Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Patti

Following on from yesterday's post about Jane, here's a checklist of stories featuring Patti, the strip that replaced Jane in the Daily Mirror in 1959. I know very little about the strip other than that it featured the titular character, a teenager who was probably thought to be more to the liking of a 'modern' (1959) audience than Jane, whose heyday was probably considered to be the 1930s and 1940s.

The writer was Jenny Butterworth who would later go on to script 'Tiffany Jones', one of the most popular strips of the 1960s—a lost classic if ever there was one, although I did spot (on a cruise around the internet looking for information) that some of the strips were collected in Scandinavia a few years ago.

The artist, Bob Hamilton, is someone I've never come across before or since and I'd welcome any information that anyone has. I don't even have much to offer in the way of examples of his work as I've only a single example—indeed, only a single panel—of 'Patti'. The strip lasted only around 22 months before being replaced when the Mirror realised its mistake and the strength of the 'Jane of the Daily Mirror' brand and brought back 'Jane, Daughter of Jane' in 1961.

My thanks to Franco Giacomini for the following checklist of stories.

1 I'm Patti (S243-S310-T1-T16) ??-10-59--??-01-60
2 In the Money (T17 - T88) 1960
3 The Fixers (T89-T172) 1960
4 The Beloved Man (T173-T232) 1960
5 Back to Bruddersfield (T233 - T294) 1960
6 Hit and Run (T295-T311-U1-U42) 1960-61
7 That Man Mike (U43-U83) ??-07-61-??-08-61

(* Patti © Mirror Group Newspapers Ltd.)

7 comments:

  1. I vaguely remember that TV series they did. I find all this stuff fascinating.

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  2. "Titular character"....oooh! Steve! You're better than that!

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  3. You'd think so, wouldn't you? But I'm not...

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  4. He was "Rab" Hamilton.. Not Bob. Thet was his nickname btw. I think he was actually named Alexander or something like that.

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  5. Hi Steamboat,

    You're absolutely correct, and I did post a correction a few days later.

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  6. acc. to the ad on the last page of Farewell to Jane, Patti was an 18-years-old who'd run away from her home in Bruddersfield "to find out what makes the Bright Lights twinkle"

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  7. First episode in Penguin Book of Comics.

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