children an alternative to what, he saw, as the bad influence of the American comics It was a success, perhaps the most successful British comic ever and at it prime it was selling just under a million copies a week.This issue comes from 1966 and is numbered no 17 of volume 31 - the cover story tells of mysterious events in a Scottish tribal feud in 1396. The artwork is incredible detailed - click on the image left for a bigger readable version.
The letters page offers readers a prize of 10 shillings for any letter printed in the magazine. In today's world the l
etters offer a snapshot into a bygone age with readers talking about the correct way to wash one's face, or asking if anyone can solve the mystery of a reader's vanishing goldfish.The comic's WIKI entry lists several spin-off novels that were published during the fifties:
- Dan Dare on Mars (1956)
- Luck of the Legion's Secret mission (1956)
- Storm Nelson and the Sea Leopard (1957)
- The Three J's and the Pride of Northbrook (1957).
- Luck of the Legion's Desert Adventure (1958)
- Jack O’ Lantern and the Fighting Cock (1958)
and brought back for 2000AD's launch issue, being the flagship character for the new sci-fi/action comic. And most recently he was brought back for Virgin Comics Dan Dare mini-series.Both the 2000AD and Virgin Comics version of Dan Dare are shown below.
3 comments:
I will not mention that the thirteen-year old boy living inside my head smirked at Jack O'Lantern.
I would have liked DAn DAre I'm sure, but I don't know about Jack O'Lantern either.
Grew up on the Eagle - my granddad reckoned that it and Look and Learn were good for me intelectually. So of course I read it for Dan Dare and Luck Of The legion and all the other comics stuff, then read the educational stuff later. Much later.
I met frank Hampson, creator of Dan Dare at the 1979 Worldcon in Brighton. Lovely man; at the time he was working in a unoversity as an art technician - what a waste! Got some pictures from there - do you want to see them?
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Funny story re: Eagle and Dan Dare: about ten years ago there was a great show of original Dare material at the Clifton Museum in Bristol. Wandering around I noticed that they had made a few mistakes: Frank Bellamy art was labelled as Frank Hampson and vice versa. I mentioned this to one of the attendants who passed me on to the curator: he just laughed and told me that 'experts don't make mistakes like that!' and basically treated me like an idiot.
Saddo me went home,dug out the correct issues and went back and showed them - no apologies or nothing, just more shrugging and muttering.
My point is, that if you're going to do an exhibition on something like that, at least GET THE FECKING FACTS RIGHT!
End of rant.
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