Continuing
my nostalgic look at vintage Gerry Anderson series in comic strip form I come
to what I, personally consider to be the final classic sci-fi series that Gerry
produced - Space 1999.
I remember
picking up Look –In magazine which started its Space 1999 strip in 1975. The
full colour dramatic artwork was by John M Burns, but sadly it didn’t capture
me sufficiently to place a regular order.
In time Mike
Noble took over illustrating the strip but by then it had been relegated to
black and white which even though Mr Noble is, undoubtedly a fine artist, the
young fella I was in those days wanted to see colour!
The point of
my meanderings is that at that time, although I watched the series on TV I didn’t
feel the need to follow it in a comic like Look - In.
The only
strips I read at the time were in the Space 1999 annuals which by and large
were pretty uninspired. This one from the first annual was written by Angus
Allen and drawn by John M Burns..
I did get
the final Space 1999 annual in 1979 which unlike the other annuals was full of American reprints.
These were
apparently from an American publisher called Charlton Comics who’d released a
series of Space 1999 comics from 1975 to 1976 both in colour and black and
white. These days much is known and written about these comics but at that time
the reprints were a bit of a mystery to me.
As an example I've chosen some panels from the first colour version of the comic which wasn’t actually in
the annual. It featured a brief summary of the opening episode, ‘Breakaway’,
before the story, ‘Moonless Night’
begins. The art is by Joe Staton .
This second
example from issue 7 of the colour series was the final edition, and the only
one to feature characters from the second season. These are the opening pages
to a comic strip adaptation of the second season opener, The Metamorph’. The art is by Pat Boyette.
If these comics had been generally available in Britain I'd have probably made the effort to pick them up. The artwork and stories was fairly good and as they were comics dedicated to the show rather than sharing strip stories with pop pin ups it makes them a bit more collectable too.
John Byrne did the cover art on the premiere issue of Charlton Comics of Space:1999.
ReplyDeleteHe also did covers and interior art for another CC series titled Doomsday +1, a short-run but worth checking out.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doomsday_%2B_1
Patron Zero, that is incorrect. Joe Staton did the cover of issue 1 - he signed it too as proof. John Byrne was not involved with the Space:1999 Charlton comic until issue 3: http://www.technodelic.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/Upload04/Space1999US02.htm
DeleteLiving on a break away moon trveling through space and hope to someday return to earths orbit kind of like Lost in Space and Star Trek
ReplyDeleteYep, Swifty, that was the life of the Space 1999'ers! Not easy on a stray moon!
DeleteThank you for this great commentary on Space 1999 comic art covering both British and US issues. Im now finding an occasional issue at second hand stores in our city's University District and I welcome all the information I can get.
ReplyDeleteI'm grateful too for the comments section, as I value all notices regarding Gerry Anderson, Irwin Allen, and Original Star Trek.
Thank you all.
Thanks unknown. It's a while since I did this post but I'm still as enthusiastic about these 1999 comic strips. Cheers
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