The Case of the Phantom Comic Library

The back page of Dandy Comic Library #53 (published around early 1985) advertised the next two issues that would be on sale the following month, one of which was scheduled to be Violent Elizabeth in "Very Cross Country Runner".

If you remember my look at Plug, you'll probably recall Violent Elizabeth was one of the stars of that comic; the Dandy Comic Libraries often featured interlopers from other titles, even ones that had been defunct for quite some time. However, when Comic Library #56 was published the following month, she was not to be seen.

A story featuring Beezer star Baby Crockett took up that slot instead, and the Violent Elizabeth story was never to be seen -- she would never appear in a published Comic Library at all, in fact. Whilst there are examples of titles changing between the 'next month' advert and the issue going on sale, this is the first example I've found of the running order changing, let alone an advertised title never being published at all -- albeit there were over seven hundred Beano and Dandy Comic Libraries in total and I'm nowhere close to owning all of them. I do, however, suspect it is not a coincidence that the unreleased issue featured a comparatively obscure character who hadn't appeared in a weekly comic for at least six years.

A question that arises: Is it possible the story was reworked for a more popular character? I've had a look through all the covers of both ranges of Comic Libraries and it doesn't seem like there's one that would fit. It might even have been an accident that this issue never came out, rather than it being deliberately scrapped -- the Comic Libraries tended to be done quite a ways in advance (in fact some of them had clearly been on the shelf for several years when they were released), so it's possible the running order was reshuffled at the last minute but the scheduled issue just fell down the back of a sofa. It's a real curiosity, either way.