Name/TitleMandy No. 979
About this objectMandy For Girls No. 979 - October 19, 1985. Priced 20p. The cover features Mandy playing football, with the strapline 'Our goal is to bring you star stories every week!'
Weekly comic for girls featuring picture stories and a text story (all mostly serialised) and a readers' letter page, published every Thursday from 21 January 1967 until 11 May 1991.
MakerD.C. Thomson & Co Ltd
Maker RolePublisher
Date Made1985
Period1980s
Place MadeEngland, London
Place Notes185 Fleet Street, London EC4A 2HS
Medium and MaterialsOrganic, paper
MeasurementsH: 300 x W: 210 mm
Subject and Association KeywordsGirls' magazines & comics
Subject and Association Descriptionhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandy_(comics)#Publication_history:
Mandy was published from 21 January 1967 (No. 1) to 11 May 1991 (No. 1269) at which point it merged with Judy to become Mandy & Judy (also known as M&J). Mandy annuals appeared from 1972 until 2007.
The comic's namesake Mandy stayed on the cover of the comic for its whole run with just a few changes along the way. Mandy was instantly recognisable with her bobbed dark hair; her clothes changed, but were always colourful and kept up with 1970s fashions. Accompanying her was her red-and-white dog Patch.
Each issue had a theme usually involving a play on words. The main picture set up the theme for the story. As well as the large picture there was one small panel in the corner; often this would be a contrast to the calmer/ happier main picture. Some recurring theme elements of Mandy stories were:
-orphans forced to live with cruel or uncaring relatives;
-girls enduring blackmail, hardship, or unpopularity to protect a secret (often on behalf of their family);
-girls slaving for cruel employers or criminals;
-saving animals from cruelty;
-cruel factories, shops, boarding schools or workhouses;
-heroines adopting masked identities to secretly help people;
-spiteful girls causing trouble for an unsuspecting cousin, foster-sister or classmate;
-girls becoming unpopular because events keep conspiring to make them appear jealous or selfish;
-blundering girls getting into one scrape after another;
-girls pretending to be disabled in order to take advantage of people;
-girls who were put under a curse or came into possession of apparently supernatural objects which adversely affected their lives, but of which they were unable to rid themselves until they worked out how;
-boyfriend-themed stories (by the 1980s).
Stories were generally moralistic in tone, with long-suffering heroines finally achieving happiness, while villainous relatives or girls who were liars, cheats, and bullies received their comeuppance.
Named CollectionGlasgow Women's Library
Object TypeMagazine
Object numberGWL-2015-114-1
Copyright LicenceAll rights reserved