Something for the girls

The period from the 1930s to the 1960s saw enormous advances in the genres of humour and adventure in comics, yet the audience was perceived to be primarily boys between the ages of eight and twelve. Girls, although they had been catered for by some of the early humour titles, were increasingly overlooked, and this left publishers with a problem: how to appeal to the other half of the juvenile market? On both sides of the Atlantic, new strategies were tried, some of which were so successful that they reshaped the medium forever. Despite these innovations, however, it is a sad fact that titles for girls rarely feature in histories of modern comics: the 1990s collectors' market is essentially uninterested in them, and therefore they remain a forgotten story.'
In Britain, comics for girls were the final aspect of the drive towards diversification within the industry, and in many ways the most interesting. The adventure boom had been spectacular, with The Eagle being followed by a wave of titles devoted to war, science fiction and sport. From 1950 onwards, these were joined by an increasing number of girls' comics, which often followed their format, but which reflected notions of 'female interest' current at the time (which typically meant role stereotyping every bit as crude as in the boys' comics). What was remarkable about the new titles was that a significant number managed to notch up sales that matched their male counterparts.
But before looking at these, we need to backtrack for a moment. For, in fact, comics for girls and women had a much longer history in Britain. Even during the initial boom of comic sales before the First World War, there had been attempts to appeal to this market. Ally Sloper's Half Holiday had included several female characters, most notably Tootsie Sloper, daughter of the famous derelict, who became the focus for jokes about votes for women and other political issues. Other early comics included fashion pages, with sketches of the latest dresses, hats and so on.