At the beginning of 1967, TV21 released it’s Thunderbird Spring Extra which had an heavy emphasis on the film Thunderbirds Are Go and the Zero X. One of it’s features was the cutaway of that mighty spaceship. This, as most of us know would be reproduced later in the SWORD annual.
In spite of the box office flop of the film, Thunderbirds was still as popular as ever, and Century 21 publishing was riding high. Captain Scarlet and The Mysterons would join the comic towards the end of the year, and TV21 was at it’s peak.
The 1968 annual was graced with two cutaways - again, probably drawn by Eric Eden. One was the popular Fireflash, which had appeared in TV21 prior to it’s debut on TV, and the other, the Sidewinder from the episode ’ Pit of Peril’, although it was called the Jungle Cat referring to another pre - Thunderbird appearance in an early TV21 Stingray story.
The Thunderbird annual from the same year had cutaways of The Mole and The Firefly, which followed the same style as the TV21 layout.
The first Captain Scarlet annual was also released . However ,rather than doing a straight forward cutaway of each vehicle, the editors decided to surround a publicity photograph with drawings of various related components which gave an impression of a technical manual.
However, traditional cutaways of some of the main vehicles appeared in TV21 comic at the beginning of 1968 starting with the Saloon Car in issue 156, again drawn by Eric Eden. The ever popular SPV appeared in issue 160.
I’ll cut along now but I’d be cut up if you don’t join me for the final instalment when we look at the last hurrah for the Century 21 cutaways.
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