From The Mists Of Time: Victor or Bunty?

Which comic was better, The Victor or the Bunty?

You might think that an answer would be gender based but I liked them both. A good story's a good story!

In fact I loved comics in general whether it was The Hornet; Hotspur; the Valiant, but also girls’ comics too which we got regularly in batches from the Blades family who lived two floors up from us. 

With six sisters they used to pass down to me copies of the Bunty, Judy, Diane and Jackie. 

Because there might be up to six weeks in between it was great to get a whole run on a good story and settle down for an hour on a wet summer afternoon.

A cool badge

The art work was superb and the stories were excellent. In addition to the 'Four Marys' - always good, there was usually a story line about a girl from a poor background or from a gypsy family; invariably she was a good sprinter and had to overcome obstacles to win the county championships - county championships - gosh what were they? They sounded exciting.

The Blades sometimes gave me some Classics Illustrated'; I also recall some Gold Key comics too. The Blades also passed comics on to the Hanlons at 6/7 Oxgangs Avenue. Those were very thoughtful gestures.

Photograph Catherine Stevenson

I supplemented these comics with those which I bought myself paying occasional visits to Bobbies Bookshop at Dalry Road to buy DC Comics including 'Green Lantern'; 'The Flash'; 'Batman'; 'Superman'; and 'Green Arrow'.

The stories in the British weeklies were full of inspirational characters such as 'The Tough of the Track'  (Alf Tupper) and 'Wilson the Wonder Athlete'.

And so which one was better? 

On balance, the Bunty was better than The Victor but now that I think about it I guess it was actually between The Hornet or Valiant the latter with a range of extraordinarily imaginative characters such as 'The Steel Claw'; 'The House of Dollman' and 'Adam Eterno'.

Judy - A Comic With Punch!

Judy was one of the comics which I used to receive from the Blades family (6/6 Oxgangs Avenue) upstairs. I used to get them in small batches so on a wet school summer holiday day I could follow a whole story.

Judy was a sister comic to Bunty and although not quite as good it was always a solid read. Indeed it must have been because the comic ran for over thirty years from 1961 to 1992.

I recall 'Wee Slavey'; 'Sandra Wilson' stories; and there was always a girl from a deprived background trying to achieve her dream despite having to face tough obstacles in life.

Indeed the themes in both boys and girls' comics were common and probably had a powerful socialisation effect on the millions of boys and girls who grew up in Edinburgh and the rest of the United Kingdom during the 1960s with their themes of courage; resilience and fortitude; friendship; selflessness; kindness; a sense of fair play and so forth.

Because the comics were very much a British thing reflecting our culture I wonder just how they moulded our mores and values and made us different to people from other countries across the globe. And with their demise in recent decades and the growing influence of computer games which are played by young people throughout the world whether this has resulted in greater homogenisation?

When I was writing this I came across this interesting little snippet:

'I don't know where you are located, but I thought I might be the only girl who read 'Judy' who lived in the U.S. I lived in the farm region of Illinois, south of Chicago, and I got my Judy magazines from an English pen friend. She used to bundle up several months of her issues and wrap them in brown paper and string and send them by boat. They took weeks to arrive and when they came to my small country post office it was indeed a red letter day for me. I loved them and would sort them into the right order and read and read and read. I loved all the stories and there was just nothing like them in the states.' Sharon Williams