Memorable Serials In Girls' Story Papers And Comics
Moderator: AndyB
Memorable Serials In Girls' Story Papers And Comics
The intention of this thread is to offer a platform to those of you who have things you would like to say about stories, as opposed to comic strips. My basic idea for a starting point is just summaries of stories, but really anything on the topic that you want to post will be fine. They don't need to be particularly good stories, just ones that, for whatever reason, have made an impression on you. You can offer text stories or picture stories, which would, of course, include the photonovel type. Even if you don't know the title or the year it appeared or even the paper it was printed in, don't let that hold you back because perhaps someone else will recognise it and may be able to identify it or locate it for you, or both. Inevitably, I suppose, my contributions to the thread will be predominantly, but not exclusively, about stories from the DC Thomson stable. I will post my first one tomorrow. This mine has a rich vein of stories so come on, I'll tell you mine if you'll tell me yours.
Re: Memorable Serials In Girls' Story Papers And Comics
1. 30 Days Of Destiny : JUDY (1973) [the numbering is neither a countdown nor a countup]
The heroine of this serial, Angela Dobson, is a feisty, impressionable teenager, who is sent by her parents to stay for the first time with Great-Aunt Geraldine in Madoc Castle near the Cornish coast, a property that has been in the family since 1120. The story blends shifting time frames, time-slip rather than time travel, and the power of the imagination. When Lady Geraldine's chauffeur, Barker, meets Angela at the station, she feels sure that she has met him before, in the distant past. When Nora, a sour, vindictive maid, tells Angela that she is to sleep in the red room, she tells her not to bother accompanying her as she knows where it is. Later, Lady Geraldine tells Angela the story behind a portrait that is a remarkable likeness of the girl herself. It portrays one Lady Angelina, a wild and wayward skeleton in the family closet, as she became a notorious highway robber in the eighteenth century. She apparently fell to her death falling from a cliff when trying to avoid capture after being betrayed by a servant. Angela dreams about Lady Angelina and the following morning she rides out on Vesta, the most unmanageable horse in the stables.
The merging of time frames starts in earnest after Angela is locked in her room as a punishment for telling some of Lady Geraldine's guests that she has noticed that their gardeners were living in squalid cottages which lacked running water and drainage. While exploring her room, Angela discovers a panel leading to a bricked-up room and sees Lady Angelina looking back at her from a mirror in there. One head-spinning experience later and Angela has become Angelina, so when Angela takes Vesta out she is a highway robber on Hestia, Lady Angelina's horse. The people she robs are, however, those very same guests, and she redistributes the booty to those cottagers. The unexplained mystery centres round the unassailable facts that the robbery and redistribution did take place in the here and now when Angela was locked in her room and Barker claims that Vesta never left his stable at any time.
The suspicious Nora, who for some time has been spying on Angela, now increases her vigilance. A confrontation between the two leads to another time-slip where Lady Angelina sees Angela and thinks she is a ghost, before finally putting the experience down to worrying about her activities being exposed by a maidservant. It is this switch that gives the story real power.
In the final instalment, Angela relives the 'last' moments of Lady Angelina's life but, by not getting thrown over the cliff, she realises that her ancestor hadn't died at that time after all. Unconventional as ever she had married the son of her groom, coincidentally also called Barker, so Angela's apparent recognition of Barker at the railway station is explained because the physical similarities have persisted through the families across two centuries.
So, while so much can be explained away as figments of Angela's imagination, there remains that delicious hint of doubt and uncertainty.
The heroine of this serial, Angela Dobson, is a feisty, impressionable teenager, who is sent by her parents to stay for the first time with Great-Aunt Geraldine in Madoc Castle near the Cornish coast, a property that has been in the family since 1120. The story blends shifting time frames, time-slip rather than time travel, and the power of the imagination. When Lady Geraldine's chauffeur, Barker, meets Angela at the station, she feels sure that she has met him before, in the distant past. When Nora, a sour, vindictive maid, tells Angela that she is to sleep in the red room, she tells her not to bother accompanying her as she knows where it is. Later, Lady Geraldine tells Angela the story behind a portrait that is a remarkable likeness of the girl herself. It portrays one Lady Angelina, a wild and wayward skeleton in the family closet, as she became a notorious highway robber in the eighteenth century. She apparently fell to her death falling from a cliff when trying to avoid capture after being betrayed by a servant. Angela dreams about Lady Angelina and the following morning she rides out on Vesta, the most unmanageable horse in the stables.
The merging of time frames starts in earnest after Angela is locked in her room as a punishment for telling some of Lady Geraldine's guests that she has noticed that their gardeners were living in squalid cottages which lacked running water and drainage. While exploring her room, Angela discovers a panel leading to a bricked-up room and sees Lady Angelina looking back at her from a mirror in there. One head-spinning experience later and Angela has become Angelina, so when Angela takes Vesta out she is a highway robber on Hestia, Lady Angelina's horse. The people she robs are, however, those very same guests, and she redistributes the booty to those cottagers. The unexplained mystery centres round the unassailable facts that the robbery and redistribution did take place in the here and now when Angela was locked in her room and Barker claims that Vesta never left his stable at any time.
The suspicious Nora, who for some time has been spying on Angela, now increases her vigilance. A confrontation between the two leads to another time-slip where Lady Angelina sees Angela and thinks she is a ghost, before finally putting the experience down to worrying about her activities being exposed by a maidservant. It is this switch that gives the story real power.
In the final instalment, Angela relives the 'last' moments of Lady Angelina's life but, by not getting thrown over the cliff, she realises that her ancestor hadn't died at that time after all. Unconventional as ever she had married the son of her groom, coincidentally also called Barker, so Angela's apparent recognition of Barker at the railway station is explained because the physical similarities have persisted through the families across two centuries.
So, while so much can be explained away as figments of Angela's imagination, there remains that delicious hint of doubt and uncertainty.
Re: Memorable Serials In Girls' Story Papers And Comics
It has occurred to me that if Kashgar is likely to post the artwork information in respect of the serials I comment on in this thread, it would make sense for me to upload the relevant scans for everybody's benefit. In future I will try to remember to do so with the summaries. The one below obviously relates to 30 Days Of Destiny.
Re: Memorable Serials In Girls' Story Papers And Comics
2. Joey's Secret : MANDY (1968)
This fun story is about the Sitter family and their home-made rock business. 'Starry Rock' is famous in their town and the surrounding areas, and extremely popular with holidaymakers from all over the country. It is advertised in shops as 'made from pure natural ingredients' and has an unusual but delightful spicy taste. Gail Sitter's grandmother boils up the flavouring mixture in her cottage and it is added to the rock mix by Gail's mother and father, who later take the finished product round to all participating shops. There is always a potential problem though regarding the future production of the rock because Granny Sitter has never written down the precise amounts of the herbs she uses and has not told anybody at all. Disaster inevitably strikes. Granny falls into a pool while out gathering her herbs and dies shortly afterwards. Just before she expires she tells Gail that Joey knows the exact recipe. The problem is that Joey is a cockatoo.
Once stocks are used up, the Sitters have to guess at the proportions of the various herbs. Gail has heard her granny recite at least part of the recipe in verse but cannot remember even that with any certainty. Despite the family's best efforts the new rock is different from the old one, and once their customers say they don't like the new taste and vote with their feet, bankruptcy is staring the Sitters in the face. Enter Mr Smart, a representative of Stickjaw Limited, the famous sweet manufacturing company, who offers them £50 for Granny's recipe and seems rather put out when his offer is rejected. The family probably feels that rather than accept such a derisory offer for their 'golden egg', even if they knew how to produce it, they would sooner watch the business go belly up. Even Joey takes a dislike to Mr Smart, but while he is swooping down on him he is reciting some of the recipe. Mr Smart certainly hasn't risen to his current position at Stickjaw by being Mr Dim because he immediately realises that he can save the company some money by withdrawing the £50 offer. All he needs to do is catch the bird, which has flown off into a nearby tree. As Gail also needs Joey, the tension is ratcheted up a notch.
In the race for the line, Gail and Mr Smart are constantly trying to outdo each other. Gail captures Joey, who keeps spouting fragments of relevant verse, and puts him back in his cage. When the Sitter family go out, carelessly leaving a small window open, Mr Smart manages to reach in just far enough to stick a small listening device onto the back of Joey's mirror. He later follows Gail to see what herbs she is picking but when she sees what he is up to, she picks clumps of just about every herb in sight. Mr Smart is getting quite dispirited when he suddenly gets what convinces him is the recipe. The bird has come up trumps so he rushes off to inform his bosses, who promptly put their entire workforce on overtime. As we all know, in life things are not always what they seem. Mr Smart has a spurious recipe because Gail, while cleaning Joey's cage out, has discovered the miniature transmitter and, not being as dim as Mr Smart, has imitated the cockatoo and delivered a couple of verses.
Even Gail is getting a bit desperate, so she comes up with the idea that she might manage to persuade Joey to loosen his beak if she takes him back to Granny's kitchen. It works and she writes it all down but, would you believe it, a somewhat chastened and facing-the-sack Mr Smart has followed her and comes up with a corking plan. He ties string across the front door to trip Gail when she rushes out in her excitement. It works. She falls over, he gets Joey and threatens to throttle him if she doesn't hand the recipe over, she agrees to the exchange, Joey ends up with the piece of paper and the Sitters are then working night and day to get the authentic version of 'Starry Rock' back into the shops.
There is a definite link, in my opinion, with The Voice With Wings, which appeared in The Wizard in 1948. This was by no stretch of the imagination a fun story. It was set in a jungle in Colombia where an international team of elite Secret Service operatives was trying to capture Cabro, the second-in-command to The Zombie, the leader of a dangerous voodoo cult dealing in black magic and human sacrifices. Cabro is killed but he has entrusted all his secrets to a talking condor called Ka, who has inconveniently flown off. Aim? Catch the condor and persuade it to divulge its secrets.
This fun story is about the Sitter family and their home-made rock business. 'Starry Rock' is famous in their town and the surrounding areas, and extremely popular with holidaymakers from all over the country. It is advertised in shops as 'made from pure natural ingredients' and has an unusual but delightful spicy taste. Gail Sitter's grandmother boils up the flavouring mixture in her cottage and it is added to the rock mix by Gail's mother and father, who later take the finished product round to all participating shops. There is always a potential problem though regarding the future production of the rock because Granny Sitter has never written down the precise amounts of the herbs she uses and has not told anybody at all. Disaster inevitably strikes. Granny falls into a pool while out gathering her herbs and dies shortly afterwards. Just before she expires she tells Gail that Joey knows the exact recipe. The problem is that Joey is a cockatoo.
Once stocks are used up, the Sitters have to guess at the proportions of the various herbs. Gail has heard her granny recite at least part of the recipe in verse but cannot remember even that with any certainty. Despite the family's best efforts the new rock is different from the old one, and once their customers say they don't like the new taste and vote with their feet, bankruptcy is staring the Sitters in the face. Enter Mr Smart, a representative of Stickjaw Limited, the famous sweet manufacturing company, who offers them £50 for Granny's recipe and seems rather put out when his offer is rejected. The family probably feels that rather than accept such a derisory offer for their 'golden egg', even if they knew how to produce it, they would sooner watch the business go belly up. Even Joey takes a dislike to Mr Smart, but while he is swooping down on him he is reciting some of the recipe. Mr Smart certainly hasn't risen to his current position at Stickjaw by being Mr Dim because he immediately realises that he can save the company some money by withdrawing the £50 offer. All he needs to do is catch the bird, which has flown off into a nearby tree. As Gail also needs Joey, the tension is ratcheted up a notch.
In the race for the line, Gail and Mr Smart are constantly trying to outdo each other. Gail captures Joey, who keeps spouting fragments of relevant verse, and puts him back in his cage. When the Sitter family go out, carelessly leaving a small window open, Mr Smart manages to reach in just far enough to stick a small listening device onto the back of Joey's mirror. He later follows Gail to see what herbs she is picking but when she sees what he is up to, she picks clumps of just about every herb in sight. Mr Smart is getting quite dispirited when he suddenly gets what convinces him is the recipe. The bird has come up trumps so he rushes off to inform his bosses, who promptly put their entire workforce on overtime. As we all know, in life things are not always what they seem. Mr Smart has a spurious recipe because Gail, while cleaning Joey's cage out, has discovered the miniature transmitter and, not being as dim as Mr Smart, has imitated the cockatoo and delivered a couple of verses.
Even Gail is getting a bit desperate, so she comes up with the idea that she might manage to persuade Joey to loosen his beak if she takes him back to Granny's kitchen. It works and she writes it all down but, would you believe it, a somewhat chastened and facing-the-sack Mr Smart has followed her and comes up with a corking plan. He ties string across the front door to trip Gail when she rushes out in her excitement. It works. She falls over, he gets Joey and threatens to throttle him if she doesn't hand the recipe over, she agrees to the exchange, Joey ends up with the piece of paper and the Sitters are then working night and day to get the authentic version of 'Starry Rock' back into the shops.
There is a definite link, in my opinion, with The Voice With Wings, which appeared in The Wizard in 1948. This was by no stretch of the imagination a fun story. It was set in a jungle in Colombia where an international team of elite Secret Service operatives was trying to capture Cabro, the second-in-command to The Zombie, the leader of a dangerous voodoo cult dealing in black magic and human sacrifices. Cabro is killed but he has entrusted all his secrets to a talking condor called Ka, who has inconveniently flown off. Aim? Catch the condor and persuade it to divulge its secrets.
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Re: Memorable Serials In Girls' Story Papers And Comics
Nice Sam Fair art on 'The Voice with Wings'.