| Dan Dare | |
|---|---|
 The return of the 'original' Dan Dare in 1989. | |
| Publication information | |
| Publisher | Hulton Press |
| First appearance | Eagle #1 (14 April 1950) |
| Created by | Frank Hampson[1] |
| In-story information | |
| Full name | Colonel Daniel McGregor Dare |
| Team affiliations | Interplanet Space Fleet |
Dan Dare is aBritishscience fictioncomic hero, created byillustratorFrank Hampson who also wrote the first stories.[2] Dare appeared in theEagle comic seriesDan Dare, Pilot of the Future from 1950 to 1967 (and subsequently in reprints), and dramatised seven times a week onRadio Luxembourg (1951–1956).
The stories were set in the late 1990s, but the dialogue and manner of the characters is reminiscent of Britishwar films of the 1950s. Dan Dare has been described as "Biggles in Space" and as the British equivalent ofBuck Rogers. Dan Dare was distinguished by its long, complex storylines, snappy dialogue and meticulously illustratedcomic-strip artwork by Hampson and other artists, including Harold Johns, Don Harley, Bruce Cornwell,Greta Tomlinson,Frank Bellamy, andKeith Watson.
Dan Dare returned in new strips in2000 AD in 1977 until 1979 and in the relaunchedEagle in 1982 until 1994. The most recent mainstream story was a Dan Dare mini-series published byTitan Comics in 2017. It was written byPeter 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 inSpaceship Away, a mail-order magazine created by Rod Barzilay. Its mission statement is to continue the original Dare's adventures where the originalEagle 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.
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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 RevJohn Marcus Harston Morris, was vicar of the Southport church of St James at the time. It had scale models of spaceships, andmodels in costume as reference for the artists. Occasionally,Eagle incorporated "centrefolds" of the fictional spaceships, such as Dan's ship theAnastasia, reminiscent of cutaway drawings of aircraft in aviation magazines or even inEagle itself. The storylines were long and complex, sometimes lasting more than a year.[3] Later, artwork was produced at a studio in Hampson's house inEpsom,Surrey, where his production line techniques were continued.
Attention was paid to scientific plausibility, the promising young writerArthur C. Clarke (later ascience fiction luminary)[4] acting as science and plot adviser for the first six months of strips. The stories were set mostly on planets of theSolar 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 toVenus.
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" (1952), which was taken over by Harold Johns, from scripts bySamaritans founder and clergyman Rev.Chad Varah, who had known Marcus Morris in Southport. Hampson returned to start the following story, "Operation Saturn" (1953), 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" (the only series to feature extensive work by an artist outside the studio, finishes being provided by Desmond Walduck).
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 fiftiesEagle'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 toFrank 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.
Dan Dare was surrounded by a varying cast, initially:
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:
Spacecraft of various designs were presented as the product of inhabitants of various planets. The vehicle most identified with Dan was the wingedAnastasia. Designed by Sondar, it employed both Venusian and Earth space drives. Later, an alien ship was adopted and renamed theZyl-bat. There was also an experimental time-travelling ship calledTempus Frangit (Latin:it breaks time ortime breaks).
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 ofhelicopters of the mid-twentieth century. Also of note was Lex O'Malley's ship, thePoseidon, a versatile craft that could operate as ajetfoil as well as a submarine.
London Transport used overheadmonorails and helibuses in early stories. Ground transport cars were also drawn withgyroscopes 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 (Electrosenders) for long distance travel.
There is evidence that the Spacefleet spaceport on Earth is west ofFormby inLancashire on a semicircle of land built into theIrish Sea bylandfill.
Spacefleet spacesuits had a corselet plate like onSiebe Gormanstandard diving suits. Their suit had nolife-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 Spacefleetspacesuits in space hang in folds like theboilersuit 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.
In 1960 artwork was taken over by Frank Bellamy, Don Harley,Keith Watson, Gerald Palmer, with Bruce Cornwell, and the look changed, with the colourful, rounded rocket ships replaced by angular silver craft, and changes to the space suits and insignia. The changes were never wholeheartedly taken up, however, and the look was erratic from then on. In 1962 the strip was removed from the front to the inside of the comic, in black and white, and was drawn by Keith Watson. Over the remaining years the strip varied in format and quality, eventually returning to the front page in colour, until it ended in 1967 with Dan retiring to become Space Fleet controller. Strips from the 1950s were reprinted until 1969, whenEagle merged withLion. For a while the reprints continued in black and white inLion.
In 1977, Dan Dare appeared again in the first issue of2000 AD (26 February 1977).[8] The first installment, scripted by Ken Armstrong andPat Mills, had the character revived from suspended animation after two hundred years to find himself in a different world. The Mekon had also survived but otherwise the cast was different, as was the tone of the strip (heavily influenced by thepunk movement, as was much of2000 AD) and the personality of the title character. Written byKelvin Gosnell and thenSteve Moore, the strip was initially illustrated byMassimo Belardinelli, whose Dare owed nothing to the original apart from the wavy eyebrows. After 23 issues in this format the strip took a break for a month and then returned in a revamped format with a more realistic style, written byGerry Finley-Day and Jack Adrian (Chris Lowder) and illustrated byDave Gibbons. Dare was now launched on a deep space mission, much in the style ofStar Trek but with technology designs very much influenced byStar Wars. In a series of episodic adventures, Dare encountered various threats, including an extended multi-episode adventure uniting slave races in opposition to the "Star Slayers" – the oppressive race controlling that region. The overall mission had a surprisingly downbeat ending, leaving a space-suited Dare the only survivor, adrift in space on wreckage.
The strip was rested for 14 issues, returning early in 1979 in2000 AD's 100th issue. The amnesiac Dare is rescued from space by the Mekon and indoctrinated into the Mekon's army before eventually recovering his memory. Now penned byTom Tully but still drawn by Dave Gibbons, this re-imagining of Dare casts him almost as a superhero with a colourful tight-fitting uniform provided by the Mekon. Dare escapes to a planet that is home to an amphibian-like race, which claims he is their Chosen One. There he receives a semi-mystical glove that can shoot energy beams but is unable to prevent the Mekon from acquiring the mystical Crystal of Life. On his return to Earth, he and his Treen companion Sondar find themselves branded traitors and found guilty of helping the Mekon to steal the Crystal. This story arc concluded with the pair escaping the Earth authorities and going on the run to try to clear their names by tracking down the Mekon and recovering the Crystal, establishing the format for the next story arc. Despite promises that Dare and Sondar would be back, the2000 AD Dan Dare strip "Attack on Eternium" ended here in prog 126 (18 August 1979).
In 1997, to celebrate their 20th anniversary,2000 AD published two issues with additional free comics, the first a reprint of the first issue of2000 AD, which starred Dan Dare. The second free comic was a speculative issue called3000 AD which contained strips partially based on the first issue of2000 AD. One strip was entitled "The Return of Dan Dare", which also featured the return of the Mekon.
In 1982Eagle was re-launched, withDan Dare again its flagship strip. The new character was the great-great-great-grandson of the original hero—the only surviving character from the original strip being the Mekon. The initial artist wasGerry Embleton, who drew Dan to resemble the original exactly, but he was quickly replaced byIan Kennedy, who gave the hero a younger look and blond hair.
The openingDan Dare story was an epic, lasting 18 months, written byPat Mills andJohn Wagner. It opened with aflashback to the unseen final defeat of the Mekon by the original Dan, after which he was sealed inside an artificialasteroid and exiled into space. Centuries later he was accidentally freed and returned to conquer Earth. A few years later the descendant of his sworn enemy returned from space to find Earth under Treen rule and set out to free the planet. His new cast included Lt Helen Scott, leader of the Earth Resistance, and Valdon, a renegade Treen similar to the earlier Sondar. One controversial aspect of the strip was a lengthy flashback whichretconned the original Dan to be a veteran of the Second World War and to have travelled through time to the era in which his adventures in the originalEagle took place—an attempt to explain why a hero in the age of space travel had a 1950s outlook on life.
After this initial storyline other writers were used and different supporting characters came and went, including Professor Pinkerton, a female scientist similar to Professor Peabody, and a new Digby (again, a descendant of the original). The Mekon was generally the foe in alternate stories.
In 1987 the strip became more like aspace opera, with increasing violence. Now drawn by John Gillatt, Dan took on a tough-guy look. He led space commandos and packed a hi-tech gun reminiscent of that carried byJudge Dredd.
The original strip, featuring the original characters of the 1950sEagle, was revived in 1989, with artistKeith Watson providing the artwork for the initial run of stories. Watson had been part of the Dan Dare team from 1958 to 1960 and was the main artist onDan Dare from 1962 to 1967. The artwork for the final stories was provided by David Pugh. The newEagle ended in 1994.
In 1990, a strip entitledDare, written byGrant Morrison and drawn byRian Hughes, was serialised inRevolver. It presented bleak and cynical characters and was a not-too-subtle satire of 1980sBritish politics, from the perspective of the defeated left wing of theLabour Party. Spacefleet had been privatised, the Treens were subjected to racist abuse in urban ghettos, Digby was unemployed, Professor Peabody committed suicide, and Dare's mentor Sir Hubert Guest betrayed Dare tothe Mekon and his quisling British Prime Minister, Gloria Monday (whose appearance and demeanour appear modelled onMargaret Thatcher). Ultimately, Dare destroys London, the Mekon and himself through a smuggled nuclear weapon. The last episode appeared inCrisis, followingRevolver's cancellation. This version was not popular.[dubious –discuss]
In 1996,The Planet published its first and only issue. Inside was a new and unfinished Dan Dare story, "Remembrance", drawn bySydney Jordan featuring a slightly older Dare and apparently set some years after the original Eagle strips.
In 2007–2008Virgin Comics published a 7-issue Dan Daremini-series written byGarth Ennis, with art byGary Erskine.[9] Virgin's founder and chairmanRichard Branson is a fan of the character.[10] The series is set several years after the original strips. Space Fleet has collapsed along with the UN due to nuclear war between China and America; Britain survived due to defensive shields made by Professor Peabody, and has become a world power again as a result, with theRoyal Navy taking Space Fleet's role. Peabody is theHome Secretary to aprime minister modelled onTony Blair, who has soldEarth's defence out toThe Mekon out of fear of overwhelming odds. Dare, assisted by Digby (who sacrifices himself in battle) leads a spirited defence of both Earth and his honourable principles.
Launched in October 2003,Spaceship Away magazine was originally created in order to get "The Phoenix Mission" (a 1950s style story by Rod Barzilay with art by Keith Watson and Don Harley) into publication, with the agreement of the Dan Dare Corporation. Response was good enough to warrant the magazine's continuation following that strip's conclusion, initially with "Green Nemesis" (again by Barzilay and Don Harley, with later chapters drawn by David Pugh and Tim Booth). Other stories have since followed.
Despite a fairly small circulation (it is available only via mail order, through its own website, or in a select few comic shops),Spaceship Away continues to appear three times a year as of 2022.
In 2017–18 a four-issue mini-series byPeter Milligan and Alberto Foche was published byTitan Comics.[11]
The New Adventures of Dan Dare, Pilot of the Future aired five times a week onRadio Luxembourg for five years from 2 July 1951. Dan's voice wasNoel Johnson, who also playedDick Barton on BBC radio.[12] Each episode started with the command "Spaceships Away!". The 15-minute show was sponsored byHorlicks and on 3 March 1952, the 106th episode of Dan Dare was heard that Monday night with different episodes on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday at 7:15pm. Although the dramatisation was recorded on wax discs for broadcast, the original discs were lost or destroyed.[13] Until recently no copies had ever been recovered but in late 2011 two episodes were found as part of the Lost Shows Appeal, orchestrated by missing episode hunter Charles Norton. The recovered shows were "Under Sentence of Death" (episode 76), aired on 21 January 1952, and "The Lost World On Mars" (episode 53), aired on 19 March 1953.[14]
"Diego Valor" Spanish adaptation of Dan Dare from 1954
From 19 April – 10 May 1990, BBC Radio 4 aired a four-part adaptation of Voyage to Venus, dramatised by Nick McCarty and directed by Glyn Dearman. The cast includedMick Ford (Col. Dan Dare), Donald Gee (Digby),Richard Pearce (the Mekon),Terence Alexander (Sir Hubert Guest),Zelah Clarke (Prof. Peabody), William Roberts (Hank Hogan),Sean Barrett (Pierre Lafayette),John Moffatt (Kalon), Shirley Dixon (Mrs. Digby),Ben Onwukwe (Volstar), David Goudge (Sondar),Margaret Courtenay (Aunt Anastasia),Brian Miller (Urtag), David King (Dapon).
In September 2015,B7 Media secured the rights to produce a new Dan Dare audio drama series from the Dan Dare Corporation. The lead writers were Richard Kurti and Bev Doyle, with Andrew Mark Sewell as director and Simon Moorhead as producer;John Freeman served as creative consultant.[15] The first volume, released in 2016, starredEd Stoppard as Dan Dare,Geoff McGivern as Digby,Heida Reed as Professor Peabody,Michael Cochrane as Sir Hubert, Raad Rawi as the Mekon andBijan Daneshmand as Sondar;[16] Volume 2 was released in 2017.[17] Both volumes were produced in association withBig Finish Productions.BBC Radio 4 Extra began airing the B7 episodes in August 2018.[18]
In the 1980s, a series of live-action adverts for Mobil motor oil featured Dan and Digby in comedic situations, trying to get their rockets to go faster. The dialogue was straight from wartime upper class RAF officers' slang.
In 2002,Dan Dare: Pilot of the Future became acomputer-generated TV series produced first byNetter Digital then byFoundation Imaging, running to twenty-six 22-minute episodes. The series drew on several comic book incarnations. It started onNicktoons UK on 5 November 2005 at 6.30 pm. Two abortive attempts had been made to make a live-action series, in 1981 and 1991.James Fox andRobert Bathurst were reportedly lined up to play Dare respectively. In 1991, a short pilot starring Bathurst as Dare andGeoffrey Hughes as Digby was made.[19] Parts of it were broadcast in an ITV documentary,Future Perfect.
In 2010,Variety announced thatWarner Bros. was planning to produce a Dan Dare movie starringSam Worthington in the title role.[20]
During the 1980s Dan Dare starred in three computer games for theCommodore 64/128,ZX Spectrum,Amstrad CPC andAtari computers. The first was a different game on each system; the second and third were shoot'em-ups. All three were based on the 1950s strip rather than the contemporary comics:
The protagonist human character from theGaiares science fiction space shooter starfighter combat game released in Japan in 1990 was changed from an original character called Dan Diaz to the legendary sci-fi hero Dan Dare in the English translated western version.
Pink Floyd founderSyd Barrett wrote Dan Dare into his song "Astronomy Domine", from the band's debut albumThe Piper at the Gates of Dawn, with the line "Stairway scare, Dan Dare, who's there?".
British electronic dance groupFluke mentioned Dan Dare in their song "Absurd", "Dan Dare's sitting there, scared by the killer teddy bears".
David Bowie's song "D.J." contains the somewhat obscure lyric: "I feel like Dan Dare lies down".
Elton John recorded "Dan Dare (Pilot Of The Future)" for his 1975 albumRock of the Westies.
Les Barker's albumDogologues includes a monologue "Dan Dare".[21]
British punk rock groupThe Mekons included their song "Dan Dare" on their 1979 albumThe Quality of Mercy Is Not Strnen, and recorded it again for their 2004 albumPunk Rock.
The albumBelow the Waste by theArt of Noise opened with the song "Dan Dare".
The relaunch of theEagle Magazine in 1982 saw a free single giveaway of a track calledDan Dare by the group Loose Talk.
Characters inspired by or based on Dan Dare have appeared throughout British popular culture. One example is Wing Commander Leyton inBritish Summertime byPaul Cornell, which juxtaposes the utopian future portrayed in the original comics with the Britain of today.
In the 1980s,Private Eye publishedDan Dire, Pilot of The Future?. Dire was based on politicianNeil Kinnock, the question being whether he'd ever becomeprime minister. Dire's enemy was the Maggon, a combination ofthe Mekon andMargaret Thatcher.[22]
Radio DJ and ComedianKenny Everett's character Captain Kremmen was inspired by Dan Dare.
A porcine pastiche,Ham Dare: Pig of the Future, written byLew Stringer and with art byMalcolm Douglas, appeared inOink! comic.[23]
Marvel Comics created a Dan Dare-esque character in theirCaptain Britain line in the 1980s. The character was Roy Risk, one of theBritish heroes killed byThe Fury.
InJonathan Hickman'sAvengers series, the characterSmasher's secret identity is astronomer Isabel 'Izzy' Dare whose dying elderly grandfather alludes to Izzy as inheriting a destiny from him. He hand her a business card that expresses a deep friendship withCaptain America. The card reveals the grandfather's name as Dan. In the trade hardcover for Avengers, Izzy's last name is changed to Kane, meaning her grandfather is Marvel's Captain Terror.
In his Afterword toMinistry of Space,Warren Ellis lists Dan Dare as one of the inspirations for the story, in which Britain forges an ambitious space programme in the decades following World War II. Sir John Dashwood, the central character ofMinistry of Space, is a cynical version of Dan Dare himself.[24]
CaptainJack Harkness, theDoctor Who andTorchwood character, has several similarities to Dan Dare. The script for the episode "The Empty Child" in which Captain Jack makes his first appearance describes him as having "the jawline of Dan Dare, the smile of a bastard".[25]
Most of the 1950s and 1960s strips were reprinted by Hawk Books between 1987 and 1995:
Stories left out were :
In 2004,Titan Books began collecting the series from the beginning of the Hampson run in dust-jacketed hardback editions. Collected thus far:
The Morrison/HughesRevolver series has been collected by Fleetway in 1991 asDare: The Controversial Memoir of Dan Dare (ISBN 1853862118).
The 2007 series had the first three issues collected into one hardback volume, released in April 2008 (ISBN 0981520022), but the whole series was collected into a single volume by Virgin Comics later in the year, withDynamite Entertainment also making hardcovers and softcovers available early in 2009:
A collection of stories from 2000 AD was published in November 2015.[26]
