A request for information on Bunty comics

[Phoenix]

My request is for the story titles, the issue number of their first instalment and/or the issue number of the last instalment of any serials that started or ended during the following run of Bunty. This is 912 - 936 (1975). I would appreciate any help from members who have any of these issues in their collection.

[Tammyfan]

I have two of your wants here:

#930 8 November 1975
The School for Unwanted Ones
Catch the Cat!
The Four Marys
The Courage of Crippled Clara
Toots
Tillie the Trier
Destiny Calls Rosita
Lona the Wonder Girl
Amazing Grace Gymnast of the Future
The Whisperer
Princess of the Pops

#931 15 November 1975
The Courage of Crippled Clara
The School for Unwanted Ones
Destiny Calls Rosita
Lona the Wonder Girl
Toots
The Four Marys
Catch the Cat!
Amazing Grace Gymnast of the Future
The Whisperer
Princess of the Pops

[Phoenix]

Thank you very much, Briony, for that information. I am of course looking for the content of all the issues in the run, but I also need to know when serials started and ended. So three questions. First, given that Tillie The Trier appears in 930 but not in 931, can I assume that it finished in 930? Secondly, do any of the serials that you have listed for 931 finish in that issue? Finally, is there any advert, or other indication, in 931 as to the title of the replacement for Tillie The Trier, which apparently didn't start in 931 so presumably will start in 932?

Are you by any chance going to be able to add to peace's information on Mandy and/or Judy?

[Tammyfan]

Thank you very much, Briony, for that information. I am of course looking for the content of all the issues in the run, but I also need to know when serials started and ended. So three questions. First, given that Tillie The Trier appears in 930 but not in 931, can I assume that it finished in 930? Secondly, do any of the serials that you have listed for 931 finish in that issue? Finally, is there any advert, or other indication, in 931 as to the title of the replacement for Tillie The Trier, which apparently didn't start in 931 so presumably will start in 932?

Are you by any chance going to be able to add to peace's information on Mandy and/or Judy?

I have no idea if Tillie finished in #930 or was just missed out the following week. No serials started or ended in those two issues. I have already checked the Mandy and Judy wants and can't add to them.

[Phoenix]

I have no idea if Tillie finished in #930 or was just missed out the following week. No serials started or ended in those two issues. I have already the Mandy and Judy wants and can't add to them.

OK, that's fine, Briony, thanks anyway. I'll just have to keep an eye open for the relevant issues. One thing I can help you with is providing the answer to a question posed on a past thread that I was rereading earlier. You were wondering whether the serial Blackmailed! in the last issue of Suzy continued into Bunty And Suzy after the merger. Well it didn't. It might be worth your while looking at that last Suzy again to see whether it did actually finish in that issue. It must have been a pretty long serial anyway because the only instalment I have is in issue 237 (Mar. 21 1987) and that definitely doesn't seem to be the first one. After that there will have been twelve more instalments up to and including the issue for Jun. 13 1987, a run of at least three months. Incidentally, does that last issue of Suzy have an issue number or just a date?

[Tammyfan]

I have no idea if Tillie finished in #930 or was just missed out the following week. No serials started or ended in those two issues. I have already checked the Mandy and Judy wants and can't add to them.

OK, that's fine, Briony, thanks anyway. I'll just have to keep an eye open for the relevant issues. One thing I can help you with is providing the answer to a question posed on a past thread that I was rereading earlier. You were wondering whether the serial Blackmailed! in the last issue of Suzy continued into Bunty And Suzy after the merger. Well it didn't. It might be worth your while looking at that last Suzy again to see whether it did actually finish in that issue. It must have been a pretty long serial anyway because the only instalment I have is in issue 237 (Mar. 21 1987) and that definitely doesn't seem to be the first one. After that there will have been twelve more instalments up to and including the issue for Jun. 13 1987, a run of at least three months. Incidentally, does that last issue of Suzy have an issue number or just a date?

No information at all there, sorry. I don't have the issue. It could be I was mistaken about it carrying on in Bunty. Suzy just disappeared from the shelves while I was following the story. Maybe they stopped putting copies out on display. Thanks for the information there anyway. At least I know it did not finish in Bunty. By the way, can you just give me with more information about the story, please? I might as well put an entry for it at the UK girls comics index, but I don't remember enough. I remember it was about a girl and her family who are forced to changed towns and identities when they get stigmatised because the father has been wrongly accused (his company got into dodgy dealings, I think) though not charged because of insufficient evidence. At her new school, the girl is recognised by a girl from her old school, and she starts blackmailing her. But I can't remember their names or more precise details.

Thanks for any help.

[Phoenix]

By the way, can you just give me with more information about the story, please? I might as well put an entry for it at the UK girls comics index, but I don't remember enough. I remember it was about a girl and her family who are forced to changed towns and identities when they get stigmatised because the father has been wrongly accused (his company got into dodgy dealings, I think) though not charged because of insufficient evidence. At her new school, the girl is recognised by a girl from her old school, and she starts blackmailing her. But I can't remember their names or more precise details. Thanks for any help.

I'll transcribe the introductory blurb at the top of the instalment I have. It says Life became very tough for Anne Smith and her family when her father was accused of being involved in a swindle. Although nothing was proved against him, the Smiths decided to begin a new life in a new town. Anne was known as Lorna Brown and she was settling in well at school until a new girl, Janet Dawson, a pupil at Lorna's old school arrived. Lorna asked Janet to keep quiet about the swindle but Janet threatened to blackmail her.

In my instalment, on her way to school Lorna is determined to call Janet's bluff, but Janet is waiting for her so that they can walk to school together. When they reach a newsagents Janet tells Lorna that she wants a copy of Pop Records Plus, and orders her to go and buy it for her. Lorna tells her to buy her own copy at which point Lorna brandishes the front page of a newspaper with the headline Pensioners Robbed Of Savings and a photograph of Lorna's father, and says So you're not taking me seriously, eh? Maybe this will change your mind! Lorna realises that although her father has a moustache now, if Janet tells everybody about her father they will believe the worst, and decides that she will have to do as Janet says.

Buying it leads to problems in school because the magazine is so expensive that she hasn't enough money left to pay a previously-agreed sum towards a present for a fellow pupil who is going to be in hospital for a further month. Janet offers to pay on Lorna's behalf, a gesture which amazes everybody as she doesn't even know Sandra, the girl in hospital, and leads to them all going off together, leaving Lorna behind. Later, A teacher, Miss Davis, asks Lorna to serve at the tuck shop. Janet asks if she can help too. Miss Davis agrees and tells her to watch out for anyone stealing. When Lorna sees Janet stealing some chocolate bars from under the counter, she briefly takes her eye off the ball, and doesn't give enough change to another pupil. Miss Davis tells Lorna she thought she was more reliable. When Lorna accuses Janet to her face about the thefts she asks her what she's going to do about it. Miss Davis then tells the pair of them that that day's money doesn't tally with the stock sold, so Janet tells her that Lorna gave the wrong change several times. Miss Davis makes the point that the customers certainly wouldn't complain if they got too much change.

On their way home Janet tells Lorna that all the teachers from the Head down, and all the kids in her form, are a pain. She then informs Lorna that she now lives with her aunt because her parents couldn't control her, and thought that a fresh start might improve her. She goes on to say that now she's got Lorna (where she wants her) everybody can now see her as sweet and innocent because whatever trouble Janet gets into from now on Lorna will get the blame for it. Lorna realises that her new life has now gone sour, and wonders what she can do about it. (I would suggest that she find some backbone from somewhere!!) The artwork seems, to my untutored eye, to be by the artist who drew Bobby Dazzler when she was on the front cover of Judy and many of the later strips about The Four Marys.

Now the other issue. In the Suzy serials thread you also wanted to know whether Suzy brought the photostory to Bunty or whether Bunty had had photostories before the merger. Well there were certainly no photostories in Bunty before the merger, but then I don't believe that the fact that Suzy had presented some of her fiction in photostory form from her first issue, black and white initially but full colour for one serial per issue later in the run, had any significant effect on the decision to introduce that form of serial to Bunty. Even the time factor is against it. The merger took place in June 1987 but the first photostory in Bunty didn't appear until issue 1658 (Oct. 21 1989), the first photogravure (and resized) issue, although there was one, My Cousin Sarah, in the 1988 Bunty Summer Special, which was of course the same size etcetera as Bunty 1658. The truth is that the photostory actually needed the better quality of paper used for the photogravure issues. Thomsons had of course been experimenting for a decade with photostories. They will have been put off by the unmitigated drabness of the photostories in Debbie from 1979 with the complete No More Jumping For Jenny, and the serials Three's A Crowd and The Maple House Mystery in 1980. However, when they compared those photostories with the many that they used in Patches, also from 1979, they will have realised the importance of better paper presenting clearer images, especially when using black and white photography.

[Tammyfan]

Tank you, Phoenix! Based on similar stories, it probably ended with the father suddenly being cleared, and Janet being caught out and expelled. Hmm, do you think it's possible she was expelled from Ann's old school? In my experience with serials, girls who go out of their way to present themselves as sweet girls to teachers usually have a past.

I believe the artist was Barrie Mitchell.

That information about photo stories was very interesting. Maybe Bunty's shift to colour was what finally did it for photo stories appearing.

[Phoenix]

Maybe Bunty's shift to colour was what finally did it for photo stories appearing.

I think that in its own way Bunty 1658 was another experiment, but one that Thomsons will have felt reasonably confident with because they will have assessed the success or otherwise of previous photo stories such as the black and white ones in Debbie, and the ones in colour in Patches and the 1988 Bunty Summer Special for example, not forgetting Suzy, who sometimes had a black and white photo story and a colour one in the same issue. However, the photogravure Bunty wasn't all in colour although when girls picked a copy up off the newsagent's counter and riffled through it quickly they will have got the impression that it was. The front cover was attractive, and due to the larger logo the paper looked bigger. It actually was, but not by much, .5 cm taller and 1.2 cm wider. Three of the stories were in black and white, the new serial A Brother For Barbara, and two of the four serials that were carried over from issue 1657, those being Save Our Stables and ''I'll Never Forgive You!'', which in total took up nine of the thirty-two pages. The rest was in colour and comprised the front and rear covers, the other two carried-over serials Bonnie And Claude and The Comp, plus Bunty - A Girl Like You, the photo story True Colours, an apposite title if ever there was one, the letters page Talk Shop, a revamped Club Corner, a double-page spread across the centre pages about a visit to Brookside Close, the Design A Fashion page, a feature called On The Road, which is reporting the findings of a group of girls who had been sent to Newcastle to find out whether the youngsters there preferred Neighbours or Home And Away, a Pick A Pen Pal page, and a page of adverts. In their excitement and enthusiasm, many of the girls will not even have noticed the price increase from 26p to 30p.

One factor that needs to be taken into account when assessing the sheer scale of the change to colour is that apart from Judy and Mandy all Thomsons' other titles aimed at girls from nine to thirteen had by this time bitten the dust, so changing their flagship title from black and white newsprint to colour on better quality paper would not have been as financially challenging for the company, and of course just over a year and a half later the photogravure M&J was to emerge in colour from the funeral pyre of Judy and Mandy, and presumably, if girls had found the serials more interesting, that too would have been as sustainable as Bunty.

[Tammyfan]

That was very interesting, about the photo stories. I wonder why Mandy and Judy never experimented with photo stories? More traditionalist, maybe? Or they were not confident after the more disappointing attempts in Debbie? Orr was it something to do with budget? M&J didn't try it either, although it had become established in Bunty by then.

[Phoenix]

That's correct, but M&J had plenty of colour to compensate. As regards the survival of the photo story in Bunty, it would be interesting to know just how long they would have lasted if Thomsons' writers hadn't created Luv, Lisa, which developed into a kind of soap opera. I have never been keen on photo stories but I have to admit that Luv, Lisa was out of the top drawer of their 'Ideas' cabinet.

[Lew Stringer]

That was very interesting, about the photo stories. I wonder why Mandy and Judy never experimented with photo stories? More traditionalist, maybe? Or they were not confident after the more disappointing attempts in Debbie? Orr was it something to do with budget? M&J didn't try it either, although it had become established in Bunty by then.

Budget I'd imagine. Photo strips cost more to cast, set up and shoot than paying an artist to draw them.

[Tammyfan]

That was very interesting, about the photo stories. I wonder why Mandy and Judy never experimented with photo stories? More traditionalist, maybe? Or they were not confident after the more disappointing attempts in Debbie? Orr was it something to do with budget? M&J didn't try it either, although it had become established in Bunty by then.

Budget I'd imagine. Photo strips cost more to cast, set up and shoot than paying an artist to draw them.

Makes me wonder why they bothered with photo stories if they were more expensive than picture stories.

[Phoenix]

Makes me wonder why they bothered with photo stories if they were more expensive than picture stories.

I assume that Thomsons were convinced that they would get all their outlay back and then some. Hard-headed publishers are pragmatic, so they are certainly not about to throw their money down the drain. You know as well as I do, Tammyfan, what happens when publishers of comics and story papers discover that outlay and income are the wrong way round. Yes, it's the Great News For All Our Readers scenario. Thomsons will have noticed that photo stories were extremely popular on the continent, and I can certainly vouch for that popularity in Spain. Paw Broon will be able to comment on other countries if he so chooses. New ideas, give them a chance.

[Phoenix]

Last week in the British Library I managed to complete the work I needed to do on my missing issues of Bunty. Fortunately I didn't need to consult the three consecutive issues 2114, 2115 and 2116 as I never saw them. Somehow or other they had never been bound in to the relevant volume of the three covering 1998!!