By the SWORD Divided

My first encounter with Project SWORD, even though I didn't appreciate its links to TV21, was around one Christmas in the early 70s.

My father had lots of retail and wholesale contacts, having worked in the business before a career in airlines, and was always taking us to these obscure discount places he knew. One was a long, cramped first floor office in a block behind one end of Crawley High Street - the building is still there, in Orchard Street, even if the business has long disappeared.

On a dark winter afternoon, possibly a Saturday when we always went shopping, my younger sister and I were taken to this veritable treasure trove - shelves packed tight with all manner of toys and games. Whether my dad had taken us to this downmarket Santa's Grotto specifically because of them I can't recall, but our choice narrowed down to these three SWORD toy spaceships. Years on, I now know these were the rare and much sought-after Series 2 ships, and remember that '1' was like a white boat with blue trim, '2' was a yellow swing-wing plane, and '3' a red delta-shaped craft. Because we were only allowed one each - my sis still likes SF though long married and a mum herself now - the boring boat-like one lost out...

Fast forward some fifteen years, and my next SWORD memoir relates to correspondence with writer and 'TV21' script editor, the late Angus Allan, who sadly passed away in 2007. I was writing a college thesis on Gerry Anderson fandom, and had written to Angus, courtesy of letters passed on via the Look-in offices. Amidst his responses, he mentioned the Project SWORD annual he had pretty much written from scratch, and the fact he featured in the photos of the 'characters' if I could find a copy. Somehow, in those pre-internet and eBay days, I did, and now I had several faces to add to names like Roger Perry, Dennis Hooper, Howard Elson and Angus himself. I also become a fan of this incredibly dark and apocalyptic future, where happy 'Thunderbirds'-style endings were few, if ever, and far between.

It wasn't until much later, a scant few years ago, that I took the plunge to try and document all the Gerry Anderson related comics, after an abortive attempt where initial features formed part of Stephen La Riviere's 'Supermarionation Is Go' website. A great many visits to the British Newspaper Library at Colindale ensued, with myself writing the vast majority of guides, and associate Kim Stevens assisting by contributing knowledge of the SWORD toys when it came to looking at rarer, less well-known strips in 'Solo' and 'TV Tornado'. I had obtained a couple of 'Solo' issues already, and had no idea 'Project SWORD' had actually started here. And what a start - it was quite appallingly awful. A world apart from the well-crafted stories in the annual. We still have no idea who wrote and drew it, which may be just as well.

The SWORD stories in 'TV21' were catalogued by Kim Stevens, even though I wrote the accompanying feature, and different yet again in range and style. Angus was responsible for these too, and it was interesting to see some of the title's top artists seconded to illustrate them: Ron Embleton, Don Lawrence (coming as a revelation to his fan club, and earning me a honorary membership when they confirmed it as his), Jon Davis and Malcolm Stokes. All, bar Jon whom I had the pleasure of speaking to last year, sadly now joining Angus in that great Creativity in the Sky.

So to someone like myself, Project SWORD - if you're not a die-hard liking all three versions - is very much a double-edged blade, no pun intended. From a cringeworthy, curtailed strip, to a superbly dramatic annual which is a gem in the Century 21 Publications crown, when it was at the height of its output and creativity.

Looking ahead, not quite a thousand more years (though it may seem that long to some!), Project SWORD should feature in the sixth and last article of the 'Gerry Anderson comics' series for Comics International... whenever. It may also feature on another special cover which, as with the other five, I have designed and commissioned, sharing the limelight with 'Agent 21', 'Starcruiser' and - shock horror! - 'Candy & Andy'!

Look out for 'The Space Between The Worlds'.

Hopefully some time before AD3031...

Specially written for the first bloggiversary by Shaqui Le Vesconte. Shaqui is the author, along with Kim Stevens, of the superb Gerry Anderson Complete Comics History (GACCH). The picture is the original coloured illustration Shaqui did of the Booster Rocket which appeared on the second Upload homepage of GACCH.

N.B - this is a reposting of the article, due to technical issues surrounding its intitial release, which has now been deleted.

Pull the other one - it comes off

Seeing the Outer Space Men all lined up the other day recalled another toy figure line I have, from a more unexpected source. In 2002 Lego branched out from the more familiar part based toys to a range of larger action figures. These were supported by a TV show, a live action Power Rangers type thing with the usual wobbly sets and rubber suits. The basic premise seemed to be transdimensional travel and the standard teenage hero, Nick Bluetooth and his girlfriend Allegra. Whether Lego wanted to broaden its field somewhat after the success of the Bionicle line or it was simply an experiment, I don't know. Either way, neither the show or the toys were very successful. The transdimensional edge to the show involved the characters ability to merge organic and mechanical components, a theme which suited Lego. The figures are all interchangeable, a feature which tended to look a bit silly, especially with the human characters.

There were a good selection of aliens, the usual evil, black enemy and an odd, egg shaped ship called the TDN Module. This was another anomalous creation, big enough to house one figure, the accessories for it such as the wings and legs don't fit any of the other figures, making the play element a little restricted. Micronaut toys always had full compatibility, meaning you could swap the parts around at will to augment the spaceships.

The other unusual aspect about the line was the interactivity. One large figure, the Kek Powerizer, has a small lcd screen in the back which responds individually depending on which head unit is attached, offering various different character phrases. It also interacted directly with the show, picking up a signal from the video and responding appropriately. I've no idea how this worked as I could never stand more than ten minutes of the programme.

TDN Module

 

Gorm Deluxe and Gorm Standard

Jens Robot

Eurypides

Nepol and Shimmel

Ooni

Tager and Variant Nepol

The unfortunate thing about the line is that all the toys are beautifully made, production is flawless and apart from the TDN Module, everything fits together. Variant and Deluxe figures appeared and towards the end of the line, three rare figures were made including a strange living motorbike! The series also spawned various video games on Gameboy and PC and coverage with McDonalds Happy Meal toys, but never really caught the attention it needed.

SpaceX Art Week: Rocket Transporter

Spacex II range

Rocket Transporter

[is that the white MLP rocket base it's carrying?]

This and all spacex art week pictures courtesy of Will Osborne 2008

Dyna Soar Curtains: Pull The Other One

For the Dyna Soar completist, yes, Dyna Soar curtains! In this detail we see various views of our favourite X-Plane including one with landing skis! You also get the X space station which featured in the Kellogs miniature Space kits range we've featured many times. Curtains currently on the online shop, Etsy.

A Garden in Preston, Summer Circa 1970

The place: my parent's garden in Ashton, Preston, England

The day: Sunday

The Season: Summer

The year: circa 1970

The people: Dad [reading], big brother, big sister, niece, nephew, garden gnome and in the last pic that's me in the Donny Osmond cap and badged-up jean jacket trying desperately to look cool and my best mate Robin Adderley doing a much better job of it!

Playing As Kids

Well it's the last day of a four day Royal 'Holiday' here in the UK. The economy will suffer they say and struggle to re-boot tomorrow. Then again, the boost to the nation's spirit could apparantly double our effort once were back at work! Such are the witterings of the talking heads on today's News.

Watching the News is a comparatively recent thing for me, only earnestly seeking it out each day since I was about 40. At one time for me it was the symbol of everything 'old' and stuffy, the faggy fash TV my Mum and Dad watched. The Saturday Pools and World of Sport [especially the Wrestling] came a close second in the 'crap grown-up telly' stakes!

Before any of this though there was just play. Playing in or playing out. I think I was happy doing either. I have a feeling I played 'out' mostly in my mates' and my own gardens, which all seemed to be huge for some reason. Sometimes playing out spilled over into the street, where we 'kicked the can', rode our Choppers, played pitch and toss with pennies and tanners and generally wandered through ginnals and snickets chuntering away about nothing much at all.

Mostly I recall playing at my home or my mates', either in or outdoors, which didn't matter as the 'game' just carried on regardless. For some reason it always seemed to be sunny so hours and hours were spent in the garden playing action man, space, monsters, cars or war with toys strewn about everywhere. I can see me now sat in the garden with my friend Vincent dressing our action men in the ubercool German infantry uniforms we'd just been bought. Later a whole platoon of us advanced to full-scale garden warfare with deck chair barricades, safe zones and a small field 'hospital' stocked with bandages my mate got from his Mum who was a nurse! Our rifles were either plastic Tommy guns or those planks of wood with gate-latch bolts Dad's loved to make in the shed. We must have had grenades but I just can't remember what they were - apples? I do remember much shouting and battle-crying, running, jumping, leaping, falling, dying, counting to twenty and running again! Phew! It was hard work all that play!

Where and what did you play as a kid?

SPACEX: A GALLERY OF ALL THE TRI-ANG TOYS AND SETS

This old SpaceX toys trade journal ad from Games and Toys March 1970, kindly supplied many moons ago by resident ad detective Toad, mentions 37 'fabulous items' and tantalisingly 'more to follow' [wonder what they had in mind?].

OK, the two toys pictured in the ad are 2 of the 37, but what exactly were the other 35 meant here?  Wonder if the 37 included the boxed toys and sets? Well Swordies, it's a right royal Bank Holiday here at Moonbase so to satisfy my own curosity I've had a go at compiling a gallery, in no particular order, of all the 37 SpaceX toys and the 8 Tri-ang boxed sets I know of with pictures from a jumble of sources over the past decade. See what you think but many of you are far better versed than me in the SpaceX universe so please do tell me about any additions or omissions!

Tri-ang boxed sets NOT to exact scale!

RARE SPACEX TOYS: THE GANG OF FIVE

The SpaceX gang of five pictured from top to bottom are:

1. Rocket Transporter

2. Crash Tender F7

3. Nuclear Freighter/ Salvage Craft [I'm classing this as 1]

4. Soyuz 6 & 7

5. Photonic Propulsion Space Station

[bottom three pics brown-framed by me]

There's tons of SpaceX toys on Ebay at the moment, mostly from Canada. However nice it is to see mint carded examples of the common craft, I'd dearly love to see the rare gang of five turn up somewhere [pictured above]. They're sheer elusivity makes them downright compulsive! So much has been found over the last few years, especially new SWORD stuff, but these five SPACEX toys remain stubbornly hidden from view. As far as I can tell only three of them ever appeared as colour illustrations, the other two being simply black and white drawings. As for the toys themselves, do they even exist?