Alan Vince,
who died in December 2025 was undoubtedly a ‘Dan Dare’ superfan. He was the
first fan to interview Frank Hampson at length and he became a recognised and
reliable authority and archivist on Hampson and the ‘Dan Dare’ strip,
contributing information and articles to several books, magazines and fanzines,
including EAGLE Times and giving talks about the character and his
creator. His interviews with Frank, which were first published in Thing
Fanzine in 1975 were reprinted many years later in the Titan Books reprints
of Dan Dare’ early adventures. Alan provided information and occasional pieces
for both 2000 A.D. Sci Fi Special and the 1980s EAGLE and its
annuals and was for many years the first port of call for any journalist,
writer or television producer working on a ‘Dan Dare’ project. Such was his
reputation, that he was asked to work as an adviser on Paul De Savary’s
abortive ‘Dan Dare’ TV series in the 1980s.
He
established close friendships with several artists, including Keith Watson, Ron
Embleton, Peter Jackson and Martin Asbury and became actively involved in the
activities of the Society of Strip Illustration. The picture above shows him on the left with Peter Jackson (centre) and Keith Watson. Sadly, I only met Alan on a couple of occasions, most notably at the 1980 Eaglecon in London, which he was heavily involved in
organising. He told me how as a teenager he had visited the EAGLE offices
shortly after Frank Hampson left the ‘Dan Dare’ strip and had been shown some
of Frank Bellamy’s work on the ‘Terra Nova’ story before publication. He
actually wrote a short article on Frank Bellamy’s ‘Dare’ for the 1978 2000
A.D. Sci Fi Special. I also wrote to him many years later for some advice
and information for an article I was writing about Keith Watson’s work on ‘Dan
Dare’ and his enthusiasm showed in his informative and encouraging reply.
Alan wrote several articles for EAGLE Times over the years. These included a series of reminiscences about comic events he had attended, a piece about Frank Hampson's work before and after 'Dan Dare' and articles about the work of Frank Bellamy, Ron Embleton, Tony Weare and Martin Asbury. He was a key figure in promoting the work of Frank Hampson and drawing attention to its quality. He will be greatly missed.
Steve Winders
David Hunt, who edited the 1980s EAGLE has paid tribute to Alan. He writes:
Extremely sorry to hear this sad news. When the New Eagle launched in the early 80s Alan made contact with me offering his expertise on all things Eagle and especially the Dan Dare character. As Editor it thankfully proved to be a highly successful and professional association for me and I like to think that we also became good friends. Alan’s knowledge of Dan Dare’s exploits from the original publication was just breath-taking and I confess that I leant heavily on him as we attempted to convince new readers on just how important and exciting the character had been to readers of the 50 and 60s. Alan worked for me with good grace and much enthusiasm and I guess he was just delighted to be a part of the New Eagle editorial team. I thought something might be amiss when I did not receive a Xmas Card from him back in December and then received no reply when I attempted to phone him. He’s now joined his mum who I recall having friendly and regular conversations with whenever I phoned Alan. RIP, good friend.