[Goof]

My thanks to Panther for giving me the chance to flag up a couple of stories that have impressed me. I don’t know that the selections have any very clear overall theme, other than that they are all stories where the girls take the lead, and are (perhaps for that reason?) unduly neglected.

My interest is mainly in girls’ titles for the 8-13 age range, but I’ve put in one from outside this genre because it’s from a series which I think is top-notch quality, but undervalued.

I was first drawn into this field by a passion for the power, variety and originality of a lot of the artists, many of whom are barely known except to a few enthusiasts, and some of whom are still unnamed. That’s very much reflected in these choices, and I suppose that the unexpected quality of the art is another binding thread.

Schoolgirls’ Picture Library 76
Loyal to Her Disgraced Mother

This is a recent discovery for me thanks to this site, and is a good example of the tougher type of early girls’ school story. Misery or misfortune was the almost inevitable lot of girls’ comic heroines, but while these earlier stories usually followed a fairly standard line in adversity (typically, girl with/without her family embarks on some venture which a villain tries to sabotage), there was a vein of much harder stories which really ground the heroine into the dirt. In the most extreme of these, you would find her on the last page but three defeated at every turn, stripped of family, friends and reputation, and (the ultimate disgrace) expelled from school and awaiting departure in a “punishment room” indistinguishable from a prison cell. 

This story scores about seven on ten on this scale. The heroine has to contend with a completely ruthless adversary who blocks her every move in trying to clear her mother’s name from a theft charge, and save herself from a similar fate. She fights tooth and nail against her enemy, and does have help from one loyal friend, but this doesn’t rescue her from a pretty grim downward spiral of events until she is able turn the tables on the villain at the very last moment.

What I think sets this story apart from others of its kind is the unusually dark and menacing art, from a rather improbable source. Pat Tourret is best known for the elegantly crafted Tiffany Jones newspaper strip, and those of you who know it may find this early example of her work pretty startling – intense basilisk stares, bold heavy cross-hatching and some dramatic deep black shadowing take us beyond the conventional school drama into the realm of the horror story. If Miss Molsey were to suddenly sprout a pair of fangs, it wouldn’t much surprise us. Read and shudder…

https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=60270

Schoolgirls’ Picture Library 143
Dancer in Hiding (never mind the typo in the post title)

It wouldn’t be a post about girls’ comics without a ballet story, and this is a good one. The plot is fairly true to a formula that I’ve seen several times - mystery teacher coaches girl troupe in new ballet, villain tries to stop them. But I think it’s well told and strongly characterised, and has two distinguishing features; a quirky, just-about-believable ending, and some of the most beautiful art in the entire SPL series, by an artist who has resisted every attempt at identification. He/she was a regular SPL contributor during these early years, and further examples can be seen in numbers 16, 37, 78, 82, 86, 108, 111 and 142. This story, for me, is the best of them.

https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=95970

Super Detective Library 45
Lesley Shane: Crime from the Sky

Lesley Shane may be a bit too well known to readers for her to be worth highlighting here, but this is the series that introduced me to Super Detective, and is one of my personal favourites among 1950’s detective yarns. Hopefully, this post may help spread the word a little further.

It was originally published as a newspaper strip in the Daily Sketch, where it ran for about three years in the early 1950’s, and edited reprints of these stories provided most of the series issued by Super Detective - including this one, which was originally called “Joker in the Pack”.

Lesley wasn’t the only female gumshoe, and she may look a little conventional in post-Modesty Blaise hindsight, but for me she stood out from any others of her time. Strong-willed, crack shot, combat trained and quite unmoved by her rather male chauvinist CID fiancé’s occasional attempts to “protect” her, she was as much an action adventurer as a crime solver, and many issues in this series aren’t really detective stories at all.

This story is probably one of the less typical of the series. It’s a mixture, combining crime-busting in an exotic location with some heavy-duty action that recalls the War Libraries as much as most detective genres. I particularly like the mix of murky crime with satirical humour, both in the depiction of the villain and his gangster cronies, and Lesley’s hair-raising predicament at the end. But the standard of the whole series is very high, and I could just as easily have picked any one of a dozen other issues. If you like this one, here’s some suggested further reading that gives a feel for the range of the series: #51 “The Mystery of Table 13” (a cold war detective thriller), or #39 “The Stolen Crown” (a desert kingdom adventure with Lesley in full action mode).

As always with me, the art plays a big part. I don’t personally buy the view I’ve heard expressed that Oliver Passingham was just an Alex Raymond clone. Sure, he learned a lot from Raymond – who didn’t, around this time? But he had a strongly distinctive style of his own that was well adapted to noirish underworld stories of this kind, and would later be very effective in the younger girls’ comics, both in spooky/horror stories and grotesque comedy.

https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=74054

[Quirky Quokka]

Thanks for flying the flag for female leads, Goof.  I'll look forward to reading these.

Cheers

Quirky Quokka

[Robb_K]

Thanks Goof, for choosing these great-looking old GA stories.  The artwork looks terrific!  Super linework on the inks, great staging, and use of light and dark for mood. Flipping through the pages, I can tell that the storytelling has just as high a standard as the artwork.  I'm sure I'll get a lot of entertainment from reading these stories.

[Quirky Quokka]

School Girl's Picture Library #76 - Loyal to Her Disgraced Mother


This book was published in 1960, so seems a little old-fashioned now. But they were certainly popular at the 
time. The letter at the end says there were over 100 000 readers, with some as far away as Australia. Well I'm reading it in Australia 64 years later, so I bet that's something the writer and artist wouldn't have dreamed of back then.

First, some comments on the story. It's a spin on the usual boarding school story, only instead of the daughter being sent off to boarding school initially, the mother goes off to boarding school during the term to teach and leaves the daughter at home with Hannah, the old housekeeper. There is no father on the scene, but also no explanation of what happened to him.

p. 5 - It seemed strange that the mother was so keen to send Julie to the same boarding school where she had been treated so badly. It might have made more sense if Julie had begged to go. But in any case, we needed to get Julie there or there would be no story.

p. 8 - A bit too much of a coincidence that Julie just happens to be sitting in the train compartment next to the compartment that holds the two baddies. But if she hadn't overheard that conversation, she wouldn't have had her first clue.

pp. 14-15 - I haven't heard the expression 'getting a wigging' before (p. 14) or the expression that Miss Molsey is 'a bit of a tartar' (p. 15). I can guess from the context, but if Paw Broon is reading, maybe he can fill us in.

p. 28 - The blue and white vase at the centre of the mystery was made by the former headmistress, who was a master at her art. So it seems pretty unbelievable that Muriel, with Julie's help, could whip up something almost identical, including firing and glazing, in so short a time (p. 40).

p. 61 - Unless I've missed something, it's not really explained who the accomplice is and how the letter fell into his hands.

But in spite of a few problems, it's a good story overall. It's probably the sort of thing I'd read if I was a schoolgirl back then. The story itself is quite well written. I imagine a lot of girls would prefer to read a story in this form rather than a book, so it would have gotten girls reading. The themes of loyalty, bullying and rumour-mongering are just as relevant today. Julie's loyalty to her mother is admirable, as is Muriel's loyalty to Julie. It shows the difference between a true friend and those who'll leave you in the ditch when there's a hint of trouble. I would have liked to know Miss Molsey's fate. Did they lock her up and throw away the key? Perhaps hard labour making bricks in the prison kiln would have been a suitable punishment. Or they could try throwing a bucket of water over her and wait to see if she melted like the Wicked Witch of the West. 

The art is also good. The facial expressions are well-drawn and there's some good movement in some of the panels. Also lots of interesting uses of shading.

Overall, an interesting book. Probably not my cup of tea now, but would certainly have fit the bill for schoolgirls at the time.

Thanks Goof

Quirky Quokka

[Robb_K]

School Girl's Picture Library #76 - Loyal to Her Disgraced Mother


pp. 14-15 - I haven't heard the expression 'getting a wigging' before (p. 14) or the expression that Miss Molsey is 'a bit of a tartar' (p. 15). I can guess from the context, but if Paw Broon is reading, maybe he can fill us in.

Quirky Quokka

Getting a wigging was a harsh chastising or rebuking from someone of authority (or who wanted to feign or flaunt authority) over a person accused of doing wrong.  No doubt it came from the well-known idea of a judge chastising and rebuking an accused person (defendant) in a courtroom, as judges wear wigs and rebuke defendants who are found guilty. This could apply to one's parents, teacher, schoolmaster (headmaster), a policeman, etc.

A Tartar in slang would be a wild and uncouth person, could also apply to a troublemaker.

I'd guess that both these terms are only used by very old people nowadays.

[paw broon]

What Robb wrote.
A Tartar. A stickler. Someone who rules with a rod of iron. Harsh. Unbending.  No leeway.
Well, that's what I think a tartar is.
I've had a good wigging on occasions, at school.  You're right Robb, I doubt many people would use those terms now, and I'm old.
So pleased to find Goof pushing these lovely pocket libraries and particularly Lesley Shane. 
Edith Hardy wrote an article in a fanzine about 5 Fantastic? (not sure) Females, which included Ms. Shane.  Let me know if you fancy a look, if I can find it, that is.?
It's  good to find another knowledgeable fan challenging the idea that Passingham is simply a Raymond clone. 

[Quirky Quokka]

Robb and Paw, thank you both for explaining 'getting a wigging' and 'she's a bit of a tartar'. I've never heard those phrases here in the colonies, and don't recall having heard it in any old British TV shows or movies, though it may have just gone over my head. And the bit about wigging possibly coming from judge's wigs sounds plausible. Not sure if I'll be adding these to my vocabulary, but always good to learn something new 

Cheers

QQ

[SuperScrounge]

Schoolgirls’ Picture Library #76

Loyal to Her Disgraced Mother

Hmmm... a valuable item disappears, an innocent person is assumed guilty, and the item is hidden somewhere at the place it disappeared from... is it just me or is this like every third or fourth plot in these types of books?

Had a funny thought while reading this. Betty as Julie and Miss Grundy as the evil teacher. 

A secret panel that can only be opened with a pottery vase??? Suddenly the trap at the beginning of Raiders of the Lost Ark is seeming more and more plausible. Would have made the ending more exciting as Julie and Miss Mosley race down the school hallway as poison darts shoot from the walls and a giant boulder comes after them. 

Really nice art and while I thought the story was a little contrived, it, more or less, did its job.

[Quirky Quokka]

Schoolgirls’ Picture Library #76

Loyal to Her Disgraced Mother

Had a funny thought while reading this. Betty as Julie and Miss Grundy as the evil teacher. 

A secret panel that can only be opened with a pottery vase??? Suddenly the trap at the beginning of Raiders of the Lost Ark is seeming more and more plausible. Would have made the ending more exciting as Julie and Miss Mosley race down the school hallway as poison darts shoot from the walls and a giant boulder comes after them. 

SuperScrounge, I think Miss Grundy is a sweetheart compared to the diabolical Miss Molsey. Would have been great to see her come to a sticky end--crushed by the giant boulder, shot with a poison arrow during archery practice, locked in the pottery kiln, falling into a vat of boiling oil--though I guess that wasn't in the spirit of the Schoolgirls' Picture Library.  Maybe you could whizz up the alternative version.

Cheers

QQ

[Quirky Quokka]

Schoolgirls’ Picture Library 143 - Dancer in Hiding


The art in this one is especially good. The fact that it focused on a ballet gave a lot of scope for movement and the artist did an excellent job of the different poses and moves of the figures. The faces were also very good and there were lots of interesting angles that gave different perspectives. Even if you don't think the story will interest you, it's worth looking through for the artwork.

It was a good story overall that would have appealed to younger girls at the time. The masked woman makes it mysterious right from the get-go. A few things I noticed in the story:

p. 2 - How does the pianist know they're dancing well when she has her back to them?

p. 3 - It was pretty brave of Vicki to run after a masked and cloaked figure who'd just thrown a rock through the window. My first thought would have been that someone wished them harm. But jolly hockey sticks, these girls won't let anything stop them and it turned out well.

p. 9 - I had to laugh at the sketches of the ballet. "And as they began to see the possibilities of such a ballet, their excitement grew." Really? It looked hilarious and I don't think that was the aim. Laura the scene painter also has her work cut out for her if she's using that tiny paintbrush to do the backdrop.

p. 10 - It would take some practice to do a ballet in those Edwardian dresses. They don't exactly leave the legs free.

p. 13 - I did a double-take when Sir Percy Granger popped up, because I thought they were talking about the famous Australian composer. But when I looked the composer up, it's spelt with an 'i' (Percy Grainger). Though I wondered if they were giving him a nod.

I must admit that I misunderstood the premise here because I thought LeBlanc had stolen the Ballet of Sports and that the performance was going to show that Ainsworth had written it. I couldn't understand how that would clear up a case of plagiarism. But when I got to the end, I realised that LeBlanc had stolen another ballet and that he'd convinced Sir Percy that it couldn't have been written by Ainsworth because he had no new ideas. Now this new one would show that he does indeed have new ideas. At least, I think that's the gist  I also couldn't understand why the ballerina had to wear a mask in front of the girls, but I guess she was worried LeBlanc could pop up at any moment.

p. 16 - The varnish in the library was an ingenious plan, but should we be concerned that Laura was able to get her hands on such a large quantity of varnish at such short notice and could have passed out on the fumes before the others got there?

p. 22 - I'm not sure I'd be as excited as little Binnie if I had to do a somersault dressed as a croquet ball 

p. 33 - The girls set out on their bicycles at dusk, and find Elisabet Beaumont, the masked singer, is performing at a theatre at night. Yet they then warn her not to come to rehearsal that night? The timeline doesn't fit.

p. 51 - When a fellow stops the bus and tells the girls to come with him, you know it won't end well. What a dastardly plan to have them stranded on an island without their mobile phones Lucky Ainsworth was able to spy them performing his ballet in full costume on the rocky island.

Well, there are a few plot holes, but the girls win the day, Ainsworth is vindicated, the baddie loses and they all live happily ever after. An appealing story for girls at the time, with excellent artwork.

Cheers

QQ

[SuperScrounge]

A secret panel that can only be opened with a pottery vase???

I really should have explained why I found this ludicrous. The gal decided to hide the valuable pottery from possible crooks. Eh, okay. But to hide it behind a panel that can only be opened by sticking a piece of pottery against it and turning it? Bwah? Talk about clunky. Are the rises and ridges on the pottery and the panel big enough to turn? What about shrinkage and melting during the firing process? And most importantly... what if someone broke the vase? It's a terrible idea for a key.


Schoolgirls’ Picture Library 143

Dancer in Hiding

A masked dancer? Let me guess, her parents were killed by theatre critics and she fights crime in retaliation! 

A nice, if flawed, story, (QQ listed a few I noticed and a few I missed) and good art.

[Goof]

Thanks for your comments, Quirky Quokka. I’m sorry I’ve been a bit slow to respond, but I have been away from home since posting the stories.

Schoolgirl's Picture Library 76 - Loyal to Her Disgraced Mother

You’ve highlighted two points in particular which have also struck me about this type of story.

"But they were certainly popular at the time. The letter at the end says there were over 100 000 readers, with some as far away as Australia".

The SPL series was a spin off from School Friend comic. When this first appeared in 1950, it was the first of the modern picture story papers for girls, and a largely untried format for this readership, as earlier girls’ papers had been text story only. It offered a diet of school, ballet and exotic adventure that was very similar to the early SPLs. The first issues sold a million copies a week; that’s more than even Eagle achieved on its first appearance, despite its far superior production values. In the context of that time, this indicates a pretty phenomenal level of interest in this kind of fiction. Although I don’t know any figures, I have heard from more than one source that girls’ comics consistently outsold those for boys for many years. I don’t think that nearly enough recognition has been given to the huge popularity of these stories.

"I think Miss Grundy is a sweetheart compared to the diabolical Miss Molsey. Would have been great to see her come to a sticky end--crushed by the giant boulder, shot with a poison arrow during archery practice, locked in the pottery kiln, falling into a vat of boiling oil--though I guess that wasn't in the spirit of the Schoolgirls' Picture Library."

You touch on a point about girls’ comics stories in general which I’ve found both baffling and frustrating, and which affected the genre right through its history – what happens to the villains at the end of the story.

In fact, Miss Molsey has come off worse than most, simply because she was actually arrested - even though we’re not told what happened later. This is far from typical. It’s much more common for the villains simply to fade away at the end, with no attempt made to catch them or bring them to account. This may be understandable up to a point in the kinder world of these early stories, but it persists into the far grittier stories in 1970s/1980s comics. Some of these deal with what, in a more realistic setting, would be serious crimes, but still many of the villains are allowed to get away with murder. Sometimes almost literally murder; here’s an example from Tammy in 1971. The heroine is sent to what is supposed to be a “reform school”. In fact, the headmistress, helped by a head prefect, runs a regime of humiliation and outright torture of the inmates. At the end, they try to kill the heroine and her three friends by sabotaging a cable car that they are using to escape. When the authorities eventually catch up with them, the prefect (who did the attempted killing), simple sneaks away. The headmistress however is caught, and…loses her job.

I don’t think it’s merely ghoulish to be concerned about this kind of thing. These stories are mostly about good triumphing over evil. They have a moral message, and I think that’s compromised when the villains are allowed to get off scot free.

Editors went to quite a lot of trouble to get feedback for their stories, so we can probably assume that this was what most readers wanted. Why so? Well, there’s been a certain amount of scholarly research into girls’ comics in recent years, but I’ve yet to come across a convincing explanation for this.

Schoolgirls’ Picture Library 143 - Dancer in Hiding

Yes, I agree that the art is what really stands out here. What I particularly wanted to highlight was that the artwork for these stories has been so undervalued that an artist as fine as this has remained completely anonymous.

I’m not sure that there’s anything so unusual about ballets danced in long dresses. A lot of the original Ballets Russes costumes were calf-length or longer. Also plenty of more modern productions use long heavy costumes where the story and period require it.

I think you’re right that Sir Percy Granger name-drops the composer. The interesting thing perhaps is that the writer probably expected his 8- 13 year old readership to pick up the reference. I’ve seen other more explicit examples of how writers of girls’ stories expected their ballet-mad readers to be surprisingly well informed about music.

Personally, I don’t tend to worry much about incidental inconsistencies in stories like this, but if we are doing this kind of analysis I’m a bit surprised that comments so far haven’t picked up on Vicki’s willingness to deface a public poster by drawing a mask on Elisabet Beaumont’s picture!

[Quirky Quokka]

Thanks for those comments, Goof. Here are a few thoughts:

I’m sorry I’ve been a bit slow to respond, but I have been away from home since posting the stories.

No worries at all. Everyone on here has different schedules and we comment when we can.

The SPL series was a spin off from School Friend comic. When this first appeared in 1950, it was the first of the modern picture story papers for girls, and a largely untried format for this readership, as earlier girls’ papers had been text story only. It offered a diet of school, ballet and exotic adventure that was very similar to the early SPLs. The first issues sold a million copies a week; that’s more than even Eagle achieved on its first appearance, despite its far superior production values. In the context of that time, this indicates a pretty phenomenal level of interest in this kind of fiction. Although I don’t know any figures, I have heard from more than one source that girls’ comics consistently outsold those for boys for many years. I don’t think that nearly enough recognition has been given to the huge popularity of these stories.

I've managed to pick up a couple of volumes of School Friends annuals from the 1960s at second-hand sales. I would have loved these when I was probably around 9-13, but I don't recall anything similar in Australia. I still like looking through them now. Have also picked up a couple of volumes of Eagle annuals. My hubby remembers reading Dan Dare comics as a kid, but I don't remember seeing them.

You touch on a point about girls’ comics stories in general which I’ve found both baffling and frustrating, and which affected the genre right through its history – what happens to the villains at the end of the story.

In fact, Miss Molsey has come off worse than most, simply because she was actually arrested - even though we’re not told what happened later. This is far from typical. It’s much more common for the villains simply to fade away at the end, with no attempt made to catch them or bring them to account. This may be understandable up to a point in the kinder world of these early stories, but it persists into the far grittier stories in 1970s/1980s comics. Some of these deal with what, in a more realistic setting, would be serious crimes, but still many of the villains are allowed to get away with murder. Sometimes almost literally murder; here’s an example from Tammy in 1971. The heroine is sent to what is supposed to be a “reform school”. In fact, the headmistress, helped by a head prefect, runs a regime of humiliation and outright torture of the inmates. At the end, they try to kill the heroine and her three friends by sabotaging a cable car that they are using to escape. When the authorities eventually catch up with them, the prefect (who did the attempted killing), simple sneaks away. The headmistress however is caught, and…loses her job.

I don’t think it’s merely ghoulish to be concerned about this kind of thing. These stories are mostly about good triumphing over evil. They have a moral message, and I think that’s compromised when the villains are allowed to get off scot free.

That's interesting. I can certainly appreciate that they didn't want to be bloodthirsty or show retribution, but it's strange that they didn't even show many examples of criminals being arrested. That's quite a contrast to the 'Crime Does Not Pay' kinds of comics, where they would even show criminals being hung. Not suggesting they do that in these girls' comics of course, but you would think that showing the fate of the crook would reinforce the moral point.

Schoolgirls’ Picture Library 143 - Dancer in Hiding

Yes, I agree that the art is what really stands out here. What I particularly wanted to highlight was that the artwork for these stories has been so undervalued that an artist as fine as this has remained completely anonymous.

Yes, it's excellent. Such a shame the artists didn't always get their due. Sometimes the writers weren't named either. I guess the publishers saw them just as employees or contract workers, but they were doing top quality art.

Personally, I don’t tend to worry much about incidental inconsistencies in stories like this, but if we are doing this kind of analysis I’m a bit surprised that comments so far haven’t picked up on Vicki’s willingness to deface a public poster by drawing a mask on Elisabet Beaumont’s picture!

Actually, I did wonder about that but forgot to mention it. But rather than defacing the poster, I was thinking about how the masked singer was trying to keep her real identity secret and the mask added to the poster would have shown LeBlanc that they were onto it.

And I do like to find those inconsistencies. I'm a former academic and am now a writer/editor, so I can't help myself. But it usually doesn't stop me enjoying a story if it's still pretty good overall 

Cheers

QQ

[The Australian Panther]

Schoolgirls’ Picture Library 76
Loyal to Her Disgraced Mother
https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=60270

When I saw 'Goof's posts on these British Girls comics, I was quite happy. As comic book works they are as good as anything on the site. Glad to see him identifying the artists, I see the Reading Group as a way to expose the more arcane corners of CB+ to a wider audience.
I'm a bloke, started reading comics in mid-primary school, so wasn't particularly interested in  'Girls' comics. But I would always browse anything on the newstands and always appreciated the quality.
So, this one.
They almost all featured schoolgirls from Private schools. A lot of the stories happened in the schools and those who didn't usually featured private school-girls on holiday or groups of them on excursions.
There is almost always someone falsely accused of a crime - usually theft. They are disgraced and no longer have access to (the school-mansion-castle) and so the girls have to solve the mystery. The stolen object is usually still on the premises and hidden and comes to light at the end of the narrative. This is what Hitchcock called the MaGuffin.
I should point out that the school as such is never at fault, there is a strong 'loyalty to your school' element to these. Both myself - male and 2 of my sisters went to boarding schools and let me tell you that's not always the case.     
So, lets look at this one.
The key words are in the title, 'Loyal' and 'Disgraced'.
There are a lot of overheard 'Whispered' conversations in these stories.
On page #2 and the narrative begins to unravel when Julie overhears the conversation in the train.
Strange expression, 'Might even use her position to hit against me' ?
Dying her hair seems apt for a girl's comic. Don't think that would happen in a boys comics. 
"she was a bully at heart' I have just given a talk on bullying to a men's group, so that stands out for me.
Now that I think about it, 'Bullying' is usually one of the characteristics of  the villains in these stories.
'A bit of a Tartar.'      

The Tatars are a Turkic people living in Asia and Europe who were one of the five major tribal confederations (khanlig) in the Mongolian plateau in the 12th century –
user214187
Commented Jan 8, 2017 at 13:06
In Alan Bennett's The Uncommon Reader, the character of Queen Elizabeth refers to the photographer Cecil Beaton as "a bit of a tartar," and then goes on to describe him telling her to stand here or stand there, which supports the bossy/domineering definition. –
Jim McCoy Commented Jan 6, 2019 at 12:22 

Enter DAPHNE, the Nerd ugly duckling, who we know immediately is going to be a friend of Julie. Although in this case, it's hard to see why she was introduced at all.
If Julie's mother was 'Miss Jones' it's stretching it to believe that "Miss Mosley' wouldn't suspect 'Julie Jones' from the get-go.
Pages 38- 39. The baddie always meets with a mysterious stranger, usually a male, who we can see from his face is a nasty piece of work.
The idea that a shape on a wall is the key for a secret entrance is very (Can't help myself) 'Indiana' Jones!
There is always a secret panel or room in a building in these stories.
The Heroine gets framed, but truth will out and the baddie gets hers.
Since a policeman turns up and reveals the culprit in the act, I think it's a given that there will be institutional punishment, but clearly the main point in these is the clearing of the name of the accused.
It seems that these books are designed for a very specific audience of girls who have a private school background. They are also very Biritish of a certain era. 
Yes, the art is excellent and appropriate.
More on these later.             

[Goof]

Thanks for your comments, SuperScrounge and Panther. I hope you don’t mind a compendium reply, as you’ve both raised essentially the same point about the formula that this story follows.

Schoolgirls’ Picture Library 76
Loyal to Her Disgraced Mother

I’m glad that you enjoyed the story. I thought that the very surprising and individual art lifted it above the norm.

“Hmmm... a valuable item disappears, an innocent person is assumed guilty, and the item is hidden somewhere at the place it disappeared from... is it just me or is this like every third or fourth plot in these types of books?”
   
“There is almost always someone falsely accused of a crime - usually theft. They are disgraced and no longer have access to (the school-mansion-castle) and so the girls have to solve the mystery. The stolen object is usually still on the premises and hidden and comes to light at the end of the narrative.”

Yes, I think you’re both right that the story follows one of several standard formulas which provided the plots for most of the SPLs around this time, although I don’t know that this particular formula predominated. It’s probably not surprising that the plots of most of the PL stories were formulaic, when the publication of the books was such a production line. At the height of their popularity, Fleetway was issuing eight girls’ PL titles per month – four SPLs and two each in the Princess Picture Library and School Friend Picture Library series.

In fact, adventure and mystery formulas were so much the norm for girls’ PLs (I can’t speak for the boys’ titles), that when popular characters from the comics were transferred into PL stories, they were expected to conform to a standard format even if it didn’t much suit them.
   
One example of this which sticks out is The Happy Days series from Princess. This was a gentle domestic comedy series written with a Wodehousian sharpness and wit by Jenny Butterworth, which ran for 13 years. Its rare forays into crime never went beyond farcical misunderstandings about perfectly innocent bystanders, but when the heroine Sue Day and her friends were transferred to PL they found themselves fighting gangs of smugglers and international jewel thieves for real. It’s a tribute to the writer(s) that they managed the transfer as well as they did, but it inevitably changed the characters over time, and in their later PL stories Sue and co were little different from other PL adventurers such as the Peewits, or any other Famous Five-like gang of intrepid children.

The editors evidently thought that this was what readers wanted, but for me it was rather limiting, and the later PLs did move toward a wider range of story types, which gave more scope for comedy in particular.

“It seems that these books are designed for a very specific audience of girls who have a private school background.”

Odd though it may seem, I think that the appeal of these boarding school stories went way beyond readers who had a background in private education. As I mentioned above, School Friend comic started with a readership of a million a week. Its lead story was The Silent Three, archetype of girls’ boarding school picture stories, which was popular enough to run (with interruptions) for about 13 years. But the ultimate proof of the general popularity of the genre was the series that lasted longer than anything else in girls’ comics – The Four Marys, which ran in Bunty from first issue to last. Unlike some of the Fleetway titles, Bunty was aimed squarely at lower middle/working class girls (it’s the one my female relatives read, and my family never got within shooting distance of private education!). Yet the series dealt with a traditional elite public school, complete with all sorts of arcane names and customs and an earl’s daughter as one of the heroines. Despite this, it ran for 43 years.

[Goof]

Thanks for your reply, QQ.

“I've managed to pick up a couple of volumes of School Friends annuals from the 1960s at second-hand sales. I would have loved these when I was probably around 9-13, but I don't recall anything similar in Australia. I still like looking through them now.”

Fleetway annuals are quite a good way to sample the contents of the associated comics and picture libraries, as they include a lot of reprints.

Some UK titles used to offer subscriptions to readers in Australia, New Zealand or Canada, and at least some of the SPLs were also issued with “overseas” price tags – maybe 40-50% more than the UK price. Overall, I think a fair bit of UK girls’ comics material found its way to Australia. I’ve actually bought quite a few UK girls’ comics from Australian sellers!

I have most of the School Friend annuals, so if you would be interested in me trying to suggest some names of artists, just let me know which years you have.

“Such a shame the artists didn't always get their due. Sometimes the writers weren't named either. I guess the publishers saw them just as employees or contract workers, but they were doing top quality art.”

The only reason that I’ve heard, which seems to have come from the publishers themselves, was that they didn’t credit artists’ names because they didn’t want them poached by other firms. As most of the best artists found work with a variety of publishers via their agents as a matter of course, I don’t find this particularly convincing. I think it’s more likely that they kept artists (and writers) anonymous to lower their profile and therefore their pay rates. Several accounts from the original creators themselves show that editors went to great lengths to keep artists and writers apart. It was quite normal for the artist to have no direct contact with the writer whose story he/she was illustrating.

[SuperScrounge]

“It seems that these books are designed for a very specific audience of girls who have a private school background.”

Odd though it may seem, I think that the appeal of these boarding school stories went way beyond readers who had a background in private education.

Years ago in an issue of Writer's Digest a writer of teenage girl stories said she assumed her readership was girls of the same age as her heroines, but at a book signing she was surprised to be signing books for pre-teens. The only teenage girl mentioned she was just their to get the book signed for her younger sister who was sick.

So there is an appeal to people to read things that they might experience later on or never experience.

So a country where private boarding schools are a big deal to part of society is probably of interest to those wouldn't get to experience it.

Several accounts from the original creators themselves show that editors went to great lengths to keep artists and writers apart. It was quite normal for the artist to have no direct contact with the writer whose story he/she was illustrating.

Mark Evanier talking about his Gold Key Comics days mentioned that the editors kept the writers and artists apart. In one script he wrote a note to the artist to 'go wild' and the editors were worried the artist might draw something too shocking or something. Funny that both sides of the pond had editors who wanted to keep a separation between writers and artists (well, when they were separate people, that is.)

[Quirky Quokka]

I have most of the School Friend annuals, so if you would be interested in me trying to suggest some names of artists, just let me know which years you have.

Hi Goof - On closer inspection of my bookcase, it turns out that only one of them is the School Friend Annual and that's from 1963. The other one I had was Schoolgirls' Annual which was 1968.  I also have two of the June annuals (1963 and 1967) and the Eagle Annual from 1968. I found all of them at second-hand sales. Always fun to look through.

Cheers

QQ

[SuperScrounge]

Super Detective Library #45

Crime From the Sky

Good story. No nits jumped out at me. Okay art. Nice choice, Goof.

[The Australian Panther]

  It seems that these books are designed for a very specific audience of girls who have a private school background.

Let me edit that a bit. 
It seems that these books are written by a very specific class of women and men who have had a private school background. We shouldn't argue with success.
What I have read about the British publishing industry would seem to bear the above theory out.

Odd though it may seem, I think that the appeal of these boarding school stories went way beyond readers who had a background in private education.

Clearly that must have been the case, to explain the popularity of the books for so many years.
So, obviously a very successful formula. Also, perhaps the private school setting was a fantasy that many girls could relate to?

[Morgus]

Nice selection of comics I wouldn’t normally read. The art was fine, and the stories had a sort of NANCY DREW vibe to them, reminding me of the early to mid 60’s editions. Those Ruddy Nappi covers for the NANCY DREWS were the best part. They always seemed to promise adventures that were spookier and more dangerous then you got when you read them. (My older sister collected a few...but it was the same deal with The Hardy Boys that I got...) You have to wonder how this comic line would have changed if it had hung around.

[Goof]

Thanks for your reply, Panther.

“It seems that these books are written by a very specific class of women and men who have had a private school background. We shouldn't argue with success.
What I have read about the British publishing industry would seem to bear the above theory out.”

Yes, I think that’s probably true. Writing seems to have been a respectable occupation for the privately educated at that time, and this appears to have included commercial writing such as comics. Wodehouse made his start writing for boys’ story papers, Dorothy L Sayers as an advertising copywriter. Charles (Bunter) Hamilton was privately educated, though oddly, I don’t think that he went to boarding school. The little we know of the writers (and artists) of these early girls’ stories suggests that some at least were from this pre-war generation.

“Also, perhaps the private school setting was a fantasy that many girls could relate to?”

Also true, I agree. Maybe a more down-to-earth (and therefore more attainable) version of the exotic princess heroines that generated many stories.

[Goof]

Hi QQ,

“if you would be interested in me trying to suggest some names of artists, just let me know which years you have.”

“On closer inspection of my bookcase, it turns out that only one of them is the School Friend Annual and that's from 1963. The other one I had was Schoolgirls' Annual which was 1968.  I also have two of the June annuals (1963 and 1967) and the Eagle Annual from 1968.”

Here are the artist names I can offer for these books:

June 1963
Kathy at Marvin Grange School: Selby Donnison
My Friend Pavlo: Richard O Rose
Cloris and Claire: Roy Wilson
Diana’s Diary: Selby Donnison
Pepita and the TV Star: A E Allen
I Remember: Septimus Scott (signed)
Hunt the Smuggler: Mollie Higgins
Happy Birthday, Mr President: Tom Kerr
Dixie of Dockland: Mollie Higgins

June 1967
Miss Adventure: Bill Baker
Madcap Marie Malone: Leslie Branton
Game to Nurse Jones: Dudley Wynne
Cherry’s Windmill Holiday: John Armstrong
Bessie Bunter: probably Cecil Orr
Vanessa from Venus: Cecil Orr
Send for Nurse Katie: this 3 page feature actually has 3 different artists:
Page 1: Veronica Weir (née Fryer?)
Page 2: Jack Hardie
Page 3: Selby Donnison
Cloris and Claire: Roy Wilson
The Vision of St Francis: Henry Seabright (signed)
Lucky’s Living Doll: Robert MacGillivray
The Secret of Ghost Mountain: Dudley Wynne
Kathy of Marvin Grange School: Leslie Otway
Bessie Bunter: Cecil Orr or Arthur Martin
Cherry and the Ghost of Harford House: John Armstrong
Angela’s Trouble Trail: John Armstrong
Top of the Class Quiz: Don Gold
The Mystery of the Disappearing Dogs: Valerie Gaskell or possibly Evelyn Flinders

I didn’t manage too well with School Friend 1963:
Tracy on Location: Selby Donnison
Babs and the Family: probably Stanley Herbert
A Present for Princess Lola: A E Allen
Pat of the Dolphins: Mollie Higgins
The Dress: Cecil Orr

I don’t have the Schoolgirls’ or Eagle 1968 annuals.

One interesting thing brought out by this kind of list is how many of the artists worked exclusively for girls’ comics – which I think is why they’re so little known. Boys’ comics lovers may recognise Donnison, Wilson, Kerr, maybe Hardie or Otway. Apart from the better known book illustrators included (such as Rose and Scott), the rest are probably known only to fans of the girls’ titles.

Hope the names are of some use.

[Quirky Quokka]

Hi QQ,

“if you would be interested in me trying to suggest some names of artists, just let me know which years you have.”

“On closer inspection of my bookcase, it turns out that only one of them is the School Friend Annual and that's from 1963. The other one I had was Schoolgirls' Annual which was 1968.  I also have two of the June annuals (1963 and 1967) and the Eagle Annual from 1968.”

Here are the artist names I can offer for these books:

June 1963
Kathy at Marvin Grange School: Selby Donnison
My Friend Pavlo: Richard O Rose
Cloris and Claire: Roy Wilson
Diana’s Diary: Selby Donnison
Pepita and the TV Star: A E Allen
I Remember: Septimus Scott (signed)
Hunt the Smuggler: Mollie Higgins
Happy Birthday, Mr President: Tom Kerr
Dixie of Dockland: Mollie Higgins

June 1967
Miss Adventure: Bill Baker
Madcap Marie Malone: Leslie Branton
Game to Nurse Jones: Dudley Wynne
Cherry’s Windmill Holiday: John Armstrong
Bessie Bunter: probably Cecil Orr
Vanessa from Venus: Cecil Orr
Send for Nurse Katie: this 3 page feature actually has 3 different artists:
Page 1: Veronica Weir (née Fryer?)
Page 2: Jack Hardie
Page 3: Selby Donnison
Cloris and Claire: Roy Wilson
The Vision of St Francis: Henry Seabright (signed)
Lucky’s Living Doll: Robert MacGillivray
The Secret of Ghost Mountain: Dudley Wynne
Kathy of Marvin Grange School: Leslie Otway
Bessie Bunter: Cecil Orr or Arthur Martin
Cherry and the Ghost of Harford House: John Armstrong
Angela’s Trouble Trail: John Armstrong
Top of the Class Quiz: Don Gold
The Mystery of the Disappearing Dogs: Valerie Gaskell or possibly Evelyn Flinders

I didn’t manage too well with School Friend 1963:
Tracy on Location: Selby Donnison
Babs and the Family: probably Stanley Herbert
A Present for Princess Lola: A E Allen
Pat of the Dolphins: Mollie Higgins
The Dress: Cecil Orr

I don’t have the Schoolgirls’ or Eagle 1968 annuals.

One interesting thing brought out by this kind of list is how many of the artists worked exclusively for girls’ comics – which I think is why they’re so little known. Boys’ comics lovers may recognise Donnison, Wilson, Kerr, maybe Hardie or Otway. Apart from the better known book illustrators included (such as Rose and Scott), the rest are probably known only to fans of the girls’ titles.

Hope the names are of some use.

Thanks for going to all that trouble, Goof. I'll have a look and see what else I can find for some of them.

Cheers

QQ

[Robb_K]

Schoolgirl's Picture Library 76

Loyal to Her Disgraced Mother
First off, I have to commend the artist on her (possibly Pat Tourret) (or his, if not her) great job of inking, great detail, staging, differing camera angles, and use of dark and light to set mood.  As stated by several posters, above, the story seems to be using one of the most common template formats of a wrongly-accused suspected "thief", and the private girls' school protagonist (and sidekick(s)) working hard to restore the good standing of the accused.  As was stated above, this is very similar to The Nancy Drew Mysteries, especially in terms of the mildness of the "adventures" in terms of lack of violence, viciousness of the crimes, and harshness of treatment of the apprehended villains in comparison to boys comics, and especially those aimed at early and mid teenaged boys, which display not only more violence, but also more "action" (athletic movement).  The only possibility for that in this story was the one-panel table tennis scene, and the one panel in which Julie started running to try to get to the Headmasters' office ahead of the villainess. In that panel, Julie was portrayed seen head-on straight with the camera, showing the least movement possible.  Girls seem to concentrate much more on looks on characters' faces, words spoken (psychology of word choice) than physicality.  This story shows, almost exclusively, people standing and talking, standing and thinking, and sitting and talking, or thinking. A comic book aimed at boys would have shown more panels of running in times of fear and emergency, showing more side view, to see exaggerated limb extension and athletic movements.  That evil stare by Miss Molsey on Page 44 (Panel1) is perfect, telling Julie that the villainess has won, and she should have no more hope of clearing her mother's name.  I fully expected the new Headmistress to offer Julie's mother her old teaching job, or an even more important job sat the school, once the true thieves had been apprehended and she'd been cleared.  That is so often part of the "happy ending".  Of course, in real life, she'd have to wait for at least the next school year or a current teacher retirement or leaving.  But those sugar-coated endings are usually just a quick mention afterthought. 

Also, I thought it was somewhat surprising that the "MacGuffin" of this story, the priceless pottery collection, was never displayed for the reader to see.  The author and artist could have shown it in a single panel "flashback" memory of the mother, when she told Julie her story.  It would better tie the object of the story to the reader, who needs to feel that it has enough value for thieves to risk imprisonment when stealing it.  Every one of my editors would have mentioned that to me had my storyboards not included such a panel.  All we saw was the very top of one vase, sitting in the coffer.