A Girls comic mystery..

[kiwijohn]

In David Bishop's Thrillpower Overload history of 2000AD (on page 75), this little mystery has tantalised me since I first read the book.

Quoting IPC Youth Group Chief Editor John Sanders regarding strike action at IPC in mid-1980:
"These strikes were very common and they were almost always about money. I would say the most militant union officials at IPC were in the Youth Group. I decided to make a point. We would have to concentrate our resources on fewer titles once the strike was over. The one I wanted to close was 2000AD."

Bishop goes on to say "Sanders instead shut a girls' comic with very high circulation, whose editor was one of the NUJ militants within the Youth Group. 'The staff lost their jobs, the whole thing was tragic' "

So, the mystery is: what girls' comic got shut down? Based on the merger dates given in this site's comics family tree, the most likely candidate is Penny, which got merged into Jinty, but the cover dates on the first Jinty and Penny issues are April 1980, before the strike...

Does anyone else have any idea what title this mystery girls' comic could be?

[philcom55]

Wouldn't it have been the fondly-remembered and long-running girls' title Tammy?

- Phil R.

[Digifiend]

How could you have checked the Family Tree? The main Comics UK site is currently kaput, and Family Tree doesn't work on the Wayback Machine archives.

[kiwijohn]

@Digifiend,
I had checked the family tree before this site was moved That just deepened the mystery, since none of the merger dates for girls' comics that I could see match up with this story. it's only now I got round to posting here after I acquired some copies of Jinty that reminded me I still didn;t know the answer to this mystery.

What I have so far: the strike was May 1980
Misty merged with Tammy - January 1980
Penny merged with Jinty - April 1980
Jinty merged with Tammy - November 1981.
Tammy merged with Girl - 1984 sometime.

As you can see, none of these dates match with John Sanders' story.

[philcom55]

How about Pink? That ran from 24th March 1973 to 14th June 1980 and featured the very popular Patty's World.

- Phil R.

[Earl]

Possibly Princess (80's series) or Dreamer?

[kiwijohn]

@Philcom, I think you may be right there, as given the info here: http://www.dandare.info/history/fleet_index.htm
the date fits very nicely.

I guess Pink was off my register (and particularly as a 13 year old boy in 1980 ) because from what I can find about it, it was aimed at older teenage girls and was a 'magazine' style with pop stars on the cover etc. Not my cup of tea at all.

That said, it had been going since 1973, and John Sanders said it had a high circulation, so I wonder IPC weren't cutting off their nose to spite their face?

Has anyone here read it and is familar with it?

[AndyB]

I remember the big strike in around 1980 or so, when IPC was running a KP Skips promotion with coupons to collect. When the strike happened (and lasted for weeks and weeks), Whizzer and Chips was printed continuously, but with considerable reprint content, but not all the titles did.

Originally, coupon collectors had to have coupons from four or five different comics. During the strike, a notice appeared saying that the girls' title was cancelled altogether, and we would not need to collect different titles. The coupon was duly changed to have the other title's name whited out, together with the requirement for different titles, and eventually replaced with a new coupon.

Looking at the timescales, I'm fairly certain the cancelled title was Penny. Someone check their W&C collection to confirm it!

[Niblet]

Publication of Whizzer and Chips was briefly affected by the 1980 strike. After the issue dated 14 June 1980, the next was 2-week cover dated 21/28 June 1980 (although a normal-size comic), so it seems a week's break in publication was planned. Publication resumed on 05 July 1980.



btw I looked through all the 1980 W&Cs (except the Christmas issue, which is filed in another box that I can't access easily), and none have a KP Skips promotion. I seem to recall that promotion. Will maybe have a look at another year later.

[Digifiend]

That wasn't the only strike was it? Andy must've got them mixed up.

[Niblet]

I think the answer to the original question on this thread has already been arrived at but, having a niggling memory of the promotion that Andy referred to above, I embarked on a hunt through several years of Whizzer & Chips, and found the KP Skips promotion for free comics ran from 30 June 1984 to 15 September 1984. As Andy remembered, Tammy was included in the first 3 coupons, but as from 21 July 1984 it was missing. Also, the stipulation that tokens must come from different comics was removed, again as Andy mentioned.

[Niblet]

In the 21 July 1984 issue, the full page ad is still showing Tammy as a participant in the scheme, yet the coupon in the same issue is Tammy-less.

[Niblet]

28 July 1984. Now they've gone back to saying the tokens must come from 4 different comics. This must be one of the most confusing marketing schemes ever.

[kiwijohn]

Hi Niblet,

Andy B isn't totally incorrect, since he got a strike and girls comic cancellation right, only this was 1984 and Tammy, not 1980 and Pink!

I had a look at my 2000AD copies, and saw that 2000AD was not published on 14, 21 or 28 July 1984, and the KP skips ad (Tammy is whited-out on the coupon) in the 4 August issue (Prog 377) explicitly says "Unfortunately Tammy is no longer being published".

At 26pigs their resident girls comic expert Briony notes: "Girl & Tammy (1984) - I didn't see much of this one, since Tammy vanished suddenly before merging with Girl. I later saw "Tammy" on the cover of Girl but it looks like Tammy brought nothing to Girl." (http://www.26pigs.com/tammy/bibliography.html)

It seems therefore that there was no announcement in Tammy comic itself of any upcoming merger. and that Tammy may well have been a victim of the 1984 strike. I wonder if it was in similar circumstances to Pink in 1980?

[AndyB]

That'll be the one then. It's the one I think of because it's the one time that the closure of a girls' comic would have crossed my consciousness as an 11 year old (as I was in 1984!)

Sticking to what I think I do have right: Whizzer and Chips was unusual in 1984 in not missing any weeks?