The Look-in exclusive Tomorrow People picture strip was a popular mainstay of the 'Junior TV Times' magazine from 1973 to 1978, amassing 34 adventures over 216 issues and totalling 432 seperate pages of story and artwork. As one of Look-in's longest running TV adaptions, it stands as a significant body of work in any television series spin-off and is, for the Tomorrow People, probably its biggest TV tie-in to date.

The picture strip itself was scripted, as were the vast majority of Look-in's stories, by writer Angus P Allen. Like any comic, the Look-in picture strip adventures were unhindered by budget restraints, dodgy special effects and inferior costumes so Angus had the freedom to take the stories anywhere he chose. Very often this would mean stories involving aliens and outer space but also ventured into time travel, alternate histories, giant robots and even a satanic cult! On the whole, these stories were well-written and imaginative and often expanded on the TP mythos and history without getting carried away or forgetting their roots. Even though Look-in was aimed at children, looking back on the magazine today and reading the strips again, one can see that the Tomorrow People picture strip was a worthy continuation of the television series in an alternate medium.

If the stories were something special then the artwork for the Tomorrow People picture strip was incredible! The majority of the adventures were drawn and coloured by two of Look-in's most talented artists, and both great British artists in their own right, John M Burns and Mike Noble. John M Burns had a style very much of the seventies with clean uncluttered linework and a plethora of bright contrasting colors. His visual likenesses were not all that acurate but a reader would always know who they were looking at. Mike Noble, on the other hand, was the master of both color and artistic rendering. His likenesses were second to none and all of his work had an incredible amount of detail to them. When colouring his work, his style was more that of a painter than a typical comic colourist. He was quite simply one of Look-in's greatest artists and a great asset to the picture strip's popularity with readers.

With 99% of the Tomorrow People picture strips being drawn by two of Look-in's greatest talents, one certain TP adventure in the run was to ultimately be drawn a little differently. Maybe both John M Burns and Mike Noble were unavailable at the time working on other picture strips or maybe they were both simply on holiday, one particular adventure had a substitute artist in the run which, one would say, was no doubt a very strange choice for the job! Bill Titcombe was best known for working on many of Look-in's comedy strips such as Benny Hill and Mork & Mindy. When the Tomorrow People picture strip returned after a 28 issue hiatus, Titcombe was at the drawing board and produced what can only be called 'a bit of a let-down' when compared to his predecessors. But lasting for only five issues, it was not too long before Mike Noble returned to the fold and put the TP strip back on track.

As the Tomorrow People's television adventures were winding down with fewer new adventures every year, so too did Look-in's TP run and in issue number 14 dated week ending 2nd April 1978, The Tomorrow People picture strip came to an end after a glorious run.

To read some of these classic adventures, please visit The Look-in Picture Strip Archive which has a good number of strips reproduced.