Background
DC Thomson had published its first girls' magazine, Bunty , in 1958. The success of this title led DC Thomson to publish Judy, which was also successful: between them, Bunty and Judy achieved a circulation of over one million. [4] DC Thomson went on to publish other similar titles: Diana (published 1965–1976), Mandy (published 1967–1991), Debbie (published 1973–1983), and Suzy (published 1982–1987). [4]
By 1974, DC Thomson's girls' imprints had fallen off somewhat (Bunty, Judy, Mandy, and Debbie had a combined circulation of 750,000 that year) but remained the market leader. [5] Whether in imitation or not, British girls' magazines of this era typically bore a single female given name as title; besides the DC Thomson titles, other magazines were Tracy, Nikki , Sandie , Diana, Sally, June , Tammy , Lindy, and Penny. [6]
Mergers
As was common in British comics of the period, it was standard practice to merge a comic into another one when it declined in sales. Typically, three stories or strips from the cancelled comic would continue for a while in the surviving comic, and both titles would appear on the cover (one in a smaller font than the other) until the title of the cancelled comic was eventually dropped. Judy was emblematic of this practice. It absorbed Emma in 1979 and Tracy in 1985; as a consequence, the title was known as Judy and Emma from issue #1027 (15 September 1979) to issue #1049 (16 February 1980), and Judy and Tracy from issue #1306 (19 January 1985) to some time before issue #1443.
Even though Judy had debuted earlier than Mandy , when the two titles merged in 1991, Mandy was listed first in the new merged publication. Mandy & Judy, also known as M&J, merged with Bunty in 1997.
