British Update: Long Hot Summer – Princess, Princess Tina and Tina Summer/Holiday Specials!
*Girls’ Comics: The convoluted history of Princess, Princess Tina and Tina is not one we want to rehash here (it’s been a long day, and the diet pills are wearing off), so suffice it to say that the three publications were closely linked, with a common stable of artists and features that lasted through the staid and sedate 1960s to the groovy ’70s. We have a selection of the surprisingly scarce Summer Specials from all three titles: Princess Holiday Special from 1965 FA/GD £30, with crossword neatly completed but paper dolls firmly in place; the first Princess Tina Summer Extra from 1969 GD £30 and the follow-up 1970 GD/VG £40 and the Tina Holiday Special from 1976 FN £50 (1 carefully-completed puzzle feature). Among the features are Sue Day and the ‘Happy Days’, ‘Alona the Wild One’, ‘Chairman Cherry’, ‘Milly the Merry Mermaid’, peripatetic popstress ‘Jackie and the Wild Boys’, and, a personal favourite here at 30th Century, ‘Jane Bond’, the curvaceous blonde secret agent for ‘Worldpol’ whose main method of combat seems to be rugby-tackling her foes and then rolling around on them; astonishingly, very few ever seem to raise an objection!