Time Travel strips in Girls' Comics

[matrix]

Here's another from Tina 1973.

[Digifiend]

Horoscopes in a comic?

[matrix]

Horoscopes in a comic?

Very common in some girls' titles aimed at the slightly older reader eg, Jinty, Lindy, Tammy, and Princess Tina, from the early seventies.

[felneymike]

The writers used to just make them up in the pub

[philcom55]

Thanks for showing 'Tessa and the Time People' Matrix. As my run of Princess Tina runs out during mid 1972 it's a story that I've never seen before.

From the distinctive 'Edmond' signature it was clearly drawn by the Spanish artist Edmond Fernández Ripoll who illustrated a number of British strips and text stories during the early 1970s. Here's an example of the latter from 25th December 1971:



I'm not sure if or when Ruth will see this post but, as she has previously mentioned that she is in touch with Edmond, I'd be very interested in hearing whether she can clear up a question about him that's been puzzling me for some time. This relates to Edmond's entry in the Lambiek Comiclopedia where, among his British work, they include a 1971 strip in DC Thomson's Hornet called 'The War of the Wasps' which seems to have been drawn in a strikingly different style from the art he produced for girls' comics:



What's more, with its lusciously detailed cross-hatching (sadly blurred in the example shown above), it bears a remarkably close resemblance to a number of earlier strips that appeared in Hornet during the 1960s - notably the long-running adventures of the legendary athlete William Wilson:



...The trouble is that the artist responsible for these classic strips has long been identified as somebody called Juan Ripoll - in spite of the fact that that Spanish-sounding name isn't mentioned at all by Lambiek.

What I'd like to know, therefore, is:

a) Did Edmond really draw 'The War of the Wasps' as Lambiek claim, or have they simply confused him with Juan?

b) Are 'Juan', 'Edmond' and 'Ripol' all pen-names used by the same artist?

and:

c) If Juan and Edmond are different artists, are they related in any way?

- Phil Rushton

[RuthB]

I will ask hiim straight away. But Ripoll is Edmond's second surname (Edmond Fernandez Ripoll) so It coul be as it happened very often, that he used a pseudonym (something to do with taxes at the time, ehem).

[RuthB]

By the way, anyone wanting to know more about Edmond, he has a blog: http://edmondripoll.blogspot.ie/ and you can find him too in Facebook by Edmond F. Ripoll and by Edmond F. Ripoll Ilustrador. He understands and speak a bit of English so language won't be a problem.

[RuthB]

No, he says none of the last two images are his. And he does not know any Juan Ripoll either. He says there is another ripoll ut he does not know him or his Christian name...

[philcom55]

That's really useful - thanks Ruth!

- Phil R.

[matrix]

Thanks for showing 'Tessa and the Time People' Matrix. As my run of Princess Tina runs out during mid 1972 it's a story that I've never seen before.

I thought you were swapping those Phil?

Here is the final 'Tessa and the time people'.

[Tammyfan]

Here is a link to a discussion of another time travel story, Time Witch from Judy Picture Library. http://girlscomicsofyesterday.com/2013/01/time-witch/

[philcom55]

That's a great example Tammy. It's surprising how many of the girls' picture library stories involved time travel - here are two in which the heroine is transported back in time as an invisible, intangible 'ghost' by inanimate objects: old buttons in the case of 'Pandora's Box' and a mirror in 'The House of Mirrors' (I wonder if this means that Pandora and Emma are both Time-Witches too?).





And while the story in Judy Picture Library no.329 doesn't feature any time travelling as such, it does introduce a character whose family connections pose some intriguing possibilities:



...Does anybody know if Dana's background was explored further in later issues?

Finally, one of my favourite examples has recently been mentioned on a couple of other threads. This is Princess Picture Library no 87, where Julie Bradshaw successively encounters medieval knights, pirates and ancient Romans via her Uncle Lionel's time machine. Here's another page of Robert MacGillivray's outstanding artwork from that issue:



- Phil Rushton

[Tammyfan]

I wonder if there's some inspiration between Pandora's Box and The Button Box from Tammy (apart from both being drawn by Mario Capaldi). In the Button Box, Bev Jackson is given the family button box and each button has a tale to tell. Each week Bev brings a story out of the button box (or then hears the story of a new button). There is no time travel, but sometimes Bev feels that the button she selected really has taken her to the time period its story is associated with, such as Queen Elizabeth II's coronation or 19th century rural England.

[Phoenix]

This thread seems the most appropriate for the point that follows, because I can only make it having been into the past myself this morning, 1989 to be precise. I'm in the process of tidying up my collection of Thomsons' girls' papers, and I just happened to see a double-page spread in the centre pages of Bunty 1667, which features a fashion show by Etam, with a couple of 11-year-old girls modelling the company's range of cutting-edge children's fashion called Tammy Girl. I realise that this is a particularly inconsequential point I'm making, but if Tammyfan, or anyone else for that matter, is at all interested, I will scan the pages. In two parts!

[stevezodiac]

That Edmond pencilled illustration above had me thinking I was looking at Gene Colan's work for a second. Superb.