Misty

March 23, 2005 4:12 AM

MistyWelcome to the mysterious world of MISTY,where the unusual is usual, where the unexpected is expected, where every thrill's a chill. Enjoy your journey through these pages... and the strange lands and people you'll meet. Your friend, Misty
posted by srboisvert (19 comments total)

I feel it getting Mefi-ed as I type this, but a whole collection of late 70s' British girls' comics, scanned in and just waiting to be read all day long?


Fantastic.

(And all I ever got to read was hand-me-down Archie digests! Pfah!)
posted by Katemonkey at 4:53 AM on March 23, 2005

Some of the art in those is quite amazing, and really a shame it was printed on highly-unscannable newsrag paper. I was really struck by some of the panels in the first issue.

Some of the art totally sucks, though. But hey, that's comics.
posted by loquacious at 5:39 AM on March 23, 2005

Heh, very cool. The covers and story titles alone are priceless.

Red Knee - White Terror!

Um... she skinned her knee and now she's pale as a ghost with fear?

Just kidding. I'm sure she's pure grrl power, a veritable precursor to Buffy.
posted by Shane at 6:39 AM on March 23, 2005

Kicking the shit out of Garden Gnomes since 1978™.

(issue 14)
posted by Devils Rancher at 7:04 AM on March 23, 2005

Some of the artists on there are pretty recognisable as having gone on to 2000AD, it would be interesting to have a list of who their contributors where. Given that so many UK writers and artists became big names following contributions to 2000AD there may well be some pretty big comic names who worked on that.
posted by biffa at 7:08 AM on March 23, 2005

damn. I was expecting a Myst parody.
posted by bashos_frog at 8:18 AM on March 23, 2005

Given that so many UK writers and artists became big names following contributions to 2000AD there may well be some pretty big comic names who worked on that.

This looks like it might be a psychedelic Alan Moore story. Or not.
posted by Shane at 8:21 AM on March 23, 2005

Awesome.
posted by me3dia at 9:12 AM on March 23, 2005

I loved Warren comics as a kid, and these comics are right up that dark alley.
Nice find, srboisvert!
posted by mischief at 10:05 AM on March 23, 2005

Pat Mills on why most of Misty's stories for girls were written by men:

So that’s also why male writers worked on girls strip stories – because many female writers found them uncool. Pure snobbery!

posted by ceiriog at 10:55 AM on March 23, 2005

Neat post.

I got stuck on "The Cult of The Cat" and had to read the whole thing. Sheesh.
posted by Specklet at 11:42 AM on March 23, 2005

My wife is very excited about this website. She was a regular reader of Misty back in the day but up until now she's only been able to read issues I've bought for her on eBay. Thanks srboisvert, you've saved me a small fortune.
posted by dodgygeezer at 1:15 PM on March 23, 2005

Thanks, ceiriog:

The Concrete Surfer and School for Snobs – indeed, hundreds of strips – were written by 2000AD greats like Pat Mills and John Wagner.

Good call, biffa!

Pat Mills is great, btw. Wagner too, but I love Mills's stuff.
posted by Shane at 1:27 PM on March 23, 2005

ceiriog : thanks for the Mills link.

I disagree with the basic premise of it, though. These comics eventually failed because they were all named Bunty, Tammy Misty, Jackie, Mandy, Jinty or Judy. After a while, they just lamed themselves out of the market titularly
posted by Sparx at 2:50 PM on March 23, 2005

Groovy find! Yay!
posted by dejah420 at 8:11 PM on March 23, 2005

This looks like it might be a psychedelic Alan Moore story. Or not.

I would guess that the cover artist might be Brian Bolland based on the black inking, but possibly Cam Kennedy. Or not.
posted by biffa at 3:42 AM on March 24, 2005

I would guess that the cover artist might be Brian Bolland based on the black inking...

Damn! You just might be right! Bolland's super-perfect rendering is trademark. Misty really is a find! "Historic" stuff in the timeline of comics...
posted by Shane at 7:18 AM on March 24, 2005

Aaaaagh! I had some Misty annuals as a kid and they were seriously scary: looking back, I can't believe that they were meant for kids.

The one story that sticks in my mind was about two sisters who went hillwalking and accidentally fell down a huge pothole into some spooky caves. They thought they were lost forever, but they eventually found their way out, and thought they were safe....but NO!

It turned out that time had stood still for them, and while they were wandering about the caves, there'd been a nuclear holocaust outside, and the World as they knew it had been wiped out. They stumbled around the devastation until they found their mother's gravestone, with some futuristic date on it like 2007.

Fun for all the family!
posted by penguin pie at 6:14 PM on March 24, 2005

Shane, took me a while to look this up, but I think if you compare the art its got to be Bolland. Thanks for the email by the way. There's a few other styles in there I'm sure I recognise but none I could definitively put a name too.
posted by biffa at 11:16 AM on April 1, 2005