Mermaids in Comics 4 – More Milly the Merry Mermaid [UPDATED 08/1/12]

One of our blog followers – Terence – contacted us to let us know he had read a previous post on the "Milly the Merry Mermaid" comics that appeared in various UK girls' Annuals published during the 1960s and 70s. He kindly filled in some of the gaps in our knowledge and sent us several more pieces to share with you.

Apparently, "Milly the Merry Mermaid" ran in the weekly Princess Tina comic book. The first image is from 02/03/68. The sea horse image is from an issue dated 04/05/68. The third piece is from the very last issue released in 06/12/69. The strip reduced in size, and two weeks later Princess Tina absorbed the Penelope comic so Milly was phased out. She made a reappearance again in comic books in the 70s, as well as an in several Annuals and summer specials. Terence pretty much has the entire collection, and he mentions that the last one in his possession is 1980.

Thank you, Terence, we appreciate you opening the door to more Milly.

Stolen ELF~FIN Booty – DO NOT BUY

Just letting you know that Elf~Fin: Hyfus & Tilaweed Preview (limited edition) #152 was stolen while we were attending an event earlier in the year. Furthermore, issues #144, 145 and 146 were went missing on route to a customer. If any of these issues appear for sale on the secondary market, please do not buy them as they are ill-gained goods (and please let us know via email on blackmermaid@blackmermaid.com). We have kept a register of all buyers for this edition, as each comic book included a Certificate of Authenticity.

ELF~FIN™: HYFUS & TILAWEED PREVIEW Launch!

Anyone who's been watching our various FaceBook accounts of late and who are members of our official Elf~Fin page will know that a few days ago we announced the launch of the Elf~Fin™: Hyfus & Tilaweed Preview. Some of you may have already been checking out our "Elf~Fin™ Leaks & Peeks" blog posts over the last 12 months so you're probably familiar with some of the panel art in the interior pages. Well ... at the end of this week we will have 250 freshly printed copies sitting in our office. About 20 will be put away for archival purposes and the rest will be sold. We have orders mounting up already, which we will process from 1 May 2011. We will also be taking copies with us to two Australian literary and zine events in the next three weeks – the Gloucester Writers' Festival and the MCA Zine Fair – so we don't expect the copies to be around for long. This will be your only time to obtain the PREVIEW through our internet site or through the Aussie events, unless you will physically be attending the World Mermaid Awards from 12-13 August 2011 in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA, for which we will be printing a special MerCon edition. Just so you know, the Preview contains 24 pages of hand-painted artwork by Jozef Szekeres, which comprises the first Act in the first half of the first issue of the first series of Elf~Fin. The only characters our readers will be familiar with are the beloved Hyfus, Tilaweed, Tentus and No~Fin from the work they originally appeared in – ElfQuest: WaveDancers. Beyond that we have NEW characters, a NEW world, NEW rules and a NEW mythology! If you want to read more about it and place your order then go to our new one page Elf~Fin website. You have no idea how excited we are, and also how grateful we are to our readers' enthusiasm for this new work. It's been a long time but we're finally here. The series will be released in its entirely from early 2012!