Story. This could be interesting. I've heard about TV21 a lot, as they published early Doctor Who comics. Never knew they did any Star Trek.
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Story. This could be interesting. I've heard about TV21 a lot, as they published early Doctor Who comics. Never knew they did any Star Trek.
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I have never heard of these, either, but I am definitely on board.
The artwork is impressive.
The bottom item is probably not from TV21 but a promotional item done for Radio Times. It says "Radio Times" at the top and the artist, Frank Bellamy, did similar Doctor Who promotional pieces for the magazine. The dialogue is from the second season episode "The Apple". The Radio Times is a radio and TV guide that was a BBC publication until recently.
TV21 (originally TV Century 21) was a comic based around Gerry Anderson features. From what I can tell, "Star Trek" started in a companion title, Joe 90 Top Secret.(1) At this point the publisher was City Magazines; Century 21 Publications. The first issue was dated for 18 Jan. 1969. The GCD has a contents list for the issue.(2) "Star Trek" was cover-featured on #27-#30. (Other later covers featured "Land of the Giants".)
After 36 issues the title was merged with TV21 and the numbering restarted. The new title was TV21 & Joe 90. "Star Trek" was cover-featured on #4-#5, #11, #13, #17, #19, #25, #28-#29, #30 (inset), #32 (inset), #33, #35-#36. The top image at the link is from the cover of #29.
The title then continued as TV21 (1970 series). "Star Trek" was cover-featured on #37-#38 and #41. Then, from #42, "Star Trek" was the regular cover-feature and the covers became the first page of that week's "Star Trek" instalment.
With #93 the title moved to IPC magazines. The covers continued to be the first page of the "Star Trek" instalment.
But after #105 the title was merged into Valiant and TV21. "Star Trek" was cover-featured for a last time on the second issue, 9th Oct. 1971. I don't know how much longer it ran for.
(1) Complicating things, the GCD currently lists the title twice, as Joe 90 and Joe 90 Top Secret. The covers in the two galleries are the same but the Joe 90 gallery is less complete and doesn't have all the "Star Trek" covers.
(2) The GCD attributes the first instalment to Angus Allan (script) and Harry Lindfield (pencils, inks and colours). I recognise Allan's name as he wrote for "Garth" in the Martin Asbury era.
Britain had a tradition of hardcover annuals aimed at the Christmas market. I believe they appeared for the Christmas before the year they were cover-dated for. By the period in question they usually carried a mix of comics, text stories and other stuff. The comics were sometimes new, sometimes reprinted from somewhere. For example, I have Captain Scarlet Annual that entirely consists of what I take to be original Captain Scarlet comics stories and features. As a kid I had a Man from U.N.C.L.E. one that reprinted the story from Gold Key’s The Man from U.N.C.L.E. #9.
The GCD lists two Joe 90 Annuals and five TV 21 Annuals. “Star Trek” was cover-featured on the TV 21 Annuals for 1971-73. The GCD only has a contents list for the 1973 TV 21 Annual. This says it had two Trek stories by John Sutter and Jim Baikie.
The GCD also lists Star Trek Annuals for 1970-81, 1986. It has contents lists for the ones for 1971 and 1976. These say their comics content was from the Gold Key series.
This article has information about the Joe 90/TV 21 series and also about later British “Star Trek” stories. It also mentions a Ron Turner-drawn story from the first Joe 90 Annual.
Yeah, I've got a couple of old Lion, Tiger, Eagle and Valiant annuals at home. They're not in great shape, alas. Fun stuff. American comics annuals are nothing like them, really.