Not that bright

When I want nostalgia I reach for reissued Look-in or Jackie annuals in hard-back, “best-of” format. Only a cold-hearted monster could mock such blameless fun.

But one old, familiar title is missing among the proliferation of reissued 60s, 70s and 80s comics on the first table through the door at Waterstones. Where is the wry, ironic, bumper reissue of Twinkle?

This snub might seem like an oversight on publisher DC Thompson’s part. The Twinkle comic of the 1970s and 80s, for girls under the age of 8, was Thompson’s best-selling annual in 1975, outselling even the Beano. But a flick through an old copy of the annual reveals why - its eponymous, gnome-like, dead-behind-the-eyes heroine and her friends are all mini-drudges. Slap-bang in the middle of feminism’s second wave, they spend their time do-gooding, ballet dancing and entertaining baby siblings.

Girls in the 70s were force-fed Nancy the Little Nurse, a blank, smug child in a dolls’ hospital. Then there were The Three Pennys, a pointless trio who devoted their lives to a puppy called Binky. Liberated characters are like hens’ teeth, and are bludgeoned into submission when they do appear. Jenny Wren, for example, is an independent, helpful character that likes to find a practical purpose to fashionable clothes, but in 1975’s episode, she makes use of a safari jacket to rescue baby chicks. And that’s, er, it.

Unlike Jackie, with its do-it-yourself, punky fashion tips, or the dynamic and resourceful Judy, Twinkle and her chums are dull. Which might explain why DC Thomson didn’t bother to reissue her.