Another Thunderbirds collection on its way

I noticed this ad in the latest Previews catalogue. It looks like Egmont are releasing a second volume of sixties Thunderbirds comic strips reprinted from TV21. (The first volume was published in 2013 and I reviewed it here.) The promo says it will feature "the first twelve comic strips" by Frank Bellamy. Those early three page strips originally appeared as a double page spread and a black and white page, so it'll be interesting to see how they paginate those. The spread will obviously have to be reprinted as a spread but what will appear on every fourth page opposite the black and white page? A classic TV21 cover perhaps? Time will tell, as the book is due in October.

Other Thunderbirds news today on the Down The Tubes website, regarding Bellamy art being used as prints on clothes! See here:
http://downthetubes.net/?p=24397

TV21 goes football!

Early 1969 was a period of change for readers of British comics, and not for the better in the opinion of some. Eagle was merged into Lion, Smash! was changed beyond recognition into a traditional adventure comic and then on May 7th 1969 there was this cover. "TV21 goes football...in a big way!" 

Football United starts today! I remember my heart sinking at the sight of this headline. I'd only recently started buying TV21 again and found it to be great escapism compared to most other British comics, partly due to the absence of football. Sport was something you expected to see in Tiger or Lion, but the whole point of TV21 was that it was mostly set 100 years in the future, focused around the universe of Gerry Anderson shows. Admittedly that theme had been compromised considerably several months earlier with the absorption of TV Tornado, but its reinvention as a 'space and spy' comic was acceptable.

I've never been a fan of football so the inclusion of a football feature in TV21 was not only out of place but something I actually disliked and I soon dropped the comic. I suspect I wasn't the only one, as sales on the comic continued to fall, leading to a relaunch as TV21 and Joe 90 a few months later. (See here.)

In retrospect, despite the cover and the new footie feature, it was still business as usual inside so perhaps I over reacted when I stopped buying the comic. Let's take a look at the contents...

Pages 2 and 3 gave us Secret Agent 21, one of the mainstays of TV21. Not based on a TV show but part of the Anderson universe. I always liked Rab Hamilton's art on this...

Captain Scarlet, which at one time had been the cover feature of TV21 for months, had by now been demoted to a three page black and white strip. This week, - seagulls turned into Mysteron agents! Art by Jim Watson...

The Munsters, usually drawn by Paul Trevillion, was this week ghosted by Graham Allen...

Department S was a kind of 1960s X-Files but with rational explanations to the mysteries. Artwork by Carlos Pino...

Thunderbirds still dominated the centre pages with fantastic artwork by Frank Bellamy...

The Saint had two pages, with art by Carlos Pino I think...

Zero X was the only other full colour strip. Stunning artwork by the great Mike Noble, - and what a memorable cliffhanger!

Of course, the ever-present Corgi Model Club News was there on page 19...

The back page had an ad for a new ice lolly plus a half page feature on the fictitious mission to Saturn.  

All in all, it was still a great comic, but I still think the inclusion of football was a mistake and another nail in TV21's coffin that set it on a decline it never recovered from. The following year, TV21 and Joe 90 would big up the sport even more, with regular centrespread football team photos. Presumably they thought that was what the readers wanted, and admittedly kids were losing interest in space exploration so the publishers had to try something. However it didn't seem to halt the fall in sales. Eventually budget cuts would bring in reprints, poorer paper, and with TV21 a pale shadow of its former self it merged into Valiant in 1971. 

Here comes Spaceship Away No.35

Part 35 of Spaceship Away thudded through my letterbox this morning and it's a cracking issue to herald the 65th anniversary of Dan Dare. The excellent cover is by veteran Dan Dare artist Don Harley and he's also painted a fantastic centrespread featuring Colonel Dare and crew, plus an exclusive back cover of Chaplain Dan Dare, based on the original concept of the character as a vicar in space!

Inside this 40 page full colour issue there are two brand new Dan Dare strips by Tim Booth featuring the latest chapters of Parsecular Tales and Mercury Revenant. I'm pleased to see that Tim is now using a better lettering font than Comic Sans. This new font suits his work far better. 

Other strips in this issue include the start of the 1950s Jet Morgan serial The World Next Door drawn by Terence Patrick and a Ron Turner Nick Hazard story Planet of Doom, coloured by Martin Baines. 

It's good to see two humour strips joining the comic too, with Ray Aspden's new Thunderpants page and an uncredited Davy Rocket strip. I think Davy Rocket is a 1950s reprint but there's no information in the mag.

There are some great articles in this issue too. Alan Vince has written a six page feature on the artist Harold Johns, very well illustrated with examples of his work. Andrew Darlington looks back on 1969's Lion and Eagle merger and how it affected the Dan Dare reprints, and Jeremy Briggs writes about The Lost Eagle, the proposed 1973 revival of the comic that never reached fruition. There's the cover by Frank Bellamy of the dummy issue below but you'll see it full page size in Spaceship Away.

All in all it's a splendid issue and well worth checking out if you've never read it. Spaceship Away is published three times a year, with high production values to its printing. A quality product. You can order issues from the website here:
http://spaceshipaway.org.uk/

Thunderbirds in the comics

Unless you've been living on Mars (with those pesky Rock Snakes) you probably know there's a brand new Thunderbirds series coming to TV this Spring, entitled Thunderbirds Are Go. A mixture of CGI and models it promises to put a new spin on the old favourites but remaining true to the basics. 

What you may also know is that last October it was announced that DC Thomson will be publishing a monthly Thunderbirds Are Go magazine this year, plus an annual. Thomsons are being very hush-hush about it so there's no news on contents or publication date as yet but I'll post info as soon as I get the go ahead. (Although you'll probably hear of it elsewhere first.)

This isn't the first time there's been a Thunderbirds magazine of course. The series has a long association with comics, dating back to TV Century 21 No.52 in early 1966 (cover above) which featured the first Thunderbirds comic strip illustrated by the great Frank Bellamy...

The Thunderbirds strip replaced the Lady Penelope strip (which had been running in TV21 since issue 1 in January 1965). However this heralded a promotion, with Lady Penelope gaining her own weekly publication. 

Thunderbirds became a major part of TV21 but never had its own ongoing comic at that time, although in 1966 there was the Thunderbirds Extra, a 48 page glossy one-off which effectively was the first Thunderbirds solo comic...

The special featured several long complete Thunderbirds strips by a variety of top 1960s artists including Brian Lewis...

Don Harley...

...and Ron Turner...

There were other Thunderbirds specials and annuals of course, but I'm mainly focusing on the regular comics for this post. 

TV21's Thunderbirds strip ended in 1970. A year later, Polystyle gained the licence to publish strips based on Gerry Anderson shows and launched Countdown (see blog post here)...

A brand new Thunderbirds strip began in Countdown No.1, illustrated by Don Harley...

Countdown became TV Action in 1972 and its falling fortunes led to some reprint in its pages including Frank Bellamy Thunderbirds strips from TV21. TV Action later dropped the Thunderbirds strips before the comic ended in 1973 but nine years later in 1982 Polystyle published the Thunderbirds Special. This 48 page comic was all-reprint, gathering strips from various annuals and specials.

Presumably it sold well enough for Polystyle to publish two more Thunderbirds Specials in 1983 and 1984. Again, all reprint.

A few years later, in 1988, Action 21 was launched, published by David Nightingale of Engale Marketing in Blackpool (based at Lytham Road's excellent Thunderbooks comic shop). Superbly designed by Graham Bleathman, Action 21 was a 20 page A4 comic on quality paper, containing sharply reproduced reprints of TV21 strips including Bellamy's Thunderbirds. Sadly the limited distribution comic didn't last too long but it was a worthy exercise. (Back issues are still available from the publisher. Click here to see.)

In 1991, with Thunderbirds enjoying a revived surge of popularity for a new generation (due to repeats on TV), Fleetway launched Thunderbirds the Comic, a 24 page fortnightly edited by Alan Fennell who had been the original editor of TV21, as well as a writer on the TV series.

For its first three issues Thunderbirds the Comic only contained reprints of TV21 strips (plus great new cutaways by Graham Bleathman) but from issue 4 it began to include new material in the form of strip adaptations of TV episodes featuring fantastic artwork by people such as Steve Kyte and Keith Watson...

Thunderbirds the Comic was initially a massive success for Fleetway and ran for 89 issues, concluding in March 1995. Convinced there was still potential in the comic, Alan Fennell gained the licence to publish it himself as Thunderbirds Are Go! 

For a few issues it was cheaper than its predecessor but Thunderbirds Are Go! didn't survive for long. (I think it lasted 8 issues.) Its contents were once again TV21 reprints plus photo-strips using screen grabs from the TV series. (Unfortunately the quality of the photos wasn't too good in issue one, with some looking like they'd simply been photographed from the TV screen.)

In 1999 Redan launched their own Thunderbirds monthly magazine, with a slick design in tune with other Thunderbirds merchandise of the time.

The direction of Redan's Thunderbirds mag was distinctly younger than previous publications featuring the property. Its emphasis was on simply told photo-stories and activity pages (and new cutaways by Graham Bleathman)...

Undoubtedly this was a disappointment for older fans but it proved to be the right decision by Redan as the publication ran for several years. 

So... what will DC Thomson's new Thunderbirds Are Go magazine be like when it arrives on our shelves? The last 49 years of Thunderbirds comics (and indeed British comics in general) have shown a gradual simplification in tone. TV21 was very sophisticated compared to today's comics, but that didn't deter readers back in 1965. (I was five years old when TV21 No.1 was published. Loved it!) 

The old attitude in publishing used to be that if your comic was aimed at 5 to 11 year olds, you'd write it for the older end of the target audience and the younger ones would catch up (and feel 'big' that they were reading something that wasn't 'babyish') - because children will drop a comic like a stone if they think it's infantile. Publishers could take risks like that when sales were half a million or so. Today it's a different scene, with many children struggling with their reading, a culture with more emphasis on visuals, and publishers not wanting to risk alienating the ones who do pick up their mags. It's possible that Thunderbirds Are Go will follow the direction of Doctor Who Adventures and suchlike and have a focus on 'activity pages' and pull-out posters - and inevitably be bagged with gifts. We'll know soon enough. The good thing is that once again there'll be a Thunderbirds magazine in newsagents (hopefully with some comic strip). 

For a more detailed history of Thunderbirds comic strips see the excellently researched Technodelic website:
http://www.technodelic.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/Upload01/Thunderbirds01.htm

UPDATE: I've just received this first image of the new character designs for the new series. What do you think, folks?