Abstract
This article is a case study of the 1970s British girls’ comics Spellbound (DC Thomson, 1976–1977) and Misty (IPC, 1978–1980). These mystery anthology comics followed the more famous American horror comics from publishers like EC Comics - but were aimed at pre-teen girls. The article situates these comics with respect to Gothic critical theory and within the wider landscape of British girls’ comics. Firstly, it closely considers and compares the structure and content of their stories with respect to theories of the terror and horror Gothic. It discovers that both comics offer similar fare, with a subversive streak that undercuts established horror archetypes. The article then looks closely at both titles’ aesthetics and their use of the page to draw comparisons. It uses comics theory and Gothic cinematic theory to demonstrate that the appearance of Misty is more strongly Gothic than the aesthetic of Spellbound. Finally, it considers a selection of stories from both comics and analyses their common themes using Gothic critical theory. It argues that both comics rework Gothic themes into new forms that are relevant to their pre-teen and teenage readers. It concludes by summarising the study’s findings and suggesting that these comics offer a “Gothic for Girls” that is part cautionary tale and part bildungsroman. This article is published as part of a collection on Gothic and horror.
Highlights
This article is a case study of the 1970s British girls’ comics Spellbound (DC Thomson, 1976–1977) and Misty (IPC, 1978–1980)
Comics and Gothic might seem an unlikely pair to those raised on the Beano, Tin-Tin or Peanuts
The British comics industry is perhaps best known for children’s humour titles such as The Dandy (DC Thomson, 1937-present) and the Beano (DC Thomson, 1938-present), which began the golden age of British comics
Summary
Wheatley (2006) claims that the anthology structure resulted in two distinct types of tale: the understated ghost story (Radcliffe’s “terror”) and the effects-driven supernatural horror—and that these types were developed across literature, film, theatre and radio. Thierry Groensteen’s (1999) landmark work on comics argues that the page (rather than the panel) should be considered as the smallest signifying narrative unit, and draws attention to the signifying properties of panel shape, size and position Applying his framework to the figure above is revealing. For example as Emily breaks the fourth wall to shout directly at us on the second page the perspective changes from disembodied (unassigned point of view) to embodied (where we are given the point of view of a story character) This is an example of excess in the varying perspectives being offered—but the opening and closing panels from narrator/host Damian Darke have already normalized this strategy somewhat and so it is less effective than it might otherwise have been. Depart from convention, the aesthetics of Spellbound are less Gothic and transgressive than the layouts and visuals used in Misty
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