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Sapphire & Steel
"Evil Feline"
Look-In (1980) #4-6
Written by: Angus Allan
Art by: Arthur Ransom |
A girl has an imaginary pet cat, who becomes real...
Notes from the Sapphire & Steel chronology
Read the story summary at
the Internet Archive copy of Animus Web
Didja Know?
Comic strips in
Look-In magazine were generally not credited to
author and artist. According to the
Animus Web site, the
Sapphire & Steel strips were written by Angus
Allan and drawn by
Arthur Ransom.
All of the strips feature Sapphire and Steel dressed in the
clothes they wore in the first television storyline,
"Escape Through a Crack in Time".
The artist must have had only photo references from those early
episodes.
This story appeared in three issues of Look-In, a UK
magazine geared towards kids. The story is told in comic strip
form and appeared in two-page chapters of each issue.
The story itself is untitled. I borrowed the title
"Evil Feline" and short description from the
Sapphire & Steel Chronology on the
Look-In wiki.
This story is bit out there, even for a Look-In strip,
as it involves bringing an actual evil witch from the past into
the modern day, where she is able to topple buildings with a
wave of her hand.
Characters appearing or mentioned in this episode
Peter Simson
Jenny Simson
Diane Simson
Tiggy
Sapphire
Steel
Hecate
Grimalkin
Didja Notice?
The story opens at the flat of the Simson family in South
London.
On page 1 of the story, little Diane mutters a poem as she
drifts off to sleep in bed with her imaginary cat: "Tiggy,
Tiggy, black and white, goes a-hunting through the night..."
As far as I can tell, this is a fictitious poem made up for
the story. Possibly we're meant to assume the girl made it up
herself.
Diane's belief in her imaginary cat
manifests itself as a real cat, which is actually the
familiar for an ancient evil witch called Hecate who then
manifests herself. In mythology, Hecate was the ancient
Greek goddess of witchcraft and sorcery. However, Hecate was
not considered evil at all; on the contrary, she was
believed to protect worshippers from evil spells.
Hecate refers to the cat come to life as
Grimalkin. Grimalkin is the name of a faery cat in Scottish
legend.
On page 4 of the story, Hecate uses her powers to topple
Battersea Power Station. At the time the story was
written, Battersea was still a partially functioning coal
power station. It was fully decommissioned in 1983 and was
essentially abandoned for a few decades but is now part of
an ongoing redevelopment into residential, restaurant, and
shopping units.
On page 6 of the story, Hecate uses her powers to begin
toppling the
Big Ben clock tower at the
Palace of Westminster, the houses of the Parliament of
the United Kingdom. Sapphire's ability to turn back time
reforms the tower and stops Hecate's path of destruction.
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