Name/TitleMandy No. 985
About this objectMandy For Girls No. 985 - November 30, 1985. Priced 20p. The cover features Mandy spraying her hair with blonde highlights in front of a mirror, with the strapline 'Light up your life with "Mandy" - the brightest paper for picture-stories!'
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-2015-114-6
Copyright LicenceAll rights reserved