Comics UK

No Thomsons didn't have the same problems in the 1970's as IPC. They certainly didn't translate to missing issues if they had.

Kashgar wrote:No Thomsons didn't have the same problems in the 1970's as IPC. They certainly didn't translate to missing issues if they had.

Readers must have found DCT far more reliable than IPC.

Even today, the disappearance of Tammy because of a strike, leaving her stories unfinished, still rankles. The lost final episode of Cora Can't Lose rankles most of all.

Tammyfan wrote:Readers must have found DCT far more reliable than IPC.

I think they were.

Tammyfan wrote:Even today, the disappearance of Tammy because of a strike, leaving her stories unfinished, still rankles. The lost final episode of Cora Can't Lose rankles most of all.

As a lifetime reader of fiction, especially the episodic kind that requires you to wait a week for the next chapter, I can sympathise over this. It seems to me that regardless of the financial problems such a company might be experiencing, they owe it to their loyal readership to conclude all their serials before closing the paper down. It's a matter of duty and honour.

Yes, they should have finished the stories, but by the time the strike ended, they didn't see the point as Tammy was going to be cancelled anyway. She was due for cancellation in August, but the strike in June took so long to settle that it would have taken them longer to finish the stories. So they decided to cut their losses and leave everything unfinished. And I suspect a Girl and Tammy merger would have been awful as one was a picture comic and the other a photo comic.

Even now there are former Tammy readers who would love to know how Cora ended. Asking the artist, Juliana Buch, might give answers, but I can't find how to get hold of her.

Tammyfan wrote:I suspect a Girl and Tammy merger would have been awful as one was a picture comic and the other a photo comic.

But the merger could perhaps have been the lesser of two evils. At least you would then have been able to read the final instalments of the Tammy serials, after which you could have cancelled your order at the newsagents.

Phoenix wrote:

Tammyfan wrote:I suspect a Girl and Tammy merger would have been awful as one was a picture comic and the other a photo comic.

But the merger could perhaps have been the lesser of two evils. At least you would then have been able to read the final instalments of the Tammy serials, after which you could have cancelled your order at the newsagents.

Yes, though I think they would have cleaned up the serials as best they could before the merger, which was due in August. As Girl was a photo comic, she did not have much room for picture stories. But Girl was the only title left that Tammy could merge into, so there was not much option. There were already signs of Tammy trying to clear her serials out such as doubling up episodes of "The Forbidden Garden". If Cora had been allowed to finish, I would think Tammy would have used the space to double up more episodes. Other running serials would probably have been rushed to hasty conclusions. I suspect Bella, Pam of Pond Hill and possibly Button Box were the best bets to carry on in the merger. It would have been interesting to see what A Girl and Tammy merger would have looked like.

What was Cora about?

RuthB wrote:What was Cora about?

It was about a girl who goes on an obsessive trophy-winning spree to win the respect of her parents, who keep sneering at her for not winning trophies as they did when they were at school. But while doing so she gets a head injury that will kill her if she does not have an operation. But she doesn't know, having run away from the hospital, which has no clue as to her identity. She starts getting problems with her vision and hearing but is so obsessed with winning trophies and her parents' respect that she ignores the danger signals - including an identikit issued by the hospital.

I don't think that was published in Spain

RuthB wrote:I don't think that was published in Spain

Pity - it would have been great to see the ending in a Spanish translation, even if it is in Spanish. It would be better than nothing.

Here's a link to Cora scans on another of our threads, "Tammy's last issue". http://comicsuk.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.p ... e&start=15

Hey, on this other thread you said you thought you might have it. Did you decide you didn't after a recheck?

I remember now, but I look for it and did not find it. I had similar stories about winning no matter what but no this one.

RuthB wrote:I remember now, but I look for it and did not find it. I had similar stories about winning no matter what but no this one.

If that is correct, I wonder why Cora did not make it into a Spanish translation. Perhaps the artwork of the final episode got lost after the cancellation, so the story could not be reprinted? From what I have been able to gather, the artwork is not likely to still exist.

I wonder if Juliana could be commissioned to draw a concluding episode after all these years? (maybe through a bit of crowdfunding?) Does anybody have an idea of how the story should have ended...or perhaps one of the original Tammy writers could be persuaded to script it?

philcom55 wrote:I wonder if Juliana could be commissioned to draw a concluding episode after all these years? (maybe a bit of crowdfunding?) Does anybody have an idea of how the story should have ended...or perhaps one of the original Tammy writers could be persuaded to script it?

I have raised the question of contacting Juliana and see what she knows about the final episode. But I don't know how to get hold of her. Does anyone know? And the writer of Cora is unknown because Tammy had stopped printing credits.

There are other stories that were also left unfinished in Tammy: "I'm Her - She's Me!!", "No Use to Anyone!", "Secret Sisters" (just started, never got beyond the first episode), and "The Forbidden Garden" (but at least the ending to that one is available because it was reprinted from Jinty). Not to mention the running Bella and Pam stories.

One interesting approach to a sudden, unexpected cancellation was demonstrated by the editor of Junior Mirror in February 1958. While some of the strips were allowed to continue in the pages of Woman's Sunday Mirror the remaining stories were wrapped up with a brief description of how they were intended to conclude. Here's an example featuring Terry and Tessa - the Twins of Tower School.