Thunderbirds are go

Everything's on Kickstarter these days. They had one to build a Death Star. Some bloke raised $55,000 to make potato salad. At any given time there are a gazillion campaigns for some combination of zombies, steampunk and Sherlock Holmes. You already know that Jamie and I licensed a KS to create a new Fabled Lands book. There was even a whip round to pay off the Greek national debt, until backers cottoned on that there's a reason the Germans aren't rushing to break open any more piggy banks in that cause. Although that last one was on Indiegogo, not Kickstarter. Same difference.

And now: "Calling International Rescue..." Film-maker Stephen La Rivière has had the rather splendid idea of taking some 1960s audio-only Thunderbirds adventures starring the original cast and using those as the voice track for some new short movies.

We're not talking about your bland, soulless, Uncanny Valley CGI malarkey here. Oh no. This will be puppets. This will be proper models. This will be glorious big explosions. In short, ladies and gentlemen: this will be Supermarionation. Anything can happen in the next half hour. Oh, that's -- well, you get my point.

You can back the campaign here. It's already hit its first target, so that's one adventure ("The Abominable Snowman") in the can. The stretch goals are to do two more, "The Stately Home Robberies" and "Introducing Thunderbirds", which is the prequel episode in which Lady Penelope meets the Tracy family for the first time. Huh, and I thought she and Jeff were old flames from way back. I guess that's the slashfic of my 8-year-old imagination.