JOAN PORTER (1926 - 2022) A tribute to the late EAGLE artist by Steve Winders

Joan Porter (nee Humphries), the last surviving member of Frank Hampson's original team who worked on the creation of Dan Dare and several other strips for the EAGLE has died aged 96. Joan was employed as a colourist, photographer, researcher, secretary and costume maker. She was there at the beginning, from late 1949, when Frank and his team worked in the old Bakehouse in Churchtown, Southport and there at the end of his time on EAGLE, remaining with him in 1959 when he gave up the Dan Dare strip to assist him on his final strip for the paper, The Road of Courage, which ran in EAGLE until Easter 1961. An unassuming versatile lady with a fine sense of humour, I met her only once and then briefly, at the opening of the 1990 Dan Dare Exhibition in the Atkinson Arts Centre in Southport. However I did converse with her by e-mail when I was researching an article for EAGLE Times on Frank's back page strip The Great Adventurer and she was most helpful and enthusiastic, kindly providing me with many details of its production. In his quest for perfection, Frank used members of his team to pose in costume for photographs of scenes that could then be drawn more accurately and on The Great Adventurer, Joan made costumes, coloured pages, assisted with research and filed information garnered by the research. Her role in the production of the Dan Dare strip was the same. In the interests of accuracy and consistency, significant research was carried out and references for all aspects of the strip were kept and Joan organised and catalogued this. She also became the principal photographer. Her organisation was a key factor in the high quality and success of the strip. 

She will be greatly missed. Her passing marks the end of an era in the Dan Dare story.