More British Science Fiction, from the 1960's TV Comic. To embarass Dave with?
This one replaced Gerry Anderson's Supercar from issue 668 with a run of 52 double page colour strips, forming the centrespread of each issue from 668 to 719. The centrespread of issue 667 previewed the forthcoming new strip with the entire lower panel of both pages bearing illustrated portraits of the main characters (see above hopefully) - with Slim and Marla depicted as having blue skin, and Husky a vivid green! One of the robots was also depicted, although these ultimately never appeared.
The stories were written by Roberta Leigh herself and were very true to the quirky feel of the series yet never regrettably expand upon what we see of the main planets. Indeed, none of the stories take place on any of them, bar Earth and the Moon. Instead, we are treated to a plethora of minor or unknown planets like Humida or Larta, and asteroids such as Omega and Danta. Whether this was due to copyright - the publishers of TV Comic would possibly had to have paid extra for their appearances - or simply that Roberta Leigh wanted to tell different, briefer more action orientated types of story, we do not know.
In style the strip and the TV series it aped managed to be a halfway house between Fireball and Space Precinct. Or if you prefer a galactic police force that supervised any number of planets.
Bill Mevin was one of the best artists TV Comic had at the time, and directly upon finishing Space Patrol went on to draw Doctor Who in full colour on the centre pages. Parallel with illustrating these, he also drew single frames for the text stories Televarsity and Orlando. His artwork was dynamic and gave full scope to the world(s) of 2100, and make one wish he had the opportunity to tackle the Saturnians or Duos! The strange world seen in the second story 'The Great Gold Bullion Robbery' was particularly evocative, full of strange flora and fauna.
Mevin recalls discussing the scripts with Roberta Leigh and even seeing episodes with her at a private viewing, as well as being given a number of photographs as reference. He cannot recall why his strip illustrations are coloured as vividly as they were, but believes the suggestions may have come from Roberta Leigh herself. Bill Mevin still works in illustration, having also drawn strips as diverse as Lenny the Lion, Popeye, Yogi Bear and The Herbs for various publications, and currently draws the popular Perishers strip for the Daily Mirror newspaper.
Space Patrol also managed to find its way into another old and well established comic British DC Thomson comic, The Beezer. To coincide with the second television series in 1966 where it lasted for 26 episodes.
The artist this time was the late Terry Patrick, who drew heavily from ideas from Dan Dare. He was a D.C.Thomson comics regular, contributing to Beano ('The Queen's Highway' and 'Danger Bus'), Topper ('Thunder Gunn') and Victor. He would appear to be no stranger to science fiction either, having contributed to the Rick Random - Space Detective comics in the 1950s, and illustrating a futuristic installment of the semi-regular text story The Arch Of Time in The Beezer Book for 1966.
http://homepages.tesco.net/~space.patrol/SpacePatrol/TVComic1.htm
