2025 marks 60 years of TV Century 21! To celebrate the occasion, we're bringing you a series of artist biographies of many classic and obscure creative talents who drew the likes of Thunderbirds, Captain Scarlet, Stingray and more for the newspaper of the future.

In this latest instalment, we're turning our attentions to a selection of comic strip artists whose names you may not immediately recognise, but whose accomplished and distinctive styles brought many Anderson heroes and villains to life - Rab Hamilton, Jim Watson and Michael Strand.

Hamilton's Heroics

Compared to the lengthily and well-documented careers of Bellamy, Embleton, and Noble, the three artists featured here enjoyed productive periods throughout the 1950s, 60s and 70s as in-demand artists, but who still eventually slipped into obscurity. Little can be firmly pinpointed down as to the early lives and careers of these three artists. 

Rab Hamilton (real name of Alex) emerged on the comics scene in the late 1950s, becoming a regular illustrator of Fleetway's line of romance comics. Hamilton's gorgeously accomplished figurework enabled him to take on plenty of regular work for such titles as Valentine, Marylin, Roxy, Serenade, and Sindy.

Little surprise then that his immaculate artwork found a suitable home in the pages of Lady Penelope, in which he was the main illustrator for the Stingray prequel comic, Marina, Girl of the Sea. His depiction of the underwater heroine blends character accuracy with dramatic emotive power, bringing hitherto unseen dimensions to Marina as a thrilling action heroine, sympathetic and sensitive to the underwater world around her. His most well-known Gerry Anderson efforts however were the adventures of space spy Brent Cleever in the pages of TV Century 21.

The character of Cleever operated under various titles as one of TV Century 21's most darkly riveting sagas. Across three separate series, 21 Special Agent, Mr Magnet, and Secret Agent 21, Hamilton committed to an astoundingly impressive mainstay as the character's resident artist. Across 33 separate storylines spread across over four years, Hamilton drew all but one of Brent Cleever's espionage adventures, with John Cooper filling in for the outlier. 

Remarkably still, Hamilton somehow found room to regularly contribute to many of the earlier Gerry Anderson annuals. The 1965 and 1966 Fireball XL5 annuals, 1966 Stingray annual, and 1967 TV Century 21 annual feature plenty of his contributions. Hamilton also contributed to Joe 90: Top Secret and Countdown, but throughout the early 1970s, he returned to the worlds of girls comics, contributing to Bunty, Diana, Judy, Jinty, June, and Sally.

It's suggested that Hamilton eventually relocated to the Dutch girls comics scene under the name Robert Hamilton before vanishing from comics entirely, supposedly pursuing storyboard work around the 1980s. 

Watson's Wild Style

There seems to be little that's known of Jim Watson's early life and career. His contributions to TV Century 21 appear to be his earliest efforts in the comics industry, instantly imbuing his captivating efforts with further significance, alongside just how much of a departure his style is from the more popular line-up of TV21 alumni. Watson's loosely defined yet succinct and nimble linework brings a relentlessly unusual atmosphere to the comic's Zero X and Captain Scarlet strips, both of which he became resident artist of for lengthily periods.

Watson took up residence in Zero X for its second year in TV Century 21 from 1967, illustrating an unbroken run of adventures between issues #155 and #191. From #192, he joined the fluctuating ranks of artists illustrating the Captain Scarlet strip, alternating between Mike Noble, Keith Watson, Frank Bellamy and John Cooper. Watson illustrated 17 of Captain Scarlet's 38 adventures, surely earning him the title of the definitive Captain Scarlet comic strip artist. What Watson may have lacked in mechanical detail, he easily compels the reader instead with dramatically fluid action.

Watson proved to be a prolific contributor to the annuals and storybooks. Throughout the late 1960s, Watson's distinctive style appears in many of the Thunderbirds, TV Century 21, Captain Scarlet and Joe 90 annuals. He also illustrated the stories found in the Captain Scarlet storybook and all but the first of the Joe 90 storybooks.

Outside of TV Century 21, Jim Watson was a prolific contributor to some of the biggest war, sci-fi, and horror comics of the 1970s. Watson was a regular contributor to Commando, his earliest work so far having been identified from 1975 onwards. One of his most significant non-Anderson works was creating the short-lived Colony Earth in 1978 for 2000AD.  

He also illustrated much of Tales from the Grave from the short-lived yet notorious Scream!. His war comics evidently gave him regular work throughout the 1970s and early 1980s, including contributions in Battle Picture Weekly, Warlord, Hotspur, and Victor. Watson's comic career appears to have dried up after this period, and he passed away in 2018. 

Strand's Stingray

Michael Strand is another of TV Century 21's lesser-celebrated artists whose early life and career seems to have gone undocumented. His earliest contributions to TV21 literature were illustrating the Stingray story Tentacles of Terror and the Fireball XL5 story Jailbreak in Space for the TV Century 21 Summer Extra in 1966. Strand also illustrated several stories from the Lady Penelope Summer Extra, also released in 1966.

Later that year, he became the resident artist in TV Century 21's Stingray strip, taking over from Ron Embleton. Strand's surging figurework was a significant departure from Embleton's photorealist approach, which prioritised character likeness. Strand's more aggressive visual stance imbued the Stingray strip with renewed vigour as the strip arguably became outshone by the likes of Thunderbirds, Zero X and Captain Scarlet.

Strand's close association with Stingray and Lady Penelope continued in other titles. He illustrated several of Penelope's continuing adventures in her own solo comic, occasionally filling in for resident artist Frank Langford. Strand also illustrated further Stingray adventures in Countdown in the early 1970s. He was also an occasional contributor to the annuals, including the 1967 Thunderbirds Annual, the 1970 TV Century 21 Annual, the 1972 Thunderbirds Annual and the Project SWORD Annual.

Beyond his Gerry Anderson work, Michael Strand illustrated several strips for girls comics throughout the 1970s, including The Farleys Must be First for Bunty and Careful She Bites for Princess Tina. Strand also contributed to the Famous Five annuals published during the 1970s, initially produced to tie into the late 1970s TV adaptation of the Enid Blyton books. 

Obscure retrofutures

It's perhaps not entirely coincidental that Rab Hamilton, Jim Watson and Michael Strand's careers in comics appeared to have evaporated after the 1980s, a time when the UK comics industry contracted, titles eroded from newsstands, and artists had decreased chances of finding regular work. However, the work of these three artists remain some of the most compelling artistic depictions of the worlds of Stingray, Captain Scarlet, Agent 21 and beyond. 

You can enjoy Hamilton and Strand's enthralling incarnations of TV Century 21's Stingray and Lady Penelope's Marina, Girl of the Sea comics in the Stingray Comic Anthologies. Check out our exploration of Agent 21's spy-fi adventures in our article covering TV Century 21's secret heroes, read up on our countdown of the best TV Century 21 stories and the top 10 reasons why you should discover our comic anthologies. You can also discover our previous biographies of TV21's greatest artists, such as Frank Bellamy, Mike Noble and Ron Embleton!

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