"it's Thunderbirds, Jim, but not as we know it..." What more can I say? The most tenuous of links exist between the two, obviously because of the name and maybe less obviously because there still are five different craft. Besides that, every similarity with existing puppets, situations or television series is purely coincidental.

As we all know, Thunderbirds was, and still is, very big in Japan. So, in the 1980s, some bright soul stumbled upon the idea of doing a manga version of one of our beloved Supermarionation series. As far as I am concerned, the less said about it the better but there are folks out there who think different, witnessed by the ample supply of web pages that are devoted to this rather outrageous phenomenon.

So why did I include this page in the site? Because it has a link with Thunderbirds [if only in name] and because I am a great fan of Graham Bleathman's artwork [who, incidentally, also did the headers for the merchandising guides found elsewhere].

headquarters the machines
artwork ©1982 Graham Bleathman
published originally in Supermarionation Is Go! #6