City Magazines and Century 21 publishing gave Gerry Anderson's latest puppet series his own comic - Joe 90: Top Secret.
I remember picking up that first issue and being quite excited about it. The free gift, a working Jet Air Car seemed so sophisticated at the time.
The colourful front cover showing the opening panel of a new Joe 90 comic strip drawn by Frank Bellamy was certainly eye catching. Inside however, the strip was black and white and drawn by Keith Watson. Not that there's anything wrong with Keith Watson's art, it just that, like most kids I would have expected the cover star to be in full colour.
There was a small feature on the Jet - Air Car, with instructions on how to assemble the free gift.
There was a couple of other black and white strips. One was the unlikely and forgettable Ninepence + Tenpence = Sport, which featured the dreaded F word - football!
ITC's The Champions, drawn by Jon Davis was a slightly better entry, There was even a little feature on those cut price Six Million Dollar people for those unfamiliar with the series.
The centre comic strip spread was devoted to Star Trek, something which was yet to appear on UK television at that point.
The second colour strip, drawn by Gerry Haylock was an introduction to Irwin Allen's latest offering Land of The Giants.
A full page ad for the second issue, featuring a still from Land of The Giants. Sadly Joe 90:Top Secret lasted less than a year , ending with issue 34 on 6th September, 1969 .It then merged with the flagging TV21 comic.
I remember getting that and assembling the free gift, which did,I think, work! I would've been 6.
ReplyDeleteHappy days eh Kev. I recall putting my free gift together too. Ah, the joy that can be got from a bit of card, a couple of matchsticks and the odd elastic band. Things have certainly moved on in the free gift stakes, eh :D
DeleteI've got this comic now, although I no longer remember if I bought it regularly at the time. Interest in Gerry Anderson productions seemed to be on the wane, and consequently, that was reflected in the sales of TV21 and Joe 90. At its best 'though, TV21 was one of the all-time classic comics.
ReplyDeleteI did buy it regularly, Kid, although I didn't think it was half as good as TV21.As a youngster I wasn't really aware of the downturn in Gerry Anderson's stuff.I got TV21 at the same time that Joe 90 was running,and liked the way the new editors had gone back to the newspaper front cover, but when TV21 merged with Joe 90 it wasn't hard to see the rot had set in.
ReplyDeleteThat's very sharp artwork, Scoop, especially the colour centre spreads. Looking at the Star Trek spread, can I see what looks very much like a 2001: A Space Odyssey, style space suit?
ReplyDeleteYou're right about the 2001 suit in the Star Trek strip Tony. I think the artist was Harry Linfield. He did draw a shuttlecraft one time that looked a lot like Thunderbird 2, but did do depiction of a Klingon that predated The Next Generation version.
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