Lady Penelope (comic)

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Lady Penelope
Lady penelope comic no3.jpg
Lady Penelope #3 (February 5, 1966).
Publication information
Publisher City Magazines
ScheduleWeekly
FormatOngoing
Publication date22 January 1966 — 13 December 1969
No. of issues204
Main character(s) Lady Penelope
Creative team
Written by Angus Allan
Editor(s)Gillian Allan

Lady Penelope was a British weekly comic book magazine for girls which ran from 1966 to 1969. [1] Produced by Century 21 Publications and published by City Magazines, it was a sister publication to TV Century 21 . Lady Penelope was edited by Gillian Allan, wife of comic strip writer Angus Allan. [2]

Contents

The title character was based on Lady Penelope Creighton-Ward, the secret agent seen in the Gerry & Sylvia Anderson/AP Films television series Thunderbirds . Most of the other strips in the comic were also based on popular television shows of the era.

Publication history

Background

Before Lady Penelope became an independent comic, a strip featuring the title character was one of four colour strips (all also related to Gerry Anderson's Supermarionation shows) to launch TV Century 21 in January 1965. The Lady Penelope strip, created by Tod Sullivan & Eric Eden, ran for 51 issues in TV Century 21, from 23 January 1965 to 8 January 1966. It was published while Thunderbirds was still being produced; the stories acted as a prelude to the upcoming Thunderbirds strip in TV Century 21 (which replaced Lady Penelope when she moved to her own title).

Lady Penelope

Following the success of the strip in TV Century 21 , the Lady Penelope comic, marketed as "the comic for girls who love television," was launched on 22 January 1966. [3]

The title changed to The New Lady Penelope with issue 53 (January 1967), back to Lady Penelope with issue 63 (April 1967), and then to Penelope from issue 123 (May 1968) onwards.

City Magazines began publishing Lady Penelope annuals in 1967, continuing for six editions until 1972.

The run ended with issue #204, dated 13 December 1969, [3] after which the title joined with IPC Magazines' Princess Tina to become Princess Tina and Penelope. (A number of City Magazines titles were acquired by, or merged with, IPC titles in the period 1967 to 1971.) This merger appears to have been arranged hastily and would have left some of the weekly comic strip serials unfinished, so the endings of these were included in the form of text stories in issue #204.

Despite the combined title, only one comic serial from Penelope survived the merge, albeit with the format and main character's name altered. The title would revert to Princess Tina before the end of 1970.

Notable comic strips

A number of strips in Lady Penelope connected with other Century 21 Productions:

Lady Penelope also included strips based on popular television programs of the era:

Other ongoing strips:

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References

Citations

  1. "Lady Penelope (Volume)". Comic Vine. Retrieved 2020-01-21.
  2. Bentley, Chris (2017). "Lady Penelope and Solo". In Hearn, Marcus (ed.). Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons: The Vault. Cambridge, UK: Signum Books. pp. 178–179. ISBN   978-0-995519-12-1.
  3. 1 2 Lady Penelope at the Grand Comics Database

Sources consulted