Monday, 26 September 2016

1993: CAPTAIN SCARLET ISSUE 1 (FLEETWAY)

From October 1993: the first issue of Fleetway's CAPTAIN SCARLET revival, timed to coincide with the arrival of reruns on BBC TWO.

The series had last been seen in the UK roughly a decade esrlier when ITV had bought a package of Gerry Anderson shows (including Thunderbirds, Stingray, Scarlet, Joe 90 and even Fireball XL5) to play in daytime and at weekends.

The BBC were able to make a similiar deal in the early 1990s because ITC were no longer affiliated to ITV and were free to seel their back catalogue of ATV/ ITC series and movies to any UK broadcaster (a large package wss also sold to cable/ satellite outfit Bravo). Latterly they returned to the fold when Carlton acquired the business.

The Fleetway fortnightly comic, which used strips originally created in the 1960s, ran for only 14 issues before folding into the pages of THE NEW THUNDERBIRDS COMIC from issue 67 (May 1994).

Scarlet returned to comics in 2005 to tie-in with the CGI revival. Poor scheduling of the TV show also helped the seal the early fate of the new title.


No comments:

Post a Comment