Jinty Volume 1: Land of No Tears/The Human Zoo

Two collected comic serials from the 1970s science-fiction comic for girls Jinty. The two stories are quite different in some ways but similar in others, both recount the adventures of heroines who start off rather annoyingly but who win us over as they struggle after being thrown into very difficult and dangerous new worlds.

In the Land of No Tears, written by Pat Mills and drawn by Guy Peeters, our heroine is Casey. She is a disabled schoolgirl who cynically takes advantage of her disability to get her own way. She actually doesn't want an operation to correct her leg but when it does happen something goes wrong and she is transported into a future dystopia. Here she finds herself in a land of extreme body fascism where any disfigurement or imperfection causes revulsion and even fear. Casey finds herself a Gamma girl, brutally repressed by the superior Alpha girls, especially the vicious Perfecta. Casey helps bring together a group of fellow Gammas to challenge the supremacy of the Alphas in a sporting contest.

This is followed by The Human Zoo by Malcolm Shaw and again drawn by Peters. This is an alien abduction story which uses the set-up to hammer home a pretty overt animal rights message. Twin sisters  Shona and Jenny are taken to an alien planet where they are considered no more than any other animal and are exhibited and exploited in a zoo! The girls suffer many obstacles, including experimentation and being hunted, as they try and prove to the aliens that they are thinking, feeling creatures too.

Both stories are very well written and drawn and highly enjoyable classic science-fiction tales, using a futuristic setting to comment on our present day. As these were originally published in weekly episodes there is some repetition but that doesn't get too much in the way.