Jinty (comics)

Jinty
Cover from issue of Jinty, 19 August 1978. Art by Guy Peeters.
Publication information
Publisher	IPC Magazines, Fleetway Publications
Schedule	Weekly
Publication date	11.05.1974 - 21.11.1981
No. of issues	393

Jinty was a weekly British comic for girls published by Fleetway in London from 1974 to 1981, at which point it merged with Tammy. It had previously merged with Penny in a similar fashion, illustrating the 'hatch-match-dispatch' process practiced by editorial staff in the London comics publisher.

As well as the weekly comic, Christmas annuals were also published. While there were similarities with its Fleetway stablemates Tammy and Misty, each comic had its own focus, with Jinty concentrating on science fiction or otherwise fantastical stories.

As with other girls' comics of the time, Jinty consisted of a collection of many small strips. A typical weekly issue would publish six or seven serial stories, each consisting of around three or four pages of story ending in a cliff-hanger. The first page of the story included a text-box briefly summarizing the story so far, while the final page included a teaser line of text for the next week's episode.

In addition to the serial stories, a few standalone strips were normally published. Usually these were humorous and featured the same lead character week after week. Alley Cat, Penny Crayon, and others were a single page long, while Sue's Fantastic Fun-Bag! ran to two pages each week. A lead strip in the early days, often taking the cover slot, was The Jinx From St Jonah's, which normally featured a standalone story but occasionally continued it in a subsequent week. An exception to the humour format was the storyteller format, in which the same narrator would each week tell a different spooky or eerie story. In Jinty, that narrator was the character Gypsy Rose.

Other features includes a letters page, horoscopes, occasional text stories, feature articles on pop or media stars, and various articles on creative things to make and do.

Jinty was printed on newsprint using at most two colours on internal pages and a four-colour process on the external cover pages.