The Merchandise GuideComics
Anderson Entertainment Comics
Compiled by Martin Willey
The Merchandise GuideAnderson Entertainment, UK, October 2023, £34.99
320 pages, hardcover, 304 x 228 mm
ISBN 978 19145 2259 8
Writer Shaqui Le Vesconte, editors Andrew Clements and Chris Dale.
Shaqui Le Vesconte has previously produced for Anderson Entertainment UFO Comic Anthology Volume 1 (2021), Fireball XL5 Comic Anthology (2022) and UFO Comic Anthology Volume 2 (2022). Le Vesconte also wrote most of the website The Gerry Anderson Complete Comic History ("technodelic") from 2004-2016 (no longer online). Also in 2023, Anderson Entertainment reprinted two Blam! comic albums from 2012/2013 and Terrahawks Comic Anthology (2023).
This is a substantial hardback, mostly focused on the comic strips, reproduced in good quality. Reprinted features and the "pin-up" photos are obviously scanned, although not bad quality. The comic art is remarkably good in comparison, and either had good clean-up or used the original art. There are a few typographic errors (split words). The cover art could arguably be larger, and the "pin-up" photos smaller.
The subtitle states "from the pages of Look-in" but the contents are a bit wider:
'Torn bodily from Earth's orbit by nuclear disruption of incredible power,
the Moon hurtles across space on its endless journey into the unknown!'
In September 1975, this was how the Andersons' new television epic Space: 1999 was introduced to
readers of the Junior TV Times magazine Look-in. Now in its fifth year, it had become the flagship for
ITV-based strips and features after the demise of its competitor Countdown/TV Action in 1973.
Drawn by John M. Burns and then Mike Noble, the Space: 1999 strip started the following week,
taking its readers on exciting voyages of space, time and mind! Join them as the
311 survivors on Moonbase Alpha encounter giant ants who inherited their home planet
Earth in the distant future, interstellar pirates intent on taking the errant satellite by force,
and to rescue a hostage from a murderous renegade on a primitive world.
Share the thrills as Commander John Koenig, Doctor Helena Russell, Professor Victor Bergman,
Security Chief Tony Verdeschi and the Psychon metamorph Maya experience a mind-bending illusion
as the Moon attempts to escape a black sun... become embroiled in a power play
with themselves blamed as killers... and race against time to find a being in their midst
who can inhabit any body before alien justice deems they must be destroyed!
Collected for the first time since publication, this anthology contains all the
British Look-in strips, stories and features. Plus a wealth of background articles
and interviews puts the Space: 1999 material in context, as well as providing insights
on the foreign reprints and its American counterpart magazines and comics.
Also included: overviews of other related Anderson material from the pages
of Look-in: The Worlds of Gerry Anderson, Starcruiser and Terrahawks.
Unlike the UFO comic anthologies, there is no indication of "Volume 1" or future volumes. There is a lot of available material, enough for several volumes. This includes the remaining strips from the World Distributors Annuals (1977 and 1978), the two Power Records comics, the Charlton Color Comic and black and white magazine (the magazine alone is easily two volumes). More ambitious (it would require translation from German or Italian) would be the Zack comics; the most elusive must be the Argentina comics. Of these, perhaps the most commercial would be a volume containing the Charlton colour comics (for the John Byrne strips), and the Power Records (for the Continuity/Neal Adams art) with perhaps sample stories from Zack and Gray Morrow.