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.

Tammy 22 January 1972

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Gina – Get Lost (artist Miguel Quesada)

Beattie Beats ‘Em All! (artist John Armstrong)

Dogs of the Duchess

Lulu – cartoon

Amanda Must Not Be Expelled (artist Jesus Redondo)

Star Struck Sister (artist Giorgio Giorgetti, writer Jenny McDade)

A Tammy Outfit Idea (feature)

Alison All Alone – final episode

Talk It Over with Trudy – problem page

Skimpy Must Ski! (artist Tom Hurst)

The Secret Ballerina (artist Roy Newby)

Maisie’s Magic Eye (Robert MacGillivray)

Cinderella Spiteful (artist José Casanovas)

No Tears for Molly (artist Tony Thewenetti, writer Maureen Spurgeon)

A Special Tammy Portrait – Dave Cassidy

Tammy is three weeks into her first new year and approaching her first birthday. How has she developed so far? There have been some changes. Initially, she started off with too much emphasis on misery-laden stories with girls exploited by cruel employers/racketeers, attending harsh schools, or being treated like Cinderella by guardians. She was seriously lacking in lightweight stories for balance and another mainstay of girls comics – sport. Nearly a year on, she has struck more balance with her stories, thanks in part to the Sally merger, and there is more variety in her themes, although she remains strong and proud on abused heroines and cruel guardians/employers. One story, “Gina – Get Lost”, carries on the theme, and another, “Alison All Alone”, finishes this week. 

Speaking of Cinderella, the title “Cinderella Spiteful” puts a twist in it, but the plot has no bearing on Cinderella. Emma is staying with relatives but feels overshadowed by her brilliant cousin Angela. This week, Emma sets out prove herself at hockey, and when Angela falls ill, she seizes her chance. Next week will tell if it works out.

Ballet was also a frequent presence in Tammy from the first. Her current ballet story, “The Secret Ballerina”, is now on its penultimate episode, but there is sure to be another ballet story starting soon.

Humour was non-existent in the early Tammy, but now she has a bit more of it, with “Maisie’s Magic Eye”, from the Sally merger, and a regular cartoon, “Lulu”.

Sport began to pick up in Tammy as her first year progressed. Among them was “Skimpy Must Ski!”, which started in Tammy’s first Christmas issue. Despite being a semi-invalid, Skimpy wants to learn to ski, but she hasn’t gotten off to a good start. Grandad almost stops her skiing after she nearly dies in a night ski, and now he himself has a bad accident while trying to help her. “Beattie Beats ‘Em All”, who started when Sally joined Tammy, makes sport a regular in Tammy, and she offsets the misery-enduring Tammy heroines with a feisty personality that won’t be beat. 

Bella Barlow is still two years in the future, but Beattie shares some parallels with her: sports-crazy, outspoken, speaks with a Cockney accent, orphaned but free-spirited and determined to look after herself and stay out of “care”, and drawn by John Armstrong. The Bella team must have drawn some inspiration from Beattie.

Meanwhile, the gymnastics we see in Tammy right now is in “Amanda Must Not Be Expelled”, a gym-crazy girl who keeps getting herself expelled so she can go home to her gymnasium (like the school doesn’t have one too?). Her new friends keep trying to keep her from being expelled because they want her on the school gymnastics team. They manage it again this week, but how long can they keep it up? It’s not long before Amanda gets up to more tricks. After Amanda, there were no gymnastics stories in Tammy until Bella herself started in 1974, probably because Olympic gymnasts like Olga Korbut had put more spotlight on the sport. As Bella’s popularity grew, gymnastics really made its mark in Tammy. This was not just with the Bella stories and frequent comments on how popular she was, but also the Bella features and gymnastics-related competitions that she spawned in Tammy, plus getting her own book in 1981. 

The mysterious Duchess, who always keeps herself veiled, is on a crusade to help mistreated dogs. Pity she doesn’t treat Doris, the servant who helps with her campaign, with the same kindness she does the dogs. She punished Doris so harshly for failure that she collapsed, and when Doris asks the Duchess why she wears the veil, the Duchess slaps her. Another abused Tammy heroine, but it’s interesting to have an abuser who isn’t the usual sadistic/exploitative type in Tammy. Instead, it seems to be a case of the abuser having a psychological problem, and it’s clearly linked with what’s hidden under that veil and why.

An intriguing history of “Star Struck Sister” has been disclosed on the internet. Jenny McDade, who went on to become the first Bella Barlow writer, says “Star Struck Sister” was the first story she ever wrote for girls’ comics. A previous writer had “choked on” the story after the first episode, so she was commissioned to write the rest. The story itself concerns two sisters, Stella and Lesley, who are offered film parts, but the director is only interested in Stella, leading to jealousy from Lesley. So far this hasn’t led to anything really spiteful, but we know something will happen. Meanwhile, Stella wants to help hungry street urchins. How will it work out?

When it came to Molly stories about new/temporary servants, you could be sure of two things: first, they would bring trouble with them, and second, they would be gone by the end of the story, never to be seen or mentioned again. Mr Jenks, the butler standing in for Pickering when he is hospitalised, is no exception. Unlike Pickering, he’s a good sort. Unfortunately, he’s hopeless at running the staff – again unlike Pickering, whose slave-driving style at least kept them working – so work’s gone to pot at Stanton Hall. Jenks takes his leave now, but on good terms. 

Tammy 15 February 1975

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Cover artist: John Richardson

The Gypsy Gymnast (John Armstrong)

Rona’s Rainstones (artist Douglas Perry)

Nell Nobody (artist Miguel Quesada)

All Eyes on 3E (artist Mario Capaldi)

Hetty Horse Hater

Bessie Bunter (Arthur Martin)

Tess on Tap

Tumble in Time – Strange Story

Wee Sue – John Richardson

No Tears for Molly (artist Tony Thewenetti, writer Maureen Spurgeon) – new story

What is a Starlet? – Competition

Is the tramp on the cover at a low point or a high? Being down-and-out might be a real low point, but with all those Tammys covering him, you’d think he’d be on a high. Meanwhile, inside the issue, there are a lot of low points for Tammy progatonists this week, though some of them indicate climaxes and approaching resolutions. 

First, it’s the climax of “The Gypsy Gymnast” this week when Ann Rudge hits her lowest point and runs away from home. But now she finds herself leaping from the frying pan into the fire when she takes refuge with her mysterious gymnastics coach, only to discover she has a criminal past. Now she’s a prisoner, to be forced into crime. The police have heard Ann’s cries for help, but will they rescue her?

Next is “Nell Nobody”, who follows in the footsteps of the groundbreaking “Little Miss Nothing”. Nell Ewart is yanked out of school to slog at a hot dog stand to raise the money for her spoiled cousin Rosie’s acting school fees. The great irony of the story is that Nell is the one with the talent for showbiz, not Rosie. Nell’s skill with puppetry gives her a break at a TV studio, but this week she hits her lowest point when Rosie pulls a trick that gets her sacked from the studio. Poor Nell is back to the hot dog stand while Rosie worms her way into the TV studio for an audition. 

“Rona’s Rainstones” hits another low in finding the Rainstones, which will not stop causing water-related disasters until they are restored to their rightful home. Antagonist Karen has pinched one and refuses to return it, and others have been mistakenly thrown into the trash and are on their way to the landfill.

And talking of water-related disasters, that’s the new trick Form 3E pulls on Muriel this week, whose TV shoot threatens to expose their classwork-dodging tactics. They tamper with the school sprinkling system, sending a downpour down on the shoot.

Next is Wee Sue, who takes the unusual step of being in a 2-part story. She hopes to represent the school as a hurdler and scores a win, but Miss Bigger says it doesn’t count because she didn’t run in the qualifying heats. Are Sue’s hurdling hopes dashed? Stay tuned for part 2 next week.

In Bessie Bunter, Stackers is low this week because of illness, but it’s Bessie who’s on the low end in the final panel. 

If you find yourself feeling low while waiting for your washing to finish its round at the laundrette, it’s better than slaving in an old-fashioned laundry, as our heroine in this week’s Strange Story (below) discovers. Her name, Pat Mills, is noteworthy, as Pat Mills was one of the biggest names in Tammy history. Tammy never could resist those in-references. 

Linda, who is out to sabotage Hetty’s bid to regain her riding nerve in “Hetty Horse Hater” because her boyfriend’s family will gain from it, really stoops low to do so. She tries to frame Robby Adams, who is helping Hetty to ride again, for arson, and he is arrested. Fortunately, the forensic report on the fire clears him and he is released. 

Highs and lows for “Tess on Tap”, who becomes a drudge in her own home when her dad goes abroad and Mrs Willis, the housekeeper who’s supposed to be looking after her, makes her slave for her spoiled daughters. Worse, Mrs Willis is interfering with Tess’s passion for tap dancing, including getting money out of her, to feed her daughter Vanessa’s passion for the same thing.  

Finally, there’s Molly. She starts a new story that has attracted comment among her internet fans. They’ve given it the title “Molly’s Demotion” (Molly stories did not have collective titles at this stage). It begins with Pickering suddenly being all nice to Molly. What’s come over the bully butler who has always made her life a misery? “Beware the Greeks, even when they offer gifts” might spring to mind, but it doesn’t until Molly discovers too late it was all part of Pickering’s scheme to steal her job for his niece Ruby, leaving her in a lower-paid job. And that job will entail doing all the work that Ruby is supposed to be doing in Molly’s old job. Talk about adding insult to injury. 

Little Miss Nothing (1971)

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Published: 5 June 1971 to 4 September 1971 

Episodes: 14

Artist: Updated: Miguel Rosello, Miguel Quesada and Luis Bermejo credited by David Roach

Writer: Alan Davidson

Translations/reprints: None known

Plot

Annabel Hayes is the drudge of her family. Her parents say she’s nothing and have eyes only for her younger sister Dora. Everything goes on Dora, including Annabel being forced to slave on her father’s market stall, and he doesn’t care that it makes Annabel late for school. At school, Annabel is brilliant at sewing. Her sewing teacher, Miss Turner, says she could make a real career out of fashion and design, and gifts her a book on dressmaking.

Then the family moves to be closer to Dora’s modelling school. Dad yanks Annabel illegally out of school to work full time to help pay Dora’s fees and tells her to lie about her age if anyone asks questions. Dad even rips up Annabel’s dressmaking book when she tries to rebel against his latest ill-treatment, but she manages to salvage the pieces. 

At her new home, Annabel is forced to sleep in an attic, but this works in her favour when she finds an old sewing machine there. Later, she discovers an evening dress and design class she could go for. After finding some materials and thread, she is in business.

As Annabel works at her sewing, she bemoans how she must do everything for herself, from the nothing her parents say she is, while the spoiled Dora gets everything handed to her on a plate for her modelling and doesn’t lift a finger for herself. Well, at least Annabel has the talent. Does Dora have the talent too? We haven’t been shown that part yet. 

Annabel’s first day on the market stall goes badly, as she is forced to work on it alone with no experience in sales pitch, and she’s up against Tom, who really knows how to sell stuff on his own stall. Dad’s furious at Annabel not making any money and clouts her. And now Dora’s been recommended to the De Vere fashion house, so the pressure on Annabel to make money at the stall is worse than ever. 

Next day, Tom, who saw the way Dad treated Annabel for making no money, gives her a hand, and she makes more money on the stall. She has used some material left behind on the stall to make some items, which she hopes to sell on the stall and raise her own money for the evening sewing classes. None of them sell until towards closing time, when a Mrs Crawford, seeing the flair and design that went into making them, scoops up the lot and places an order for six bags in dark red.

Unfortunately, Dad grabs the money Annabel had just raised, leaving her with nothing to buy the red material for the bags. All the money has gone for expensive material to make Dora’s new dress – which happens to be dark red. When Dora takes the material in to be made up, Annabel makes a grab for the scraps (getting herself into a few scrapes along the way) and makes up the bags, but just as she brings them to the stall, Dad finds them. He throws the bags away – but happens to pick the moment when Mrs Crawford arrives and sees everything. She puts Dad very firmly in his place, “you dreadful man”, and forces him to apologise to Annabel. 

Mrs Crawford says she wants to have tea with Annabel to discuss things. Sensing what a rich friend Annabel’s suddenly got, Dad realises he could take advantage, especially for Dora. 

All of a sudden, Dad goes all nice to Annabel at home, and tags along with her to the tea. Mrs Crawford says she wants Annabel to work for her in the fashion business and needs a guardian’s consent. Dad gives it, and then he puts on a great “poor man act” to cadge some junk for the stall. While doing so, he helps himself to some more valuable items Mrs Crawford bought at auction. Annabel discovers this and runs off to return them, with Dad giving chase. She manages to get them to Mrs Crawford, but Dad tries to put the blame on her. It looks like the end of Annabel’s job with Mrs Crawford, and Dad’s furious at how Annabel has wrecked his chance of a fortune. Unknown to them both, Mrs Crawford is not convinced Annabel took the paintings. 

Annabel is now so heartbroken and fed up that she just runs away, leaving the market stall unattended. Dad’s livid when he discovers this. When Mrs Crawford returns to the market stall to make further enquiries about the paintings, Dad tells her about Annabel’s disappearance and yells at her for interfering.

Meanwhile, it’s time for Dora’s modelling audition at the De Vere school. We’re finally shown just how good Dora is at modelling, and no, she definitely does not have what it takes. Dora overhears Miss De Vere say she was the only one she was not impressed with. 

But Dora gets an even bigger shock when she sees the row between Mrs Crawford and Dad at the market stall – Miss De Vere and Mrs Crawford happen to be the same person! (Later, they find out De Vere is Mrs Crawford’s professional name.) So Dad and Dora really need Annabel now, to pull strings with her “rich friend”, if Dora is to get the modelling job. 

The hunt for Annabel begins, with the family all anxious, and all nice and making a big fuss when they find Annabel injured and save her from drowning at the embankment. Saying things are sorted out with Mrs Crawford, they have Annabel bring her over to tea, and Dora tearfully asks Annabel to say the reason she didn’t do so well at the audition was because she was worried about her disappearance. Annabel falls for it despite the show of phony niceness they had shown before. The end result is Mrs Crawford taking on Annabel as a trainee designer and Dora as a model, and both are to report to her fashion house. Unknown to them, Mrs Crawford is not entirely fooled, but is not sure just who to believe. 

But of course Dora doesn’t want Annabel coming with her to their appointment at the fashion house. So, as they set off to report, Dora “loses” Annabel, and makes sure she is the one with the address. Annabel had no idea what the address was to begin with and can’t find it herself (no doubt, something else they made sure of). At the fashion house, Dora tells Mrs Crawford Annabel has changed her mind and not coming. The family make sure Mrs Crawford and Annabel don’t meet up when Mrs Crawford comes around asking questions and spin them both lies about the other. Annabel is left thinking Mrs Crawford now thinks she’s unreliable and wants nothing more to do with her; Mrs Crawford still has her suspicions but not sure what to think. As Dad planned, Annabel’s back on the market stall, thinking she’s Little Miss Nothing again. 

Meanwhile, Dad’s received a crooked offer from a friend of his, Harry Marks, and there’s an ominous hint it has something to do with Mrs Crawford. Dora doesn’t want it, saying she now has everything she needs to advance in modelling without “any crookery”. But then there’s a further development that could change her mind.

By now, Mrs Crawford has seen enough of Dora to confirm her earlier impressions that she is not modelling material. Her suspicions have also deepened as to why Dora is at her school and Annabel is not. Mrs Crawford confronts Dora over it all, shows her the bags Annabel had a natural talent for making, and says it’s Annabel she wants at the school, not her. At this, Dora’s jealousy overboils. She says she made the bags, not Annabel. Her proof? Her dress, which is made from the same material, and she claims she made the bags from the scraps. Sceptical, Mrs Crawford decides to test her by telling her to bring in something else she designed. 

Of course, Dora cons Annabel into doing the design for her, saying it’s home-based design work Mrs Crawford is offering as preliminary for a second chance at the fashion house. This time, Mrs Crawford really does fall for Dora’s trick and now thinks Annabel is a liar and a cheat. She is also so impressed with the design that it’s going into her autumn collection, Dora will model it, and the design is soon made up. 

Meanwhile, Annabel finally finds the address for Mrs Crawford’s fashion house and nips along to see how things are going with her design. The results are the whole truth blowing up right there and then right in front of everyone. Mrs Crawford sacks Dora, throws her out, and Dora angrily rips up the dress to spite her. 

Annabel finally gets her job at the fashion house, but then loses the roof over her head. Her family throw her out because of what happened. Not knowing where else to go, she heads for Mrs Crawford’s fashion house, now locked up, and slips in for the night. Unfortunately for her, she has left a window open, which unwittingly sets the stage for the Hayes’ next move. 

Burning with rage and thirsty for revenge, Dora is now all too eager to listen to that earlier proposition from Harry Marks. This entails stealing Mrs Crawford’s fashion designs for his buyer, a rival fashion designer. They find it easy to break in through that open window, and then Dora discovers Annabel fast asleep there. Dora seizes her chance for revenge on Annabel by planting one of her shoes at the scene of the crime and then tipping off the police about the break-in. The frame-up works, and now Mrs Crawford is back to believing Annabel is the cheat. Dora’s crowing over this, convinced she can now worm her way back into Mrs Crawford’s favour. Annabel tearfully makes a run for it.

Annabel soon guesses who was behind it all. But she can’t prove anything. Her only chance is to confront her family. First stop is back home, and after she confronts her mother, she realises she must check out the market. She arrives in time to see Dad and Dora hand over the designs to Marks. Dora is promptly interested in working for Marks’ buyer as a model, and all three head for his fashion house. They don’t realise Annabel is desperately hanging on at the end of their car. The designs are handed over to the fashion designer, a man looking as shady as Marks, and he agrees to take Dora on as a model. He’s doing so on the spot, by looks alone and no audition, which shows how professional he is in comparison to Mrs Crawford. 

Unwilling to report even her horrible family to the police, Annabel decides to just burst in and grab the designs to return to Mrs Crawford. When they try to block her, she escapes by window, but takes a fall and damages her knee. Despite it, she manages to run to Mrs Crawford’s before her knee gives way. She desperately rings the doorbell for help, only to find nobody in; Mrs Crawford, still thinking Annabel took the designs, had decided to go away for a bit. Dad and Dora catch up, but rather than hand the designs over, Annabel rips them up. At this, Dad starts thrashing Annabel, as the buyer said the deal is off without the designs. He is caught red-handed by Mrs Crawford, who had suddenly decided to return. She has seen enough to realise who really had stolen the designs and who to believe now. 

Dad is jailed for his role in the theft. Dora is let off because of her age, but it’s the end of her modelling hopes. Now she is the one miserably and bitterly slogging on the market stall (how this fits in with her being even more underage to work on it than Annabel is not explained), and she is humbled. 

A month later, Annabel’s design receives the loudest applause at Mrs Crawford’s fashion show, and she’s on her way to a brilliant career in fashion and design. Mrs Crawford finds out Annabel is not the Hayes’ natural child. They adopted her in infancy but went off her when Dora arrived. Mrs Crawford, who had always wanted children, now adopts Annabel as her own. Annabel takes pity on Dora after seeing her plight at the market stall. She arranges for Mrs Crawford to take her in at the fashion house, and they are reconciled. 

Thoughts

“Little Miss Nothing” is one of Tammy’s most pivotal stories and definitely in her Top 10 of the best. In fact, Pat Mills is one to regard it as one of the most ground-breaking serials ever in girls’ comics: “it was the first of its kind” in establishing the template of the Cinderella stories for other Cinderella stories to follow. And they followed big style! Among them in Tammy were “Jumble Sale Jilly”, “Nell Nobody”, “Sally in a Shell”, and “Sadie in the Sticks”. Cinderella-based Jinty stories, such as “Make-Believe Mandy” and “Cinderella Smith”, also owe their roots to “Little Miss Nothing”, as does the 1983 “Cinders on Ice” in Princess II. Most significant of all, the Cinderella template set by “Little Miss Nothing” led to the creation of Bella Barlow. 

Mind you, “Little Miss Nothing” was not quite the first of its kind. The text story version of “The Sad Star”, an even grimmer Cinderella story from Mandy, predated it by a few months, and went on to become Mandy’s most popular text story ever and enjoy several reprints, in both text and picture story form. There may be other Cinderella stories at DCT to predate Tammy’s ground breaker here, but there is currently no confirmation. Was it a case of “Little Miss Nothing” being the first of its kind to matter? Or it being the first of its kind at IPC? Or was it the template it set for others to follow?

In his Millsverse blog, Pat Mills said on “Little Miss Nothing”:

“Little Miss Nothing by Alan Davidson in Tammy (1971) was hugely popular – equivalent in success at the time to Judge Dredd in 2000AD. It was the first of its kind and it was such a massive hit that it was meticulously studied and analysed by the editorial staff. They identified its vote winning ‘formula’ and then endlessly duplicated it with subsequent remarkably similar serials. I recall there were at least ten ‘begats’ of this ground-breaking story.”

Wow, a pioneering girls’ serial with success the equivalent of Judge Dredd is serious stuff! 

The template of the Cinderella serial “Little Miss Nothing” can be seen as follows: 

  1. The protagonist is treated as a drudge by cruel guardians.
  • The protagonist is also exploited to feed the indulgences of a wicked stepsister type. This element is not always used in a Cinderella serial, as in the case of Bella Barlow.
  • The protagonist has a talent/secret to keep her spirits up. It is her only joy in life, and she fights to keep it up against all odds. 
  • Her talent is spotted, enabling her to find a fairy godmother figure and friends to help her, achieve her dream, and ultimately help her to break free of the ill-treatment. But in between there are still obstacles and ill-treatment from the cruel guardians, which often include their causing a fallout between the protagonist and her fairy godmother. 

Cinderella has always been a popular fairy tale, told in many versions and cultures throughout the eons. So Tammy was guaranteed a hit if she used the Cinderella theme as a ground-breaker. Modelling, fashion and design have always been popular in girls’ comics, so throwing those into the mix were guaranteed to make it even more popular. Plus there is the growing undercurrent of criminal conduct in addition to the abuse to make it even more exciting. Readers would be on the edge of the seats to see how that unfolds.

The writing is mature, well-paced, and well-constructed, particularly in how it keeps the ill-treatment of Annabel within the bounds of realism. We can easily imagine a real-life child being treated that way. It does not go over the top or taken to excess, which has happened in some Cinderella serials. For example, Annabel is not kept frequently underfed, as in the case of Bella Barlow, or put in chains, as in the case of Cinderella Smith. The reasons behind the Hayes’ increasing exploitation of Annabel are also well-grounded in realism: she was not their own flesh and blood as Dora was; they were unfit guardians and unprincipled people by nature; and they would never be able to afford Dora’s modelling on their own income, so they need Annabel to generate the income required.

Also realistic is how so many key people, from Miss Turner to Tom, do sense the Hayes are unfit guardians, but although they are helpful and sympathetic, none of them take any action against the abuse itself. This has been an all-too-common phenomenon for many years.

It is also credible in how the contrasting upbringings Dora and Annabel have had have shaped the ways in which one will get to where she wants and the other not. Dora, even if she did have the talent for modelling, has been too spoiled to learn the lesson that to achieve your dream, you must work hard and have guts, determination and persistence against obstacles and challenges, and be grateful for all the help and encouragement you can get. In fact, Dora never learned to work at all, as everything was just handed to her on a plate by her parents. The only thing she works hard at is being nasty. When she ends up on the market stall, she is working for the first time. But she is not making any effort to work her way out of it as Annabel did. Instead, she’s wallowing in bitterness, jealousy and misery as she works on the stall. It takes yet another thing handed to her on a plate – Annabel’s kind offer – to help her out of it. 

Annabel, by contrast, won’t give up her dream, but she has to do everything for herself against all obstacles set down by her family. This includes the constant knocks to her self-esteem as her parents call her a nobody while they hit her. The saving grace is the good people who raise Annabel’s confidence by telling her she has talent and could go far and offer various means of help. But everything, whether good or bad, all helps to give Annabel far more tools to get where she wants than Dora. 

The reconciliation between Dora and Annabel at the end of the story is typically fairy tale, very sweet, and in line with Cinderella. But it is a bit hard to understand how Dora could ever go back to the fashion house all. Surely Mrs Crawford would not want her anywhere near it after what happened. And what could Dora do at the fashion house anyway, as she has no talent for modelling or fashion? 

Would just leaving Dora on the market stall have made more sense as well as give us more satisfaction? Dora’s counterpart in “Nell Nobody” meets a similar comeuppance, and it gives readers great satisfaction to see her just left there to slog and hate every minute of it. On the other hand, the final panel between Dora and Annabel is very moving, as Dora sheds tears for the first time in the story. It leaves us wanting to think things will work out between Dora and Annabel somehow. 

Tammy 26 August 1972

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Belinda Black-Sheep (artist Mario Capaldi) – first episode

Miss High-an’-Mighty (artist Julio Bosch?)

The Lame Ballerina (artist P. Montero, writer Gerry Finley-Day?)

Lulu (cartoon)

The Uxdale Urchins (artist Eduardo Feito)

Swim for Your Life, Sari (artist Juan Garcia Quiros, writer Gerry Finley-Day?)

Skivers’ School (artist J. Badesa)

Dog Paddle Doris (artist Carlos Prunes, writer Maureen Spurgeon)

The Greek Girl (artist John Armstrong, writer Bill Harrington?) – first episode

Here Comes Trouble (artist Luis Bermejo)

Lonely Romy (artists Luis Bermejo and Miguel Quesada (inks))

No Tears for Molly (artist Tony Thewenetti, writer Maureen Spurgeon)

A Special Tammy Portrait – Don McLean

We come to 1972 in our Tammy August month round, and in this issue, two new stories start: “Belinda Black-Sheep” and “The Greek Girl”. Mario Capaldi, who went on to become one of the longest-standing stalwarts on the Tammy team, starts his first story for Tammy, “Belinda Black-Sheep”. Belinda McRea and her father become outcasts in their fishing village after Dad commits a seeming act of cowardice that led the deaths of his fellow fishermen in a storm. But did he really? Or did he lose his mind in some way and was not responsible for his actions? Or did something else happen? He seems to recall saving them, but he’s become so addled we don’t even know what to think, much know where to start working out what happened. 

In the second new story, “The Greek Girl”, Rose Banks has no confidence in herself, and it shows in her appearance (scruffy) and schoolwork (“appalling”). She wishes upon the statue of Penelope, the Greek goddess of confidence, to become more confident. (Incidentally, there really is a Greek goddess of confidence, but her name is Flaunta, and she is the second cousin of Aphrodite.) Soon after, a girl and a cat who are dead ringers for the goddess and her cat come into Rose’s life. Oops, is it the old “be careful what you wish for” again? Incidentally, this was one of the John Armstrong Tammy stories chosen for reprint in the Misty annuals, and a number of them were written by Bill Harrington.

Miss High-an’-Mighty, a spoiled, arrogant Victorian girl named Ursula Thorndike, has to be the hardest nut of all to crack in redemption stories. Bill Fletcher, a convict made good, is taking her on a tour to see how the other half live in the hopes it will change her. Ursula’s had to agree, as it is the only way to save her family from bankruptcy, but so far none of it is making any impression or improvement on her. 

Molly’s in a really complicated fix. She’s taken in an amnesic girl named Lorna, and then a Lady Lancton claims Lorna stole jewellery from her. Lorna is indeed scared shitless of Lady Lancton, but is it for that reason? Molly’s attempt to get Lorna’s side of things is soon putting her in danger.

In “Lonely Romy”, another Cinderella story, Romy hits the road after her spiteful stepsister frames her for stealing a watch. The truth is discovered later, but by this time Romy’s found a new venue for her paintings.

In “Here Comes Trouble”, the trouble for Mitzi Trouble comes from spiteful Katy Dennison. First Katy dopes her horse, and now she’s started a grass fire that’s raged out of control, just to get Mitzi into trouble, but it’s put lives in danger.

Girls’ comics often had some bizarre premises, and “Dog Paddle Doris” is one. Doris Farrell is making her name as…the best dog paddle swimmer around. Although it’s the only stroke she can do, she’s joined a swimming club and is competing in races, against girls who are doing freestyle. She even wins a freestyle event, but she was doing dog paddle, not freestyle. Aren’t there any grounds for disqualification here? 

“Swim for Your Life, Sari” is another swimming story, about a long-distance relay swimming race for Sari Marsh and her team. But Sari soon finds there is more danger than just the risks of the race – something sinister is afoot, and it looks suspiciously like the relay race is a setup for it.

Jill Hudson discovers Louisa “The Lame Ballerina” isn’t that lame, but thinks there’s a medical problem and wants to be friends. The truth is, Louisa is faking lameness to avoid the ballet she’s being pushed into, and now she sees a glorious opportunity to take advantage of Jill.

“Skivers’ School” looks like it’s riding on the success of “School for Snobs”. But instead of teaching snobs a lesson, the special school teaches ill-mannered girls to behave. Flo and Ethel Binns have been sent to it to learn how to be ladies. The hijinks have their skivvying backfiring on them and being foiled by the headmistress Miss Meake. We’re always left wondering as to whether Miss Meake does this without realising it or not, which is probably a running gag.

The Uxdale Urchins win the semi-finals despite problems along the way, but now there’s a real hurdle – the finals are in London, and they can’t afford a horse box.

Tammy and Sally 14 August 1971

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Palomo (artist Douglas Perry)

Little Miss Nothing (artists Miguel Rosello, Luis Bermejo, Miguel Quesada, writer Alan Davidson)

Betina and the Haunted Ballet (artist Dudley Wynne) – first episode

The Cat Girl (artist Giorgio Giorgetti)

Roberta’s Rebels (artist Rodrigo Comos, writer Maureen Spurgeon) – first episode

Our Janie – Little Mum (artist Colin Merrett)

Maisie’s Magic Eye (artist Robert MacGillivray)

A Million Pounds to Give Away! (artist Agustin Navarro, writer Maureen Spurgeon)

Beattie Beats ‘Em All (artist John Armstrong, writer Maureen Spurgeon)

The School on Neville’s Island (artist Douglas Perry)

Glen – A Lonely Dog on a Quest (artist Jim Baikie)

No Tears for Molly (artist Tony Thewenetti, writer Maureen Spurgeon)

It is now August, and to commemorate, we will have an August month Tammy round, with an August issue taken from each Tammy year. Also, selecting covers from this month guarantees a lot of nice, cheery summer covers to brighten us up. We begin at 1971, and with an August issue that starts two new stories.

It has now been seven months since Tammy started and five since Sally merged with her. Three strips from Tammy’s first issue are still going strong: Molly, Glenn, and Janie. Betina, another heroine from the original lineup, now starts her second story in Tammy’s first-ever sequel, “Betina and the Haunted Ballet”. The other story to start this week is “Roberta’s Rebels”. Though set in a boarding school, its premise sounds oddly prescient of “Land of No Tears”. Roberta Russell’s boarding school system is divided into the Supremos, the girls who get all the privileges and best treatment because they are the school sports stars, and the Serfs, who are forced to wait on the Supremos hand and foot and receive lesser treatment from school staff. Outraged, Roberta immediately sets out to stop this unfair school system by training up the Serfs to beat the Supremos. But once she sees the girls she has to train, she finds that’s going to be easier said than done. They look more like Bessie Bunter than Beattie Beats ‘Em All (q.v.).

The Cat Girl and Maisie’s Magic Eye are still going strong from the Sally merger. Both became so well remembered they have recently been given remakes in the rebooted Tammy and Jinty specials, and Cat Girl has just received her own reprint volume. Their presence also adds humour and lightweight fare to Tammy, who initially had no humour to balance the grim, misery-laden fare she was renowned for when she started. 

“A Million Pounds to Give Away!” is another story to show Tammy is finding her feet with her own lightweight fare. Biddy Lenton has to give away her late great uncle’s entire fortune (a million pounds) under the terms of his will, but it’s proving harder than expected and it’s getting Biddy into all sorts of scrapes. Shades of the future Bumpkin Billionaires! 

This week’s episode of Beattie must have given the readers some laughs, what with the antics Beattie gets up to on the racetrack to raise signatures for a petiton to stop some buildings – including her home – being bulldozed for development. She gets the satisfaction of annoying her worst enemies on the track with it as well. The petition ends up full of signatures. Strangely, nobody comments on or corrects Beattie’s spelling mistake – “support” has been spelled with one “p”.

“Little Miss Nothing” was a pivotal story in Tammy, as it set the template for the Cinderella serial in girls’ comics for hundreds of Cinderella serials at IPC and DCT to follow. “Make-Believe Mandy” and “Cinderella Smith” from Jinty were but two who owed their roots to “Little Miss Nothing”. This week, Annabel’s cruel parents kick her out, and they’re not through with her yet. Annabel’s spiteful stepsister Dora is cooking up a really nasty revenge on Annabel for getting her the well-deserved sack. 

Douglas Perry is on double duty with drawing two stories, “The School on Neville’s Island” and “Palomo”. But that’s nothing on Maureen Spurgeon, who’s writing four strips, probably more, in one issue! Incidentally, Palomo was Tammy’s first horse story, and it was so popular it scored an appearance in a Tammy annual. 

Tammy 12 June 1976

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Cover artist: John Richardson

Bella at the Bar (artist John Armstrong)

Secret of the Skulls (artist Mario Capaldi)

The First Mystery (artist John Armstrong) – origin of the Storyteller

Odds on Patsy (artist Eduardo Feito)

Bessie Bunter

Molly Mills and the Lucky Visitor – complete Molly story (artist Tony Thewenetti, writer Maureen Spurgeon)

Wee Sue (artist John Richardson)

The Sungod’s Golden Curse (artist Douglas Perry)

Lord of the Dance (artist Miguel Quesada)

We now come to Tammy’s June month in 1976. The Olympics were a strong feature in Tammy that year because of Montreal. That year, Tammy ran her Olympics classic, “Olympia Jones”.

Meanwhile, the Olympics logo has been added to the Bella logo. Bella, of course, is trying to reach Montreal. Jed and Gert have just returned to Bella after a much-deserved stint in prison (though not for the cruel way they’ve always treated her). They’ve now been released for good behaviour and say they’ve reformed and will help Bella all the way to Montreal. So far they’re treating Bella well, but they have a track record of phoney niceness to Bella when they believe it’s to their advantage (like getting out of prison, maybe?).

Molly has now switched from the title “No Tears for Molly” to individually titled storylines, most often “Molly Mills and the [name of the story].” Molly takes the unusual step of having a complete story this week. 

By popular demand, this week the Storyteller tells his origin story and how he became to be the Storyteller. The story appears below, and we also see the one and only appearance of his daughter. It seems a shame Tammy did not also take advantage of this popular demand to reprint the Storyteller’s very first story, “The Haunted Bank”, way back in his debut in June (the comic, not the month) on 30 January 1965, to show us how he started. Enough time had passed to allow for the reprint. 

In 1976, there was a definite ebb in the slave story/Cinderella story theme that had featured so much in the earlier Tammy. Other genres were gaining more currency. Animal stories were strong in the 1976 Tammy, such as “A Lead through Twilight”, “Towne in the Country”, the current “Odds on Patsy”, and the smash-hit Olympics-themed serial, “Olympia Jones”. The scary and the supernatural were strong that year too, and this issue has two alone: “The Sungod’s Golden Curse” (but is the curse real or a fraud?) and the macabre “Secret of the Skulls”.

The ballet story “Lord of the Dance” is the last Tammy serial drawn by Miguel Quesada, a Tammy stalwart since her early days. 

Tammy 2 June 1973

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The Cat’s Eye on Katy (artist Douglas Perry) – first episode

School for Snobs (artist J. Badesa, writers Pat Mills/John Wagner)

Trina Drop-Out (artist Ana Rodriguez) – final episode

The Sea Spirit – (artist Juan Escandell Torres) – first episode

The Stranger in My Shoes (artist Miguel Quesada)

The Lonely Dancer (artist Candido Ruiz Pueyo)

Simple Simona

Get Shirty! (Competition)

The Girl in the Window (artist John Armstrong)

Dara into Danger (artist Juan Garcia Quiros)

No Tears for Molly (artist Tony Thewenetti, writer Maureen Spurgeon)

For the 1973 instalment of our Tammy June month round, we look at an issue that starts some new stories. They both have supernatural themes, one malicious and the other beneficial. In the former, an evil witch doctor bewitches a cat to get revenge on the policeman who imprisoned him. But his curse is not striking at the policeman directly – it’s striking at his daughter Katy miles away in England, with the cat doing the old “evil influence” gig on her. One has to wonder why the silly old witch doctor doesn’t use his powers to break out of prison instead – he’s got the superstitious prison guards scared enough of him for that, surely. But no, he’s just going to sit in prison and let the cat do its thing. In the latter, Sheena Barrett is a brilliant swimmer, but her fear of diving is a handicap. Then she meets Marina, a sea spirit who gives her the confidence to dive. 

There is also a third supernatural story, “The Girl in the Window”, where Dale befriends a shop dummy that can come to life. This is making for a lot of interesting moments, some awkward, some surprising, and some hilarious. Hilarity is also running high in a “School for Snobs” sequel and “Simple Simona”. 

Ballet stories have been the staple in Tammy from the first issue and cropped up frequently in her earlier years. This time it’s “The Lonely Dancer”, about a promising ballerina who is trying to find her missing mother.

As we now have a higher proportion of humour and the supernatural in Tammy, plus the ballet staple, there is less room for the dark tales laden with cruelty, misery and tortured heroines that the early Tammy was noted for. They are still going, but they are now balanced with more lightweight fare, which makes for a more varied mix in the comic. One, “Trina Drop-Out”, finishes this week, and the other is “Dara into Danger”, where a whole ski team is kidnapped and taken to the Antarctic. All except our protagonist Dara have been brainwashed by the mysterious Madame Jensen, but for what exactly hasn’t been established yet. And of course we still have Molly Mills to carry on the Tammy streak of cruelly used heroines.

Meanwhile, “The Stranger in My Shoes” features a heroine who is being tortured another way – her identity is forcibly switched with a delinquent and she is sent to borstal in the delinquent’s place. Is the story going to go with her suffering miseries at the borstal à la “Merry at Misery House” or go another route as she battles to prove her identity?

Aside from Molly Mills, Tammy was still not into “regular” strips to serve as her core. However, the return of “School for Snobs” and, pretty soon, “Aunt Aggie”, showed that semi-regulars were developing. 

Tammy & Sally 5 June 1971

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Neville’s Island/The School on Neville’s Island (artist Douglas Perry) – first episode

Glen – A Dog on a Lonely Quest (artist Jim Baikie)

Slaves of “War Orphan Farm” (artist Desmond Walduck, writer Gerry Finley-Day?)

The Cat Girl (artist Giorgio Giorgetti)

The Secret of Trebaran – (artist Giorgio Cambiotti) – final episode

Maisie’s Magic Eye – artist Robert MacGillivray

Little Miss Nothing (artists Miguel Rosello, Luis Bermejo, Miguel Quesada, writer Alan Davidson) – first episode

Betina at Ballet School

Beattie Beats ‘Em All! (artist John Armstrong)

Sara’s Kingdom (artist Bill Mainwaring)

The Girls of Liberty Lodge (artist Dudley Pout)

“Our Janie” – Little Mum (artist Colin Merrett)

No Tears for Molly (artist Tony Thewenetti, writer Maureen Spurgeon)

For the month of June we are having another Tammy round, which will profile a Tammy issue from the month of June for each Tammy year. We begin with the first June issue of Tammy in 1971.

In this issue, it’s the final episode of “The Secret of Trebaran”, one of the first stories from the first Tammy lineup. Its replacement next week is “Gandora the Golden”. Others from the first Tammy lineup, “Slaves of ‘War Orphan Farm’”, “Betina at Ballet School”, “The Girls of Liberty Lodge”, “Glen – A Lonely Dog on a Quest”, “No Tears for Molly”, and “’Our Janie’ – Little Mum” are still going strong, and it’s been four months since they started. Molly went on to become one of the longest-running regulars in Tammy, which showed she was the most powerful of the first lineup. Beattie, who joined later, is still going strong, and is the first Tammy strip drawn by John Armstrong. Cat Girl, “Maisie’s Magic Eye” and “Sara’s Kingdom”, which came over from Sally, are still going happily as well. 

Douglas Perry artwork appears in Tammy for the first time – and on the first page – with the start of Perry’s first Tammy story, “Neville’s Island”. Thirty girls from St Edburgha’s are lured to a mysterious island. And we all know what happens when girls are lured to an island in girls’ comics – it’s a trap! To make things even more mysterious, the plot is being engineered by a ominous-sounding elderly woman in a wheelchair who won’t show her face. Once the unsuspecting girls are in the trap, she says, “Now they shall begin to suffer. All of them.” But why? From the sound of it, it’s revenge for being bullied at the school, but there’s probably more to it than that. It all adds to the mystery that has to be solved if the girls are to escape. 

Also starting this issue is the first episode of “Little Miss Nothing” (written by Alan Davidson, not Pat Davidson aka Anne Digby, as has been sometimes stated). This story is noted for setting the “Cinderella” template that so many Tammy stories were to follow, the most famous of which was Bella Barlow. Update: an entry on this story has now been posted here.

“Little Miss Nothing” Annabel Hayes is regarded by her family as a nobody and they treat her as a drudge. It’s her younger sister Dora who gets the lion’s share in everything. Annabel shines at dressmaking, but her hopes of making a career out of it are dashed when the family move to be closer to Dora’s modelling school. Dad illegally yanks Annabel out of school to slog all day at the family market stall to pay for Dora’s school fees, makes her sleep in an attic, and not a word about her treatment or she’ll suffer. Wow, things are really piled on our Cinderella in the first episode alone. But then Annabel spots something in the attic that could turn things around. 

Tammy & June 9 November 1974

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Cover artist: John Richardson

Becky Never Saw the Ball – artist John Armstrong, writer Joe Collins

Wee Sue – artist John Richardson

Nell Nobody – artist Miguel Quesada 

A Dog’s Best Friend (Strange Story) – artist Jim Eldrige

Dirty Trix – artist unknown

Jeannie and Her Uncle Meanie (final episode) – artist Robert MacGillivray

Secret Ballet of the Steppes – artist Douglas Perry, writer Gerry Finley-Day?

No Tears for Molly – artist Tony Thewenetti, writer Maureen Spurgeon

Town Without Telly – artist José Casanovas

It’s Guy Fawkes season, so we bring out the first Tammy Cover Girls cover with a Fifth of November theme. Oh dear, looks like a mishap struck the younger Cover Girl this time; usually it’s the older one. Hopefully they will come up with a brainwave to cover those ruined fireworks.

Bessie does not appear this week. Wee Sue could be out celebrating Bonfire Night, but she’s out playing soccer and rugby instead. This keeps striking trouble with Miss Bigger, who is looking for a missing consignment of school blazers.

It’s the final episode of Uncle Meanie – for now, anyway. At long last, he finishes off a world cruise that he’s constantly bedevilled with his penny-pinching tricks. The poor captain of that cruise ship will never be the same again. Home sweet home, all bracing for the return of Uncle Meanie to Tammy later on. 

Many readers kept writing in demanding why the heck Molly doesn’t strike back at that bully butler Pickering. They must have cheered when her double, come to Stanton Hall in her place, finally does the job this week. Pickering is left utterly floored – literally.

This week’s Strange Story is drawn by what looks like a very early Jim Eldridge. So could it be an early Strange Story reprinted from June? Enough time has passed for such reprints to start appearing in Tammy. The story is about the ability of dogs to sense things people can’t.

Dirty Trix senses her cheating at athletics has finally been detected, and eavesdropping on the club coach Miss Wood confirms her fears. “I ain’t finished yet, not by a long chalk!” is her response. Don’t be so sure about that, Trix – the blurb for next week says the evidence against you is going to stack up.

Nell Nobody shows she’s a real trouper by proving this week that when disaster strikes, she can think on her feet and come up with ways to deal with the situation. She figures a way around her horrible uncle smashing the legs of her puppet by incorporating the puppet’s disability into a new act. She also creates a companion puppet (Lola) for him despite the gruelling demands of the hot dog stand she’s forced to slog at to pay for her spoiled cousin’s acting fees. Now an important-looking lady has lined up for the show Nell’s secretly using the hot dog stand for. Is Nell about to get her big break? 

“Secret Ballet of the Steppes” is reaching its climax. Judith manages to get back to the palace, braving wolves, suspicious-looking men who try to drug her, and snowstorms to do so, to avert the upcoming attack against the revolutionaries. Then she discovers there’s more to it than that when she overhears the villainous Berova planning something sneaky. 

Joy and Recepta’s plan to cure Boxless town of TV addiction is to bore viewers stiff with long-winded broadcasts featuring Lady Boxless. So far the results look good – Lady Boxless already has someone throwing a loafer at the screen. 

Elspeth was forcibly separated from Becky after being wrongly accused of driving her too hard at tennis. Becky ran away in search of Elspeth and now she’s at a tennis match promoting ice cream in the hopes of finding her. Sure enough, Elspeth, who runs an ice cream truck, is now arriving at the same event. Will they reunite?