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. 

Lady Penelope No.42 (1966)

Lady Penelope was a pretty cool character for a puppet, and her comic equally so. Take a look at the cover to Lady Penelope No.42 above, dated November 5th 1966. Its companion comic TV21 often played around with its own logo but never to this extent. A gigantic Lady P logo dominates the cover, even dispensing with the comic's full title that week. (The words 'Lady Penelope' usually ran alongside the logo in the left hand corner.) I don't recall any other comic being as experimental with its cover as this in the 1960s. Also, when you consider that this comic was the size of a tabloid newspaper you can imagine how eye catching it must have been. 

For its target audience of young girls, Lady Penelope must have seemed like the most modern and 'with it' comic they'd ever seen. Its contents were pretty groovy too. On pages 2 and 3, was a strip featuring The Monkees drawn by Tom Kerr. The artist's work was as superb as ever but what's interesting here is that he added little items to the strip in the way that Bill Elder had with Mad a decade earlier. Note for example the UFO in panel three, and the man hanging from the panel border in panel seven. 

Lost In Space was a popular TV show at the time about the Robinson family trapped on a distant planet. Lady Penelope had a Space Family Robinson strip but this had no relation to the TV series. It was instead based on the American Gold Key comics, but with brand new stories for the UK drawn by John Burns. 

The Lady Penelope strip itself ran across the centrespread in the sort of glorious full colour only achievable by the expensive photogravure printing of the time. Artwork by Frank Langford.

The comic certainly employed some top class talent. Ron Embleton delivered fine work as the illustrator of The Man from UNCLE...

There were also a few humour strips in the comic. The excellent Bill Titcombe drawing Bewitched...

The Beverly Hillbillies. (I'm unsure of the artist. Paul Trevillion perhaps?)

Perils of Parker, drawn by Peter Ford...

There was also a prose serial, All the King's Men, featuring an ancestor of Penelope. Art by John Canning...

On the back page, Marina from Stingray had her own series. Nicely illustrated by Rab Hamilton...

The rest of the 20 page comic was taken up with reader participation features and suchlike. I thought you might like to see a couple of adverts from this issue too, which reflect the times. First is an ad for a Sugar Puffs promotion where girls could buy 'Julie... the fashion doll with everything' for 21/- (One pound and 5p). Turns out that 'everything' included stockings and suspenders for the doll. Guaranteed to turn the head of any Action Man. 

The other full page ad was for a variety of Century 21 toys. No doubt worth quite a bit on the collector's market today. 

As you can see, Lady Penelope was quite an impressive comic with some great artwork. Too bad that most of us lads back then were too embarrassed to be seen with a girls comic! If you want to read about its history, check out the brilliant Technodelic website here:
http://www.technodelic.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/Upload03/LadyPenelope02.htm

This week in 1965: TV Century 21 No.31

This is the issue of TV21 that was published exactly 49 years ago today, on Wednesday 25th August 1965. I can tell you with certainty that the weather was absolutely throwing it down with rain that day. How? I remember that this issue got soaked on the way back from the shops and we had to dry it out in the bathroom for a few hours. (This isn't the copy I had back then by the way. That's long gone. This is one I bought in the 1980s.)

Perhaps due to that soggy escapade I can remember a lot of scenes from this issue even after all those years. Anyway, let's have a look inside...

As was the case with that first year of TV21, the comic kicked off with two pages of Burke's Law, drawn by Paul Trevillion, based on the US TV series...

Turn the page and the impact of Mike Noble's superb artwork on Fireball XL5 was a joy to behold. TV21 really knew their audience. When we as young children were watching Gerry Anderson's puppet shows we weren't really noticing that they were wooden marionettes moving awkwardly on strings. In our imaginations this is the sort of impression those shows presented to us, and the strips in TV21 captured that dynamic excitement perfectly. 

Special Agent 21 on page 7 was an excellent originated strip that not only tapped into the spy fad of the sixties but also tied into the Anderson universe. Art by Rab Hamilton...

Also reflecting the spy fad was this competition. I had that James Bond cap gun but I don't recall a holster with it. My version came with a plastic 'silencer' to fit onto the end of the metal gun barrel. (As seen in the case set shown.) 

My Favorite Martian was a full page humour strip on page 9, based on the American TV comedy show. I never saw this show at all when I was a kid, so perhaps it was only shown in selected regions or it clashed with something on the other channel. Art by Bill Titcombe.

TV21's big selling point in that first year was Stingray, superbly illustrated by Ron Embleton across the centre-spread of the comic. 

Page 13 and a couple of ads. At the top is one of the many anti-smoking strips that appeared in comics at the time. (You can see more of them at this link.) 

Pages 14 and 15; Supercar, drawn by Bruno Marraffa I believe...

Pages 16 and 17 gave us more superb full colour (a rarity in British comics of the time) with Eric Eden's excellent Lady Penelope serial.

Page 18 featured a variety of snippets including Zoony the Lazoon...

...and this cartoon playing on the Police Box aspect of Doctor Who. I presume 'Ronald' is a reference to Ronald and Reginald, the notorious Kray Twins. (Update: No, of course it's a reference to Ronnie Biggs, of the Great Train Robbery, who was on the run. Thanks for the reminder, Marko!)

On the back page in its usual position, The Daleks, illustrated by Richard Jennings. Fantastic stuff! 

Was it any wonder that TV21 became such a big hit with kids in 1965? This was the must-have comic for children across the UK. Even today, it remains my favourite adventure comic. I hope you enjoy these strips on this soggy Bank Holiday Monday, just as I enjoyed them 49 years ago on an even wetter day!