JINTY VOLUME ONE

RELEASED 28 JUNE PUBLISHER REBELLION

Writers Pat Mills, Malcolm shaw Artist Guy Peeters

Although it also featured soapy stories and school tales, the focus of ’70s girls’ weekly Jinty was on genre strips. Whereas stablemate Misty told spooky sagas of the supernatural, it took flight into science fiction. This volume has two tales that transport their heroines to strange worlds.

In the former (written by 2000 AD co-creator Pat Mills) a girl with one leg shorter than the other is transported to a cruelly ableist future divided between physically perfect “Alphas” and misfit “Gammas”. A mash-up of Brave New World, Cinderella and underdog sports story, it’s bracingly blunt (they’re not shy about using the word “cripple”).

In the latter, a girl’s abducted by aliens resembling a mash-up of the Mekon and Noel Gallagher, in an adventure that carefully spells out its obvious parallels with meat-eating, circuses and bloodsports. Namechecking The League Against Cruelty To Animals, it does everything but press a leaflet into your hand.

Both stories are pretty formulaic, and the writing isn’t exactly subtle. But they make for an interesting time capsule of what was considered appropriate for young girls. It’s noticeable that, in both worlds, the way emotion is frowned upon is a key element of their nightmarishness – and that female characters are regularly in floods of tears… Ian Berriman