Nearly every Gerry Anderson TV series commands a sprawling itinerary of spin-off media which extends the stories and characters of their respective series into comics, novels, annuals, and audio dramas. As well as being a staple of British television throughout the 1960s and 70s, these two decades saw many Gerry Anderson heroes enjoy further adventures in the pages of many classic British action comics, illustrated by a variety of celebrated industry talent.

Let's take a whistle-stop tour into who illustrated which Anderson strip across the likes of TV Century 21, Lady Penelope, Countdown, and Look-in!

The holy trinity

When it comes to Gerry Anderson comics, the most closely associated title is surely TV Century 21, and that comic itself is undoubtedly linked to three particular artists - Ron Embleton, Mike Noble and Frank Bellamy. Between the three of them, they illustrated the main five Anderson strips throughout TV Century 21.

Ron Embleton illustrated the Stingray strip throughout 1965 and 1966, and later the first three storylines of the Captain Scarlet strip in 1967. A handful of Stingray stories were drawn by his brother, Gerry, before Michael Strand took the reigns as the strip's second resident artist. Mike Noble illustrated lengthily runs on Fireball XL5, Zero X and Captain Scarlet. Frank Bellamy illustrated the Thunderbirds strip for nearly an unbroken run of four years from the strip's beginning in January 1966 to the first Thunderbirds story in the rebooted TV21 & Joe 90 in late 1969.

Prior to TV Century 21, Mike Noble had come from a background in advertising before illustrating various adventure and Western strips in TV Comic and TV Express. He'd also gained useful experience illustrating military hardware during his National Service. Noble would go onto illustrate Look-in's Space: 1999 strip between 1975 and 1977, along with plenty of other cult 70s TV favourites that featured in the popular self-styled 'junior TV Times'.

Frank Bellamy was firmly on the radar of TV Century 21's first editor and main writer Alan Fennell as the comic was being produced in late 1964 towards its January 1965 release. Bellamy had been Fennell's first choice to illustrate the Stingray strip, but Bellamy's ongoing commitments to Eagle at the time prevented him from joining TV Century 21 right away. Like Noble, Bellamy had an advertising background, but quickly built up an impressive body of comic work illustrating Swiss Family Robinson, King Arthur and Robin Hood for Swift and Dan Dare, Fraser of Africa and Heroes the Spartan for Eagle before finally jumping ship to join the ranks of TV Century 21. 

Ron Embleton's immediate experience prior to TV Century 21 was drawing Biggles, Battleground and Wulf the Britton for TV Express. Remarkably, Embleton had already worked in comics for nearly 20 years before TV Century 21, illustrating a countless array of adventure, Western, and sci-fi comic strips for various titles. Embleton and Noble's meticulous artwork and authentic photorealist approach to capturing many classic Anderson vehicles and characters proved a winning formula, while Bellamy's razor-sharp line-art and ground-breaking panel structures injected Thunderbirds with a wholly separate level of danger and adventure compared to the TV series.

Operation Eagle

Fennell made no secret that the Eagle was the model for TV Century 21, right down to hiring artists who had illustrated on that earlier comic, and most notably had contributed to the paper's Dan Dare strip. Don Harley, Eric Eden, Desmond Walduck, Keith Watson, Frank Bellamy, and Dan Dare creator himself, Frank Hampson, all brought their talents from the Eagle to its rival paper.

Harley was the only other artist to illustrate TV Century 21's Thunderbirds strip alongside resident artist Bellamy. Harley took over the second half of the epic Solar Danger storyline, illustrating issues #93 to #98. He also contributed to some of TV21's Captain Scarlet and drew various Thunderbirds adventures from the specials and extras and the short-lived original character The Investigator, but his other most substantial era would come as the main illustrator of Thunderbirds' adventures in Countdown.

Eric Eden illustrated the entirety of the Lady Penelope strip, and also drew a modest handful of Fireball XL5 and Zero X storylines. Eden's distinctive airbrush technique was put to effective use illustrating many in-universe features. He had also produced the front covers of many of the pre-TV21 Supercar and Fireball XL5 annuals published by Collins.

Keith Watson drew several Captain Scarlet storylines in TV Century 21, along with several standalone Captain Scarlet and Joe 90 comic stories from their various annuals. Keith's Joe 90 work also extended to being the most prolific artist on Joe's adventures in his short-lived Joe 90: Top Secret comic from 1969, which also included material drawn by Michael Strand, Rab Hamilton, John Cooper and Martin Asbury. Hampson's contributions amounted to the solitary storyline The Enemy Spy from the TV Century 21 1965 Summer Extra and the Fireball XL5 storyline Emergency Landing from TV21.

Annual artists

Plenty of other artistic talent was utilised throughout the rapidly expanding comics empire between Century 21 Publishing and City Magazines throughout the late 1960s, with several familiar faces later contributing to various Anderson strips into the 1970s in Countdown and Look-in. 

John Cooper, Jon Davis, Jim Watson, Frank Langford, John Burns, Brian Lewis, Malcolm Stokes, Ron Turner, Rab Hamilton and Michael Strand were just come of the regular artists called upon to illustrate many of the standalone adventures across specials, extras and annuals. 

Turner brought his eye-popping retrofuturism to many Fireball XL5, Stingray, Thunderbirds, Lady Penelope, Zero X, Captain Scarlet and Joe 90 stories outside of the main TV Century 21 comic. Langford enlivened Penelope and Parker's continuing solo adventures in her own spin-off comic in electrifyingly lavish style, and was the resident artist on her own adventures, with some contributions from Strand and Burns. 

Strand became the new resident artist on TV Century 21's Stingray strip, taking over from the Embleton brothers, also drawing Stingray, Fireball XL5, Thunderbirds and Lady Penelope adventures for the specials, extras and annuals. Stokes and Cooper were among the most prolific contributors to the various Gerry Anderson/TV21 annuals of the 1960s. Stokes drew Thunderbirds, Captain Scarlet, Joe 90, Zero X and almost single-handedly illustrated all the comic strips from the 1969 Project S.W.O.R.D. annual. Cooper drew various Thunderbirds, Agent 21, Joe 90, Stingray, and Captain Scarlet stories.

Jim Watson proved equally prolific across the main TV Century 21 comic and its accompanying annuals. He held resident runs on the comic's Captain Scarlet and Zero X strips, bringing a decidedly alternative flavour to the glossy photorealism of Noble or Embleton. Across the annuals, he quickly became equally reliable in output. He, Keith Watson and Turner illustrated all the stories in both the 1968 and 1969 Captain Scarlet annuals, and the 1969 Joe 90 annual is a two-handed affair between Jim and Ron. Jim drew many more Thunderbirds and Captain Scarlet adventures across further annuals.

Rab Hamilton is another Gerry Anderson artist not spoken of as highly as others, but clearly boasted a similar artistic confidence and mightily impressive portfolio. Hamilton was the resident artist on the spy-fi adventures of Brent Cleever in TV Century 21 across his Agent 21 and Mr. Magnet aliases. Impressively, Hamilton drew all but one of Cleever's storylines across a nearly unbroken five-year run, but he still found the time to draw other Anderson heroes.

Hamilton drew plenty of story material for the 1965 and 1966 Fireball XL5 annuals, the 1966 Stingray annual and the 1967 TV Century 21 annual. He continued drawing Agent 21 in the handful of TV Century 21 specials and extras between 1965 and 1967, but also boasts an impressive colour run on the Marina, Girl of the Sea strip from Lady Penelope, illustrating an undisturbed run of 88 issues, after which he was replaced by Colin Andrew.

Countdown to Anderson Artists

Many artists who worked on Countdown had previously worked on lots of TV21 material. This was no doubt due to the influence of Countdown's editor, Dennis Hooper, who had previously worked on TV21 as its art editor and was intimately familiar with their understanding of drawing Gerry Anderson material and their availability.

Frank Langford, Michael Strand, John Cooper, Keith Watson and Rab Hamilton would all return for Countdown, between them illustrating various Lady Penelope, Captain Scarlet, Stingray, Zero X and Fireball XL5 adventures. Jon Davis' contributions stretched across filling in on TV Century 21 for modest handfuls of Agent 21 and Captain Scarlet, as well as taking over from Michael Strand as the third longest serving artist on the Stingray strip. His most substantial run came in illustrating The Angels for Lady Penelope, depicting the sky-fi espionage adventures of the Spectrum fighter squadron in wondrous style with a heavy emphasis on dynamic colours. Several standalone Thunderbirds and Agent 21 stories from the annuals were drawn by him, along with serving as one of the regular artists on Countdown's UFO strip.

Brian Lewis' contributions to the worlds of Anderson comics spans some curious years. After illustrating the 1961 Mike Mercury in Supercar TV storybook, his most substantial offerings would emerge nearly a decade later in Countdown, for which he drew various Stingray, Captain Scarlet, Fireball XL5 and UFO stories.

Gerry Haylock served as one of the most prolific artists on Countdown's UFO strip throughout the early 1970s, illustrating many of its earlier adventures. He and sometime contributor Martin Asbury brought a stern faithfulness to the likes of Ed Straker and Colonel Foster, capturing the downbeat tone of the TV series. Asbury would go onto illustrate the comic strips in the 1977 Space: 1999 annual.

John Burns would later take over from Haylock as UFO's artist in the 1970s on TV Action, and even later drawing comic strips from some of the Space: 1999 annuals. Prior to Countdown, he'd brought his energetic pencilwork to Catch or Kill and Front Page in TV Century 21 and would go onto illustrate several Space: 1999 adventures in Look-in and the series' annuals.

From TV Century 21 to Countdown and beyond, these classic comics are bursting with brilliantly illustrated adventures of deadly rescues, underwater mysteries and outer space thrills. You can enjoy many of these classic and obscure stories in our ongoing range of comic anthologies, including our two most recent releases in the range: Stingray Comic Anthology Vol. 1: Tales from the Depths and Stingray Comic Anthology Vol. 2: Battle Lines.

Discover our range of Gerry Anderson comic anthologies now, as well as everything you need to know about what the two Stingray comic anthologies contain.

Be sure to also sign up to our Thunderbirds 60th anniversary website to be the first to hear all the latest news and releases as we thunder towards the series' landmark celebrations - stand by for comic strip action!

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