Space 1999 Annual 1978.

Come with me, for I am going on a journey of discovery, a voyage to amazing places, in which I'll be learning all kinds of things I never knew before and see all sorts of incredible sights.

That's right, it's time for me to once more become the Professor Brian Cox of the Internet and blast off into space with the Moonbase Alpha gang and their contingent of groovy spaceships.

"But what's this?" I hear you cry. "What's happened to Barry Morse and how come he's got boobs all of a sudden?"

Sadly, Barry was dropped after the first season and replaced by the legend that is Catherine Schell.

Catherine Schell welcomes visitors to her
Blackpool boarding house, which may or
may not exist.

Her friends know her as Catherine Schell but we all know her as Maya. We also all know her I think as the greatest woman who ever lived. There are a million billion zillion trillion creatures in the universe, all made of the same stuff as stars - and Catherine Schell can transform herself into any of them.

I was also once told by someone I knew that Catherine Schell is the mother of Matthew Waterhouse who played Adric in Dr Who and that she used to run a boarding house in Blackpool. Granted I've never seen any evidence at all to back up either of these claims but it shows the sheer awesomeness of the woman that, thanks to her, I once found myself in what seemed to be an alternative dimension where Maya from Space: 1999 runs a Blackpool boarding house, and people from science fiction shows are all related purely by virtue of having been in science fiction shows.

Why do I get the feeling the third actor in this shot got himself a new
agent straight after filming this?

But even with a new crew member in place, there's still a daily dose of trauma to be overcome by the Moonbase Alpha team, and so we kick-off the 1978 annual with a prose adaptation of the episode in which Maya was recruited to Moon Base Alpha after her father turned out to be not just Brian Blessed but evil. I'd tell you if the adaptation's any good but, frankly, these days I only read stories that have pictures, so I couldn't say.

Next we get an interview with Catherine Schell, in which she mentions neither Matthew Waterhouse nor Blackpool. My suspicions are starting to grow.

Now we get another prose tale about yet another treacherous alien.

Next we get a Spot the Difference page. I'm proud to announce I've spotted several differences and have thus proven I am at least the intellectual equal of a child.

After this, we get what we all really came for - a picture strip. In it, Moonbase Alpha's reunited with Earth, only to discover that, in their absence, it's been overrun by evil vegetation - so they don't like it any more and refuse to live there the fussy so and so-s. So what? My garden's full of evil vegetation and it doesn't put me off living on the planet Earth. On the upside, Maya turns into a gorilla.

Next we get a page of cartoons.

Now another Spot the Difference page. Again, I spotted several differences - proving beyond all doubt that I have a level of intellectual development at least on a par with a child.

Then there's a board game that's clearly based on Monopoly - as all board games devised for annuals seemed to be.

Next, we get a one-page quiz about matters Outer Space. I'm proud to declare I got some of the answers right, proving not only that I am indeed the new Professor Brian Cox but that I'm also at least the intellectual equal of a child.

Next, we get a pin-up of Barbara Bain.

Then we get another prose story about treacherous aliens. This time, they're one-eyed treacherous aliens, so it's a not altogether positive portrayal of the disabled.

Now there's a two-page quiz testing your knowledge of Moonbase Alpha and its staff. I think I've got all the answers right, proving once again that I have intellectual capabilities at least on a par with a child.

Next we get a pin-up of Tony Anholt.

And now we get yet another prose story - this time the Alphans encounter a horny monster called the Beast of Bokassa. Presumably they met it just after seeing off the Beast of Pol Pot. Like the villains in the previous story, the Beast of Bokassa also has only one eye.

After all this verbal story-telling, at last we get another picture strip, as Moonbase Alpha and some aliens find themselves having a fight to see who should get the right to colonise a planet they've just discovered. Needless to say those sneaky aliens can't be trusted but, for once, they at least have a full complement of eyes.

Now we get another Spot the Difference page. I'm proud to say I've spotted several differences, proving once and for all that I have a level of intellectual development at least equal to that of a child.

Next we get a one-page quiz challenging us to decipher an alien message. I'm proud to say I deciphered it, proving that... ...well, you get the picture.

Now there's a couple of pages devoted to stills from the show, which've had humorous captions added to them. It includes this joke; "Where do astronauts leave their space ships?" A great big Steve Does Comics No-Prize goes to the first person to come up with the correct answer as published in the annual.

They always say you should never part on a cross word but the annual does just that by parting with a  crossword. I'd like to boast that I completed it and proved I have at least the intellectual development of a child but the crossword's missing, having for some reason been cut out by me at some point. I of course did this because back then I had the intellectual development of a child.

So there you have it, My bid to become the nation's best-loved space expert - and I didn't even have to show everyone a load of satsumas representing all the stars in the universe to do it. It wasn't an entirely happy journey. I discovered that 99% of aliens can't be trusted and neither can anyone with only one eye. I learned that even the mighty Barry Morse can be replaced, and that nuclear piles might not be as painful as any other kind of piles you might get but they can't half play havoc with your orbital arrangements.

Annuals I wish I'd had. Part One.

As I roam the streets of Sheffield, one of the things I get asked most often is, "Steve, when you walk into a room, do you have a theme tune playing in your head, to herald your arrival?"

And I say, "Why yes. I do. It's this:

"with its pounding timpani, blaring fanfares and spaced-out electro-funk, I like to feel it captures me perfectly."

But of course, even when you've got the fact that you're the hugely successful creator of one of the Internet's most fabulously fabulous blogs to keep you warm at nights, it's not all plain sailing. And so this...

....is what I have playing in my head when something bad's happened to me, such as I've run out of biscuits.

I must admit this post has only a tenuous link with comics but it does have one, as I own several
Space: 1999 annuals but I'm not aware that there was ever a Sweeney annual. Possibly such lines as, "Get your knickers on, you slag, you're nicked," were, on reflection, unsuitable for children - although that never stopped me, or any other kid I knew, from watching it.

Come to think of it, I don't think there ever was an I Claudius annual either. I can't deny I always saw a kindred spirit in Caligula. If only he'd had his own theme tune - and a blog - like I have, I like to feel it'd all have turned out so much better for him and he would never have had to utter that immortal line, "Infamy! Infamy! They've all got it in for me!"

Space 1999 Annual, 1976. Alpha males in trouble.

Was there ever any TV show with an opening more designed to make your head explode with excitement than Gerry Anderson’s Space: 1999? That fanfare, those pounding drums, that plummeting spiral of strings. And then that electric guitar twanging away as though drafted in from the eerie depths of outer space itself. And those words; “In this episode,” followed by a montage of epic proportions. Even now, as a half-senile old derelict, it still gets me, right here.

Then again was there ever a show more designed to send you nodding off than each episode itself, as some empty, sterile and baffling story would unfold each week? A story which always seemed to be resolved by the latest menace suddenly vanishing without trace as Commander Koenig would look out the window and ask, “Victor, will we ever really know what happened here today?” To which Barry Morse would always give a half smile, take a sip of champagne and respond, “Ah John, who can know, John? John, who can know?”

That of course didn’t stop me tuning in every week. I mean, the stories might’ve been rubbish but at least it looked good.

And, you know what? It didn’t stop me getting the Space 1999 annual every year either.

I have to come clean. My copy of the first Space 1999 annual’s in a bad way. For a start, for some reason I can’t recall, as a child I decided it’d be a good idea to draw beards, glasses and perms on everyone in order to make them look like ELO’s Jeff Lynne - even Barbara Bain. On top of that, being in love with the Eagle spaceships, I cut out all the photos of them, having discovered that, by licking the back of them, I could make them stick to my bedroom window with saliva. I was classy that way.

But what to make of what’s left of my not-so treasured annual?

I remember as a kid being terribly disappointed with it, mostly because the art in the picture strips wasn’t of the standard I was used to at Marvel. The lines were so thin and uniform and the layouts so undynamic. The lack of detail in the backgrounds also leapt out at me. Looking at them now, I actually quite like that art. There’s a simple unfussiness about it. And, if it was never going to win any awards, it got the job done with a certain efficiency.

In the first picture story, we encounter a pair of humans from the future, who for no good reason, want to kill everyone on Moonbase Alpha until they themselves are killed by Commander Koenig’s cold. Superior intellects killed by a common cold? Wherever do these writers get their ideas from? In the second picture story, our heroes find themselves on a planet ruled by women. Needless to say, it’s the same sort of man-hating hell hole that all planets ruled by women are, in these things. Happily, our heroes escape and get back to Alpha where the women know their place.

On top of this, there’s a whole raft of other features, including a set of prose stories, cartoons, puzzles, board games and, my own personal favourites, a series of interviews in which cast members allegedly interview the characters they play in the show. It’s a great conceit and helps shed light on both actors and characters. I’d love to know who the unnamed genius was who was really behind them.

The truth is although I didn’t appreciate it at the time, you got a whole lot more for your money from these books than you got from Marvel UK’s annuals of the same time. That’s not to say they’re better. After all, the Marvel Annuals had Marvel stories in them but, looking at the thing now for the first time in donkeys' years, I can at least appreciate the volume of work the editor put into sticking it all it together.

PS. Thanks to this annual, I now know that 17th Century astronomer Sir Paul Neal once looked at the moon and saw an elephant roaming around on it. It was later pointed out to him that it was a mouse that'd climbed into his telescope. If that revelation alone doesn’t justify the price tag, what does?

PPS. Apparently, the comic strips in this annual were drawn by John Burns. As we all know, the American Charlton Space: 1999 comic was drawn by John Byrne. Meanwhile, some of the episodes of the Space: 1999 TV show were written by a man called Johnny Byrne. Coincidence? Or proof that the show's thesis that some cosmic force is pulling all our strings was right all along?