What comics did you buy today?

[geoff42]

hi, phoenix, so much knowledge and wisdom to impart as regards the old comics. Please hurry and complete your knowledge in print; the likes of you will forever bear a testament to the "old Print". 'nuff of the obsequiousness nature, just get into gear!!

[Phoenix]

hi, phoenix, so much knowledge and wisdom to impart as regards the old comics. Please hurry and complete your knowledge in print; the likes of you will forever bear a testament to the "old Print". 'nuff of the obsequiousness nature, just get into gear!!

I'm not just in gear, Geoff, I am on the move. However, you can't write books in a hurry. Speed is the enemy, time is the friend. I've already had to postpone my principal contribution to This Was The Victor that Ray Moore and I are compiling because I can only focus on one thing at a time, and my focus is firmly on Thomsons' story papers for girls, a project that has the company's enthusiastic approval. The preparation time I will require will be roughly the same as for This Was The Wizard because although there were 831 serials to read in The Wizard, and there are many hundreds more in the ten girls' titles I am featuring, as the latter are in picture form where the former are in text form I can read them more quickly. The fact that I know many of them already will obviously also reduce the preparation time somewhat. I still don't have all the issues so I will have to go to London to consult all my missing ones in the British Library. As most of the girls' titles are in their storage facility in Boston Spa, near Wetherby in Yorkshire, I will have to pre-order them about three days before I go to London in order to give them time to get the volumes to St. Pancras for me. I figure I will need about ten days for the task, so two visits of a week should suffice. It will only cost me the train fares as I will stay in my son's flat in Southfields.

The presentation of the fiction will not be in the same form though. This time I will be dealing with it by theme, and inevitably I will need to be selective. Hopefully I will not fail to feature any reader's favourites. However, if by some mischance I do, as some form of compensation, a complete alphabetical list of all the serials in all ten papers, with issue numbers, dates, and locations will appear somewhere in the Bibliography Of Works Consulted section. In my Introduction I will be looking at the history of fiction for girls from the late Nineteenth Century, probably starting from Little Women, and working through to Anne Digby's series of fourteen stories about Rebecca Mason's schooldays, which started in 1978 with First Term At Trebizon, in order to note and assess any trends or developments that might shed light on the thinking behind the creation of, and later changes to, Bunty et al. I haven't done any of the actual work on the Introduction yet, but I have got all the primary sources and, as far as I know, all the relevant analytical works. I suspect that a lot of emphasis will need to be placed on school stories given the heavy emphasis on them by influential writers such as Angela Brazil, Elinor Brent-Dyer, Dorita Fairlie Bruce, Elsie Oxenham and, to a certain extent, Enid Blyton, not to mention weeklies such as Schoolgirl's Own, Girls' Crystal, and School Friend. It is, of course, possible that I could find that Enid Blyton's non-school stories, in particular her two series of Famous Fives' stories of mystery and adventure, had some kind of influence on the equivalents in Bunty et al. But that's for the future. Leave it with me.

[TwoHeadedBoy]

Issues 3 and 4 of Bugs & Drugs arrived today... The envelope had been opened en route! Cheeky.

[starscape]

A decent collection of mid-point Warlord (#300-ish). Glancing at the stories, I'm a bit surprised that it's a period in Warlord's history I never read.

[babington]

an amazingly good copy of the ever-strange and bizarrely wonderful Candy and Andy Annual from 1967, also featuring Thunderbirds and Winnie the Pooh...

[colcool007]

A decent collection of mid-point Warlord (#300-ish). Glancing at the stories, I'm a bit surprised that it's a period in Warlord's history I never read.

There is a lot of nice art in them thar comics.

[alanultron5]

Got fair copy of Beano summer special 1969 less than a fiver!

[philcom55]

Just picked up the 1937 Hotspur Book at a local charity shop - not bad for £1.29.

[SID]

Well, I have gone over to the Dark Side and for the first time have bought a girl's comic.

Seriously though, I couldn't resist buying Misty No.1 from eBay.

Well I got it yesterday and must say it is a good read. Good enough that I may had got it regularly at the time despite being a bloke.

[colcool007]

We managed to pick up a big chunk of them a few years ago and they still read well today. They are one of the few girls' comics that has not aged badly.

[Phoenix]

They are one of the few girls' comics that have not aged badly.

I've nothing against Misty, Colin, but I would very much like to know which girls' comics, in your opinion, have aged badly, and which have not.

[colcool007]

They are one of the few girls' comics that have not aged badly.

I've nothing against Misty, Colin, but I would very much like to know which girls' comics, in your opinion, have aged badly, and which have not.

Off the bat, I would struggle to name specific comics, but I feel that Wee Slavey, The Four Marys and many of the photo stories are victims of their time.

If I move to Misty, Paint It Black, The Sentinels and The Cult Of The Cat are stories that still read well today and still engage the limited female company I deal with!

But if I put forward stories such as The Four Marys, then I struggle to get any engagement.

[geoff42]

Wow, Phoenix, that sounds like a lot of work and I apologize as regards the girl's storey papers and apologize for my flippancy. Take your time and deliver when you can

[geoff42]

I do really look forward to your Victor book, though. But, in admission, I am taking an interest in girl's comics, especially in the seventies. I hope you enjoy your Spellbounder with free gift

[geoff42]

By the way, I did manage to win Jackpot no. 2 with free gift, my only coup from Phil's auctions this month. Amazingly, I really didn't expect to win this at a paltry £20. Well, considering the present climate, comics of this era are going for quite a lot. For an extra tenner I managed to buy a whole year of Tiger for the year 1982. And then, a day before, I bid £100 for Action no.1 with free gift. It really doesn't make sense, does it?