IN AND OUT OF THE EAGLE 34

Martin Mere was the title of one of several strips that Frank Hampson produced for EAGLE after The Road of Courage ended, but were never developed. In fact it was Joan Porter who was still working as Frank's assistant who devised the title, characters and basic synopsis of this story. Only one episode was illustrated but it was arguably the most intriguing of all the proposed strips. Produced in colour and set in the swamplands of Mercia during Saxon times, the hero was Martin Mere, who was Guardian of the swamplands. Martin Mere is also the name of a wetland area in Lancashire, which was once the largest body of freshwater in England. As late as 1579 it extended from Burscough in the east to Churchtown in the west where Frank’s first studio would be located. Today Martin Mere is significantly smaller than it was in Saxon times.

 It houses a popular Wetland Centre managed by the Wetland and Wildfowl Trust. Joan located the strip in the Saxon Kingdom of Mercia,whose power base was in the Midlands, leading some fans to assume the marshes in the strip were also in the Midlands, but for several centuries Mercia extended as far north as the River Ribble, meaning that Martin Mere was actually only just located in Mercia, close to its border with Northumbria, so it is clear that the mere that Martin protected was actually Martin Mere. A track called 'the Ridgeway' is mentioned in the strip, but it does not refer to the ancient road known by this name, which follows a ridge of chalk hills in southern England. Sadly only a poor black and white copy of the episode survived, but the comic artist Martin Baines, who was a member of our Society in his boyhood and is still a keen Dan Dare enthusiast, improved the resolution on the page using Photoshop and this is reproduced below. 

The single episode introduces the hero and the basic plot. Martin and his men meet a group of Moorish travellers on the marsh and accompany them to their Lord. The episode ends with one of  Martin's men being alarmed by what he finds in the travellers' cart. We will never know what he found. 

Had circumstances been different and Frank had been allowed to develop this strip, it is possible that some changes would have been made before publication - Dan Dare was originally a clergyman! The name of the hero might well have changed, as although there was already a saint called 'Martin', I have never heard of any Anglo Saxons taking the name before the Norman Conquest. Despite there being only one episode, it is possible to date the events of the story to around 700 A.D and certainly between abut 650 and 800 A.D. In 700, Mercia was a powerful kingdom and was Christian from around 650. The Moors in the story are apparently from Morocco as they are trading the 'riches of Barbary' which is in north west Africa. A Moorish army invaded Spain, in 711 A.D.     

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.