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Dan Dare is a classic British science fiction comic hero, created by illustrator Frank Hampson for the Eagle comic story Dan Dare, Pilot of the Future in 1950 which was also carried in serial format several times a week on Radio Luxembourg. Although the stories were set in the late 1990s, the dialogue and manner in which all the characters interact is reminiscent of British war films of the 1950s (it has been described as "Biggles in Space" or the British equivalent of Buck Rogers). Dan Dare was distinguished by its long, complex story lines, snappy dialogue and meticulously illustrated comic-strip artwork by Hampson and other artists, including Harold Johns, Don Harley, Bruce Cornwell, Greta Tomlinson, Frank Bellamy, Gerald Palmer and Keith Watson.
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The 1950s
Dan Dare first 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 this story per issue. The artwork was of a very high quality, being the product of a team of artists working in a studio system, based at Frank Hampson's house in Epsom, Surrey. This included scale models of spaceships, and models posing in costume as points of reference for the artists. Occasionally, Eagle incorporated "centrefolds" of the fictional spaceships, such as Dan's ship the Anastasia, quite reminiscent of the cutaway drawings of aircraft in aviation magazines, or even Eagle itself. The storylines were long and complex, sometimes lasting for over a year. Attention was paid to scientific plausibility, with the science fiction luminary Arthur C. Clarke acting as a science and plot adviser to the first strip. The stories were set mostly on planets of the solar system, which were presumed to have extraterrestrial life and alien inhabitants, as was common in science fiction of the era before the space probes of the 1960s proved that the most likely worlds were really lifeless. The first story, for example, begins with Dan Dare as pilot of the first successful flight to Venus. The quality of the strip, along with its popularity, remained high throughout the 1950s. In the late fifties Eagle acquired a new editor who objected to the high cost of the studio system, and the conflict caused Frank Hampson to leave the strip in 1959, in the middle of a long plot arc that saw Dan searching an alien planet for his long-lost father. Production of the strip fell to Frank Bellamy, whose ultra-modern 3-dimensional style contrasted sharply 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, Gerald Palmer and Keith Watson, and freelance artist Bruce Cornwell. However, Bellamy's work breathed life into the strip and is generally considered to be a high point in its history, at least artistically.
Characters
Dan Dare was surrounded by a varying cast of characters, which initially consisted of:
- Dan Dare (full name Colonel Daniel McGregor Dare) was chief pilot of the Interplanet Space Fleet, stated as having been born in Manchester, England in the year 1967 and educated at Rossall School. Although not a super-hero, he would sometimes pull off exceptional feats of piloting, and often proved to be extraordinarily lucky. He excelled at hand-to-hand combat using jiu jitsu, but he would most often find non-violent solutions to his predicaments. He was bound by a strong sense of honour to the extent that he never lied, and would rather die than break his word.
This lean-faced character was immediately recognizeable by the outer tips of his eyebrows, which were always wavy. His uniform looked like a typical British Army type (Frank Hampson used his own World War II army uniform as a model), though of a much lighter green colour. In place of British rank insignia it had coloured stripes and circles on the shoulderboards. His cap badge was a vertical, antique rocketship in a circle with one five-pointed star on either side. Initially, Dare was to be portrayed as a chaplain as opposed to an adventurer.
- Digby (Albert Fitzwilliam Digby) was Dan's Wigan-born batman. Rotund and sometimes bumbling, he provided much of the comic relief. He was a fiercely loyal sidekick, and the only character apart from Dan to appear in every story. His favourite recreation was sleeping and he was very fond of good traditional English food.His nearest relative was his Aunt Anastasia, after whom Dan named his spaceship.
- Sir Hubert Guest, Controller of the Space Fleet, would send Dan on missions, and occasionally accompany him. He was a veteran space pilot, having been on the first mission to the Moon and led the first mission to Mars.
- Professor Peabody (Prof. Jocelyn Mabel Peabody), the only major female character, was the brains behind many of the team's most inventive plans.
- Hank Hogan and Pierre Lafayette, stereotypically American and French respectively, were two of the Fleet's best space pilots and formed an inseparable double-act. Pierre was primarily a pilot; Hank would more often act as a mechanic.
- Sondar was 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 would nevertheless join Dan on some later adventures. He was also a talented spacecraft designer, and designed Dan's personal spaceship, the Anastasia, named after Digby's aunt.
- The Mekon, super-intelligent ruler of the Treens, was Dan Dare's arch-enemy. He would escape at the end of each story to return in a later one with an even more inventive scheme for the conquest of the Earth.
- 'Flamer' Spry, freckle-faced student at 'Astral' space academy, who accompanies Dan Dare on many of his later missions.
- Lex O'Malley, bearded Irish submarine commander, who accompanies Dan Dare on several later missions.
Vehicles
Spacecraft of various designs were presented in the series as the product of the inhabitants of the various planets. The vehicle most identified with Dan was the winged Anastasia, named after Digby's aunt who appeared in the first story. It employed technology stated as coming from various planets. Later, a completely alien ship was adopted and re-named the Zyl-bat, and there was also an experimental time-travelling ship called Tempus Frangit (Latin: it breaks time or time breaks). There were land and air vehicles in the series as well – in the first stories, the cars conform to the styling conventions 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 utilised overhead monorails and helibuses in the early stories.Some interesting ground transport cars were also drawn utilising gyroscopes and single wheels.
Spaceports
There is evidence that the Spacefleet spaceport in Earth seen in the stories is west of Formby in Lancashire on a semicircle of land built out into the Irish Sea by landfill.
Spacesuits
Spacefleet spacesuits had a corselet plate rather like on Siebe Gorman standard diving suits. Their suit had no life-support backpack; the life-support gear was packed (impractically) 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 which the people posing for the artists wore to represent spacesuits, and show no sign of gas pressure inside the spacesuit. After the first Venus war, Spacefleet spacesuits had propulsor backpacks copied from a Treen or Theron design. Some other spacesuits such as Blasco's spacesuits have life-support backpacks.
Radio Luxembourg serial
In addition to appearing in a comic strip, Dan Dare Pilot of the future also aired five times a week on Radio Luxembourg for five years from July 2 1951. Dan Dare voice was that of Noel Johnson who also played the part of Dick Barton on BBC radio. The fifteen minute show was sponsored by Horlicks and on March 3, 1952, the 106th episode of Dan Dare was heard that Monday night with different episodes on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday at 7:15 PM.
The 1960s
In 1960 the artwork was taken over by Frank Bellamy, Don Harley, Keith Watson, Gerald Palmer, with Bruce Cornwell, and the look of the strip was changed significantly, 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 page 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 was brought to a conclusion in 1967 with Dan retiring as a pilot and becoming Space Fleet controller. Strips from the 1950s were reprinted until 1969, when Eagle merged with the magazine Lion. For a while afterwards the reprints continued in black and white in Lion. The Pink Floyd song "Astronomy Domine", from the 1967 album "The Piper at the Gates of Dawn" references Dan Dare.
The 1970s
In 1977, Dan Dare appeared once again in the first issue of 2000 AD The first story had the character revived from suspended animation after two hundred years to find himself in a totally different world. The Mekon had also survived to return as Dan's arch-enemy in the second story, but otherwise the supporting cast was entirely different, as was the tone of the strip (heavily influenced by the punk movement, as was much of 2000 AD) and the personality of the title character. The strip was initially illustrated by Massimo Belardinelli, whose version of Dare owed nothing to the original apart from the trademark wavy eyebrows. After a brief run, the series was dropped, but returned later, this time drawn in a more realistic style by Dave Gibbons. In the latter series Dare was launched on a deep space mission in the style of Star Trek. In a series of adventures, Dare encountered a series of planets in need of aid, and eventually united them in opposition to the evil race who controlled that part of space. The strip was again dropped, with the final episode showing the demise of Dare's ship, with a space-suited Dare drifting in space. In 1975, Elton John released the album Rock of the Westies, which included a song called "Dan Dare (Pilot of the Future)". In it, Elton - or rather his lyricist laments that he won't be joining Dan on his rocket, but also reveals that he secretly prefers The Mekon to Dan. In 1979, David Bowie referenced Dan Dare in his song DJ (song).
The 1980s
After a hiatus, Dare returned to the pages of 2000AD in a story also featuring the return of an aging Mekon, who framed Dare for murder. This re-imagining of Dare casts him almost in the role of a superhero. Dare escapes to a planet that is home to an amphibian-like race, where they claim that he is their "Chosen One". He receives a semi-mystical glove that can shoot energy beams. It proved popular for a couple of years, until it faded from view and was dropped by 2000 AD in 1981 with Dare still seeking a reprieve. This storyline has never been resolved. In 1982 Eagle was re-launched, with Dan Dare once again its flagship strip. The new character was the great-great-great-grandson of the original, and again the only surviving original character was the Mekon. The initial artist was Gerry Embleton, who drew the new Dan to resemble the original exactly, however he was quickly replaced by Ian Kennedy, who re-designed the hero to have a younger look and blond hair. As with the original Eagle, the opening Dan Dare story was an epic, lasting for approximately 18 months, written by Pat Mills and John Wagner. It opened with a flashback to the previously unseen final defeat of the Mekon by the original Dan, after which he was sealed inside an artificial asteroid and exiled into space. Centuries later he was accidentally freed and returned to conquer Earth. A few years later the new Dan returned from a deep space mission to find Earth under Treen rule and set out to free the planet. His new supporting cast included Lt Helen Scott, a leader of the Earth Resistance, and Valdon, a renegade Treen somewhat similar to the earlier Sondar. One controversial part of this storyline was a lengthy flashback which retconned the original Dan to be a veteran of World War II and to have travelled through time to the era in which his adventures in the original Eagle took place - this was presumably 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 somewhat similar to the earlier 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 received a makeover and became more like a space opera, with increasing levels of violence. Now drawn by John Gillatt, Dan took on more of a "tough guy" look. He led a team of "space commandos" and packed a hi-tech gun reminiscent of that carried by Judge Dredd.
During the 1980s Dan Dare also starred in a series of three computer games for the Commodore 64/128, ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC and Atari computers. The first of these was a different game on each system; the second and third were shoot-'em-ups. All three games were based on the look of the 1950s strip rather than the contemporary comics.
- Dan Dare: Pilot of the Future (1986, Electronic Arts, re-released by Ricochet)
- Dan Dare II: The Mekon's Revenge (1988, Virgin Games, re-released by Ricochet)
- Dan Dare III: The Escape (1990, Virgin Games)
The 1990s
In 1989, Dan Dare was re-launched in a deliberate return to the original character, with the first story drawn by Keith Watson and later ones by a variety of other artists. The strip initially kept to the look of the original, but was once again updated in 1990. It ran until the last issue of Eagle'[now a monthly publication]' in January 1994. In 1990, a strip titled Dare, written by Grant Morrison and drawn by Rian Hughes was serialized in the comic magazine Revolver. It presented a very bleak and cynical re-imagining of the characters, and was a not-too-subtle satire of 1980s British politics. Spacefleet had been privatised, the Treens were subjected to racist abuse in urban ghettos, Digby was unemployed as a consequence, Professor Peabody had been murdered and was pregnant, and Dare's mentor Sir Hubert Guest betrayed Dare to the Mekon and his quisling British Prime Minister, Gloria Munday (whose appearance and demeanour appear modelled on Margaret Thatcher.) Ultimately, Dare destroys London, the Mekon and himself through use of a smuggled nuclear weapon. 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 included: Mick 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 1996, a prospective new newspaper entitled The Planet published its first and only issue. Inside was the first part of a new (and unfinished) Dan Dare story, entitled "Remembrance", drawn by Sydney Jordan featuring a slightly older Dan Dare, and apparently set some years after the original Eagle strips. In 1997, to celebrate their 20th anniversary, the comic 2000 AD published two issues with additional free comics, the first one being a reprint of the very first issue of 2000 AD, which starred Dan Dare. The second free comic was a speculative issue called 3000 AD which contained strips partially based on the very first issue of 2000 AD. One of the strips was entitled "The Return of Dan Dare", which also featured the return of the Mekon (unlike the first issue of 2000 AD from 20 years earlier).
The 2000s
In 2002, Dan Dare became a computer-generated TV series produced first by Netter Digital then by Foundation Imaging, running to 26 22-minute episodes. The series drew on several of the different comic book incarnations. It premeried on Nicktoons UK on 5 November 2005 at 6.30pm. (Two abortive attempts had been made to make a live-action series, in 1981 and 1991.) In 2003, Dan Dare reappeared in a brand new adventure called The Phoenix Mission, in a new magazine called Spaceship Away. Initial work on the strip was done by Keith Watson, but after his death it was taken over by Don Harley and other artists. The strip is a deliberate imitation of the 1950s strips, even to the point of drawing each page is if it was the front page of the 1950s Eagle. Spaceship Away is edited by Rod Barzilay and is now supported by a sizeable team of artists and writers. Although the Spacefleet uniform is the old one, its cap badge was changed for this presentation. The old rocket was replaced by the sideways-flying eagle logo of the defunct magazine. It is not of a design used in the US armed services or any other country. In 2007 it was announced that Virgin Comics will be publishing a new Dan Dare comic written by Garth Ennis, with art by Gary Erskine.[1] In addition to publishing rights Virgin also acquired the film, television and video game rights. Virgin's Richard Branson is a long-time fan of the character.[2]
Characters inspired by Dan Dare
Characters inspired by or based on Dan Dare have appeared throughout British popular culture. One example is the character of Wing Commander Leyton in the novel British Summertime by Paul Cornell, which juxtaposes the utopian future portrayed in the original Dan Dare comics with the mundane Britain of today. The Doctor Who New Adventures novel The Dying Days by Lance Parkin features a British astronaut named Alexander Christian, named after an earlier, unpublished version of the character. In 1971, British comedian Kenny Everett satired Dan Dare with his own space hero, Captain Kremmen. Everett himself was a fan of Dan Dare in his childhood and made several references to this in his own science-fiction stories. In the 1980s, the satirical magazine Private Eye published a strip called Dan Dire, Pilot of Future?. Dire was based on politician Neil Kinnock, the question being whether he'd ever become Prime Minister. Dire's enemy was the Maggon, a combination of the Mekon and Margaret Thatcher. In the early 1990s, the British satirical TV show Spitting Image ran a series of sketches called "Dan Quayle, Pillock of the Future?", poking fun at the then-US Vice-President. In the late 1990s, following the Labour Party's ascent to power, the Saturday edition of The Times printed a strip by political cartoonist Peter Brookes called "Dan Blair; Pilot for the Foreseeable Future", with the major characters represented by noted political figures. This weekly strip ran from September 1997 until January 1999. In the Hugo award winning series of books by Lois McMaster Bujold about a young noble Miles Vorkosigan his home district mountains are named Dendarii, so are his mercenary troops with whom he spent some years. In his Afterword to Ministry of Space, Warren Ellis lists Dan Dare as one of the inspirations for the story, in which Britain forges an ambitious space program in the decades following World War Two. Sir John Dashwood, the central character of Ministry of Space, may be seen as a cynical version of Dan Dare himself. Captain Jack Harkness, the Doctor Who and Torchwood 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".[3] Dare makes brief appearances in the steampunk comics Scarlet Traces: The Great Game (where he and Digby are officers in the British invasion of Mars; Mercurians, Treen, and Theron are also briefly seen) and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Black Dossier (where, along with Jet Morgan and Jet-Ace Logan, he is one of the first pilots in the post-Ingsoc space program).
Reprints
Most of the 50s and 60s strips were reprinted by Hawk Books between 1987 and 1995.
- 1) Pilot of the Future
- 2) The Red Moon Mystery and Marooned on Mercury
- 3) Operation Saturn
- 4) Prisoners of Space
- 5) The Man from Nowhere
- 6) Rogue Planet
- 7) Reign of the Robots
- 8) The Phantom Fleet
- 9) Terra Nova trilogy
- 10) Project Nimbus
- 11) Solid Space Mystery
- 12) The Final Volume
Stories left out were :
- Operation Earthsavers (v13, 10-23)
- The Evil One (v13, 24-32)
- Operation Fireball (v13, 33-42)
- The Web of Fear (v13, 43-52)
- Operation Dark Star (v14, 1-9)
- Operation Time Trap (v14, 10-38)
- The Wandering World (v14, 39 - v15, 13)
- The Big City Caper (v15, 14-22)
- The Singing Scourge (v16, 30 - v17, 6)
- Give Me The Moon (v17, 7-26)
In 2004, Titan Books began collecting the series from the beginning of the Hampson run in dust-jacketed hardback editions. Collected thus far:
- Voyage to Venus (Parts 1 & 2)
- The Red Moon Mystery
- Marooned on Mercury
- Operation Saturn (Parts 1 & 2)
- Prisoners of Space
- The Man From Nowhere
- Rogue Planet
The Man From Nowhere and Rogue Planet began a three-part story arc, which is continued in Reign of the Robots (scheduled for an April/May 2008 release).
See also
- List of Dan Dare stories
- Radio Luxembourg- Dan Dare was a feature heard several times a week on 208 during the 1950s.
References
- ^ Gary Erskine's page on Dan Dare
- ^ Virgin takes up 'Dare', Variety, August 26, 2007
- ^ (2005) Doctor Who: The Shooting Scripts. BBC Books, p. 323. ISBN 0-563-48641-4.
