A rare tick in the ‘comics’ category for me as I am reminded to share with Freakytrigger readers a great GURLS COMIC EXPERIENCE of my youth that remains with me to this very day. A very small Sarah on visits to her grandma and grandad would usually disappear from the living room full of grown-ups drinking tea from ‘best’ china mugs into the spare room where there were a stash of 50s-60s girls annuals with names like Tammy, Bunty, Jacksy etc etc.

Anyway the story that sticks with me is of a BRAVE NOBLE etc etc skoolgirl who moves to a new village… in TRANSYLVANIA gasp! Ever so tragically this village is plagued by the MYSTERIOUS DEATHS of local peasants who are all under the treatment of the strange Dr. Ula! Can you guess wot is coming readers?? Eventually all the yokels have turned against Dr. Ula, but before they can storm his surgery-cum-spooky-castle, a lurching servant accounces the good doctor is DEAD! As the village parties, only the brave noble etc skoolgirl feels sorry for poor lonely doctor, who never did go make any friends in the village at all. Clutching some posies, she takes a chum along to visit his grave.

“You’re right, I suppose it is a shame Aleister died”, says the friend.

“Aleister?”, says noble skoolgirl?

“Yes – didn’t you know his first name?”, chuckles the inappropriately amused chumling.

Noble skoolgirl looks down, and sees the grave spell out the name of the ‘deceased’… and what could it be??

Dr. A. C. ULA!!

cue AGHAST CLOSE UP on skoolgirl’s face! COULD IT BE???? Gasp! Choke!!

That was probably my favourite comic EVER and 10000xboos to Neil Gaiman (I don’t need to make the obvious un-pc and ever so slightly h0m0ph0bic pun on his last name here do I? Good).