Timeline
British girls' comics flourished in the United Kingdom from the 1950s through the 1970s, before beginning to decline in popularity in the 1980s and 1990s. Publishers known for their girls' comics included DC Thomson and Fleetway/IPC. Most titles appeared weekly, with the content primarily in picture-story format. The majority of the stories were serialized, with two or three pages per issue, over eight to twelve issues. They were marketed toward young teen girls. [1]
British girls' comics were often titled after common girls' names. [2] Examples include Judy, Diana, Jackie, June, Penelope, Mandy, Tina, Sally, Tammy, Sandie, Debbie, Misty , Emma, Penny, Tracy, Suzy, and Nikki.
Long-running titles included Bunty , Mandy , and Judy (all DC Thomson) and Tammy (IPC).
Girls' comics were the natural evolution of a trend that started with story papers. As boys' story papers like The Magnet and The Gem gained readerships of young teens, publishers like Amalgamated Press looked to expand the market by producing story papers for girls. Titles like School Friend , Schoolgirls' Own , and The Schoolgirl , all launched in the period 1919–1922, established a girls' market. [3]
By the end of World War II, story papers were phasing out in favor of comic books and television. The first girls' comics, Amalgamated Press' School Friend and Hulton Press' Girl , appeared in the early 1950s, with School Friend selling in excess of one million copies per week. [4] (The School Friend comic was in fact the descendant of the School Friend story paper from the 1920s.) The girls' comics trend took off in the latter half of the 1950s, with the long-running titles Bunty and Judy , as well as titles like Boyfriend and Princess , all debuting in the years 1956–1960. (British romance comics, marketed toward older teen girls and young women, also flourished from the mid-1950s to the mid-1960s. Other than a few examples, however, romance titles had petered out by the mid-1970s.)
DC Thomson had published its first girls' magazine, Bunty , in 1958. The success of this title led the company to publish Judy , which was also successful: between them, Bunty and Judy achieved a circulation of over one million. [5] DC Thomson went on to launch other similar titles in the 1960s, including Jackie (1964), Diana (1965), and Mandy (1967). [5]
In the period 1958 to 1968, a series of mergers and acquisitions led to the girls' comics industry consolidating into two main publishers: DC Thomson and the newly created IPC. In January 1959 Cecil Harmsworth King, chairman of the Daily Mirror newspaper group, acquired Amalgamated Press. Within a few months he changed its name to Fleetway Publications, Ltd. [6] Shortly thereafter, Odhams Press absorbed both Newnes/Pearson and the Hulton Press. King saw an opportunity in this to rationalise the overcrowded women's magazine market, in which Fleetway and Newnes/Pearson were the major competitors, and acquired Odhams. Fleetway took over Odhams in March 1961. [7] In consequence, King controlled two national daily and two national Sunday newspapers, almost one hundred consumer magazines (including comics), more than two hundred trade and technical periodicals, and interests in book publishing.
In 1963 all the Mirror Group companies were combined by the creation of a parent (or "holding") company called the International Publishing Company (known informally as IPC). All of the existing companies continued to operate, but as IPC subsidiaries. [8] When the dust cleared, IPC controlled five girls' comics titles — School Friend , Girl , Girls' Crystal , June , and Princess — while DC Thomson controlled three — Bunty , Judy , and Diana . (City Magazines was still in the mix as well, with their title Boyfriend .)
IPC set up a management development department in 1965 so that its various subsidiaries would no longer be in competition with each other for the same markets. This led to a reorganisation of the Group, in 1968, into six divisions, with IPC Magazines in charge of all comics content.
In the period 1960–1970, there were between seven and ten girls' comics in publication in the UK at any one time, with one estimation that the girls' comics market was larger than that of women's magazines. [9]
The 1970s was a period of tumult for the British girls' comics industry. DC Thomson's Bunty, Judy , Jackie , and Mandy (as well as the "little girls'" comic Twinkle ) continued strong through the decade. IPC, on the other hand, changed gears editorially — as writer/editor Terence Magee details, "Pat Mills and John Wagner [were brought in] to shake things up. The safe and gentle middle-class stories gave way to gritty, working-class yarns." [9] The company introduced a slew of new titles, most of which lasted a few years before merging into other company titles — IPC's "hatch-match-dispatch" method. [10] [lower-alpha 1] Examples include Sandie (1972–1973; merged into Tammy ), Pixie (1972–1973; merged into June ), Lindy (1975; merged into Jinty ), and Penny (1979–1980; merged into Jinty ).
The IPC Fleetway stablemates Tammy (1971–1984), Jinty (1974–1981), and Misty (1978–1980) existed somewhat outside this trend, although in the end both Misty and Jinty ended up absorbed into Tammy [11] (which absorbed four other titles during its run — Sandie , Sally , June , and Princess vol. 2 — before being merged itself with IPC's Girl vol. 2 in 1984). [lower-alpha 2]
By 1974, DC Thomson's girls' comics had fallen off somewhat — Bunty, Judy, Mandy, and Debbie had a combined circulation of 750,000 that year — but remained the market leader. [13] At its height in the late 1970s, Tammy sold 250,000 copies per week. [14]
Starting in the mid-1970s, IPC introduced a line of slick girls' magazines that downplayed the traditional comics content, instead featuring mainly product-related articles and photo comics. Titles in this line included Pink (1973–1980; merged into Mates ), My Guy (1978–c. 2000), Oh Boy (1976–1985; merged into My Guy), Mates (1975–1981; merged into Oh Boy), Blue Jeans (1977–1991), and the second iteration of Girl (1981–1990; merged into My Guy).
Meanwhile, DC Thomson's girls' titles which had launched in the slick format in the 1960s, such as Jackie , continued in that format; and others, such as Diana (1965–1976; merged into Jackie) and Judy (1960–1991; merged with Mandy ), changed to become slicks.
By 1980, there were eleven girls' comics titles in publication (not counting the slicks, which had much less comics content), but the last girls' comics of any note to debut happened in 1985: Nikki for Girls , which only lasted until 1989. Even DC Thomson's girls' titles fell victim to "merger mania": Mandy , which began in 1967, absorbed Debbie (which itself had previously absorbed Spellbound , published 1976–1978) [15] in early 1983. Suzy (published 1982–1987) merged into Bunty. And by the time Mandy merged with Judy (launched in 1960) in 1991, that title had previously absorbed Emma (1978–1979) and Tracy (1979–1985). [16]
By 1990, only four girls' comics were in publication, all published by DC Thomson: Bunty, Mandy , Judy , and Twinkle (the latter was a separate category of comics for "little girls"). The last girls' title, Bunty , was canceled in 2001.
The Fleetway/IPC back-catalog is now owned by Rebellion Developments, which since 2016 has reprinted a number of Tammy, Jinty, and Misty serials, [10] [17] and is due to republish further series as part of The Treasury of British Comics. [18]
In October 2017 Rebellion published a Scream! & Misty Halloween Special, which contained all-new stories featuring characters from those comics.
Girls' comics generally offered a mix of romance, pathos, school, and girl-next-door stories, thriving well into the era when consumer, fashion, and teen idol fare became popular in girls' magazines. [19] The stories were generally moralistic in tone, with long-suffering heroines finally achieving happiness, while villainous relatives or girls who were liars, cheats, and bullies received their comeuppance. [10] Also popular were stories of girls confronting adversity and overcoming it. [11]
One of the earlier titles, Girl , founded by the Rev. Marcus Morris (with the close participation of fellow clergyman Chad Varah), was very much an educational magazine whose heroines, including those who got into scrapes, became involved in tales that had a moral substance. A considerable number of pages were also dedicated to real-life tales of heroic women in various fields.
Common girls' comics storylines included: [11]
The various strips in the girls' comics were usually broken up by letters pages, competitions, featured readers, puzzle pages, promotions, next-week previews, and advertisements.
Bunty 's The Four Marys, drawn by Barrie Mitchell, was the longest serial in girls' comics, running from the magazine's creation in 1958 to its end in 2001. It centered on four young teens — each named Mary — in a girls-only boarding school in the fictional location of Elmbury, who often had problems with studying, staying alert, or helping the other girls and teachers. Of the four main characters, two were middle-class, one was the aristocratic daughter of an earl, and one was working-class, attending the school on a scholarship. [20]
Three related Fleetway titles — Tammy (launched 1971), Jinty (launched 1974), and Misty (launched 1978) — had their own particular focus. Tammy concentrated on sadder Cinderella -themed stories [10] and dark tales of tortured heroines. Many stories were full of cruelty and adversity, based on research showing that girls wanted stories that made them cry. [21] [11] Jinty concentrated on science fiction or otherwise fantastical stories. Misty concentrated on supernatural and horror stories, featuring plots such as "pacts with the devil, schoolgirl sacrifice, the ghosts of hanged girls, sinister cults, evil scientists experimenting on the innocent and terrifying parallel worlds where the Nazis won the Second World War." [2] Writer Pat Mills, later to become famed for his work on 2000AD , scripted many strips for all three titles. [10]
Despite the intended audience for the comics being female, the vast majority of the writers and artists responsible for the girls' comics industry were men. [10] One notable exception was Marion Turner, who wrote hundreds of strips for DC Thomson's line, especially for Mandy, Judy, and M&J. [22]
In general, artists and writers were not credited in girls' comics (or indeed most British comics of that era). As was common practice in the 1960s and 1970s, many illustrators were recruited via art agencies, including ones that specialized in Spanish artists (the UK was a popular market for Spanish artists as the exchange rate meant the work paid well) — notable Spanish girls' comics artists included Luis Bermejo, Purita Campos, Carlos Freixas, Jesus Redondo, and Jordi Badía Romero. Artists can sometimes be identified by their work in Tammy (which moved to a system of crediting creators in the early 1980s) [11] or in boys' comics such as 2000AD , which brought in such a policy from earlier on. [lower-alpha 3] In other cases, it is possible to identify the artists from their signatures on the pages of the comics themselves. Identification of writers in girls' comics is currently dependent on information provided by the writers themselves.
| Title | Starting year | Ending year | Original publisher | Fate | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| School Friend | 1950 | 1965 | Amalgamated Press | Merged into June | |
| Girl | 1951 | 1964 | Hulton Press | Merged into Princess | Second volume runs from 1981 to 1990 |
| Girls' Crystal | 1953 | 1963 | Amalgamated Press | Merged into School Friend | Numbering continued from a story paper of the same name, which itself had been continued from The Schoolgirl (dating back to 1922) |
| Bunty | 1958 | 2001 | DC Thomson | Canceled | |
| Judy | 1960 | 1991 | DC Thomson | Merged with Mandy | |
| Princess | 1960 | 1967 | Fleetway | Merged into Princess Tina. Had a second volume in 1983–1984 which merged into Tammy | |
| June | 1961 | 1974 | Fleetway | Merged into Tammy | Absorbed Poppet, School Friend, and Pixie |
| Diana [36] | 1963 | 1976 | DC Thomson | Merged into Jackie | |
| Jackie | 1964 | 1993 | DC Thomson | Canceled | Fewer comics content than most other titles; no comics at all by the 1980s |
| Lady Penelope | 1966 | 1969 | City Magazines | Becomes Penelope; merged into Princess Tina | |
| Mandy | 1967 | 1991 | DC Thomson | Becomes Mandy & Judy; merged into Bunty | Continues as Mandy & Judy from 1991 to 1997 |
| Princess Tina | 1967 | 1973 | IPC | Merged into Pink | |
| Tammy | 1971 | 1984 | Fleetway | Canceled (merged into Girl vol. 2 in name only) | Absorbed Sally, June, Sandie, Jinty, Misty, and Princess vol. 2 |
| Jinty | 1974 | 1981 | Fleetway | Merged into Tammy | |
| Misty | 1978 | 1980 | Fleetway | Merged into Tammy | Concentrated on supernatural and horror stories |
| Nikki | 1985 | 1989 | DC Thomson | Canceled | Featured the strip The Comp, which continued in Bunty after Nikki folded |
Patrick Eamon Mills is an English comics writer and editor who, along with John Wagner, revitalised British boys' comics in the 1970s, and has remained a leading light in British comics ever since. He has been called "the godfather of British comics".
A British comic is a periodical published in the United Kingdom that contains comic strips. It is generally referred to as a comic or a comic magazine, and historically as a comic paper. As of 2014, the three longest-running comics of all time were all British.
John Wagner is an American-born British comics writer. Alongside Pat Mills, he helped revitalise British comics in the 1970s, and continues to be active in the British comics industry, occasionally also working in American comics. He is the co-creator, with artist Carlos Ezquerra, of the character Judge Dredd.
Crisis was a British comic anthology published by Fleetway Publications from 17 September 1988 to October 1991, initially fortnightly and later monthly. Designed to appeal to older readers than other Fleetway titles in order to take advantage of a boom in interest in 'adult' comics, Crisis featured overtly political and complex stories; one issue was even produced in conjunction with Amnesty International.
Battle Picture Weekly was a British weekly boys' war comic published by IPC Magazines from 8 March 1975 to 23 January 1988, when it merged with the new incarnation of Eagle after 644 issues. Most stories were set in World War II, with some based on other conflicts, while factual features also focused on warfare.
The Amalgamated Press (AP) was a British newspaper and magazine publishing company founded by journalist and entrepreneur Alfred Harmsworth (1865–1922) in 1901, gathering his many publishing ventures together under one banner. At one point the largest publishing company in the world, AP employed writers such as Arthur Mee, John Alexander Hammerton, Edwy Searles Brooks, and Charles Hamilton. Its subsidiary, the Educational Book Company, published The Harmsworth Self-Educator, The Children's Encyclopædia, and Harmsworth's Universal Encyclopaedia. The company's newspapers included the Daily Mail, the Daily Mirror, The Evening News, The Observer, and The Times. At its height, AP published over 70 magazines and operated three large printing works and paper mills in South London.
Misty was a weekly British comic magazine targeted at girls and published by Fleetway in the late 1970s. Focusing on horror stories, it was one of the few British girls' comics that was also popular with boys. Although Misty lasted less than two years it is remembered and admired to this day.
Tammy was a weekly British comic for girls published by Fleetway in London from 1971 to 1984. Tammy was closely linked editorially with the fellow Fleetway titles Misty and Jinty. At its height, Tammy sold 250,000 copies per week, more than popular IPC Magazines titles like 2000 AD.
John Armstrong was a British comics artist, best known for his work in Misty and Tammy, for which he drew the long-running strip Bella. Other strips he has drawn include The Secret Gymnast in Bunty.
Girl was the name of two weekly comics magazines for girls in the United Kingdom.
Sandie was a British girls' comic, published by Fleetway, which lasted for 89 weekly issues between 12 February 1972 and 20 October 1973 before being merged into Tammy. The editor of Sandie was John Wagner.
Princess Tina was a British weekly girls' comic anthology published by Fleetway Publications and IPC Magazines from 23 September 1967 to 12 January 1974. The comic was created by combining two underperforming Fleetway titles — Princess and Tina — into a third, new comic. Notable strips included the long-running family drama "The Happy Days" and "Patty's World". The latter would outlive Princess Tina, continuing after the comic was merged into Pink.
Judy was a British pre-teen and teen girl's magazine, primarily in comic book form. Judy was extant from 1960 to 1991. From 1991 to 1997 it was combined with another title in Mandy and Judy magazine. Judy was published by DC Thomson.
Malcolm Campbell Shaw was a British comics writer and editor, involved in many girls' comics such as Jinty, New Mirabelle, and Misty.
Girls' Crystal was a British weekly fictional anthology publication aimed at girls. Published by Amalgamated Press and later Fleetway Publications from 26 October 1935 to 18 May 1963. Uniquely for an Amalgamated Press title, Girls' Crystal began as a story paper before transforming into a picture comic between editions, with the new format debuting on 21 March 1953. It ran for a combined total of 1432 issues before merging with School Friend in 1963.
Princess was a British weekly girls' comic anthology published by Fleetway Publications and, later, IPC Magazines. The first version was published between 30 January 1960 and 16 September 1967, and featured a mix of comic strips, text stories and a large proportion of features; it was merged with Tina to form a new title - Princess Tina - after 399 issues.
June was a British weekly girls' comic anthology published by Fleetway Publications and IPC Magazines from 18 March 1961 to 15 June 1974. Designed as a response to DC Thomson's hit Bunty, June never quite eclipsed its Scottish rival but was nevertheless a success on its own terms, reaching 631 issues before being merged into Tammy in 1974.
The Cat Girl is a British comic character who has appeared in eponymous strips published by IPC Magazines and Rebellion Developments. The character, a girl called Cathy Carter who finds a suit that gives her the attributes of a cat and becomes a crimefighter, first appeared in the launch issue of weekly girls' comic Sally on 14 June 1969.
"End of the Line..." is a British comic strip published by IPC Magazines in the girls' comic anthology title Misty between 12 August and 18 November 1978. Written by Malcolm Shaw with art by John Richardson, the story revolves around Ann Summerton, who begins seeing visions of her dead father while travelling on the London Underground. Like many of the stories featured in Misty, the serial had strong supernatural elements.
Jane Bond is a British comic character who has appeared in the strip "Jane Bond - Secret Agent", published by Fleetway Publications and IPC Magazines. The character, a globetrotting secret agent, first appeared in the girls' anthology title Tina on 25 February 1967, drawn by Mike Hubbard. After Tina was cancelled "Jane Bond - Secret Agent" continued in the merged Princess Tina until 1970.
