IN AND OUT OF THE EAGLE 2

WITH JIM DUCKETT

   

       
The first three adventures from B7 Media's Dan Dare audio productions are to be broadcast on B.B.C. Radio Four Extra next month. The series stars Ed Stoppard as Dan, Geoff McGivern as Digby and Heida Reed as Professor Peabody. This will be the third version of Dan's adventures to feature on radio. Between 1951 and 1955, Radio Luxembourg broadcast Dan Dare serials in fifteen minute episodes, five nights every week. Noel Johnson, who had played Dick Barton in the B.B.C.'s popular adventure serials, played Dan and John Sharp played Digby. In 1990, to celebrate the fortieth anniversary of Dan and EAGLE, the B.B.C. produced a four part serial which dramatised Dan's first adventure from EAGLE. This serial starred Mick Brown as Dan and Donald Gee as Digby.    

IN AND OUT OF THE EAGLE (1)

WITH JIM DUCKETT 
  

Eagle Times features a regular column called In and Out of the EAGLE and we are going to feature some of these to give a flavour of the magazine's content. 

Basil Dawson’s original EAGLE novel Dan Dare on Mars is well remembered by fans, but in 1977 the New English Library published a paperback adaptation of part of Frank Hampson’s first Venus story. The book was written by Angus P. Allan, a prolific comic strip writer, who contributed to TV Century 21 and became the principal writer for Look In, another comic based on television characters. He never contributed to EAGLE, but his father was Carney Allan, who wrote the wartime adventure strip Mann of Battle, which ran in EAGLE from 1962 - 64. The novel ends with Dan’s rescue of his friends from Mekonta and the Dapon’s sacrifice in destroying the Mekon’s Telezero ships, leaving out the Treens’ visit to Earth and the eventual defeat of the Mekon. Several frames from the original strip were used to illustrate the book, but reprinted in black and white.

1977 was a good year for Dan and EAGLE, for there was also Marcus Morris’ The Best of EAGLE, which reprinted extracts from many strips and features from the first decade of the weekly. Dan himself was revived for 2000A.D. comic, although in a much altered form, which did not please many of his old fans. The reason for this renewed interest was Frank Hampson’s Yellow Kid Award presented to him at an international convention of strip cartoon and animated film artists in Lucca, Italy, just two years earlier, when he was voted the best writer and artist of strip cartoons since the war by a jury of his peers. This awakened interest in him and in Dan Dare by the British press.

Eagle Times Vol 31 No 2

Summer 2018 Contents

• 'Charles Chilton & the Indian Wars' - The 1^st part of an in-depth series dealing with Native Americans and how they were interpreted in Riders of the Range.
• ‘Thoughts on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’ – Thoughts on the life of the famous author and his only story to appear in the Eagle, The Lost World.
• ‘Newly Discovered Dan Dare Reference Material’ – A couple of examples of newly discovered Dan Dare concept sketches.
• ‘The Eagle Society Annual Gathering 2018’ – A fun and in-depth report of the dinner.  All the talks and activities are covered with plenty of photographs.  This year it was held at the Hilton in Leicester.
• ‘Dundee: Venue for the Eagle Society Dinner 2019’ – This article gives us a flavour of what the city will be able to offer the Eagle Society during their visit next year.  It mentions a number of the major attractions that will be available.
• ‘Connaught Racing Cars: 1948 to 1957’ – An article on the Connaught company and how the Connaught B-Type centre spread fuelled a passion in the author for their cars.
• 'In and Out of the Eagle' - more instalments in the series that presents Eagle-related snippets
• 'Space Fiction Movies in Eagle's Times' part 5 - continuing a look at films about space exploration and alien visitations to the earth, the bread-and-butter of the Eagle's Dan Dare adventures between 1950 and 1969. This part covers 1963-65 and includes (among others) Ikarie XB-1, The Day Mars Invaded Earth, First Men in the Moon, Unearthly Stranger and Ghidorah the Three Headed Monster.
• ‘The Case of the Educated Archie – Part 2’ - an Adventure of Archie Berkeley-Willoughby of Scotland Yard. A new story inspired by the character created by Alan Stranks for his radio show P.C.49
• ‘Whatever Happened to My Ten Percent’ – The text from one of the most anticipated fun talks of this years Eagle Society dinner.  It wonderfully covers various topics including King Richard III being found in Leicester, is humankind actually regressing and many more.