Bunty Manga

[philcom55]

I was disappointed to see that none of the cinemas in Stoke-on-Trent appear to be showing 'When Marnie Was There' - the latest (and possibly last) film from the wonderful Japanese Studio Ghibli, but looking at the reviews it suddenly occurred to me that most of their productions would have been quite at home in a British girls' comic. It made me wonder if DC Thomson have ever tried converting any of their girls' serials to the Manga format. In the same way I'd love to see somebody like Valda being given the Studio Ghibli treatment. For some reason the Japanese seem to 'get' this type of storytelling in a way that the Americans never have.

Certainly the new release (based on an English novel by Joan G. Robinson) about a young girl who, while exploring an old house, meets a mysterious playmate that may be a ghost or a figment of her own imagination sounds strangely familiar. I'm sure I've seen something very much like it in Bunty or Mandy.

[Phoenix]

Certainly the new release (based on an English novel by Joan G. Robinson) about a young girl who, while exploring an old house, meets a mysterious playmate that may be a ghost or a figment of her own imagination sounds strangely familiar. I'm sure I've seen something very much like it in Bunty or Mandy.

Sounds suspiciously like a rip-off of Gateway To The Past in Mandy, a serial that I looked at some months ago on this forum. I suppose I'll have to get this book now.

[Phoenix]

Sorry, I didn't look closely enough. I thought the image was the front cover of a book. I'll rephrase. I suppose I'll have to get this film now.!! To be honest I am tired, working too many hours, but not enough on what I'm supposed to be doing. A short break from Comics UK next week in Putney/Southfields/Wandsworth/Wimbledon/Kingston with Andrew, Aurora and Kelsey, and a few convivial jars in The Old Fields, The Park Tavern and elsewhere will help to recharge my batteries. No visits either to 30th Century Comics or The British Library have been factored in for this visit, but I should get plenty of reading done in other places (yes, I do mean pubs, how did you guess?).

[comixminx]

On your earlier post about Gateway to the Past, Phoenix, you said it appeared in 1974 I think - the novel of When Marnie Was There is from 1967. There are a lot of cases of girls comics being inspired by / lifted wholesale from other popular media whether film, book or other. If there are similarities in theme in the case of these two, well, "Marnie" is older and rather more famous...

[Phoenix]

On your earlier post about Gateway to the Past, Phoenix, you said it appeared in 1974 I think - the novel of When Marnie Was There is from 1967. There are a lot of cases of girls comics being inspired by / lifted wholesale from other popular media whether film, book or other. If there are similarities in theme in the case of these two, well, "Marnie" is older and rather more famous...

Thank you, comixminx, for that information. I've just bought the book on eBay for £6.33 with free P&P from a dealer who has provided excellent service in the past.

Regarding the novel predating the serial, I couldn't have commented on it previously as I had never heard of the novel. It is cooperation of this sort that does extend fruitfully the knowledge of others. I'm assuming that even though you knew about the novel you didn't consider it important enough to comment on at the time otherwise you would surely have alerted me to it. Of course the fact that you didn't do so didn't matter because although I might have mentioned it, I wouldn't have made a big issue out of it because what I was trying to do at the time was to establish the link between Gateway To The Past and Benita Brown's accurate summary but inaccurate title.

The process seems to work the other way round too. Take Stephen King's novel Under The Dome. The concept had been explored in DCT's output many years earlier. The first example was Behind The Invisible Wall, a fourteen-instalment text serial in The Rover in 1948/49. A later version appeared in one of Thomsons' papers for girls but I can't immediately remember which or when. Obviously I'm not accusing King of plagiarism as there is no copyright on ideas.

[comixminx]

Well, I wouldn't have commented on any similarity between Marnie and Gateway at the time of your original posting because I haven't read the former so I wouldn't have spotted any overlap of themes or plot. But it is a well known title, it was definitely a popular book of the time.

[Phoenix]

There are a lot of cases of girls comics being inspired by / lifted wholesale from other popular media whether film, book or other.

Would you be able (i.e. willing), comixminx, during such free time as you may have in the next couple of weeks, to make a list of as many such instances as you can remember. I am currently a good bit over halfway through reading a batch of about 350 novels written for girls prior to 1958 that I have bought in during the last twelve months in order to attempt an assessment of their influence on the writers of Bunty, and by extension all DCT's other titles. I'm not reading them in any specific order. The last few were Born Lucky by Rita Coatts, which was a school-based mystery story, The Crimson Rust an overseas adventure by C. B. Rutley, a male author, and Sally Baxter - Girl Reporter And The Runaway Princess, the first assignment for the fledgling newspaper reporter by Sylvia Edwards, although I suspect that may be a pen-name. I'm currently reading Party Frock by Noel Streatfeild, which is set in the last few months of WW2. Four paperbacks will travel with me when I go to London. I usually manage to read three per visit.

[comixminx]

There are a lot of cases of girls comics being inspired by / lifted wholesale from other popular media whether film, book or other.

Would you be able (i.e. willing), comixminx, during such free time as you may have in the next couple of weeks, to make a list of as many such instances as you can remember. I am currently a good bit over halfway through reading a batch of about 350 novels written for girls prior to 1958 that I have bought in during the last twelve months in order to attempt an assessment of their influence on the writers of Bunty, and by extension all DCT's other titles. I'm not reading them in any specific order. The last few were Born Lucky by Rita Coatts, which was a school-based mystery story, The Crimson Rust an overseas adventure by C. B. Rutley, a male author, and Sally Baxter - Girl Reporter And The Runaway Princess, the first assignment for the fledgling newspaper reporter by Sylvia Edwards, although I suspect that may be a pen-name. I'm currently reading Party Frock by Noel Streatfeild, which is set in the last few months of WW2. Four paperbacks will travel with me when I go to London. I usually manage to read three per visit.

It will necessarily be an incomplete list of course, Phoenix - others will have to chip in.

The ones I can think of off the top of my head are:
* Moonchild (Misty - written by Pat Mills, drawn by John Armstrong) - well known to have been closely inspired by Stephen King, "Carrie"
* Mills' story "Hush Hush Sweet Rachel" also in Misty he says was likewise inspired by "Audrey Rose" - I don't know if that's a film or what actually
* Mill's Jinty story "Land of No Tears" is clearly influenced by Brave New World
* Some readers have drawn parallels between "Almost Human" in Jinty and the tv series of the Six Million Dollar Man or the Incredible Hulk. "The Robot Who Cried" similarly has been compared to these tv series. In both cases a super-strong person who is not entirely human is on the run and afraid of hurting others.
* The Jinty story "The Birds" is clearly a riff on the Hiitchcock classic film
* Jinty humour strip "Desert Island Daisy" is likewise clearly a riff on "The Admirable Crighton"
* To my eye, "Children of Edenford" in Jinty has a lot of similarities with the Stepford Wives but that's a bit more of a stretch perhaps, it's not a definite link
* The Jinty story "Make-Believe Mandy" has a theme which harks back to stories of lost heirs from Ruritania and the like

In a different way, "Jackie's Two Lives" in Jinty is relevant to this discussion - the writer was Alan Davidson and he subsequently reworked it into a popular teen novel, "The Bewitching of Allison Albright"

[philcom55]

It'd also be interesting to know if any other well-known writers secretly moonlighted for girls' comics in the way J.T. Edson did for the boys' comics.

[Tammyfan]

Pat Mills says they planned to do Flowers in the Attic story for Misty, but they never got around to it. Having seen the blurb for Flowers in the Attic, I'm glad they didn't.

[Tammyfan]

I suspect the Misty story "Don't Look Now!" was inspired by an Enid Blyton story, "The Strange Spectacles", from one of her Naughty Children books. Both stories feature a pair of glasses that cause the wearer to see people as animals that reflect their personalities.

[Tammyfan]

There are a lot of cases of girls comics being inspired by / lifted wholesale from other popular media whether film, book or other.

Would you be able (i.e. willing), comixminx, during such free time as you may have in the next couple of weeks, to make a list of as many such instances as you can remember. I am currently a good bit over halfway through reading a batch of about 350 novels written for girls prior to 1958 that I have bought in during the last twelve months in order to attempt an assessment of their influence on the writers of Bunty, and by extension all DCT's other titles. I'm not reading them in any specific order. The last few were Born Lucky by Rita Coatts, which was a school-based mystery story, The Crimson Rust an overseas adventure by C. B. Rutley, a male author, and Sally Baxter - Girl Reporter And The Runaway Princess, the first assignment for the fledgling newspaper reporter by Sylvia Edwards, although I suspect that may be a pen-name. I'm currently reading Party Frock by Noel Streatfeild, which is set in the last few months of WW2. Four paperbacks will travel with me when I go to London. I usually manage to read three per visit.

It will necessarily be an incomplete list of course, Phoenix - others will have to chip in.

The ones I can think of off the top of my head are:
* Moonchild (Misty - written by Pat Mills, drawn by John Armstrong) - well known to have been closely inspired by Stephen King, "Carrie"
* Mills' story "Hush Hush Sweet Rachel" also in Misty he says was likewise inspired by "Audrey Rose" - I don't know if that's a film or what actually
* Mill's Jinty story "Land of No Tears" is clearly influenced by Brave New World
* Some readers have drawn parallels between "Almost Human" in Jinty and the tv series of the Six Million Dollar Man or the Incredible Hulk. "The Robot Who Cried" similarly has been compared to these tv series. In both cases a super-strong person who is not entirely human is on the run and afraid of hurting others.
* The Jinty story "The Birds" is clearly a riff on the Hiitchcock classic film
* Jinty humour strip "Desert Island Daisy" is likewise clearly a riff on "The Admirable Crighton"
* To my eye, "Children of Edenford" in Jinty has a lot of similarities with the Stepford Wives but that's a bit more of a stretch perhaps, it's not a definite link
* The Jinty story "Make-Believe Mandy" has a theme which harks back to stories of lost heirs from Ruritania and the like

In a different way, "Jackie's Two Lives" in Jinty is relevant to this discussion - the writer was Alan Davidson and he subsequently reworked it into a popular teen novel, "The Bewitching of Allison Albright"

We also think "Song of the Fir Tree" from Jinty was inspired by "The Silver Sword" and "I am David".

[Tammyfan]

"A Horse Called September" was written as a text story for June. When it was published as a book, Tammy adapted it as a picture story. Tammy did a lot of adaptations, including Trebizon, The Moon Stallion, Queen Rider and The Black Stallion. Penny did some Blyton adaptations too.

[Phoenix]

It will necessarily be an incomplete list of course, Phoenix - others will have to chip in.

Thank you, comixminx and Tammyfan for your suggestions. It is fair to say that I am not assuming that every suggestion will come from you two, but the problem is that I am preparing a book on ten DCT story papers, so while I recognise the general usefulness of the story titles you have put forward, my real need is to discover equivalent titles in Thomsons' papers for girls. I'm not averse to referring to stories in non-DCT papers where appropriate, after all I do have large numbers of Girl and School Friend, and lots of school-based papers from the thirties, which I do intend to refer to, albeit only for comparison purposes. Naturally I am prepared to accept incomplete lists, as comixminx points out, and I will be grateful for them, but if they are to be of any significant use to me they must be serials from DCT titles. In a general sense I can cope perfectly well with Thomsons' serials but I will not necessarily know either which of their serials have previously seen the light of day as novels or which serials became novels later. This is really the nub of my request.

[Tammyfan]

I wonder if Bunty's "The Blue Tulip" was influenced by "The Black Tulip" by Alexander Dumas. And there was "The White Mouse" from Emma, about a WW2 resistance fighter. I have no idea if the writer knew this or not, but there was a real WW2 resistance fighter called "The White Mouse" (Nancy Wake). Unlike her Emma counterpart, the real White Mouse was not a nurse or wore a mouse mask.

There were certainly DCT titles influenced by TV shows and movies, such as "Bionic Bruno" from Mandy. There must have been plenty of James-Bond inspired DCT stories too, such as Bunty's "Danger Girl".