Cover date 29 March 1980: Jinty
Double troubles for Jinty girls on this cover dated 29 March 1980.
Between 1977 and 1980, Jinty’s covers adopted a double- or even triple-bill design, emphasising the comic’s anthology format, and usually using images lifted from the stories within rather than original art.
One of the cover stories, Toni on Trial (drawn by Terry Aspin) is an athletics-based tale in which an orphan girl is sent to live with her grandparents in a town in which dark shadows still hang over the memory of her mother.
There was a prominent sporting theme in the pages of Jinty at this time, with a couple of stories - Toniand White Water (art by Jim Baikie) - and an article on gymnastics and Suzanne Dando grouped together under a ‘Sports Jinty’ banner.
Dando was one of a number of sportswomen earning a higher profile in the late 70s and early 80s than had previously been common for women in British popular culture. This may be why Jinty increased its sports content around this time.
This issue’s other cover story was the long-running Pam of Pond Hill (drawn by Bob Harvey, written by Jay Over), a slice-of-life school-based serial. This week, Pam and her friends plot to get their favoured dinnerlady to return to school.
