The 1960s weekly Candy comic may have been a bizarre footnote in the history of both British comics and Thunderbirds creator Gerry Anderson’s Century 21 productions, but there’s something so weirdly unsettling about the premise behind the adventures of this quartet of characters that it’s practically impossible not be transfixed by the creepily hypnotic subjects of Candy, Andy & the Bearandas.
Century 21 had, of course, been involved in a far more successful ‘60s comics enterprise in the form of TV Century 21/TV21, the fondly-remembered weekly anthology that brought other Anderson creations including Thunderbirds and Captain Scarlet to the comics page, alongside other licensed characters like The Daleks. While that publication retains cult classic status Candy, which was aimed at a far younger audience, has largely disappeared into the mists of time.
Towards the end of last year, though, Four Corners Books brought this historical oddity back into the spotlight with a collection of the photographic work of what was the comic’s feature strip for its first year of publication. In Candy, Andy & the Bearandas we are reintroduced to one of the strangest photocomics in the history of the form. One which followed the adventures of two human children Candy and Andy who lived with their unlikely and presumably adoptive parents the Bearandas; a duo of bipedal, anthropomorphised pandas.
Each instalment was apparently a short adventure that centred on the domestic set-up and misadventures of this unlikely cross-species blended family. Sadly we can only imagine what that entailed because Candy, Andy & the Bearandas is not a compilation of the comic strips, or even the covers (like the above example). Rather it’s a collection of individual images from the original transparencies of photographers Doug Luke and Roger Perry, re-presented here in astonishing quality. In that regard this is a book more for the comics historian than perhaps for the casual reader but it remains a fascinating archival publication nevertheless.
We have researcher Alan Dein to thank for this curio. Having discovered the transparencies in the 1990s he investigated the strip further, speaking to those involved in its creation and even to Gerry Anderson himself. His introduction to the photographs is brimming with anecdotal accounts of the minor local celebrities the life-size Candy and Andy dolls became on photoshoots, the tie-in fashion elements of the feature, and how they abruptly disappeared into obscurity in the decades thereafter.
No doubt some will find the subjects of Candy, Andy & the Bearandas to be charmingly eccentric while others will find the various tableaux the dolls are placed into be borderline disturbing and eerie. But no one can argue these characters didn’t have a weirdly compelling quality to them…
Alan Dein and Jamie Anderson (W), Doug Luke and Roger Perry (P), John Morgan (D) • Four Corners Books, £15.00
Buy online from Gosh! Comics here
Review by Andy Oliver
