How virus-ravaged 2020 was foreseen… by Bunty!

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How virus-ravaged 2020 was foreseen… by Bunty! Annual from 1987 had sci-fi cartoon strip featuring two teenagers living in a world decimated by a deadly pandemic

  • Two teenagers are living in the year 2020 and describe living in a pandemic 
  • Coronavirus crisis in the year 2020 was eerily foretold in the 1987 Bunty annual   
  • In the cartoon strip the world has been decimated by ‘virus deadly to humans’

By John Paul Breslin For The Daily Mail

Published: | Updated:

Uncanny predictions of the future are often credited to ancient Mayan soothsayers, Nostradamus … and even The Simpsons.

Now it appears that the Covid crisis was eerily foretold in the Bunty annual from 1987.

In a sci-fi cartoon strip called The Lost World, two teenagers in the year 2020 live in a world that has been decimated by a ‘virus deadly to humans’.

The comic has a twist that has yet to have been suggested as the origin for Covid-19 – the virus was brought back by a spaceship returning to Earth

Jane and Jean live beneath a force field that protects them from the virus and has ¿cut everyone off from the world outside¿

Jane and Jean live beneath a force field that protects them from the virus and has ‘cut everyone off from the world outside’

Jane and Jean live beneath a force field that protects them from the virus and has ‘cut everyone off from the world outside’ – while there is a ban on travelling between cities and countries.

Jane and Jean live beneath a force field that protects them from the virus and has ¿cut everyone off from the world outside¿ ¿ while there is a ban on travelling between cities and countries. Their teacher tells them about the ¿terrible plague¿

Jane and Jean live beneath a force field that protects them from the virus and has ‘cut everyone off from the world outside’ – while there is a ban on travelling between cities and countries. Their teacher tells them about the ‘terrible plague’

Their teacher tells them about the ‘terrible plague’, adding: ‘Millions of people died. We must be eternally grateful to the wonderful force field that has saved our lives.’

One character even laments what Christmas dinners were like before the deadly virus ended life as they knew it, while Jean’s talk of ‘escaping’ suggests this future society is very far from utopian.

The story was discovered by the daughter of Dr Emily Munro, an archivist at the National Library of Scotland. Bunty was a comic for girls published by Dundee firm DC Thomson & Co from 1958 to 2001.

However, the comic has a twist that has yet to have been suggested as the origin for Covid-19 – the virus was brought back by a spaceship returning to Earth.

Also, somewhat alarmingly, Jane and Jean’s teacher predicts that it could be ‘hundreds of years before the plague has burnt itself out’.

It appears that the Covid crisis was eerily foretold in the Bunty annual from 1987

One character says: 'All the shops may be closed here in town, but surely somewhere in space there's a planet with a Christmas tree to spare?'

It appears that the Covid crisis was eerily foretold in the Bunty annual from 1987, pictured left, while one character says: ‘All the shops may be closed here in town, but surely somewhere in space there’s a planet with a Christmas tree to spare?’

In the cartoon, there is a ban on travelling between cities and countries. The teacher tells them: 'Millions of people died. We must be eternally grateful to the wonderful force field that has saved our lives'

In the cartoon, there is a ban on travelling between cities and countries. The teacher tells them: ‘Millions of people died. We must be eternally grateful to the wonderful force field that has saved our lives’