Thunderbirds are go! Puppet heroes make a childhood dream come true for Co Tyrone comic book artist Connor - no strings attached
The puppet heroes from ‘Thunderbirds’ are normally called out to save a sinking ship or a building in flames – but for one Co Tyrone artist, they’ve made a childhood dream come true.
That’s because Connor Flanagan is one of the team behind a new comic book featuring the classic characters who make up the squad of International Rescue.
And as he reveals, his work has brought him full circle; he first became a fan of comics when he was a kid in Coalisland 35 years ago, by picking up a Thunderbirds book from his local newsagent.
Back then the 1960s show had become a hit all over again thanks to BBC repeats.
Already hooked on the adventures of the brave Tracy family and their colourful friends as they tackled catastrophes and saved stricken people, a young Connor was wowed by the different spins artists pencilling the comic put on the programme’s retro-future sci-fi setting and signature bespoke high-tech vehicles.
Now he’s gearing up for his own Thunderbirds book’s UK-wide launch, and along with its writer Chris Thompson and producer Andrew Clements is due to appear at a special event in Belfast’s branch of Forbidden Planet in a couple of weeks to mark its debut.
Although he has plenty of experience in the industry, Connor admitted the new book is different, one involving a property so foundational to his life that he can scarcely believe he worked on it.
With pre-release copies of the comic in his hands, he told the News Letter: “It’s a surreal feeling, I don’t think it’s actually sunk in.
“This is something I’ve dreamed of since I was 10 years old. This is the biggie, this is the one; it wasn’t real to me until I actually had the final, printed book right here.
“Reading through it for the first time was honestly overwhelming. I knew what was going to happen, of course; I’d read the script, I’d drawn it, I knew what was going to be in the speech bubbles.
“But it was still incredibly exciting to see the completed version on paper.”
Connor confessed to “a little trepidation” mounting, as when the book hits the streets it’ll face the harshest judges of all – his fellow Thunderbirds fans.
“You just want everyone else to love it as much as you do,” he said. “I was given a wonderful leeway to invest passion and time into it. The comic is made with love and the greatest affection.”
Called ‘Thunderbirds: Hidden Dangers – Burnout’, the four-part miniseries sees a raft of back-to-back missions take their toll on the Tracy family, culminating in a sinister saboteur putting a deadly plan against an overstretched and worn-down International Rescue into motion.
Closely following the look of the TV show, Connor says his main focus was to capture the dynamism of Thunderbirds’ vehicle rescue action sequences while centring the character-driven reactions of its heroes.
Of course, that does lead to a dilemma for an artist, as those original characters were hardly the most expressive cast to hit the small screen.
Although they weren’t literally wooden actors – the puppets were made from a mixture of PVC, resin and fibreglass – the performances of Virgil Tracy, Lady Penelope et al were necessarily limited, both in expression and movement.
When approaching the comic, did Connor recreate their televisual look or break with it to make them appear more fully human?
“Well, it’s a comic book,” he laughed. “There are no strings attached.
“It’s a different medium and I want to make the best use of it, but it’s a tightrope. I want them to emote, but it should look like an extension of the screen.”
The book is the culmination of a young boy’s dream, returning Connor to that moment in October 1991 when he spotted the first issue of ‘Thunderbirds The Comic’ on a newsagent’s shelf.
Drawn in by its colourful cover and promises of thrills and spills, not to mention its free badge, it opened a new world to the budding Co Tyrone artist.
“It’s so weird, a brand new Issue 1 almost 35 years to the day,” he said.
“Recently I was lucky enough to converse with one of the artists on that book, Graham Bleathman, and told him every single fibre of this new comic is influenced by him and [fellow artists] Steve Kite and Frank Bellamy.
“How could it not be? Those guys are ingrained in everything I do.”
‘Thunderbirds: Hidden Danger – Burnout’ is available from Anderson Entertainment on November 13. Connor and the rest of the book’s creative team appear at a meet and greet event in Forbidden Planet Belfast on November 19 from 5pm to 6.30pm.