Dan Dare


Dan Dare is a British science fiction comic hero, created by illustrator Frank Hampson who also wrote the first stories. Dare appeared in the Eagle comic series Dan Dare, Pilot of the Future from 1950 to 1967, and dramatised seven times a week on Radio Luxembourg.
The stories were set in the late 1990s, but the dialogue and manner of the characters is reminiscent of British war films of the 1950s. Dan Dare has been described as "Biggles in Space" and as the British equivalent of Buck Rogers. Dan Dare was distinguished by its long, complex storylines, snappy dialogue and meticulously illustrated comic-strip artwork by Hampson and other artists, including Harold Johns, Don Harley, Bruce Cornwell, Greta Tomlinson, Frank Bellamy, and Keith Watson.
Dan Dare returned in new strips in 2000 AD in 1977 until 1979 and in the relaunched Eagle in 1982 until 1994. The most recent mainstream story was a Dan Dare mini-series published by Titan Comics in 2017. It was written by Peter Milligan and is a completely new interpretation of Dan Dare, who is struggling to adapt to a peaceful life after the Mekon was defeated. Since October 2003, Dare's adventures have also continued in Spaceship Away, a mail-order magazine created by Rod Barzilay. Its mission statement is to continue the original Dare's adventures where the original Eagle left off, in a style as close to that of the classic strip as possible. To that end, Barzilay originally hired former Eagle artist Keith Watson, and following Watson's death Don Harley, both of whom had drawn Dare in the 1960s, to work on the strips which are written very much in the style of the Fifties stories.

Publication history

''Eagle''

Dan Dare appeared on the cover of the first issue of the weekly comic strip magazine, Eagle, on 14 April 1950. There were two large colour pages of his story per issue. The artwork was of a high quality, the product of artists in a studio called the Old Bakehouse in Churchtown, Southport, Lancashire. The Eagle's founder, the Rev John Marcus Harston Morris, was vicar of the Southport church of St James at the time. It had scale models of spaceships, and models in costume as reference for the artists. Occasionally, Eagle incorporated "centrefolds" of the fictional spaceships, such as Dan's ship the Anastasia, reminiscent of cutaway drawings of aircraft in aviation magazines or even in Eagle itself. The storylines were long and complex, sometimes lasting more than a year. Later, artwork was produced at a studio in Hampson's house in Epsom, Surrey, where his production line techniques were continued.
Attention was paid to scientific plausibility, the promising young writer Arthur C. Clarke acting as science and plot adviser for the first six months of strips. The stories were set mostly on planets of the Solar System presumed to have extraterrestrial life and alien inhabitants, common in science fiction before space probes of the 1960s proved the most likely worlds were lifeless. The first story begins with Dan Dare as pilot of the first successful flight to Venus.
Hampson's working habits twice caused him to suffer serious breakdowns in health, leaving his assistants to continue the series. The first occurred after two episodes of "Marooned on Mercury", which was taken over by Harold Johns, from scripts by Samaritans founder and clergyman Rev. Chad Varah, who had known Marcus Morris in Southport. Hampson returned to start the following story, "Operation Saturn", but suffered a relapse after 20 weeks. Principal art was taken over by new chief assistant Don Harley, who completed the story and its successor, "Prisoners of Space".
Hampson returned full-time in 1955, starting "The Man from Nowhere" trilogy, which took Dan and his companions outside the Solar System for the first time.
The quality of the strip and its popularity remained high throughout the 1950s. In the late fifties Eagle's new owners objected to the cost of the studio and the complexity of the stories. The conflict caused Hampson to leave the strip in 1959, in the middle of a long plot that saw Dan searching an alien planet for his long-lost father. Production fell to Frank Bellamy, whose modern three-dimensional style contrasted with Hampson's, despite efforts to smooth the transition by alternating the two pages of the weekly strip between Bellamy and the team of Don Harley and Keith Watson, and freelance artist Bruce Cornwell, who had been part of Hampson's studio at the beginning.

Characters

Dan Dare was surrounded by a varying cast, initially:
  • Colonel Dan Dare is chief pilot of the Interplanet Space Fleet. He was born in Manchester, England, in 1967 and educated at Rossall School. Although not a super-hero, he sometimes pulled off exceptional piloting and often proved extraordinarily lucky. He excelled at jujutsu, but he most often found non-violent solutions to predicaments. He was bound by a sense of honour, never lied, and would rather die than break his word.
  • Digby is Dan's Wigan-born batman. Rotund and sometimes bumbling, he provided comic relief. He was fiercely loyal and the only character apart from Dan to appear in every story. His favourite recreation was sleeping and he was fond of traditional English food. His nearest relative was his Aunt Anastasia, after whom Dan named his spaceship.
  • Sir Hubert Guest, Controller of the Space Fleet, sends Dan on missions, and has occasionally joined him. He was a veteran pilot, having been on the first mission to the Moon and led the first mission to Mars. He was based on Hampson's father.
  • Professor Peabody, the only major female, is the brains behind many of the team's most inventive plans.
  • Hank Hogan and Pierre Lafayette, stereotypically American and French, were two of the Fleet's best pilots and an inseparable double-act. Pierre was primarily a pilot, Hank more a mechanic.
  • Sondar is a Treen, a reptilian inhabitant of northern Venus. Originally a servant of the Mekon, he reformed after Dan spared his life during a traumatic episode that also caused his first experience of strong emotion, which the Treens suppressed. He became governor of northern Venus when the planet was placed under UN rule at the end of the first story, but nevertheless joined Dan on later adventures. He was also a talented spacecraft designer, and designed Dan's personal spaceship.
  • The Mekon, super-intelligent ruler of the Treens, is Dan's archenemy. He escaped at the end of each story to return with an even more inventive scheme for the conquest of Earth.
  • Christopher 'Flamer' Spry, freckle-faced student at 'Astral' space academy, who accompanies Dan Dare on many later missions. Flamer was based on Hampson's son, Peter Hampson. No forename for 'Flamer' was ever given in the comic strip itself.
  • Lex O'Malley, bearded Irish submarine commander, who accompanies Dan Dare on later missions.
With the exception of Digby, all the supporting cast were dropped after 1961, although Guest, O'Malley, Hogan and Sondar made occasional reappearances. In 1963, Keith Watson and writer David Motton were allowed to introduce a new supporting cast, who remained with the series throughout the rest of its run:
  • Colonel Wilf Banger, handlebar moustache, pilot and designer, an impulsive and volatile character. Banger designed and built the Tempus Frangit.
  • Technician Nutter Cobb, red-haired, broken-nosed. Banger's assistant, a Digby to his Dare.
  • Major Shillitoe Spence, balding, pencil moustache. A prim, fussy administrator.
  • Xel, first encountered in Operation Time Trap in 1963. Xel is another enemy in the mould of the Mekon. Having stowed away with Dare at the end of his first appearance, in the next story Xel allies with the Mekon but the two fall out. Xel would make regular appearances through the 60s before being finally captured.

    Vehicles

Spacecraft of various designs were presented as the product of inhabitants of various planets. The vehicle most identified with Dan was the winged Anastasia. Designed by Sondar, it employed both Venusian and Earth space drives. In 1960, an alien ship was adopted and renamed the Zylbat. There was also an experimental time-travelling ship called Tempus Frangit.
There were land and air vehicles – in the first stories, cars conform to styling of the time, while some flying machines were based on the design of helicopters of the mid-twentieth century. Also of note was Lex O'Malley's ship, the Poseidon, a versatile craft that could operate as a jetfoil as well as a submarine.
London Transport used overhead monorails and helibuses in early stories. Ground transport cars were also drawn with gyroscopes and single wheels.
Venusian vehicles were depicted as being technologically more advanced than those of Earth. South of the Flamebelt the Therons had applied their technology to peaceful agricultural purposes including dedicated agricultural land and flying machines. North of the Flamebelt the Treens perfected low friction/low energy consumption means of transport including vacuum tube transport for long distance travel.

Spaceports

There is evidence that the Spacefleet spaceport on Earth is west of Formby in Lancashire on a semicircle of land built into the Irish Sea by landfill.

Spacesuits

Spacefleet spacesuits had a corselet plate like on Siebe Gorman standard diving suits. Their suit had no life-support backpack; the life-support gear was between two layers of the helmet.
All or most Dan Dare comic pictures were drawn from models or posed humans. As a result, the Spacefleet spacesuits in space hang in folds like the boilersuit in which the models posed and show no sign of gas pressure. After the first Venus war, Spacefleet spacesuits had propulsor backpacks copied from a Treen or Theron design.
Some other spacesuits such as Blasco's have life-support backpacks.