SWIFT MORGAN AND THE PYRO SPACE TOY

My post on Monday featuring Ed’s Pyro X-100 reminded me that some of Pyro’s space themed toys turned up in the comic strip adventures of space hero, Swift Morgan.

Swift Morgan, unashamedly based on Flash Gordon  was created in 1948 by prolific comic strip artist, Denis McLoughlin(April 15, 1918–April 22, 2002) along with his brother, Colin, who wrote the scripts.

This is Denis, who was probably better known for  illustrating Wild West comics during the fifties, in particular, Buffalo Bill.
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Swift, and his female companion, Silver had many adventures between 1948 and 1954. This original comic, the only one I have dates from June 1949.

In it, Swift and Silver using a midget submarine discover the lost city of Atlantis.

Most of the earlier stories seem to rely on convenient time portals to allow Swift and Silver to encounter historical  adventure.

A contemporary setting, and topical for the time (August 1950), Swift Morgan and the Flying Saucers.

This facsimile copy of the Swift Morgan Space Comic from March 1953 shows a more traditional science fiction cover. Around this time American Pyro space toys would have begun appearing in British stores.

I can just imagine Denis nipping round to his local Woolworths and seeing a wealth of reference material.

On this facsimile copy of the Swift Morgan Spaceways comic, which appeared during November 1953. The front cover shows a Pyro X-400 Space Explorer about to be mauled by‘The Beast from Outer Space‘.

1953 also saw the release of the Adventure Annual which showed  Swift and Silver on an alien planet being attacked by a Pyro Robot. Behind them is a Pyro X-300.

Both the robot and the X-300 feature quite heavily in ’The Robot Empire’, the story in the annual.

The back cover shows an X-300 and a Pyro ’Space Patrol’ ship being attacked by an X-200.

The following year saw the last of the Swift Morgan stories. Swift Morgan on the Isle of Giants appeared in the Roy Carson comic (Roy being another Denis and Colin McLoughlin creation)

Swift did appear on the cover of The New Spaceways Comic Annual No. 1 with a slightly altered X-300 in the background.

There’s also an intriguing thumbnail monotone illustration of  a Pyro Space Clipper flying over a rocky planet surface.

I don’t recall ever owning a Pyro space toy but I figure if I’d been around in the early fifties I’d have tried to get a set  to compliment my Swift Morgan comics.

Corgi X-ploratrons

Frank Langford

With Star Wars a big hit and Gerry Anderson effectively out of the picture in the 1980's, Corgi turned to its imagination for a brief range of space themed vehicles to cash in on the rekindled wave of interest in sci-fi. The X-Ploratrons weren't a huge success but wereone of the short lived novelty lines that the company experimented with before it began to founder. The four mid size diecasts each had an action feature.

X-3  Magentron had a moveable arm with magnetic grip and a sample hatch in the roof, as well as a sliding cockpit on the side.

X-4 Scannertron had a self righting cockpit, jungle cutters at the front and back, a magnifying lens in the centre and a large scanner.

X-2 Lasertron had a moveable lenticular prismatic disc on the back

X-1 Rocketron, despite its name, played it safe with a small launcher on the rear and a compass fitted in the main cockpit. 

The rane was supported by comic style adverts prepared by Frank Langford and the 1981 catalogue showed the vehicles with a rather half hearted headline that looked like someone had doodled in their lunch hour. Despite the apparent effort Corgi went to publicise the range, it never caught on and was not seen in any subsequent catalogues.

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The Big Book of Corgi does show a fifth or prototype model which never made production.

 

TV COP QUIZ

A little summer quizzing in case you're not on your holidays. This brainteaser's all about American TV cop shows. From the character below, name the show. One answer per reader. Easy - well some of 'em are!

 

1. Crocker

2. Danno

3. Jon Baker

4. Rick Wright

5. Ed Brown

6. Captain Dobey

7. Li Tsung

8. Captain Furillo

9. Kato

10. Mike Stone

 

 

If you have any old TV cop toys that you'd like to share on the blog with piccies, let us know in the comments and we'll get back to you.

 

 

SUMMER NOODLES

 

 

New Noodles.

SOME TOYS LAST ALL SUMMER LONG

 

College has closed for the summer and my six week holiday has just started. It's a tradition of mine to spend my first day off in the garden surrounded by vintage toys but it's chucking it down today so here's a picture of a similar day in the garden last year having fun with my Marx Man From Uncle Counterspy Kit. Switch to Channel D!

 

 

Enjoy the summer folks or whichever season you have at the moment.

ILLUMINATING: GLOW IN THE DARK TOYS

Glow In the Dark toys, what can I say. They were simply the best. During the Sixties they were everywhere, energised by the Universal monster craze.

The most famous Glow in The Dark toys back then were Aurora's Frightnin Lightinin monster models, making luminous virtually a household world. But small bits of lots of toys were given a dab of glow paint, which often you only found out about when the lights went out!

 

 

My favourite glow toys were without a doubt, Glow Globs. I absolutely loved them. What were your favourite glow toys?

 

WHAT POSTAL ORDERS WERE MADE FOR: ELLISDONS MAIL ORDER

Did you used to get things by mail order as a kid? Sending off postal orders for stuff from the back of comics or catalogues?

I loved to do it. In some way it kept the thrill of Christmas alive throughout the year.  My favourite source of postal goodness was Ellisdons, the jokes and novelties kings. I must have got something off 'em every month for a couple of years.

None of my bits and bobs survived the ravages of adolescence but I did manage to re-acquire the catalogue I had a few years back. Reading it again was such a joy and I so wanted to send off for something again like some fake flies or King Tut!

Did you buy stuff mail order?

ED'S PYRO X-100

I recently received these photos from our good friend , Ed ‘ Ice’ Berg, who, of course also runs his own excellent blog, Toys and Stuff.

They show a rather nice Pyro X-100 Space Ship. 

Ed takes up the story,

“The Pyro X-100 Space Ship has obviously been re-painted. Was a previous owner unsatisfied with what appears to be the original yellow or lime green color? Did he feel that gray was a more realistic colour? Did he spray paint the toy thinking it was going to come out more silver, or was this just a primer coat??? Questions, questions, questions. But clearly, it is a re-paint and one can only assume the owner had something in mind when he changed it“.

A puzzle indeed, Ed, but we’ve all done it as youngsters haven’t we. I  certainly have, thinking a change of colour will inject renewed life into an old toy.

I can remember years ago thinking I needed to repaint my red  SWORD Scout Force 3 to make it look a little more realistic, so guess what? - I  repainted it red!

Oddly enough I did the same thing with this red Spacex Tractor.

Before anyone asks, my favourite colour is, in fact blue !

Anyone else ruined a perfectly good toy by giving it a paint job?