IN AND OUT OF THE EAGLE 57

In 1964, EAGLE's publishers Odhams Press launched a new weekly called Wham! mainly created by the cartoonist Leo Baxendale, who had created 'The Bash Street Kids', 'Little Plum' and 'Minnie the Minx' for D.C. Thomson's Beano comic. Among the new characters he created for the new comic was 'Danny Dare', a boy who was 'Dan Dare's Number One Fan'. In this comedy strip, whenever Danny got into trouble, he would imagine what Dan Dare would do in a similar situation. Leo wrote and drew just threeWham!  episodes of the strip (in Issues one, four and eight) as he could not produce almost an entire comic single handed every week and Artie Jackson became the regular artist, with Walter Thorburn taking over later. However, the strip included daydream scenes featuring Dan Dare and these were usually drawn in the 'adventure strip' style of Dan's adventures in EAGLE by Bruce Cornwell or Don Harley, who had worked on 'Dan Dare'. Keith Watson was the current artist on 'Dan Dare' at this time, but the demands of that strip kept him too busy to contribute to 'Danny Dare' as well. Towards the end of 'Danny Dare's' run, Jackson or Thorburn would also draw the 'adventure frames'. The strip ran until the final issue of Wham! which was Issue 187, although it did not appear in every issue and sometimes was just half a page. It regularly encouraged readers to read Dan Dare's adventures in EAGLE throughout its run and 'Danny' was occasionally promoted in EAGLE.