FIRESTORM ANYONE?

I took these pictures of a friend's Firestorm tin boxed badge set about ten years ago.

Is Firestorm something you know about readers?

DESPERATELY SEEKING FIRESTORM DVD

Greetings.

I'm trying to track down the Firestorm anime series DVD collection ... any chance someone may be able to help ?

regards,

Trog7

If you can help leave Trog7 a reply in the comments here  [click] please.Ta. Woodsy

ANDERCON PUPPETEERING

Unsurprisingly, there was plenty of puppets at Andercon, mainly replicas, and many with heads cast from moulds taken from original  props.

As the Athena venue had plenty of open space many of the puppets had their own  replica sets.

This highly detailed set shows Brains in a scene from Thunderbirds episode, The Cham-Cham, and was built by Andy Grishaw and Jeff Gaskell.

Another lovely recreation. Here's 'Nosey' Parker with Light-Fingered Fred doing porridge! 

This photo of Joe McClaine with the Rat Trap in the background is a set up recreating a 1993/94  Brighton display restoration courtesy of Chris Carter.

Puppeteers Judy Preece and Richard Gregory appeared on stage, showing the tricks of the trade with their puppetry demonstrations.

The highlight was a practical demonstration of the state-of-the-art puppet of Sam Scott from Anderson Entertainment's proposed new series, Fire Storm.

This remarkable puppet looks fantastic, and takes puppeteering to a whole new level.

FIRESTORM: GERRY ANDERSON'S JAPANESE TV ANIME CARTOON FROM 2003

With all things Gerry Anderson hotting up now that Thunderbirds are back on the telly, I took a look at the roots of Firestorm, the new and exciting Kickstarter -funded project in pre-production from Anderson Entertainment. Their cool website has regular updates. Here's their teaser which appeared on You Tube in September last year.

Coming hot on the heels of Anderson Entertainment's debut project, the Gemini Force One books, Firestorm, as I discovered has already had one outing on TV 12 years ago. Alas, most of us will not have seen it back in 2003 as it was shown largely in Japan. This does make sense as it was an anime show. You can read about it on various sites and naturally Wikipedia.

Amazingly, and I was amazed,  you can see lots of episodes of the 2003 Firestorm on You Tube in their original Japanese. Each episode run to around 25 minutes and here's episode 1. I was really surprised that only 2000 odd people have viewed it. The vehicles are brilliant, which got me thinking about merchandise.

Now Andersonites much better informed than I will know, but I didn't - there was indeed a set of small plastic toy vehicles released by capsule kings Yujin for the 2003 Firestorm series in Japan.

There are quite a few sets of these available from one seller on the Bay but at £55 a pop they're not cheap. I couldn't find any other merchandise connected to the Japanese Firestorm online, not on Ebay or Amazon. I had thought of consulting my bible, Dennis Nicholson's Guide, but it was published 10 years before Firestorm even appeared on Japanese TV!

With no English-dub available of this old anime it seems, Anderson Entertainment have got a clear field to re-ignite Firestorm for a brand new worldwide audience hungry for more Thunderbirdesque TV.

LEE SULLIVAN ON BOARD FIRESTORM

I was pleased to hear that artist Lee Sullivan has joined the Firestorm design team and is producing a limited edition comic strip edition as part of a backers reward.

Read more about  it here  http://downthetubes.net/?p=17885

This shows  Lee's design work  for 'Ocean Storm' for the Firestorm project.

Lee, as many of you will know did the excellent front cover artwork for the Eaglemoss Gerry Anderson Comic Collection which sadly stalled at volume 5.

I had the pleasure of briefly meeting Lee, along with legendary TV21 artist Mike Noble at Andercon this year. Best of luck with your new project, Lee.

GERRY ANDERSON'S FIRESTORM LIFTS OFF!

Sub Merged

Tornado Mid Battle

Ocean Storm Breach and Take Off

Hi MC

We have some exciting updates about Gerry Anderson's Firestorm. Please find attached a new press release with news that we hope your readers will be keen to hear. We have successfully reached our base funding goal on Kickstarter in just 96 hours and are now trying to reach our stretch goals to make a full pilot episode. 

Legendary Thunderbirds voice artists Shane Rimmer (Scott Tracy) and Matt Zimmerman (Alan Tracy) are making cameo appearances and the crew has been joined by Hollywood prop-maker Ken Palkow (Star Trek Into Darkness, Mission Impossible, Oblivion, X-Men: Days of Future Past). 

Here is a link to the Kickstarter itself: http://kck.st/1wTlJsB

Jack Knoll

Anderson Entertainment Ltd.

Tornado in Flight

Pictures: Anderson Entertainment Ltd