Though I wish it were otherwise, the vast majority of the images on Cover Browser relate to stories I shall never get the opportunity to read. In some ways, however, this doesn't matter a great deal – for very few of the tales could measure up to the vivid brilliance of their associated covers.

In this they call to mind the diabolically brilliant mendacity of those back page adverts one used to find in American comics of yore. How many children, upon receiving their long-desired X-Ray Specs in the post, must have sobbed & thought (after a cursory examination of the contents), "This is a cruel and terrible world!"? Thus was learned a harsh but essential lesson, namely, that life frequently delights in kicking you in the face. So it goes…

Anyway, here follows a selection of smashing covers.

A classic childhood situation. You're in your bedroom and a knock comes on the door.

"Billy, what are you doing in there?"

"Yes!! God…you've no faith in me. Go away!"

10 minutes later the house is in ruins and your grandparents have been devoured.

"Look, I said I was sorry…OK!"

Though I'm desperate to know what has led Barry to become "The Man Who Hated His Hair!", I respect his privacy enough not to pry further. Doubtless it's something unutterably terrible…perhaps involving demonic dandruff that whispers to him in his sleep ("They're all laughing at your flaky scalp, Barry. Kill them. Kill them all!"). Whatever the case, his set jaw indicates that he's bearing it all with a grim & stoic determination.

Good man, Barry.

Despite having read my fair share of jingoistic war comics, DC's Blitzkrieg ("Searing Battle Sagas of World War 2 As Seen Through Enemy Eyes!") had managed to escape my notice until today. It appears to have only lasted 5 issues – indicating, perhaps, that the appetite for preternaturally evil "Krauts" was on the wane in late-1970s America.¹

"Hugo" is about as unambiguously malevolent a German soldier as one could wish to avoid. Not only does he gleefully riddle some "Tommy" corpses with machine-gun fire ("So what?? It is good target practice!"), but he also takes a dim view of merciful attitudes toward civilians:

Gott in Himmel! What a bastard.

Ah yes, the classic "Mistaken Identity" technique – much used by desperate, lonely stalkers everywhere. Despite dozens of "B-But I'm N-Not Bonnie!" rejections the determined degenerate hopes that someone, someday, will feel his embrace tighten around her waist and think "You know what? Maybe I could be Bonnie!".

P.S: Speaking of comics, there was a most enjoyable Roy of the Rovers piece (by Miguel Delaney) in today's Sunday Tribune. Well-researched, affectionate in tone and unapologetic. A rare thing to see (on such a subject) in d'papers. Oh and he even mentioned this here blog and my discussion of RotR's Matrix-esque "bullet time".

1. It survived well into the 1980s in the UK. [back]

From Bunty for Girls 1983 (the contents of which this blog milked dry) we move on by moving back – ten years that is, to Mandy for Girls 1973.

While none of this volume's stories manage to scale the bonkers heights of Bunty's classic "Flights of Flopear", they do demonstrate the persistence/popularity of certain themes & scenarios – Girl with magical object ("Carol's Cauldron"), Girl with exotic animal companion ("Elsie's Elephant", "Mona's Monkey") etc.

Also present and correct is the kind of single concept tale that Viz once routinely parodied – "Late Kate"…a high-larious narrative about the girl who's "Never on Time!" (plenty of scope for development there).

None of the above, however, are to be the main focus of today. Instead I'd like to record for posterity a story so spectacularly ill-conceived (and offensive) that it simply leaps from the page demanding to be critiqued. Here's a portion of panel one:

A young (somewhat overweight) girl arrives at a new boarding school with all the usual anxieties and concerns about fitting in or standing out. Are we to see a sensitively-handled yarn about bigotry and (ultimate) acceptance? Any confidence one might have about the progressiveness of the writer's agenda must be tempered by the fact that the story's title is (rather unbelievably) "Tessa Pulls Her Weight". On we go:

I think you can guess where this is leading (hint: not to hand-shakes and pledges of undying friendship)…

And so it goes. Constant bullying. Constant ridicule. Until, though she can scarcely believe it, Tessa is picked for a school sport's team. The sucker punch is duly delivered however, as a mortified Tessa realises she's been lined up to "pull her weight" in the Tug-of-War. The results are (predictably) calamitous, with Tessa's eagerness to please costing the school the competition. Cue universal scorn and derision.

Then, when all hope of acceptance seems long gone, a sea-side outing riding ponies (beside a cliff!) lurches suddenly towards tragedy. A pony bolts. Young Christine (the 4th form captain) can't control it and off it goes on a mad dash for the cliff edge. Tessa springs into action, grabbing the reins before…being dragged, sickeningly, over rocky ground. Christine is saved, but Tessa is horribly wounded, as a disturbing panel gruesomely reveals:

So what's the moral here? Well, since it is (presumably) Tessa's weight that prevents the pony from flinging itself (and Christine) into the sea, one might imagine that it's a muddled message about how everyone can make a difference (using those "talents" peculiar to themselves). Or how "Bravery and selflessness are not the preserve of the conventionally good-looking".

At the very least you'd expect Tessa's bullying class-mates to be whistling a different tune. As she arrives back from a five-month stay in hospital it seems that a new attitude is, indeed, in the air:

The ambulance door opens to reveal…a denouement of flabbergasting nastiness!

Splutter! A cynical and cowardly retreat by the Mandy hacks. The solution to bullying by body fascists is, it seems, to get dragged behind a horse, suffer terrible injuries, and spend 5 months at death's door in hospital. It might sound drastic girls, but at least you'll be skinny and popular!