TV Century 21, later renamed TV21, TV21 and Tornado, TV21 and Joe 90, and TV21 again,[1] was a weekly British children's comic published by City Magazines during the latter half of the 1960s.

Originally produced in partnership with Gerry and Sylvia Anderson's Century 21 Productions, it promoted the company's many science-fiction television series.

The brainchild of writer-editor Alan Fennell (who also wrote episodes of the various Anderson TV shows) and presenter Keith Shackleton,[3] TV Century 21 was produced by the staff at the Andersons' Century 21 Publications, while printing and distribution was handled by City Magazines.

Many of the leading British comic artists of the time contributed to the publication, including Frank Bellamy (who drew two-page-spread adventures for Thunderbirds),[4] John M. Burns, John Cooper, Jon Davis, Eric Eden, Ron and Gerry Embleton, Rab Hamilton, Don Harley, Richard E. Jennings, Mike Noble, Paul Trevillion, Ron Turner, James Watson and Keith Watson, and the duo of Vicente Alcazar and Carlos Pino under the pseudonym "Cervic".

Early copies of TV Century 21 are difficult to find, and attract high prices compared to nearly all other print material associated with Gerry Anderson's work.

Earth was depicting as having a World Government – based in the fictional Unity City, Bermuda, and incorporating a President and a Senate – whose authority encompassed most of the planet.

Various textual commentaries established backstories for the characters that also connected the various series; for example, some of the Spectrum officers seen in Captain Scarlet were revealed to be former World Space Patrol agents.

A recurring plot element was the fictional Eastern European nation of Bereznik, a country not part of and hostile to the World Government.

[7] After losing the Gerry Anderson license in mid-1970, TV21 became a television comic virtually in name only, with the Star Trek strip being the lone feature still related to TV.

In late 1965, with the success of TV Century 21, City Magazines began publishing a number of related annuals and specials, two of them featuring Stingray.

Issue #21 of TV Century 21 saw the debut strip of Special Agent 21, i.e. Brent Cleever of the Universal Secret Service.

The character had first appeared, in text form, in issue #1, as the fictional editor of TV Century 21; readers were "drafted" as his agents and asked to address reports (i.e. letters) to Contact 21.

The Investigator, by Alan Fennell and Don Harley, was about Bob Devlin and Marc Carter, fictional troubleshooters for Universal Engineering Incorporated, builders of the XL fleet, Fireflash, and the first Martian probe.

With issue #105 (21 January 1967), Zero-X, by Angus Allan and Mike Noble, joined TV Century 21,[11] replacing The Daleks.

That feature, drawn by John M. Burns, was a meta-strip set in the year 2067 about fictional TV Century 21 investigative reporter Pete Tracker, who learns about the secretive organization Spectrum; the strip was used to promote the upcoming Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons TV series (and the accompanying comic strip).

[12] (The back story of the Mysterons, Captain Scarlet's Martian enemies, was being revealed in TV Tornado, another City Magazines publication.)

The final new strip to join the publication's lineup – taking over from the canceled Tarzan – was the adaptation of the TV series Department S, drawn by Carlos Pino, which debuted in issue #212 (8 February 1969).

With the new TV21 and Joe 90, the publication dispensed with the hundred-years-in-the-future cover date format as well as the focus on the Anderson-universe, becoming more of a typical British adventure comic (the first four issues, in fact, featured association football imagery).

"[4] The Thunderbirds and Joe 90 strips were printed in black-and-white in deference to the new colour features Star Trek and Land of the Giants.

[4] Star Trek, originally by Harry Lindfield,[4] was one of only strips to last all 105 issues of the relaunched publication, eventually being illustrated by Jim Baikie, Mike Noble, and Carlos Pino and Vicente Alcazar, often working together as "Carvic".

First to join the lineup were the American King Features Syndicate strips The Phantom and The Lone Ranger and Tonto.

Two former employees of Century 21 Publishing, Dennis Hooper and Roger Perry, had worked on TV21 and Lady Penelope in the period 1965–1968.

Soon enough, Polystyle's Countdown, debuted in February 1971, initially reprinted many of the Supermarionation strips which had originally run in TV21, including Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons, Fireball XL5, Joe 90, Lady Penelope, Stingray, Thunderbirds, and Zero-X.

[17][15] Issue "#243" of TV21 (continuing the numbering of the first volume of the series), dated "13 September 2069", was published in 2014 by Network, with editing by Martin Cater.