Space Patrol: TV Comic Strips Pt.1

The Space Patrol Strips in TV Comic

Space Patrol was well served by a superb run of 52 double page colour strips, forming the centrespread of each issue from 668 to 719. The centrespread of issue 667 was the last to feature Gerry Anderson’s Supercar, drawn by Bill Mevin, and to promote the new strip the entire lower panel of both pages gave a preview with illustrated portraits of the main characters (see below) - 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.

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 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 he did (which contradict the only colour photographs available for the series - see the TV Comic Annual feature), 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, The Pogles, Yogi Bear and The Herbs for various publications, and currently draws the popular Perishers strip for the Daily Mirror newspaper.

For ease of reference, titles have now been allocated to stories one, and three through eleven. We have tried to keep them in the same vein as the televised titles.

Story One: 'The Living Rock'
Written by Roberta Leigh. Drawn by Bill Mevin

Part One: Issue 668, dated 03/10/1964
In deep outer space, a star explodes and masses of rock are scattered throughout space. A thousand years later, some of this rock enters the solar system causing sporadic damage including the sonar beam transmitter on asteroid Danta. Raeburn despatches Captain Larry Dart and his crew of Galasphere 347 to investigate but on the surface of Danta, Husky finds a strange pulsating rock...

Part Two: Issue 669, dated 10/10/1964
Dart decides to take the rock to Earth for Professor Haggarty to look at. At Space Headquaters, Haggarty is preparing to examine the rock when it starts to grow at an enormous rate. Raeburn orders the evacuation of the building as the increased weight of the rock causes it to crash out of the professor's laboratory...

Part Three: Issue 670, dated 17/10/1964
Outside the building, Dart, Raeburn, Haggarty and Gabbler examine the now massive rock. Raeburn deduces it must be absorbing something in the atmosphere so Haggarty believes the best way to stop it is to submerge it in the sea. Dart is given the mission using a tractor to drag it. While doing so, Haggarty puts a sample in the computer analyser but it finds the rock is actually an oxygen asorbing fungi. Horrified, Haggarty realises that if the 'rock' absorbs the oxygen from the sea, it will leave explosive hydrogen! But suddenly, nearby storm clouds over the sea flicker with lightning, and the sea explodes into flame..

Part Four: Issue 671, dated 24/10/1964
Raeburn warns Dart to pull the 'rock' back out of the sea but on being dragged back onto land, it starts to absorb oxygen from the air and continues to grow. Dart suddenly has an idea and drives Raeburn and Haggarty to a liquid oxygen storage facility...

Part Five: Issue 672, dated 31/10/1964
Raeburn believes Dart's plan to feed the 'rock' liquid oxygen is dangerous but Haggarty agrees with the captain. Dart arranges for liquid oxygen to be pumped into the rock, forming ice on its surface and preventing it from further absorbtion and growth. Using a large hovercraft, Dart tows the frozen mass to Antartica, where it becomes a tourist attraction.

out of 5

Notes:
• Continuity is well maintained with regard to format and the general look of the series.
• Just as in the series where the sonar relay for Jupiter was on the asteroid Pallas., here we learn there is a relay for Venus on the asteroid Danta - 12 days and 3 hours from Earth. This would also place it in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.
• Haggarty has ‘grown’ a banana loaf for Larry Dart.
• The freezer units are shown as individual horizontal cabinets with clear tops.
• Husky is described in part two as a ‘Martian mechanic’.
• Gabbler makes brief appearances in the second and third parts - the only times he does in the entire run - and is shown to be dark green in colour with a yellow beak.

• As in the series, Gabbler gives Haggarty the idea about the sea by panicking and thinking the weight of the rock will make the land sink, drowning them all!
• The transport system around the country resemble modern motorways, with bullet shaped transports, though the vehicle Dart uses resembles a land-going speedboat.
• The ending is quirky - with the rock becoming a 'tourist attraction' - and somewhat at odds with the dramatic build up in earlier parts, but somehow what you almost expect to happen in the series!
• A kind of 'blooper' occurs in the final frame as Raeburn tells Dart he can go back to his fishing holiday but there is no mention of that anywhere else in the story. It does, however, led into events the following week...

Story Two - The Great Gold Bullion Robbery:
Written by Roberta Leigh. Drawn by Bill Mevin

Part One: Issue 673, dated 07/11/1964
The Trans-Continental Monorail Express from New York to Hollywood is ambushed by masked men with jetpacks, who steal a whole carriage of gold by hoisting it away by helicopter. Raeburn tries to contact Dart and Slim, who are on a fishing holiday in the Rockies, to investigate. But unknown to him, the Space Patrol men are already hostages of the crooks...

Part Two: Issue 674, dated 14/11/1964
Marla tells Raeburn that Dart is not answering his vision phone, but the colonel wants her to keep trying. Meanwhile the crooks have loaded the gold into a flying saucer and fled into space. Dart activates the phone and warns Marla, who sends help. A rescue jet is despatched and Dart and Slim return to Space Headquarters to take up the chase in Galasphere 347...

Part Three: Issue 675, dated 21/11/1964
Galasphere 347 tracks the saucer past Mars. A sighting by Galasphere 971 puts Dart on the trail and he follows the crooks to a strange planet. The crooks begin transferring the bullion to another ship. Landing nearby, Dart and Husky explore on hoverjets but as they near the ships, they are ambushed by two crooks and pushed into the water. Suddenly a fearsome monster rises from the depths...

Part Four: Issue 676, dated 28/11/1964
The monster grabs Dart and Husky, who radio Slim for help. The Venusian uses his plastafoam gun to encase the monster and rescue his colleagues. Having alerted the army, the three continue the chase through the undergrowth to a rock cliff pitted with caves. Laser ray fire bursts from one cave and the space patrol team dive for cover, but Dart has a plan...

Part Five: Issue 677, dated 05/12/1964
The Space Army launch a rocket to aid Dart but he already has a plan to trap the crooks. Dart is lowered on vines down the cliff face by Husky, to the cave the crooks are hiding in and seals them in with Slim's plastafoam gun. The Space Army arrive in their tanks, and Dart hands over the mission to them.

out of 5

Notes:
• A somewhat straightforward and disappointing story, after the promising first strip, but Bill Mevin's art continues to delight.
• The paper reporting the theft is the ‘Space Age Herald’, with a headline ‘Great Train Robbery - Crooks steal a million in gold!’.
• The ‘vision phone’ appears to be a large monitor screen with an old fashioned phone earpiece hanging with a wire beside it - the tied-up Dart activates it by kicking the earpiece off its holder!
• The help despatched by Marla is ‘Rescue Jet 992’.
• There is a strange reference in the third part to Galasphere 347 'cutting space corners' to close on the flying saucer.
• No indication is given of where the 'strange planet' is, though from the travel time and course given it is presumably somewhere between Mars and Jupiter.
• The hoverjets are different in design from those seen in the series, being predominantly pink and having ‘SP’ in a disk on the front.
• Rather than wearing molungs, the crew are seen wearing helmeted goggles, and give the impression they are driving the hoverjets quite fast!
• Strangely, Dart and Husky (and later Slim and the Space Army captain) all wear these helmets, suggesting the atmosphere is not breathable, but the crooks wear no breathing apparatus...
• Plastafoam guns are used quite extensively in this story, and are of a different design than seen in the series, being more of a pistol affair (right).
• We see a Space Army officer over seeing the loading of a rather conventional rocket in the final part, but these seem to have little in common with the United Galactic Forces seen in the series.
• In the recap for the final part, Larry Dart is refered to as ‘Barry’.
• On a seperate historical note, Doctor Who begins its own mammoth run in TV Comic in issue 674, which would last until 1970, alongside the second installment of this strip.

Story Three: 'The Poisoned Planet'
Written by Roberta Leigh. Drawn by Bill Mevin

Part One: Issue 678, dated 12/12/1964
A spaceliner carrying six top scientists from a space conference on Mars is returning to Earth and Galasphere 347 has been assigned to guide it into an allocated orbit. But the liner fails to respond to calls and visual contact reveals there is no-one aboard! Space tugs are despatched to heave the liner into a safe orbit, where a crew is put on board to land it. On board, Raeburn starts investigating and Larry Dart reports the entire ship has been cleared out. Haggarty finds a old space helmet in the chart room belonging to astronaut John Magnum, lost in space seventy years previously...

Part Two: Issue 679, dated 19/12/1964
The President of the World Science Bureau hounds Colonel Raeburn to find the missing scientists, and quickly! With Professor Haggarty aboard, Galasphere 347 lifts off to fly back along the spaceliners course. Mars Space Patrol has already questioned all other freighters in the area so Haggarty deduces the answer must be on Humida, ‘the poisoned planet’. After a freezer journey of 28 days, the crew awake but there is a shout of alarm from Husky. Thousands of large bat-like ceatures are swarming around the Galasphere, and they push the ship off-course towards Humida...

Part Three: Issue 680, dated 26/12/1964
The strength of the 'bats' is tremendous and they slow Galasphere 347 to a landing on the surface of Humida, where it is guided into a vast hangar. As a great door seals them in a massive airlock, they see a whole fleet of spaceships are being prepared by the missing scientists. Dart and Haggarty venture outside where they see Professor Watkins, who walks past them blankly - they have all been hypnotised. Back on the Galasphere, Slim tries to contact Space Headquarters without success but then the screen flickers to life and the face of John Magnum appears instead...

Part Four: Issue 681, dated 02/01/1965
As the Galasphere is moved by the bats to Magnum's control centre, he tells Larry Dart how he left Earth an angry man after being denied the power he felt he deserved. Crashing on Humida, the 'bats' saved his life and became his loyal servants. The atmosphere is not as poisonous as supposed, as it has kept him alive for seventy years, and is the secret of the 'bats' speed and strength. Magnum now plans to return to Earth with the bat creatures to take power, but even they cannot make the journey unaided and need ships with freezer units for the voyage. Even though the World Defence Squads will defeat the attack, Dart realises it will be a difficult battle. Using plastafoam guns, the crew attack the bats, only to see them turn to steam and water and evade the sprays...

Part Five: Issue 682, dated 09/01/1965
The bats take the crew back to the Galasphere, where Haggarty hears a rocket engine being tested - the invasion fleet is nearly ready for lift off. Transferred to one of the rockets, which holds the 'bats' in its main hold, Haggarty realises the ships are an old design with electrical circuits. As the flight cabin is insulated, and he theorises the 'bats' skin is some kind of metal, he uses the power to electrocute the hull, stunning the creatures. A spark from the electricity ignites the fuel in the ship and an explosion starts a blaze. In the chaos, they return to the Galasphere in a bid to rescue the scientists...

Part Six: Issue 683, dated 16/01/1965
The explosion has wrecked nearly all of Magnum's ships. Husky gets the scientists aboard one of the remaining intact ships and lifts off from Humida with Galasphere 347. Magnum has also escaped in another ship with the bats and is heading for Earth. 28 days later, all three ships arrive in Earth orbit. Dart watches as the bats pour from Magnum’s ship but unused to the oxygen atmosphere, the bats start to burn up on re-entry and flee back into space. Defeated, Magnum tries to ram Galasphere 347 before he too flees back into space. Dart and Colonel Raeburn can only wonder if it the last they have seen of him..

out of 5

Notes:
• A grimly dramatic story - one of the best in the TV Comic run.
• The space liner seems to be based on the ‘Ark’ rocket from the classic film When Worlds Collide, and becomes a popular design in artist Bill Mevin’s artwork.
• The liner’s Orbital Entry Spacelog is ‘592, N.E.381, Speed 25,000, reduce to 10,000’. However, later the speed is given as 25,000 knots (28,750 miles per hour).
• Husky, curiously, refers to Dart as 'skipper' in the first part.
• Although unnamed in the first part, Raeburn refers to the space liner as The Monarch in part two.
• Haggarty, when in the Galasphere control room, seems to have to make do and sit on the walkway!
• The recap for issue 680 inadvertantly appears as the recap for issue 679 too
• The freezer unit in the Galasphere is refered to as ‘Freeze Unit’ by a sign near the door.
• In the first frame of part three, the Galasphere is missing its 'landing spike'.

Story Four: 'The Mines Of Omega'
Written by Roberta Leigh. Drawn by Bill Mevin

Part One: Issue 684, dated 23/01/1965
Freightship 182 returns to Earth from asteroid Omega without its shipment of the rare metal Dectium. The skipper explains the mining company refused them supplies so Raeburn sends Galasphere 347 to investigate. On Omega the head of the plant, Dr. Fendoe, tells Dart that Earth will pay the price he wants. When Dart threatens to call in the Space Army, Fendoe shows him his secret weapon - controllable radiation clouds...

Part Two: Issue 685, dated 30/01/1965
With a belt of radiation clouds enveloping Omega, Fendoe believes himself safe from reprisals from Earth. Galasphere 347 is also trapped on the surface under the deadly belt, so Dart takes Haggarty to investigate the jets used to create the clouds. However, the jets activate dispersing lethal liquid dectium and they only get back to the Galasphere just in time. But the Sun has set and the temperature falls rapidly below zero on the asteroid, sealing the the Galasphere in freezing ice...

Part Three: Issue 686, dated 06/02/1965
With temperature control out of action, Dart and his crew take refuge in the freezer unit until morning when the sun melts the ice. Spotting an automated ore train, they stow away on board to get into Fendoe’s plant but they are spotted. A chute opens and the four men find themselves on a conveyor belt of rocks heading for the crushing mill...

Part Four: Issue 687, dated 13/02/1965
Husky throws a piece of rock at a nearby control panel and stops the conveyor belt just in time. A repair team arrives in a waggon to switch the belt to an emergency power unit, giving Dart the chance to overpower the two men...

Part Five: Issue 688, dated 20/02/1965
The automatically controlled waggon returns to Fendoe’s control centre but he is expecting the Galasphere crew and cuts the power. Inside an armed vehicle, Fendoe and his men force a showdown. Dart questions one of the repair team, who reveals a manual control. Haggarty finds the controls for the dectium jets and deactivates them, allowing the Space Army to land. Dart rams Fendoe’s tank, rupturing the hull and exposing him to the dectium gas and forcing him to surrender.

out of 5

Notes:
• A reasonable story, though the ending is a little confused.
• At the beginning of the story, Dart and his crew - along with Haggarty - are seen relaxing outside near the 'Space Airport'.
• The Space Army are again referred to.
• The crew taking refuge in the freezer unit itself to prevent being frozen be the falling temperature on Humida is an interesting solution!
• An advert for the strip appeared in TV Times (right) towards the end of this story.

Story Five: 'The Blue World'
Written by Roberta Leigh. Drawn by Bill Mevin

Part One: Issue 689, dated 27/02/1965
Professor Haggarty’s niece and nephew are playing in his attic when they find a hideous red checked jersey given to him by his Auntie Min. He tells them that it was used to stop a war. Excited by the tale, his niece and nephew urge him to continue... A new planet had been discovered and Galasphere 347 is on standby. Haggarty arrives wearing the new jersey, much to the horror and amusement of the crew. But upon landing on the planet, the crew are greeted by a strange sight....

Part Two: Issue 690, dated 06/03/1965
Everything on the whole planet is a single colour - blue - which Dart attributes to a freaked out Husky as simply atmospheric colour absorbtion. The strange creatures who live here think the crew are planet to planet salesmen and warn them off. A misunderstanding leads to the aliens opening fire. Dart gets his men back on Galasphere 347 and they quickly lift off but the aliens pursue in ships, intent on destroying them and the planet from which they came - Earth!

Part Three: Issue 691, dated 13/03/1965
Dart has warned Raeburn of the attacking aliens and been instructed to land in Arizona to confine the battle area. Dart takes his crew outside to take cover but Haggarty, trying to retrieve his new jersey, gets it snagged on the Galasphere. The aliens emerge from their ships but are shocked so much by the overpowering colour from the jersey that they beat a hasty retreat back to their own planet..

out of 5

Notes:
• A truly hilarious story, especially the misunderstanding between the Galasphere crew and the aliens, which leads to the 'war'.

• There is a 400” (inch) telescope at Space Headquarters..
• Husky uses ‘anti-dazzle glasses’ when seeing the jersey for the first time!
• Galasphere 347 uses a protective shield against the attacking alien ships, very like the one seen in 'The Telepathic Robot'.