Recently we've been treated to some of Hulton's wonderful Girl Annuals. I stumbled across a scholarly essay about Ruth Adam, the author of Girl's hugely successful "Susan of St Brides" serial. The essay, "Ruth Adam and Girl Magazine" by Shu-Fen Tsai of Taiwan's Dong Hwa University, includes interesting excerpts from interviews with and articles by Ms Adam.
Ruth Adam, a vicar's daughter, worked as a journalist, novelist, biographer and...comic book writer. She was a perfect choice for the Hulton comics line, comprising Eagle, Girl, Swift, and Robin. Rev. Marcus Morris started this stable of "clean" comics in reaction to imported "deplorable, nastily over-violent and obscene" horror and crime comics. It's to his credit that his comics were actually quite readable and proved very popular (think Dan Dare). They were neither sanctimonious nor dry as one might have expected.
Ruth Adam began scripting for Girl in 1954. Her first serial was "Lindy Love." It ran a year and a half. Her next serial, "Susan of St Brides" was a smash hit. It ran from 1954 to 1961 when a new owner cancelled the feature. Adam described writing for Girl:
The main difference between what used to be called the "Hulton comics" and their predecessors, was the belief that standards mattered as much as circulation. This made it a unique office to work in and was, I think, perplexing at first to staff who came into it from other firms. Any letter of criticism from a teacher, a parson, youth leader or a single conscientious parent was taken seriously. . . .
There was a framework of social and moral values within which writers were expected to fit their stories. For instance, the good characters were not permitted to deviate from the very strictest honesty. Whatever desperate situation they were in, they must never act a lie or be insolent and aggressive. Within the framework, they had to have all the weaknesses of an ordinary child, and be able to admit themselves wholly in the wrong without indulging in any extravagant remorse. . .
Writers were expected to avoid not only vice and violence but any kind of gloom or squalor as well. Snobbery and class-consciousness were alike forbidden. No individual whose skin was black, brown or yellow was ever to be held up to ridicule, or used as villain. Any kind of "Jim Crow" dialogue was sternly blue-penciled. . . .
Shu-Fen Tsai quotes a BBC interview in which Adam looked back on Susan's popularity:
It is the strangest sensation, to have a brain-child who gets famous. I never got used to seeing her picture all over the place. The worst thing about owning Susan
