Lady Penelope (comic)


Lady Penelope was a British weekly comic book magazine for girls which ran from 1966 to 1969. The title character was based on Lady Penelope Creighton-Ward, the secret agent seen in the 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 to launch the TV Century 21. It was published while Thunderbirds was still being made and the script acted as a prelude to the upcoming Thunderbirds comic.

''Lady Penelope''

Following the success of the Lady Penelope strip a Lady Penelope was launched as the sister publication to TV Century 21, marketed as the comic for girls who love television. It ran for 204 issues with the first dated 22 January 1966.
The title changed to The New Lady Penelope with issue 53, back to Lady Penelope with issue 63 and then to Penelope from issue 123 onwards.
The run ended with issue 204, dated 13 December 1969, after which the title joined with Princess Tina. This merge 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