Judy (girls' magazine)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Judy was a British pre-teen and teen girl's magazine, primarily in comic book form. Judy was extant from 1960 to 1991.[2] From 1991 to 1997 it was combined with another title in Mandy and Judy magazine.[3] Judy was published by DC Thomson.
| Judy | |
|---|---|
The cover of Judy #1 (16 January 1960). | |
| Publication information | |
| Publisher | DC Thomson |
| Schedule | Weekly |
| Format | Newsprint magazine |
| Genre | School, Romance, Drama, Humour |
| Publication date | 16 January 1960 – 11 May 1991 |
| No. of issues | 1,635 |
| Main character(s) | Bobby Dazzler Judy Emma (from 1979) Tracy (from 1985) |
| Creative team | |
| Written by | Marion Turner[1] |
DC Thomson had published its first girls' magazine, Bunty, in 1958. The success of this title led DC Thomson to publish Judy, which was also successful: between them, Bunty and Judy achieved a circulation of over one million.[4] DC Thomson went on to publish other similar titles: Diana (published 1965–1976), Mandy (published 1967–1991), Debbie (published 1973–1983), and Suzy (published 1982–1987).[4]
By 1974, DC Thomson's girls' imprints had fallen off somewhat (Bunty, Judy, Mandy, and Debbie had a combined circulation of 750,000 that year) but remained the market leader.[5] Whether in imitation or not, British girls' magazines of this era typically bore a single female given name as title; besides the DC Thomson titles, other magazines were Tracy, Nikki, Sandie, Diana, Sally, June, Tammy, Lindy, and Penny.[6]
As was common in British comics of the period, it was standard practice to merge a comic into another one when it declined in sales. Typically, three stories or strips from the cancelled comic would continue for a while in the surviving comic, and both titles would appear on the cover (one in a smaller font than the other) until the title of the cancelled comic was eventually dropped. Judy was emblematic of this practice. It absorbed Emma in 1979 and Tracy in 1985; as a consequence, the title was known as Judy and Emma from issue #1027 (15 September 1979) to issue #1049 (16 February 1980), and Judy and Tracy from issue #1306 (19 January 1985) to some time before issue #1443.
Even though Judy had debuted earlier than Mandy, when the two titles merged in 1991, Mandy was listed first in the new merged publication. Mandy & Judy, also known as M&J, merged with Bunty in 1997.
Judy offered a mix of romance, pathos, school, and girl-next-door stories, thriving well into the era when consumer, fashion, and teen idol fare became popular in girls' magazines.[7] The insouciant Bobby Dazzler was a recurring character.[6]
Among the fare offered by Judy was stories of girls confronting adversity and overcoming it — for instance, Nobody Loves Dixie (1964) tells of a shunned girl who wins a trophy and rises from her wheelchair to collect it[8] — or succumbing to it — for instance, in the harrowing Nothing Ever Goes Right (1981), the heroine, beset with poverty, orphanhood, and health problems, dies[9] of heart failure while rescuing children from an abandoned house.[10]
