British Update: Free Gift Farrago! Tracy #3
*Girls’ Comics: An early issue of one of D.C. Thomson’s more successful latter-day girl’s titles: Tracy #3, from 1979, featuring all the well-loved themes such as blindness (“Dark Days For Jo”), cruelty to relatives (“Hard-Hearted Hannah”), malevolent supernatural powers (“The Hateful Hands of Heather Smith”), and enforced servitude (“Slave to the Beauty Queen!”). All good fun stuff for the young’uns, not forgetting our budgie-obsessed titular heroine. The top attraction for this issue, however, is that it comes with the original Free Gift – a Lucky Ladybird Brooch – still in its pouch attached to page 3 of the comic. A photo of the gift in situ may be seen here, alongside the cover reproduction. VG at £25.