American Update: Binky, My Little Margie, Winnie Winkle and the Farmer’s Daughter
*Teen Humour/Funny Girls: No, it’s not the opening line to a risqué story, but the latest parade of the changing role of the teenager in popular fiction. We open with The Farmer’s Daughter from Stanhall, a 1954 publication relying on knowledge of the stock figure from endless filthy jokes; this ‘bigfoot’ comedy #1 is a somewhat bowdlerised version. Groovy, from 1968, was Marvel’s short-lived attempt to muscle in on the gag-mag market, with a festoon of one-panel jokes or short strips. DC’s long-running Archie-alike Binky (Leave It To…) has additions from the very end of its run and My Little Margie, Charlton’s adaptation of a once-popular, now-forgotten TV show, has new listings for the parent title plus the first issue of spin-off My Little Margie’s Boyfriends. We close with the first issue of Winnie Winkle from Dell. Originally subtitled ‘The Breadwinner’, this 1948 issue collects the popular newspaper strip about a young woman earning her own living, but by this time it had reverted to standard romantic comedy tropes. A mixed bag of adolescence from four decades.