Misty

[redbrain]

Here are three pictures of Holiday Specials from 1980. By the time these were published, Misty had ceased to exist as a weekly comic. In January 1980, it was merged into Tammy. That summer, the final Misty Holiday Special appeared. Also, the cover of the Tammy Holiday Special that summer seems to me to tip its hat at Misty. I attach the full cover, plus a detail.

I like the way Tammy's hair bunches rise in fear... and how these resemble horns.

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[redbrain]

Here's the cover of Jinty for 28th May 1977. Like most Jinty covers of this era, it carries two pictures, which (to my eye) gives it rather a messy appearance. The top picture illustrates a spooky story, but the lower one seems to me more disturbing.

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[redbrain]

Finally (for today) the cover of Judy Picture Library No. 64 (1968). I'm not enormously keen on Picture Library comics. The story had to fit exactly on to 64 small size pages. Stories either have major holes in the plot because they should have been longer, or contain padding because they should have been shorter. Not uncommonly (obviously created in a hurry) they have both major plot holes and padding. This example tends toward the plot holes. I include it here because the cover seems to me to encapsulate very neatly the whole genre of the girl detective. Is it possible to see this cover and not want to read the comic?

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[mattofthespurs]

These are great Redbrain, thanks.
Keep em coming!

[dem]

Jun 18, 2014 10:39:50 GMT redbrain said:

I've taken a few photos, and intend to start posting them here once I've downloaded them from my camera.

In the meantime, here's a link to an interesting blog about the Tammy serial 'Slaves of War Orphan Farm':

marionette.org.uk/tammyproject/slaves-of-war-orphan-farm-2/

'Slaves of War Orphan Farm' was amongst the more sadistic serials run by a UK girls' comic.

These are very lovely, mr. brain, thank you very much! Slaves of “War Orphan Farm” recieves a rave review in James Chapman's informative and thoroughly super British Comics: A Cultural History

[pulphack]

I second that! Thank you for the scans and also for reminding me of the stuff I've got lurking at the bottom of the bookcase that needs to be re-read!

[redbrain]

Here's a look at the first issue of Misty (4th February 1978).

1) The cover. Like the vast majority of copies, mine is missing the free gift. Unlike quite a lot of copies, the original owner didn't do much damage when removing the gift.

2) Internal page showing the start of 'The Sentinels'. The tower blocks in place of more Gothic architecture gave Misty a modern and gritty feel.

3) Second internal page showing the superb artwork with which 'Moonchild' began.

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[redbrain]

1) Here is the first pair of internal pages of Misty issue 1. Misty introduced the comic (on the left-hand page). The first serial 'The Cult of the Cat' starts (on the right-hand page).

2) 'The Cult of the Cat' is more conveniently (and much more cheaply!) found in the Misty Annual 1984. (Although Misty ceased to be as a weekly comic in January 1980, the annuals continued until 1986.) Here we see the start of 'The Cult of the Cat' in the 1984 Annual.

3) The cover of the 1984 Misty Annual.

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[redbrain]

I'm thinking of working through Misty issue by issue. My thought is to post the cover, pages 2-3 and a third inner spread that catches my eye. I've already done issue 1 in this way. Whether I'll give this treatment to all 101 issues remains to be seen. That would take a long time. Perhaps someone would like to give me a little feedback on the project.

Anyway, here's issue 2. My copy is in rather good condition, apart from the presence of a strip of sellotape that once attached the free gift, and a little distress to the paper around the sellotape. It's possible to buy issue 2 more cheaply than issue 1, although I think that it's less commonly found.

The pictures:

1) The cover. Nicely Gothic churchyard scene.

2) Pages 2-3. Again Misty, introduces the comic. This time, page 3 is the start of episode 2 of The Sentinels. The tower blocks establish a distinctly different feel from the cover.

3) The start of Moonchild episode 2. As with episode 1, superb artwork (in my opinion).

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[redbrain]

A quick look at Misty issue 3 (the last one to carry an issue number, thereafter only the dates identify the comics).

The cover seems to me less successful than either of the previous issues and very much inferior to the excellent cover of the next issue.

Pages 2 and 3. Again, the first story is The Sentinels.

Interior pages... I particularly like the eyes.

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[pulphack]

Just to say that I'm loving this. The variable quality of covers is an interesting one - I wonder if it's because the content of UK comics was so varied as opposed to more focused titles with just one or two stories, as they were in the USA and Europe? So maybe it's just that some cover choices don;t appeal to the individual as much as others, while editors were trying to balance readership and content choice? I was reminded of this when going through some old Valiant annuals for Steel Claw stories last week - some very strange juxtapositions of comedy, cartoon and serious stuff!

Those eyes are great, though... About five years back I saw Pat Mills speaking and he commented that he preferred writing on girls titles as they had the possibility of greater story depth in terms of text and art than boys comics, which had a much more rigid editorial remit. Maybe this is why they fascinate more now? It was that depth he wanted to bring to boys comics with Warlord, Action and 2000AD. Well, Mills and Wagner might have, but some of the boys writers missed the point...

[redbrain]

Jul 1, 2014 5:38:05 GMT pulphack said:

Just to say that I'm loving this. The variable quality of covers is an interesting one - I wonder if it's because the content of UK comics was so varied as opposed to more focused titles with just one or two stories, as they were in the USA and Europe? So maybe it's just that some cover choices don;t appeal to the individual as much as others, while editors were trying to balance readership and content choice? I was reminded of this when going through some old Valiant annuals for Steel Claw stories last week - some very strange juxtapositions of comedy, cartoon and serious stuff!

Those eyes are great, though... About five years back I saw Pat Mills speaking and he commented that he preferred writing on girls titles as they had the possibility of greater story depth in terms of text and art than boys comics, which had a much more rigid editorial remit. Maybe this is why they fascinate more now? It was that depth he wanted to bring to boys comics with Warlord, Action and 2000AD. Well, Mills and Wagner might have, but some of the boys writers missed the point...

Yes, maybe the variable quality of the covers was connected with the varied contents. This morning, I took photographs of Misty issue 8 (with the thought of posting them here) and paused to analyse the contents of the comic. About three quarters of it was given over to five serialised stories, no one of them related to any other. Most of the remainder was taken up with two self contained stories (again unrelated). Additionally, there's the cover, a Misty's introductory page, the letters page, horoscopes, a very small humour strip (sharing the horoscopes page)...

Of the five serials, four had been running since issue 1 (The Cult of the Cat, The Sentinels, Paint it Black and Moonchild). The fifth one (Salamander Girl) had started more recently.

(Incidentally, I've now taken pictures of the first 8 issues, but am a bit behind with uploading them to photobucket and editing them in that place. I'm struggling, a bit, to find time for this.)

And, yes, it would be hard to deny that the girls' titles have a greater emotional depth than the boys' ones. In that, surely, lies much of their fascination. In the case of Misty, it was (if you will take the distinction) a terror comic rather than a horror comic. It lacks the gruesomeness found in horror. Rather, it seeks to convey (and often succeeds in conveying) how the protagonists feel about what is going on. Often, a great deal is conveyed by the eyes.

[redbrain]

Misty issue 4 has possibly my favourite cover. Such an expressive face, hands pressed to the rainy window.

On page three: the start of The Sentinels, installment four. This time, a helicopter, rather than the tower blocks, places it firmly in the modern age. Actually, the scene is in an alternate reality (to which one of the tower blocks is a gateway) in which Britain lost the Second World War. However much Boris Johnson would like to do it (water cannon are probably the thin end of the wedge) the authorities in the Britain of our timeline don't trap girls by dropping nets on them from helicopters.

Installment 4 of Moonchild starts with a particularly memorable image.

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[pulphack]

That first page of Moonchild is enough to give anyone a nightmare - great piece of work. Undoubtedly added to by the pages that follow - this is the thing that boy's comics did not have: if this was a Valiant, for example, the next page would have to be action-packed and so diffuse the impact, rather than having the slow burn effect that a greater depth gives it. Does that make sense? I know what I mean! To just backtrack to the differences between girls and boys comics - and how it hasn't changed - I was talking to a chum who still gets 200AD (even though he hates 90% of what's in it) and he was telling me that the last time Pat Mills was writing for them, the message board was full of complaints about how 'slow' and 'boring' the story was as it didn't have splatter and explosions on every page. Plus ca change, eh?

Keep 'em coming, I'm enjoying this thread!

[redbrain]

Jul 4, 2014 7:29:10 GMT pulphack said:

That first page of Moonchild is enough to give anyone a nightmare - great piece of work. Undoubtedly added to by the pages that follow - this is the thing that boy's comics did not have: if this was a Valiant, for example, the next page would have to be action-packed and so diffuse the impact, rather than having the slow burn effect that a greater depth gives it. Does that make sense? I know what I mean! To just backtrack to the differences between girls and boys comics - and how it hasn't changed - I was talking to a chum who still gets 200AD (even though he hates 90% of what's in it) and he was telling me that the last time Pat Mills was writing for them, the message board was full of complaints about how 'slow' and 'boring' the story was as it didn't have splatter and explosions on every page. Plus ca change, eh?

Keep 'em coming, I'm enjoying this thread!

Thank you for the encouragement. I uploaded more pages to photobucket last night, so I should soon post some more to this thread.

I agree with everything you say, except that I think "200AD" should be "2000AD" (unless there's a comic about the Romans I haven't heard of). It's a funny thing, though, the title "2000AD" must have been chosen as futuristic, and now 2000AD is in the past. I don't recall anything all that thrilling happening in 2000. As to "2001 A Space Odyssey", I somehow missed the Pan Am rocket ships to the Moon in 2001. My recollection of 2001, in fact, contains nothing very remarkable. That said, I rather enjoy seeing dates in the 1960s used for the distant future in 1930s SF.

Anyway, back to the point, Pat Mills did (of course) script some of the girls' comics. The artist who drew Moonchild was John Armstrong who (in my opinion) deserves to be more celebrated than he is.

Moonchild was originally published in thirteen installments in the first thirteen issues of Misty. It can be found more cheaply, conveniently and easily reprinted in the 1983 Misty Annual. (It's the one with an owl on the cover.)