The Turnabout Club

This is a re-title of Ernie Comics (Ace Magazines, 1948) #[11-48]. See the next few posts for an explanation of The Turnabout Club.

If males do 'wolf whistles', then females must do fox whistles. ;-)


Update: In going through my files, I discovered that femur has also used the same comic book cover for a recap. His cover mod is Spells 'R Us #55.

'fox' whistles

(Excerpted from Four-Color Lipstick: A History of TGC (2006))


There had already been a number of TGC comics that had included gender-transformation and cross-dressing as occasional storylines, but the first TGC comic to include cross-dressing as a continuing storyline was "The Turnabout Club", a teen humor series. The T-Club, as comic fans called it, was first seen in "Story Parade", TGC's main anthology comic series. There were also some T-Club stories published in the TGC humor anthology, "Laffs-a-Million". Durning that period, there were only a couple of cover stories for the Turnabout Club in either anthology. There were also a few, very rare standalone T-Club issues.

Although it has never been verified, comics fans believe that a couple of the early TGC artists had been students at the prestigious all-boy St. Anselm's Academy in the San Francisco Bay area, which has had a real Turnabout Club for almost a century (see Appendix D). Supposedly, some of the early T-Club stories are thinly disguised adventures of real Turnabout Club members.

After a change in ownership, with most of the early TGC artists leaving for other comic book publishers (or leaving comics entirely to work in graphics arts, etc.), the Turnabout Club was forgotten for quite awhile. When TGC started "Gory Stories" as an EC Comics imitator, they revived the T-Club as a group of paranormal investigating crossdressers who would use their cross-dressing to confuse supernatural beings and practitioners of the occult.

With the advent of the Comics Code Authority, "Gory Stories" became "Worldwide Adventure Stories" and the Turnabout Club became a group of cross-dressing secret agents for a secretive espionage agency. Around this time TGC was visited by some 'Men in Black' because some real US espionage agencies had been recruiting members of the real Turnabout Club and some of the comic book Turnabout Club's escapades were apparently too similar to some real life spy adventures.

In the 60s, TGC again had a couple of artists who were St. Anselm's Academy alumni and the Turnabout Club returned to its teen humor roots. That version has been described as a "cross-dressing version of the Archie Comics". Another commentary called it "the campiest teen humor comic ever created".

Unable to compete against the Archie juggernaut, TGC did one more revamp of the Turnabout Club in the 80s as a group of super heroes who either changed their sex when they became super heroes, or had the power to change the sex of others. Even one of the villains in the series had the ability to change sex--the enigmatic "?" (usually referred to by comics fans as "Q", predating the Star Trek "Q" by over a decade).

The super hero version did not last long, however. The Turnabout Club series has been dormant ever since. Recently, however, TGC has announced a revival of the Turnabout Club (possibly named "The T-Club"), once again returning it to its teen humor past. TGC is promising a very hip version dealing with the problems of today's teens.

Appendix D:

The all-boys St. Anselm's Academy (SAA) was founded in the San Francisco area in 1907. During that time period there were very few organized sports teams, so the extracurricular activities of the students tended towards things like the school's well-regarded literary magazine, the glee club, and the debate team. It was, however, the plays and musicals put on by the school's Theatrical Society that brought the greatest renown to the school in the beginning, and so the Theatrical Society became the most prestigious group on campus to belong to.

Boys who could successfully play female roles were in short supply, so they quickly became a strong clique within the theatrical society. It was the strengths and abilities of the best of these 'male actresses' which determined which performances were done each year. If one was a good singer, there was a musical done that year. If one was good at dramatic performances, they might be Lady Macbeth that year.

These 'campus divas' then organized themselves (informally at first, but later on as a recognized campus club) as the Turnabout Club (also called the T-Club). Many of the Turnabout Club members were also very involved in student government, the school newspaper, the school yearbook, etc.

After a few years, the Turnabout Club requested permission for their members to attend school wearing dresses "as needed" to help improve the quality and believability of their performances. In the beginning, this only happened during the weeks leading up to a performance, plus during the run of the play. Later on some of the T-Club members started coming to school a couple of times a week "to keep in practice". Eventually some of the club members started coming to school full time as females.

Starting quietly in the 50s, the Turnabout Club slowly opened up to not only the 'male actresses' in the Theatrical Society, but to anyone interested in female impersonation or exploring their distaff side. The modern Turnabout Club usually has between one dozen and two dozen members, with about half attending class "en femme" on any particular day.

This probably sounds pretty unusual, and of course it is. However the St. Anselm's Academy, despite its religious-sounding name, has been a very progressive nonsectarian school that tolerated a wide range of behavior in its students. From its founding, there has never been a formal campus dress code (only a campus undress code--you can't come to school naked). Perhaps because of this freedom of thought (and attire), SAA alumni have gone on to numerous prestigious positions, including senators, judges, professorships, etc. The alumni include one Nobel Prize winner, as well as winners of many other awards.

Many of the Theatrical Society members, and especially the Turnabout Club members, have gone on to distinguished careers in the theater, movies, and television. They have become actors, playwrights, screenwriters, producers, talent agents, film editors, studio executives, etc.

One little known fact is that during World War II, quite a few former Turnabout Club members were recruited for espionage missions. The same thing happened during the Cold War. For example, someone might enter East Germany as a male,but leave disguised as a female. Many of their missions have still not been declassified.

According to the speculations of comics fans, the original version of TGC's comic series, The Turnabout Club, was probably based on SAA's Turnabout Club.


note: This description may be modified or expanded at any time. The last revision was 05 Sept 2007 3:51 PDT.
©2007 SoCal Secrets

The Turnabout Club is a proposed story-writing/comic book modification universe. I created the Turnabout Club because I've been frustrated that all the other TG story-writing universes that I know about (see this list at Crystal's StorySite, or femur's list) require magic, mad scientists, or some scifi sleight of hand.

I think that between the comic book version and the St. Anselm's Academy version of the Turnabout Club, I have created a nicely open-ended universe with plenty of possibilities for story writers and comic book cover modifiers.

I am presenting this as an open universe that anyone can contribute to. The only thing that I ask is that if you deviate significantly from the guidelines above, then please contact me first. Otherwise, don't call it part of the Turnabout Club universe (although you can say it is inspired by the TCU).

Maybe the Turnabout Club could get together with the Avis Gurls' Club and St. Anselms could contract with Vaingirls to start a Chicago branch.

In my very first story, I created the Vaingirls universe that is neither magical or sci-fi. See "Vaingirls: Joyce's Story" it's at the major sites. I don't write alot, and not all of my stories are set in the Vaingirls universe. But here is a modified cover that I use as a title page for my longest VG work, "I'm Baaack!!"

I'm Baaack!" cover

Wow! I really look forward to seeing more of these old Turnabout Club stories discovered from the TGC vaults! I wonder if the T-Club ever had a "crossdressing crossover" with the Elle-Boys of J.E.T. T.E.E.N. in It's Cookie!

In my very first story, I created the Vaingirls universe that is neither magical or sci-fi.

My story idea actually came first, but I am a v-e-r-y slow writer. I've done an outline for the first half of a story of a contemporary edition of the Turnabout Club. I haven't yet found a good way to end the story, so I haven't started to flesh out the outline.

The information in "Appendix D" above was developed from the backstory that I worked out for my contemporary Turnabout Club. Then I saw the Ernie Comics cover and thought that it would be good for a comic book of the 40s-50s version of the Turnabout Club. Next I remembered the clip art caption that I did titled "The Importance of Being Earnest" and decided that also fit into the Turnabout Club universe.


Wow! I really look forward to seeing more of these old Turnabout Club stories discovered from the TGC vaults!

I have at least two more covers that I plan to turn into Turnabout Club comic book covers. They are more complicated, so it may be awhile before they get posted.

I think that the only way a "crossover" cover might happen is by creating a composite from parts of two or more covers. I'll keep an eye out for possible candidate covers. If you could send me some info on the comic book series you've been using for "It's Cookie!", that'd help (privately if you prefer).

My sources for It's Cookie! have been Marvel's Millie the Model from its time as a humor feature and Harvey's Bunny, with a bit of DC's Scooter. And "Dana, Cookie's Elle-Boy Rival" is "Chili" from the Millie series.

Basically any humor feature with a prominent blonde girl that isn't the instantly-recognizable Archie....

Have you thought about doing a full story? As much as I love the covers everybody's been doing, I'd really love to read what's inside the books sometimes!

Basically any humor feature with a prominent blonde girl that isn't the instantly-recognizable Archie....

You could also look at Barbie Fashion and Barbie, plus the blond girlfriends of Binky and Freddy. There's also the Marvel version of Kathy and Tower's Tippy Teen. Then there's always very short-lived series like Vicki. [All but the Barbie comics are from the 60s & 70s (plus a little from the very late 50s).]

Now if you really wanted lots of choices of different comic book series, you'd choose a redhead in the 50s. The list would be 2-3 times longer. ;-)


Where did the Jet Dreams comics come from?

Jet Dream is actually a real series that I'm recaptioning. It was a backup feature in Western's The Man From UNCLE book (though not in the same continuity or related to the TV show in any way other than general theme.) Then they had one issue of their own title, which apparently didn't take off.

You can read the unmodified one-shot here. As you can probably tell, these not-terribly-good scans were the source material I used, then I got the original "UNCLE" books to scan myself.

Every JD story except their one-shot is four pages, incidentally! It's amazing that they could pack any kind of coherent story whatsoever into so few pages, particularly in this age of "decompressed" storytelling!

Many of the Jet Dream stories were drawn by Mike Sekowsky, so I've raided his DC titles (mainly his Wonder Woman and Supergirl) for additional material. Supergirl is yet another Cookie stand-in, and interestingly (and very conveniently for my purposes!) Jet Dream was apparently the "dry run" for his "New Wonder Woman" series. The white-jumpsuited Diana Prince is a dead ringer for Jet Dream! So I've used a lot of Sekowsky art to provide "linking" material when those 4 pages just aren't enough. I've exhausted the supply of Sekowsky Jet Dream stories, but perhaps I'll rejigger some WW art into a Harmony solo story one day....

Thanks for the tips on It's Cookie! material! A few of those I'd never heard of before, like Vicki and Tippy Teen, and they'd work well, I think. The Jet Dream/Cookie milleu is kind of locked into a late-'60s/early-'70s timeframe, so earlier material doesn't really fit... but maybe Barbie could provide material for TGC's little-known '80s revival of It's Cookie!

Are you sure Jet Dream and her team aren't arresting those bozos for crimes against fashion? Scarlet satin shirts with navy-blue epaulettes... Too-short petrol-blue pants (the guy in the foreground even has turn-ups!)... Patent leather shoes with buckles...

Of course! Hand-to-Hand Fashion Criticism is one of the most important J.E.T. D.R.E.A.M.* training courses!





* Joint Elite Team, Division of Raiding-Expert Aeronautical Maidens - Studious Sue!

Hand-to-Hand Fashion Criticism:

It sounds like one of the unusual martial arts techniques in the Ranma 1/2 manga and anime.

Some of the attacks would include the withering glare and biting criticism. ;-)

Heh, you're right, the various Jet Dream training courses (which you might notice as a running gag in my TG-riffic tales!) do bear a striking resemblance to stuff from Ranma 1/2. Funny, it hadn't occurred to me until now, but that was probably a subconscious inspiriation....