Having been a fan of the AP Films/Century 21 Supermarionation productions - and their TV21 spin-off worlds - since the mid-sixties, I began writing about the shows in the late eighties and early nineties. One of my main credits (under the name Sam Mitchell) was researching and writing the behind the scenes book 21st Century Visions for the late great Derek Meddings. During the course of researching this book I conducted interviews with many of Derek's effects crew, and subsequently many other APF/Century 21 staff. I thought this material could provide the basis for another book - if I could find a publisher that was interested.

Having had no luck during the late nineties while Polygram owned the ITC catalogue, I took a close interest in Carlton's acquisition of the ITC library, as did Thunderbirds artist Graham Bleathman, who I'd got to know well since his involvement with the Thunderbirds comic in the early nineties. He approached Carlton Licensing to see if there might be any projects that could employ his artistic talents and a few weeks later - in about October 1999 - he got a call from Carlton Books inviting him to submit proposals for a new cross-sections book. He suggested I should contact Carlton Books as well, and we ended up going in together to meet their editorial team.

Carlton Books had just taken over an entire building in London on Mortimer Street, having just moved from offices opposite the site of the legendary Soho comic shop Dark They Were and Golden Eyed - where I saw my first piece of original Frank Bellamy Thunderbirds art in the late-seventies. The company's new premises were far more impressive, with colour coded departments and a stylish shop/reception area on the ground floor. Graham and I were shown to a glass walled conference room in the basement and introduced to Russell Porter, Carlton Books' design director, and Jenny Olivier, the editor assigned to film and TV subjects.

With Thunderbirds about to be digitally re-mastered for DVD release and a re-screening by the BBC, Carlton saw a potential market for a range of tie-in books. Advances in publishing technology meant that these books could be created almost entirely digitally and Russell in particular was very excited by the idea of using screen grabs as an easy way to produce images, combined with photo-shop graphics. This digital image generation approach meant that although Graham's talents could be put to work on a new cross-sections/cutaways book, for all the other projects - with a few small exceptions - new artwork was not even considered.

I thought that even given these limitations we could still produce something new and different, but sadly the line of books they were planning were merely updated versions of previous publishing ranges. The Boxtree Thunderbirds Are Go book was upgraded to The Complete Book of Thunderbirds which had already been offered to Chris Bentley, there would be a number of puzzle/activity books using images from the Carlton style guide, some small format children's books based on episodes featuring very simple illustrations, plus Graham's deluxe cross-sections book and an annual. As the only behind the scenes coverage of the show would be in the complete book, the annual was the only option left that might offer some kind of challenge.

Rather than create anything imaginative however, the decision was taken to limit the material included to a photo-story adaptation of the 'Security Hazard' episode, plus features reprinting simple facts from the Carlton style guide and a few pages of puzzles. 'Security Hazard' was chosen because it was a compilation story featuring all the main characters and craft, which meant only having to take screen grabs from one episode. But even selecting grabs from just one video master was costly and time consuming as this could only be done using equipment at London Weekend TV's production offices, so it might actually have been simpler and cheaper to produce traditional drawn strips. Adapting the episode to a photo-story format was an intriguing challenge though, and Russell and I put a lot of time and effort in to creating visuals that flowed and had the same kind of framing as a drawn comic strip. This involved selecting precise frames from a time-coded video which could then be enlarged or cropped as required, with special attention being paid to the positioning and logic of captions and speech balloons. I thought the end results worked pretty well, which was more than could be said for the rest of the annual.

One of the main problems Graham and I faced while working for Carlton was in the approach taken by Carlton Licensing. When Carlton acquired the ITC library they retained none of the staff previously employed by ITC who were familiar with the catalogue. Instead Carlton appeared to have employed a number of young, inexperienced and mainly female marketing graduates, who could employ buzz words like 'branding' and 'demographics' but did not really appear to appreciate the sophisticated appeal of the Anderson shows across a wide age range, or understand how to tailor their marketing to a significantly male dominated audience. Their previous experience seems to have been with pre-school shows like Mopatop's Shop, and they appeared to have difficulty seeing Thunderbirds' target market as anything other than 5-7 year olds. This might sound fashionably sexist, but I can't help thinking that for a subject like Thunderbirds a more male perspective would have been appropriate.



The other problem we faced was Carlton Licensing's style guide, the series presentation 'bible' for potential licensees containing authorised graphics, images, and a 'branding' style for packaging. This was a truly amateurish effort compared to the style guides produced by other companies for their products. Notable features included a 'relief' effect blue background for packaging/book covers, an irritating 'official' typeface, a badly conceived computer generated image of Thunderbird One slapped onto the title logo, photo-shopped images of the Tracy brothers on shared bodies, plus a poor selection of 'official' photographs, including Jeff Tracy in the outfit created for a Dr Barnado's appeal, Lady Penelope in an unflattering pink trouser suit, and an obvious 'under control' shot of The Hood.

In fact this style guide had partly been inherited from Polygram, and included simplistic and often inaccurate line drawings of the main characters and craft. These images had been corrected by Graham Bleathman at one point, but for some reason Carlton decided to use the uncorrected versions! Sadly Carlton also took the line that the style guide could not be questioned in any way - although some licensees did try - and more frustratingly, Carlton seemed to find it hard to cope with the idea of creating new material relating to the shows.

With the handicap of the style guide, which Carlton Books were reluctant to challenge - although Graham did manage to persuade them to drop the CG Thunderbird One from his cover - the chances of producing an annual that at least looked good were probably doomed from the start. Added to this, and despite Russell's enthusiasm as design director, I had to work with an editorial team that were either inexperienced, had no interest in the subject or could not understand that it might appeal to a wider readership than just 7-8 year olds. All I think I managed to contribute was the 'Top Secret' presentation approach which was a nod to the old days of TV21 and at least gave the annual some conceptual shape.

Published in the summer of 2000, the annual did hit the shops in time to coincide with the incredibly popular DVD and BBC revival of Thunderbirds, and because it was one of the few relatively cheap items in the shops in the lead up to Christmas its sales were somewhere in the region of 90,000 copies. The Complete Book of Thunderbirds and Graham's FAB Cross-sections book also proved to be popular successes, leading Carlton Books to consider further projects.

Early in 2001, once sales figures had been assessed, Graham and I were invited back to Carlton Books to discuss a new range for the following autumn. As the success of Thunderbirds on TV seemed to indicate that there was still a market for the Supermarionation shows, Captain Scarlet and Stingray were now being reconsidered for rescreening and DVD release. To cover the broad appeal of the other shows Graham was asked to create a new cross-sections book featuring the main Supermarionation craft from Fireball XL5 through to Joe 90. The big push would be directed towards Captain Scarlet however, so I was asked to work on a similar style annual, in addition to providing a second Thunderbirds annual, following the success of the first.

I hoped that this would give me a chance to do something more creative - at least with the Thunderbirds annual, for which we'd already used most of the 'official' style guide information. I was also now working with a new editor, Lorna Russell, as Jenny Olivier had left Carlton Books within about a year of joining, after putting together the surprisingly inventive Lady Penelope's Secrets book. Having often found it difficult to discuss any problems with Jenny - if I could get past her answer-phone message - I found Lorna much more helpful to deal with, particularly as she usually took the trouble to answer her phone immediately! But one of the other editors who worked on the first Thunderbirds annual was still involved, which would lead to difficulties.

When we started work on the Captain Scarlet subjects we did at least have less trouble with Carlton Licensing. They had taken on board the fact that Captain Scarlet was a much darker and more sophisticated series, and had also produced a style guide which had some style! (Although for some reason they decided to drop the '..and the Mysterons' from the title) Graham had also been given the chance to provide accurate line drawings of the main craft - though wasn't impressed when they turned up in a tie-in puzzle book credited to someone else!

With the annuals, although the format was the same as the Thunderbirds Top Secret Annual, this time Russell wasn't involved, which meant I had to personally supervise the layouts of the photo-stories. This in turn meant working closely with the designer Claire Cooper, who had somehow been taken on by Carlton Books despite having had no formal training! Claire was very helpful, so I was also able to have some input into the layout of the puzzle and feature pages of the Captain Scarlet Annual, which after three fairly intensive days turned out almost as well as I thought they could. I also had some influence in the design of the cover by suggesting that one of the original images (I can't remember what it was) should be replaced by the Mysteron City. Initially the Lunar Mysteron City was substituted until I pointed out that the Martian Mysteron City was the one I'd meant. This resulted in a very iconic cover and overall I was very happy with the finished product. Given the creative limitations we were working under I don't think it could have been much better, and I felt happy to have my name on it - despite this being extremely unusual for an annual, especially one that is largely an adaptation of existing material.



Trouble was on the horizon however. I'd already had a couple of run-ins with the previously mentioned sub-editor, who I'd found hard work on the first Thunderbirds Annual. Points of conflict included her taking me to task for using character biography material supplied by Chris Bentley for the Complete Captain Scarlet book - until I pointed out that he'd been taking the information directly from the 1960's annuals in the first place - and for using the characters' Spectrum names instead of their real names in my versions of the biographies. In addition, Carlton Books had now realised how much input I'd had into the design of the Captain Scarlet Annual and felt this should have been left to the designer. There was no alternative to my supervising the layouts of the photo-stories in the Thunderbirds Annual, as they realised I was the only person who understood how they should work, and again I was happy with the results, despite a couple of errors. But when it came to the feature and puzzle pages we hit problems.



Firstly Carlton Licensing were unhappy with the amount of material I'd included which wasn't 'official' - although Graham seemed to have been given carte blanche to make up what he wanted! - and they also found the puzzles too difficult. By then I'd decided I'd had too many petty arguments, and suggested they were quite entitled to make what ever changes they wanted. It took them three weeks to come up with something worse than I'd managed to achieve within three days for the Captain Scarlet Annual. I did ask them to take my name off the final results, but they couldn't even manage to do that !

On a happier note I was also asked to write linking text pages for Graham's Supermarionation Cross-sections book, and here we had the opportunity to do something more in keeping with the co-ordinated future universe approach featured in TV 21. Of all the books I worked on for Carlton, this probably came closest to achieving the kind of potential Graham and I had initially hoped for - once Graham had redesigned the layouts of the linking pages! The book also gave us the opportunity to use screen grabs from the short piece of colourised footage created for Fireball XL5 in the early nineties, which again we had to view at LWT to select the images. I don't think Graham will forget that day in a hurry, mainly for the lift I gave him back to Carlton Books offices in a Mini Cooper.

At about the same time I was working on these projects I was also writing for the Thunderbirds comic produced by Redan. Unfortunately, like the annual, this was targeted at the younger age group, and relied heavily on screen grabs. I did manage to write one original story for the first issue however, which was stylishly illustrated by Steve Kyte, who also drew the first comic strip which appeared in issue two. I don't think he was very happy with the terms of the contracts they were offering however, and I believe had no further involvement. I did write a number of episode adaptations for the comic, using similar techniques to the annual adaptations, but I had no input into the layouts, although I did try to ensure that each double page spread ended on a ‘page turning’ line. But like Steve I was not happy with the kind of contracts being offered and decided against submitting any original material. I also became increasingly unhappy with the way my contributions were being rewritten and after nine stories decided to submit no further adaptations.

Redan must have done something right however, as the comic appears to be continuing to find readers - possibly with every new generation of 6-7 year olds, although Graham is becoming increasingly desperate in his search for ideas to feature as cutaways! The puzzle pages in the comic also seem to capture the style of the original series very well. But my main memory of working on the comic wasn't so much for my contribution as for what Graham and I dubbed 'The Curse of Redan'. This first manifested itself when adapting 'Trapped in the Sky' for the trial issue - which coincided with the Concorde disaster in France. Subsequent issues also seemed to time their appearance with real-life disasters, and this would reach its height later in the year.

By September 2001, plans were in place for the re-launch of Captain Scarlet, which would coincide with a personal appearance by Gerry at Hamley's toy shop in Regent Street on Sunday September 9th. At about the same time Redan were considering plans for a new comic reprinting original TV21 stories, with Alan Fennell acting as consultant editor. I had been approached to supply material for use in this new publication, partly because I'd built up an entire run of TV21 comics over a number of years, and also because Graham experienced problems supplying copies from his collection on previous occasions.

On Sunday I attended the Regent Street launch with Graham and was introduced to Gerry, I think for the first time. On Monday I watched the newly re-mastered Captain Scarlet, having earlier tried to negotiate with Redan regarding terms for supplying the original comic strips from my collection for reproduction. The following morning I decided to check through the back issues of the Redan comic that I had worked on to see which, if any I really wanted to keep, having decided they hadn't really turned out as well as I'd hoped. I put one issue aside to look at later, because I thought the photo-story adaptation had turned out better than most. I then called Alan Fennell, who had coincidentally written the original script for the same episode, to see if he'd had any contact with Redan about terms for supplying the TV21 comic strips - to discover that Redan had assumed I would supply them for free!

This would be the last time I spoke to Alan, who sadly died only a few months later. At about two o'clock in the afternoon I turned on my TV for some reason, and saw what at first glance seemed to be a documentary set in a steelworks. It was of course the results of the attack on the World Trade Centre. Not only had this come the day after the 21st Century had faced threats of retribution, disintegrating New York skyscrapers, and enemy controlled aircraft targeting high rise structures in Captain Scarlet, the photo-story I'd planned to look at that afternoon was 'Terror in New York City'. Somehow it was hard to avoid thinking about the Curse of Redan that day.

Whether the reality of events in New York were partly responsible or not, the re-launch of Captain Scarlet was not the success everyone had hoped for, and Carlton decided to abandon plans for books on any other Supermarionation shows. They still felt Thunderbirds had some potential, and were for some time seriously considering a deluxe 'World of Thunderbirds' book, that would have superceded any previous books on the show. At the time however the Carlton Group was suffering from the severe losses being made by ITV Digital, and this may have had an effect on Carlton Books' budget. In the end the 'World of Thunderbirds' idea was quietly abandoned in favour of what was intended to be an 'easier' option - a TV21 classic comic strips reprint book. Graham and I were both involved with this project, but what should have been a relatively simple and inexpensive to produce book turned out to be far more complicated and time consuming than anticipated.

The project seemed straightforward enough. Write a short illustrated introduction, create some TV21 style front cover linking pages, and reproduce a selection of early Thunderbirds comic strips. Graham would supply background notes which I would write up for the introduction, I would write text for the linking pages, which Graham would design in addition to creating a Frank Bellamy style wraparound cover, and I would supply most of the comic strips from original TV21s, with Graham filling in any gaps. We expected that the most difficult task would be writing and designing the linking pages - in fact this proved the easiest and most fun part of the job, and we both enjoyed coming up with text and layouts that reflected the TV21 in house style. Then the problems started.

I returned from a trip to North Wales to find a message from Lorna saying that a repro house had been booked for the following day to reproduce the comic strip pages. I duly took all the material in to find arrangements had been made to have the strips reproduced with a digital camera in a studio set-up. This was totally inappropriate for the results we required which would normally have been achieved by photographing the artwork on transparency film with a rostrum camera, or by the newer method of scanning the artwork on a flatbed scanner. As the transparency film would have to be scanned anyway, it was eventually agreed that we would use the flat bed scanner. Unfortunately this turned out to take three times longer and cost five times as much than the time originally booked! We then had a further problem when we saw the page proofs and discovered that no-one had colour corrected the scans to counter the yellowing effect of ageing. Someone even suggested that this would add to the 'retro' look, but fortunately we managed to win the argument in favour of colour correction.



Worse was to come with the introduction section. Having been supplied with detailed notes about the history of TV21 by Graham, I translated these into text for a ten page feature. This was then sent to Carlton Licensing for approval, and was returned, completely rewritten in words of barely more than two syllables, with the meaning of certain points changed or completely incomprehensible. I rewrote the piece again, using only a few words of more than three syllables, and this was fortunately accepted. Carlton Books then sent us proofs for the revised text laid out in two columns of double spaced text with hardly any illustrations. Apart from looking disastrous, it was virtually unreadable. After being sent a rocket by Graham, Carlton Books did allow him to redesign the pages transforming them into visually appealing layouts. Apart from a few typos (including the miss-spelling of Graham's name on the title page !), the end result did come pretty close to what we'd hoped for, and we must give Lorna a huge amount of credit for supporting us when we weren't happy.

Thunderbirds Classic Comic Strips was launched in September 2001 at the Animation Art Gallery (but that's another story !) and was the last Supermarionation related book that Graham and I worked on for Carlton Books - and it seems somehow appropriate that it featured the work of Frank Bellamy, whose original art I first saw in the shop opposite Carlton Books' old offices. Following Carlton's merger with Granada it seems that Carlton Books itself is now up for sale, and the chances of them producing any further Supermarionation tie-in books seems very unlikely. Working with the company was a memorable experience however, and I was pleased to be involved with at least three books that captured the spirit and quality of Century 21's productions

Sam Denham
August 2004.

Version 1.1 - 01.12.06

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