SPACE 1999 COMICS

Continuing my nostalgic look at vintage Gerry Anderson series in comic strip form I come to what I, personally consider to be the final classic sci-fi series that Gerry produced - Space 1999.

I remember picking up Look –In magazine which started its Space 1999 strip in 1975. The full colour dramatic artwork was by John M Burns, but sadly it didn’t capture me sufficiently to place a regular order.

In time Mike Noble took over illustrating the strip but by then it had been relegated to black and white which even though Mr Noble is, undoubtedly a fine artist, the young fella I was in those days wanted to see colour!

The point of my meanderings is that at that time, although I watched the series on TV I didn’t feel the need to follow it in a comic like Look - In.

The only strips I read at the time were in the Space 1999 annuals which by and large were pretty uninspired. This one from the first annual was written by Angus Allen and drawn by John M Burns..

I did get the final Space 1999  annual in 1979 which unlike the other annuals was full of American reprints.

These were apparently from an American publisher called Charlton Comics who’d released a series of Space 1999 comics from 1975 to 1976 both in colour and black and white. These days much is known and written about these comics but at that time the reprints were a bit of a mystery to me.

As an example I've chosen some panels from the first colour version of the comic which wasn’t actually in the annual. It featured a brief summary of the opening episode, ‘Breakaway’, before the  story, ‘Moonless Night’ begins. The art is by Joe Staton .

This second example from issue 7 of the colour series was the final edition, and the only one to feature characters from the second season. These are the opening pages to a comic strip adaptation of the second season opener, The Metamorph’.  The art is by Pat Boyette.

If these comics had been generally available in Britain I'd have probably  made the effort to pick them up. The artwork and stories was fairly good and as they were comics dedicated to the show rather than sharing strip stories with pop pin ups it makes them a bit more collectable too.     

BELATED BIRTHDAY MESSAGE FROM NORMAN BOYD

 

Did you know that the words that we in the West sing to "Happy birthday" are copyright, so rather than do that allow me to add my congratulations in a quick note on Frank Bellamy and those amazing craft.

Four and a half thousand articles on any blog is pretty damn good Paul. I've been going a year longer and managed 206 posts on my blog and I thought I was obsessed with my subject! As you kindly asked me to write something for this blog being a glutton for punishment here's my attempt.


But how do I connect Frank Bellamy with Moonbase Central? Well, Bellamy did draw for TV21 - that classic 60s (we don't mention the 70s version!) in which Project S.W.O.R.D. first appeared. He didn't contribute anything to it that I know of, but then illustrating Thunderbirds was - almost - a full time job.


Why 'almost'? Well, he did many other things (The Avengers TV programme - http://bit.ly/1bzIASq and book covers - http://bit.ly/19utsQj for example) during that period of 188 weekly issues of TV21 from January 1966 to January 1969. (It would have been an extra 7 but Don Harley took over for 7 weeks - well even Bellamy couldn't produce all those pictures for a TV AND still do Thunderbirds every week! ).


I wondered just how many pages he produced and being Norman The Nerd (actually I can think of two more nerds called Norman!) I added up the figures.

Frank Bellamy drew 188 weekly episodes of Thunderbirds, 375 colour pages (85 of which are superb double page spreads) and 18 single black and white pages in those 3 years! He also did 5 colour pages as covers - depicting Captain Scarlet. That's an incredible output.


He had reference photos for the wonderful Gerry Anderson hardware, but he much preferred fantasy than depicting work others had created. He loved his work - on the soon to be reprinted - Heros The Spartan (from the Eagle comic), but still, his depictions of the Thunderbird craft are still being reprinted - October sees the latest incarnation. 

If he had negotiated reprint rights, and was still alive, he'd be pretty rich. Bellamy's name appears on your blog quite often I see ( http://projectswordtoys.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=bellamy) and deservedly so as you are interested in craft and toys and fantasy vehicles. I adore the way he 'painted' those Thunderbirds and liked a lot of his other designs.


Now I'm older I can appreciate how off-beam some of them were at the time (and still are to some extent) and I wonder if toys had been made of his peripheral craft how popular they might have been.

That's enough from me, after all if you need waffle head over to one of 4 blogs! I've included here some examples of machinery that FB created or drew from photos and I think you'll see, despite him apparently not enjoying drawing them, I think they stand up quite well.


Best Wishes

Norman Boyd
Frank Bellamy Blog

 

TANK WAR -1968

A favourite pastime of mine as a kid was playing war in the garden. I was always getting cheap Hong Kong bagged or carded army sets with a handful of green soldiers and a couple of vehicles. My favourites were always the Blue Box army sets with the hard plastic tanks and stuff, but usually it would be the bendy plastic variety for a few pence. Just today a nice large box arrived that i won on ebay, chock full of Britains farm animals, soldiers, knights and cowboys, along with a slew of army vehicles.A lot of them were fairly recent, cheap knock offs of early toys, but some were the vintage version from my garden wars.

 This neat dark green tank, which looks russian in inspiration, has been co-opted into battle and is not part of the ebay haul, but was given to me by Hugh from Small Scale World, along with a pair of the blue tanks below. Ive added a pair of old Airfix tank treads. Its just under 3" long and the biggest piece of ordnance in the fleet.

 But this is why I bought the box on ebay, three of these little 2" long tanks. I used to pop down to the corner shop with a pocketful of pennies, when I was six and buy myself some of these. The top popped off and inside was a little wad of paper wrapped chewing gum!

 Theres about four colour variations and I think, two turret types. I'm looking for a red one, so if anyone fancies a swap?

 This fine little beast has Made in Hong Kong, No 404 emblazoned on the back and needed a set of tracks too. Very T-34!

 Another possibly russian inspired Stalin Tank clone.

 A chunky Daimler Armoured car, just under three inches.

 This neat little truck with a german Luftwaffe logo pasted on has a fine radar rig which looks like its been lifted from several different space toys!

 Heres the infantry grunts manning a field gun, from the look of them, they've been made to fit some other vehicle and drafted in to man the gun. I'd keep my head down in those red suits though..

Finally, the workhorse of the army, the Willys jeep. These were always a staple in the army sets!

NEW HOME MOVIE: CAPE KENNEDY INCIDENT

 



 

Here's my new home movie made using Gerry Anderson's Century 21 and Matchbox toys. The Project SWORD Saturn V rolls out of the tallest biulding in the world, the VAB.  Whilst on the crawlway it is attacked by a Rejects jet. An Airport Crash Tender successfully douses the fire and the Saturn V returns to the VAB to fly another day! Set to the the two main themes, by the great Barry Gray, from the classic movie Thunderbirds Are Go! Enjoy!