Terror Tales

October 19, 2012 7:08 PM

It was the last few weeks before I left 2000AD and I was looking forward to starting work on my next creation: Misty. I took the title from the film, Play Misty For Me and my plan was to use my 2000AD approach on a girls’ comic: big visuals and longer, more sophisticated stories with the emphasis on the supernatural and horror. Pat Mills on the creation of Misty, a comic full of "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." The Guardian's Jacqueline Rayner recalls Jinty, Tammy, Misty and the golden age of girls' comics.
posted by Artw (5 comments total)

The Misty fansite has a few stories online, but used to have piles and piles of issues.

I went on a bender and read so many, and I was insanely jealous, because although we had EC Comic reprints, I would have raised unholy spirits if we had something like this in the US when I was a kid.

Because it was smart and scary and awesome. And I am jealous of all the British girls who got to read it.
posted by Katemonkey at 10:45 PM on October 19, 2012 [1 favorite]

I can't believe I've never even heard of these. They look terrific.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 5:52 AM on October 20, 2012

These are all amazing. So dark.
posted by Damienmce at 9:19 AM on October 20, 2012

My mother banned Misty, which was infuriating. There was a story about a girl who superstitiously over identified her success at swimming with a particular racer back swimsuit, then lost the racer back, then won a race anyway, and thereby learned that superstition is not cause and effect. My mother said this was a story about "putting faith in a racerback" and took the comic away.

Both my parents heartily disapproved of the contents of my other comics, which told endless stories about abused and oppressed girls, but they didn't ban them. What I found annoying about these stories was that at least once every episode, the main character would have an opportunity to stand up for herself in ways even I would have chosen: "Plagiarized? b-but..." (these girls always stuttered, even in their thought bubbles) At that point even I would have said, "no, I couldn't have Plagiarized that essay about wombats because my essay wasn't about wombats, whereas my evil twin sister, newly returned to the family after being kidnapped twelve years ago, and stuffing from predatory self-esteem such that she is unable to enjoy any aspect of her newfound privilege unless she destroys every iota of success and happiness in my life at the same time, did write an essay about wombats, and now she appears not only to have Plagiarized this essay, but entered it into the competition under my name and correspondingly, I assume, nicked my original essay and passed it off as her own." But of course, they never spoke up. They would just stand there saying "B-but..." Often this spinelessness was chalked up to the noble motive of protecting adults from unwelcome reality, for example, the reality that their long-lost daughter is an essay-stealing wombat plagiarist. Thus are females socialised to internalize their oppressors' toxic messages, or at least, they are if you presume they're too dimwitted to critique the text.
posted by tel3path at 3:34 PM on October 20, 2012 [1 favorite]

My own stab at writing a 1980s UK girls comic: Zoe Biddle: Wheelchair Ballerina

The sequel featured a blind pit pony.
posted by Artw at 3:55 PM on October 20, 2012 [1 favorite]