MLGG: Pop Culture News, Reviews & Interviews

In my quest to cover all of the Specials that Rebellion publish in 2020, it’s inevitable that I would come across a few containing material unfamiliar to me. Tammy & Jinty were girls comics published in the 70s and 80s in the UK (Tammy ran from ’71-’84 and Jinty from ’74-’81); when Jinty folded, it was merged with Tammy (a common occurrence in the UK comics scene at the time).

While Tammy focused on darker, more realism-based stories, Jinty’s focus tended to be on more sci-fi themed tales.

Both are as fondly remembered, it seems, as many British comics of the period. The 2020 Special presents two entirely new stories of a decent length: Boarding School, featuring mistreated siblings at a very old fashioned school – with more going on than meets the eye – and Cat Girl Returns, in which the mantle of Cat Girl (a heroine first featured in yet another 70s girls comic, Sally) is passed on unknowingly to the next generation.

As well as these two stories – which are great fun, with brilliant writing and fantastic art – there’s a reprinted Ping Pong Paula strip and an interview with Alison Fitt (credited in the pages of classic Tammy & Jinty as Alison Christie), who talks about her experiences writing for the British girls comics scene.

It’s another excellent, well-rounded package from Rebellion who really know how to treat the old material, as well as bring it bang up to date with new takes on the classics – not to mention new material that has a similar feel to the original stories, even if it’s not directly based on them. The dive into the history of girls comics is fascinating and reading the reprinted strip for the first time was also quite eye-opening, seeing as I’d never checked out these comics before.

My concern with the enjoyment I’ve gleaned from other Rebellion specials I’ve reviewed is that my positive thoughts have been coloured by nostalgia, having been familiar with the original comics. However, that’s not the case with Tammy & Jinty – yet I still thought it was an excellent Special and great value for money, given its page count, content and Rebellion’s trademark high production values. Definitely worth a trip down memory lane for women of a certain age, but for those of us unfamiliar with Tammy & Jinty in the first place, it’s both an excellent history lesson paired with great new stories that are suitable for all ages.

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