By Sam Dunham, illustrated by Graham Bleathman
Publisher: Haynes
Out: Now
The Book: The SPV, Angel Interceptor, Cloudbase and associated Spectrum and World Security vehicles, detailed in cutaways… This fascinating manual is a technical guide to Spectrum, the global security service of 2068, and features background information, a history of its creation, profiles of leading agents, confidential details of Spectrum’s most valuable weapon in the fight against the Mysterons, and fully annotated cutaway drawings of Spectrum vehicles.
The book finishes with comprehensive Mission Files, making it the complete and essential manual for all Spectrum Agents.
Image © ITV
The Review: Whether you grew up when Gerry Anderson’s Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons first aired in the 1960s or watching subsequent revivals, this latest faux Haynes Manual is a gem of a guide to the show.
Celebrating its fiftieth anniversary this year, unlike Thunderbirds, ITV have sadly not yet chosen to reboot the show. But it still holds a special place in the hearts of many a Gerry Anderson series fan, despite its on occasion contrived concepts and darker themes, better realised, for me, in the pages of both TV21 and Countdown as a kid than the show itself.
Image © ITV
Whatever your feelings about the source material, however, it was always the vehicles of Captain Scarlet that gave it its enduring appeal and in this Manual, Sam Denham and Graham Bleathman deliver a fantastic guide to them all, successfully recapturing not only the style of those dog-eared, much loved 1960s annuals with their marvellous “top secret” guides to Spectrum’s craft, but delivering a terrific guide to the show’s stories, too.
Graham Bleathman should need no introduction to downthetubes readers. He’s rightly renowned and respected for his highly detailed cutaway drawings, with vehicles from science fiction a speciality, and the cutaways in this book are among some of his finest work. The SPV, which also graces the cover, is one of his best artworks – you can almost see a Spectrum engineer tinkering away at the vehicle’s innards, this Manual at their side.
Complementing the official Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons: The Vault by Chris Bentley very nicely, this Manual should sit nicely on your book shelf with the equally enjoyable Haynes Thunderbirds Manual, also by Sam and Graham.
Spectrum Is Green!
• Buy it from Amazon.co.uk (using this link helps support downthetubes)
• Read our review of Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons: The Vault
- About the Author
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John is the founder of downthetubes, launched in 1998. He is a comics and magazine editor, writer, and Press Officer for the Lakes International Comic Art Festival. He also runs Crucible Comic Press.
Working in British comics publishing since the 1980s, his credits include editor of titles such as Doctor Who Magazine and Overkill for Marvel UK, Babylon 5 Magazine, Star Trek Magazine, and its successor, Star Trek Explorer, and more. He also edited the comics anthology STRIP Magazine and edited several audio comics for ROK Comics; and has edited several comic collections and graphic novels, including volumes of “Charley’s War” and “Dan Dare”, and Hancock: The Lad Himself, by Stephen Walsh and Keith Page.
He’s the writer of comics such as Pilgrim: Secrets and Lies for B7 Comics; “Crucible”, a creator-owned project with 2000AD artist Smuzz; and “Death Duty” and “Skow Dogs”, with Dave Hailwood.
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