[Robb_K]

Schoolgirls’ Picture Library 143

Dancer in Hiding

Yes, this unidentified artist's drawings are quite good (although, all the young girls' faces are too similar (they all could be sisters)).  The story is very unrealistic.  How likely is it that an unsuccessful ballet writer steals the first ballet of an amateur, and it is a success.  And so, the thief then tries to sabotage any success that the writer's second ballet will have, when succeeding with that plan would likely be extremely difficult, and it would be a lot easier to steal the second ballet and pretend he wrote it than to spend all his time trying to block every move The star professional ballerina and true ballet composer attempt.  This defies logic.  Why would a highly successful ballerina need to get a class of untrained amateur schoolgirls to dance her fiancee's ballet to make ballet officials believe he wrote it?  Why not have her professional friends state that it is excellent work, and why wouldn't the professional ballet officials and producers believe her over an upstart writer, who never before wrote anything of that good quality?  If she is one of the very highest level ballerinas, she could have brought her fiancee's music to her own producer, put on a demonstration of it to him, and told him that she wants her own troupe to perform it as her next project.  If she is so famous, and in such demand, she could get financial backers to back that project, and might even be wealthy enough to back it with her own money.  The kind of hounding activities LeBlanc was performing smack more of a personal vendetta based on hatred, than trying to continue stealing a rival's compositions, or to cover up the fact that he stole one.  If the villain cannot write successful ballets, there is little to be gained by stealing just one.  He would need to continue stealing them to keep up a successful career.  Characters' motivations are a major key to the integrity, credibility, and believability of a story.  Even at 8 years old, I'd have had a hard time enjoying this story (with a premise with more holes in it than Swiss cheese) for anything other than looking at its nice artwork. 

[Goof]

Thanks for your reply, Morgus. I’m glad you liked the choices.

“You have to wonder how this comic line would have changed if it had hung around.”

The short answer is, the comics got better. I’m a big admirer of these early stories (or I wouldn’t have selected them here), but for me there’s no doubt that, generally speaking, the later SPLs were more varied in story type and freer and more original in artwork. Looking further on, the best of the later girls’ comics (1970s/1980s) were also harder hitting, more realistic and sophisticated in story treatment, and often more technically accomplished both in writing and art. If you are keen on the spooky and dangerous, try the late 70s horror comic Misty:

https://www.juliaround.com/misty

None of these stories can be downloaded here for copyright reasons, but Rebellion have reprinted a few of the best. It’s worth trying Moonchild, the Four Faces of Eve, The Sentinels, or Wolf Girl.

[Goof]

Thanks for your comments, Robb K.

Schoolgirls’ Picture Library 76
Loyal to Her Disgraced Mother

Firstly, Pat Tourret was indeed female, the eldest of three sisters (Pat, Gwen and Shirley), who were all artists on girls’ comics for around 10 years from the mid ‘50s to the mid ‘60s. They had a broadly similar style, and worked mostly on romance titles. The rest of their careers was devoted to book illustration. My personal preference is for Gwen, who had more warmth and flexibility than the others. All the sisters seem to me to have been superb technicians in their mature work (this is an early example), but it’s probably fair to say that Pat was the best line artist of the three.

I agree about the virtually complete lack of violence in these stories, compared to those aimed at boys. The boys’ stories could reach high levels of excitement with combat sequences at key moments. The girls’ story creators had to do without this, but it seems to me that they made a virtue of this necessity by developing more psychological tools, the use of which depended much on the skill of the artist. Something that I particularly admire is the way artists were able to generate tension, drama and even confrontation without being able to resort to the standard fist or gun fight that was a routine of the boys’ genre, by use of facial and body language to convey mood, suppressed emotions, secrecy, concealed or half suppressed thoughts.

On the question of the lack of athletic action in this story, I think this is down more to the artist than to the genre in general. Pat Tourret’s art, like that of her sisters, was quite static, and when she did attempt rapid or extreme movement (such as the running panel you refer to), I personally find it a little awkward. You can see this also in the other story that she drew for SPL, #139 “Carol Out West” – it’s remarkable how little physical action there is here for a Wild West story. However she did command a good range of facial expression, and it’s fortunate that the hard, intense stares that were her trademark happen to suit this story, especially Miss Molsey’s habit of glaring pure hatred at the heroine. The same type of expression can be rather disconcerting when you meet it in her romance stories!

Schoolgirls’ Picture Library 143
Dancer in Hiding

I’m sorry this one didn’t go down well with you. I like it for its vitality, characterisation and occasionally bizarre invention more than for its plausibility, which was never the strong suit of these early PLs. 

I personally rate the art very highly. The subtlety, precision and elegance of the line, the energy, variety and free flowing movement of the figures and the use of some powerful lighting effects seem to me to be exceptional. The sameness in the girls’ faces is a general factor in girls’ comic stories. Some artists were a lot better than others at differentiating their characters (and there were a few quite brilliant caricaturists), but even the best tended to use a fairly uniform face for the girl protagonists, who were usually differentiated by hair style and colour. Oddly, it’s something I’ve found useful in identifying artists, as many developed their own distinctive “girl face” (as I think this artist does), and this has sometimes proved a better identity tag than their style with other characters, where their individuality can be obscured by the need to draw villains, old people etc according to fairly standard visual conventions.

[Robb_K]

Super Detective Library 45

Lesley Shane: Crime from the Sky
Great artwork by Passingham, and an equally great story premise, plot and staging. Excellent entertainment. It would have made a great early 1950s Noire film. At first, I thought Schultz was patterned after Edward G. Robinson. But this character needed to be more rough-edged and cruel. I'd have liked to have 100 pages to flesh out the story a little more. I didn't get enough time to enjoy the party before it was interrupted by the paratrooper attack. Also there wasn't any new suspense point when the 2 (out-of-3) top crooks entered their final transport vehicle (private yacht) and headed for Algeria. From then, it was either they'd be intercepted by British ships en route per Ms. Shane's testimony, or they'd get away free and clear. It would have been better for one more fly in the ointment (a temporary escape to a place short of their destination, that provided a slim chance for them to get away). On the other hand getting Lesley Shane involved in their capture would then have been a problem.

In any case, the artwork was so fine and detailed, that I felt like I was really there, in the story, like "living in a film".  The action scenes were very realistic.  The intricate plot was very inventive, and plausible.  This was, by far, the best of the 3 review stories to my taste (probably no surprise to anyone, given that Super Detective Library gave writers and artists much more leeway in what they could portray in their stories).  It was a bit unusual in that the chief criminal of the operation could only stand by, helplessly, in custody of The French Police, as his confederates were apprehended with the stolen Jewels.  He could have claimed that he played no part in the robbery, and that the thieves planned and carried out the operation on their own.  But even if he would have been released, he had no assurance that the other 2 partners wouldn't change their identities and disappear to a hidden place in The 3rd World, and retire selling off the stolen jewels individually, little by little, for the rest of their lives.  There are many possibilities for a series of sequel stories.

[Robb_K]

Thanks for your comments, Robb K.

Schoolgirls’ Picture Library 76
Loyal to Her Disgraced Mother

Firstly, Pat Tourret was indeed female, the eldest of three sisters (Pat, Gwen and Shirley), who were all artists on girls’ comics for around 10 years from the mid ‘50s to the mid ‘60s. They had a broadly similar style, and worked mostly on romance titles. The rest of their careers was devoted to book illustration. My personal preference is for Gwen, who had more warmth and flexibility than the others. All the sisters seem to me to have been superb technicians in their mature work (this is an early example), but it’s probably fair to say that Pat was the best line artist of the three.

I agree about the virtually complete lack of violence in these stories, compared to those aimed at boys. The boys’ stories could reach high levels of excitement with combat sequences at key moments. The girls’ story creators had to do without this, but it seems to me that they made a virtue of this necessity by developing more psychological tools, the use of which depended much on the skill of the artist. Something that I particularly admire is the way artists were able to generate tension, drama and even confrontation without being able to resort to the standard fist or gun fight that was a routine of the boys’ genre, by use of facial and body language to convey mood, suppressed emotions, secrecy, concealed or half suppressed thoughts.

On the question of the lack of athletic action in this story, I think this is down more to the artist than to the genre in general. Pat Tourret’s art, like that of her sisters, was quite static, and when she did attempt rapid or extreme movement (such as the running panel you refer to), I personally find it a little awkward. You can see this also in the other story that she drew for SPL, #139 “Carol Out West” – it’s remarkable how little physical action there is here for a Wild West story. However she did command a good range of facial expression, and it’s fortunate that the hard, intense stares that were her trademark happen to suit this story, especially Miss Molsey’s habit of glaring pure hatred at the heroine. The same type of expression can be rather disconcerting when you meet it in her romance stories!

Yes, I knew she was a female.  My inclusion of the possibility that the writer was a male was because that wasn't absolutely official, at least according to Grand Comics Database, which, apparently, has seen no documentation for that story.