Jane and the Daily Mirror in the Second World War

This chapter focusses on Norman Pett’s Jane, arguing that the series has been remembered in a deeply inauthentic way and that the widespread belief that the series’ primary function was to provide an erotic spectacle for a largely male readership is not supported by the detail of its history. Noting that the Bartholomew-era Mirror was read by a majority-female audience, the chapter first discusses how Jane, as well as other Mirror strips such as Love Me Forever, worked in tandem with the paper’s wider editorial content to reflect a positive and affirmatory vision of contemporary womanhood. The role of the Mirror’s strips in the construction of a demotic and strongly anti-Nazi address during the lead-up to World War Two is then considered before the chapter examines in detail the development of Jane during the war years. Identifying four distinct eras of wartime Jane strips, the chapter then charts the character’s dispersal through the wider popular cultural environment and notes how the daily strip was ultimately compelled to adapt its positioning to accommodate the alternative articulations of the character that had grown through the wartime context.