Space Precinct #5

16 Jan 1996. Cover price £1.25.
36 pages. Full colour.
Manga Publishing Ltd.

Edited by Cefn Ridout.

Cover by Tony Luke.

Contents:

 2 Fanderson - the Official Gerry Anderson Appreciation Society (half page) advertisement. / Telephone Collector Phonecards (half page) advertisement for P & J Promotions.

 3 Gerry Anderson's Space Precinct 2040 introduction by Cefn Ridout. / Contents / Indicia

 4 Double the Pages! Double the Action! in-house advertisement for Mortal Kombat Tournament Edition.

 5 True Believers, part one, w: Simon Jowett; a: Graham Manley, lettering by Annie Parkhouse.

17 Roll Call Officer Aurelia Took fact file by Lee Brimmicombe Wood; photographs (uncredited).

18 Space Hopper [Specifications for a VW118-GB] cutaway by Graham Bleathman.

20 Mind Over Matter Mary Woodvine interview by Jim Swallow; photographs (uncredited)

22 Soundbite Simone Bendix interview by Ralph Titterton; photographs (uncredited).

r: FAB Magazine (Official Gerry Anderson Appreciation Society) #19 ().

23 In the Next Issue of Space Precinct

24 Crimewatch readers mail.

25 Limited Edition Space Precinct Phone Cards to be Won! competition; photographs (uncredited).

26 Timebomb w: Cory MacRae; p: Andrew Currie, i: Graham Higgins, lettering by Peter Nichols, colouring by Nigel Parkinson.

32 Blast from the Past, part one, Twizzle to Supercar text feature by Chris Bentley; photographs (uncredited).

34 Episode Guide The Snake recap by Peter J. Evans; photographs (uncredited).

35 It Found it's Voice... Now it Needs a Body - Ghost in the Shell in-house advertisement for cinematic release.

36 From the Hidden Files of the FBI in-house advertisement for The X-Files: Firebird and The X-Files Special Edition.

The penultimate issue, featuring a somewhat Tarantino-esque cover courtesy of Tony Luke, has a breath of life injected into the issue which makes it stand out, even among the stellar work published so far. True Believers, the first strip of the issue, opens with a dramatic image of a derelict spaceship , and opens out the world of the characters with an idea which would later form a central part of Babylon 5's spin-off series, Crusade.

Deep space archaeology.

Long range scanners and space suits have replaced ancient maps and shovels, but the same questions occupy the minds of every member of the team:

What is it? Where does it come from? When was it built?...

Writing found aboard the ship contains vague similarities to ancient Tarn and Classical Creon scripts, but remain untranslated.

Brogan and Haldane stop a hooded figure assaulting a Creon, and discover that it is Professor Sondra Conway, head anthropologist from the expedition. Taken to talk to Captain Podly, she informs the officers that the explosion which destroyed the vessel, and which killed all but one of her friends and colleagues, was no accident. Her actions that night were in order to receive information about a sole shipment of artifacts from the vessel, stolen before it reached Pan-Simter Museum. The young Creon claimed he could lead Sondra to stolen relics, for a price, but had been frightened into reneging on their deal.

There are a lot of elements in play in the first installment which hint at the scope of worlds away from that seen in the series, and it is a shame we don't get to spend more time on the archaeological site. A peace rally is a little too mundane following the initial pages, though gives a good indication of variety within Demeter city, allowing tension to be ratcheted up a few notches.

Bleathman's Space Hopper cutaway calls to mind Red Dwarf's Bug shuttle, a pleasingly aware colour scheme (Thunderbird 2 not far from thought), though is slightly too clean and showroom-fresh to convince as a day-to-day vehicle. It is a problem with much of televisual SF, and attendant spin-offs, so it isn't a critical problem.

Mary Woodvine comes across as someone thrown into the deep end, and left to sink or swim, in Mind Over Matter. Despite the extensive make-up and appliances constraining her ability to perform with nuances, she seems remarkably chilled out about her experiences. Simone Bendix's interview, pulled from FAB, doesn't reveal nearly as much of her personality. It would have been nice for someone to quiz the cast on how they saw their characters progressing, especially as a darker second season had (to whatever degree) been considered.

Timebomb is a quick little story which contains a solidly alien threat, allows Romek and Took to shine in the limelight, and has a twist ending which feels satisfying. It isn't, unfortunately, a startlingly original tale, but it is fun - for a series which veers inconsistently from dark and tormented to light and breezy it makes a nice pause between more dramatic material. Introducing temporal mechanics to the equipment already seen is, perhaps, not the most original notion, but raises plenty of time-travel options for writers to play with.

Delightfully, and bizarrely, The Adventures of Twizzle and Torchy the Battery Boy are featured in Blast from the Past, which looks at the early days of Anderson's career. Unfortunately, due to space limitations, the piece moves on quickly to Four Feather Falls, then Supercar, without spending enough time to really delve deeper into the series than the most basic overview. While these series have had retrospectives elsewhere, it would have been greatly appreciated to receive more than "this thing exists, so... yeah," which is pretty much the approach taken.

#4

Space Precinct

#6

Shockwave #1

Feb 1991. Cover price 95p.
48 pages. Full colour contents.
London Editions Magazines / Egmont

Sophisticated Suspense for Mature Readers

Edited by Peter Nicholls.

Cover by .

Contents:

 2 Shockproof... Introduction text by Peter Nicholls (? uncredited). / Contents / Indicia

 3 Black Orchid One Thing is Certain, part one, w: Neil Gaiman; a: Dave McKean, lettering by Todd Klein.

r: Black Orchid (DC Comics) #01 (1988).

19 Animal Man The Death of the Red Mask, part one, w: Grant Morrison; p: Chas Truog, i: Doug Hazlewood, lettering by John Costanza, colouring by Tatjana Wood.

r: Animal Man (DC Comics) vol.1 #07 (Jan 1989).

32 Hellblazer Early Warning, part one, w: Grant Morrison. a: David Lloyd, lettering by Tom Frame.

r: Hellblazer (DC Comics) #25 (Jan 1990).

44 A Saucerful of Secrets? text feature by Jay Taylor.

47 DC Checklist other titles on sale. / Back Issues.

48 Remix 1991 in-house advertisement.

The closing months of 1990 was a grim time indeed for British comics aimed at a mature audience. Along with Fleetway's REVOLVER and Marvel's STRIP, London Editions' own DC ACTION! and ZONES succumbed to the bleak climate and were forced into premature cancellation. What could this hold for the future of 'adult' British Comics? Was the whole thing (gulp!) a lost cause?

I'm not sure if the tacit admission of the utter failure of other "mature readers" titles was a self-fulfilling prophecy for this short-lived run, though it is clear that the lessons which could have been learned obviously weren't heeded. The main lesson, for those paying careful attention, was that reprint titles were largely irrelevant thanks to the ease of accessing original material.

This issue kicks off in fine style with BLACK ORCHID, HELLBLAZER and ANIMAL MAN, but keep your eyes skinned in the coming months for the likes of CATWOMAN, SWAMP THING and DOOM PATROL!

This is a suicide note, not an introduction. The pointlessness of reprinting something so quickly after US origination is self-evident, and yet here is a title which is repackaging three acclaimed US series (which most readers will already have read) and promising more of the same. As much as I like the material chosen, I already had the US comics, and have subsequently picked up the trades (more than once), so I'm not sure who this title was aimed at. The lack of new material is but one of the problems this suffers.

Opening with Neil Gaiman's Black Orchid, the reprint doesn't bother explaining the background to the strip. It isn't a brilliant reprint, with painted artwork reproducing slightly muddy in places, but attempts at something new must be congratulated. There's style enough in Dave McKean's work to rise above any disadvantages, though the text boxes are - in places - almost illegible.

Animal Man is extremely bright and gaudy, resembling The Tick cartoon in several places, which doesn't help the persistent sense that this is a half-hearted final stab at a market rapidly slipping from LEM's grasp. A ridiculous would-be supervillain and his little red robots don't immediately strike me as belonging to a truly mature title, but if it helped draw in readers from Batman...

Showing just how ill thought-out this title is, Hellblazer closes out the strip portion of material. It would have been the perfect way to open the issue, but is buried after a superhero reprint. It is a mistake which doesn't help the issue any, as is beginning with the twenty-fifth issue rather than the first. Expecting readers to accept picking up information from the previously published material in trades, or through the original comics in a comic store, is asking a lot from a national title.

The feature A Saucerful of Secrets highlights something which has muddied the market for a long time. Does this want to be a horror comic or a science fiction comic? They are two different markets, and the readership for one does not automatically transfer to the other - by having something which addresses readers of SF titles, it makes it difficult to see how this could have possibly managed to create a position from which it could expand and (in time) grow from the reprints into a more interesting proposition.

It's a real shame that there were no original strips.

Space Precinct #1

31 Oct 1995; Cover price 1.25p.
36 pages. Full colour.
Manga Publishing Ltd.

Edited by Cefn Ridout.

Painted cover by Kev Walker.

Free Space Precinct sticker album and stickers.

Contents:

.2 A cosmic new album and sticker collection from Panini advertisement for Space Precinct sticker album and stickers.

.3 Gerry Anderson's Space Precinct 2040 Editorial by Cefn Ridout. / Contents / Indicia

.4 Patlabor 2 The Movie in-house videocassette advertisement.

.5 The Last Warrior w: Ian Carney; a: John Erasmus, lettering by Annie Parkhouse.

17 More Mega Manga Action with... in-house advertisement for Manga Mania.

18 The Station House cutaway by Graham Bleathman.

20 Policing the Final Frontier text feature by Peter J. Evans.

23 Parental Guidance w: William Cade; a: Andrew Currie, lettering by Peter Nicholls, colouring by Steve Whitaker.

29 Space Precinct Action Figures and Toys to be Won competition.

30 The Imagineers text feature by Peter J. Evans.

32 Roll Call Lieutenant Patrick Brogan fact file by Lee Brimmicombe Wood.

33 In the Next Issue of Space Precinct

34 Episode Guide Double Duty recap by Peter J. Evans.

35 Breaking the Barriers in-house advertisement for Manga Books.

36 Street Fighter II Animated in-house videocassette advertisement.

Gerry Anderson's work has inspired many great comics, and Manga obviously saw in Space Precinct potential to recreate some previous successes. This issue gets off to a good start with a painting which captures the essence of characters without being too faithful to likenesses - the bold image is one of several in the comic's run which surpasses series visuals, which is a problem. The show wasn't exactly the most aesthetically-pleasing SF to air, and when it compares unfavourably to a spin-off comic there's a problem no amount of promotion can fix.

The comic was living on borrowed time, and determined to live life to the full.

A car crash is the inciting incident in The Last Warrior. Okay, technically it is a 'hopper' (the flying vehicles of the series), and despite some really effective art, the first story here opening with a fender bender is something of a let-down. Unable to shoot it down while they are over a heavily-populated area, Brogan and Haldane take chase. Haldane jumps onto the vehicle and, discovering a dead Creon, has to regain control before crashing into Demeter City Hospital. I take back my disappointment.

Graham Bleathman's cutaway of the Station House is gorgeous. This is a location which has obviously had some thought applied to requirements for a police force operating in space: garage and a maintenance bay, holding pens, administration offices, hermetically sealed office for non-air breathing visitors, canteen... If Space Precinct had shown such workings of the world in as much detail, then we would be talking about the show with as much respect as Babylon 5 receives.

Policing the Final Frontier, a text feature on the series, brings up 1986's Space Police pilot without offering up any visuals to contrast and compare with what eventually ended up on screen. I can honestly say that I have never seen this pilot, not for scarcity but due to never having been sufficiently intrigued, and background details offered here do not encourage me to go look for it.

The opening of Parental Guidance is funny, but once again highlights an inconsistent tone which was to plague the nascent franchise. Silas' parent drop in for a visit while he is at work, arranging for him to show Morin, a young woman who bullied him as a child, the sights. This feels like a story intended for younger readers, which is somewhat at odds with stated intentions that the series was to appeal to a multi-generational audience - explaining episodes focusing on drug smugglers.

Aiming material at a slightly more mature audience could have opened up so many storytelling avenues.

Photographs of tie-in toys for The Imagineers, an article on Vivid Imaginations, aren't appealing. It appears as if someone has hurriedly stood the figures on a table and snapped a couple of shots rather than crafting images which would encourage readers to go out and purchase them. This isn't grumbling about a lack of artistic flair - either the toys are an important link in the overall marketing strategy or they aren't.

The run-down of officially-licensed products is interesting, and seems comprehensive enough to make the article of lasting interest to fans of the show, but most of what is described is left unseen on the page. The more I consider the lack of decent photographs, the more it feels like the comic was in desperate need of a photographer to help supply shots. And you'll note, no doubt, that all of the cast photos peppered throughout are from promotional material which was also issues to other magazines and newspapers.

For fantastic artwork alone, this is still a great read. It is a shame that supplementary material wasn't up to similar high quality.