HAPPY BIRTHDAY EAGLE - SEVENTY FIVE YEARS OLD

It is now seventy five years since EAGLE was launched, on April 14th 1950. A huge success for its first decade, it ran until 1969, when it was absorbed by its rival paper Lion. Created by the Rev. Marcus Morris, a Southport Vicar, its early success was primarily due to the work of artist Frank Hampson and his creation 'Dan Dare Pilot of the Future'. The popularity of Dan Dare cannot be overstated. The strip made science fiction acceptable and respectable at a time when many older people dismissed it as ridiculous and EAGLE was read by a lot of older people as well as its principal audience of 7 - 16 year olds. It also promoted interest in outer space and the possibility and credibility of space travel. Stephen Hawking cited 'Dan Dare' as the reason he became a Cosmologist. EAGLE also made comics acceptable to many adults, although it would never admit to being a comic! The fact that the editor was a Vicar and that EAGLE promoted a 'muscular Christianity' in its pages brought parents and teachers onside. The early issues of EAGLE also included the popular radio character 'PC 49', written by Alan Stranks. Initially drawn by Strom Gould it was illustrated for most of its seven year run by John Worsley. There were three other strips by Hampson in the first issue: 'Rob Conway', 'Tommy Walls', an advertising strip for Walls Ice Cream and the life of St. Paul, but he quickly passed these on to other hands to enable him to focus on the runaway success of 'Dan Dare'. 'Captain Pugwash' by John Ryan also made his first ever appearance in the first EAGLE. The centre pages featured 'cutaway drawings' of aircraft, cars, ships and other technological marvels. The most prolific 'cutaway' artist was Leslie Ashwell Wood. The 'cutaways' would run for the entire life of  EAGLE and Ashwell Wood illustrated the first and the last. The early issues also included an informative science strip called 'Professor Brittain Explains' and a regular sports page, which featured contributions from well known sportsmen. Over the next few years, other popular strips joined 'Dan Dare'. 'Riders of the Range' was by Charles Chilton and was based on his radio series about cowboys in the American west, This strip began in the Christmas issue in 1950 and was originally illustrated by Jack Daniel and then by Angus Scott, before Frank Humphris took over in 1952. The strip ran until 1962. 'Luck of the Legion' (1952 - 61) was written by Geoffrey Bond and illustrated by Martin Aitchison, 'Jack O' Lantern' (1955 - 59) told the adventures of a boy in the early nineteenth century and was written by George Beardmore, with illustrations by Robert Ayton. 'Storm Nelson - Sea Adventurer' (1953 - 1962) was written by Guy Morgan and drawn by Richard Jennings and 'Harris Tweed Extra Special Agent' (1950 - 62) by John Ryan, replaced his 'Captain Pugwash' who went on to greater success in books and on television. Another comedy strip was the three frame weekly 'short' 'Chicko' (1950 - 62) by Norman Thelwell. The famous Belgian cartoon hero Tintin also made his first ever appearance in English in EAGLE (1951 - 52). The back featured biographies of saints and famous Britons, including Saint Patrick, Saint Louis of France, Alfred the Great, Lord Nelson, David Livingstone and Baden Powell, illustrated by Norman Williams. Many of these biographies were written by the Rev. Chad Varah, who founded the Samaritans. Later, Frank Bellamy illustrated the life of Winston Churchill and King David for the back page, before taking over the 'Dan Dare' strip for a year and subsequently drawing 'Fraser of Africa' (1960 - 61), the life of Field Marshal Montgomery (1962) and finally the celebrated 'Heros the Spartan' strip in the early 1960s. In 1960 - 61, Frank Hampson illustrated the story of Christ for the back page. Sadly, this was his last major work for EAGLE.  

EAGLE featured more than strip cartoons. It had its own 'Special Investigator', Macdonald Hastings, who wrote articles on a wide range of subjects and even performed several dangerous feats to amuse the readers. George Cansdale wrote many half page strips about wildlife and Anthony Buckeridge created Rex Milligan's prose adventures for EAGLE, which would later serialise some of his 'Jennings' stories. Peter Ling wrote school based stories about 'The Three 'J's' before creating Crossroads and writing a Doctor Who adventure for television. EAGLE engaged well with readers. It featured reader's letters and organised competitions. Douglas Adams' first published work was a poem he sent to EAGLE and Gerald Scarfe and David Hockney won prizes in an art competition. EAGLE encouraged acts of charity, selflessness and consideration for others with monthly awards for nominated readers. It ran its own club for readers, arranged trips to sports matches, Adventure Holidays with the Y.H.A. and an annual national Table Tennis competition, along with its companion weekly 'Girl'. Each year readers voted for their 'Sportsman of the Year'. Every Christmas EAGLE invited readers to Carol Services, held around the country and usually led by Marcus Morris. It produced many books on a range of interests in addition to its annuals and even published novels about several of its characters. Its popularity gave rise to a great deal of licensed merchandise with everything from toys to clothing based on its most popular heroes. It even had its own weekly radio programme. There was also a daily Dan Dare radio serial, which ran for five years on Radio Luxembourg. In the 1950s it was not so much a comic, more a way of life. 

EAGLE fell into decline in the 1960s. Its steady downfall was primarily due to changes of publisher and cuts to its budget. It dropped all its reader activities, except the 'Readers' Letters' page and the Y.H.A. Holidays. Marcus Morris left in 1959 and his successor Clifford Makins left in 1961. A new editor, Bob Bartholomew arrived in late 1962 and managed to make improvements, but the downhill slide in sales was impossible to stop. Nevertheless, there were still shining moments. In addition to 'Heros the Spartan' (1962 - 1966), which was written by Tom Tully, there was 'Blackbow the Cheyenne', written by Edward Cowan and drawn by Frank Humphris, which joined EAGLE when it absorbed Swift in 1963 and ran until 1969. There was also 'The Iron Man' by Ken Mennell and others, which joined in 1964 when Boys' World was absorbed and ran until 1969. It was illustrated by Martin Salvador and later by Miguel Quesada. 'The Guinea Pig', (1965 - 1969) was written by various hands and drawn by Colin Andrew, Brian Lewis and finally by Gerald Haylock.  'Dan Dare' continued with stories by David Motton and art by Keith Watson. The 1960s EAGLE also featured some new informative features, including 'The Futurescope' which began in 1967 and speculated about life in the future. It was written by Dr. Lyall Watson, who would later write the bestselling book Supernature.  

 Despite its decline and fall, EAGLE made such a strong impression that a new version was launched in 1982 and ran until 1994. At a time when comics were generally in decline, it was a notable success for many years. EAGLE fandom survives to this day with the EAGLE Society celebrating the anniversary year with a Gathering in Plymouth, later in April. Our quarterly magazine EAGLE Times celebrates its own 150th issue this year too and Spaceship Away magazine, which began in 2003 continues to feature new adventures of Dan Dare. Fans of the 1980s EAGLE have a podcast 'Where EAGLES Dare' and a Facebook page. Dan himself featured in a B.B.C. radio series in 1990 and an audio series in 2021 and 2022, which was later broadcast on B.B.C. Radio Four Extra and a CGI television series which was broadcast on Channel Five in the U.K. in 2002.             

IN AND OUT OF THE EAGLE 51

There are several books about EAGLE, but only two about Dan Dare's creator Frank Hampson. These are The Man Who Drew Tomorrow, published in 1985 and Tomorrow Revisited, published in 2010. Both books were written by Alastair Crompton, a keen 'Dan Dare' enthusiast and member of the EAGLE Society. The books are both highly illustrated, with many pictures reproduced from original artwork. Despite its quality and detail, Alastair wanted to improve on his first biography and produce a definitive book about Frank Hampson and his work. This resulted in Tomorrow Revisited. Both books are well worth  reading. Alastair, who worked for many years as an advertising copywriter, sadly died in 2019. 

    
 

IN AND OUT OF THE EAGLE 34

Martin Mere was the title of one of several strips that Frank Hampson created for EAGLE after The Road of Courage ended, but were never developed. 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. Frank Hampson located his 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 located in Mercia, close to its border with Northumbria. As Frank described his hero as the 'Knight of the north', I believe 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.     

THE FIRST CHRISTMAS EAGLE by John Culshaw

Not surprisingly, EAGLE always celebrated Christmas and particularly so in the 1950s when it was edited by the Rev. Marcus Morris. The very first Christmas EAGLE set an impressive precedent, with the front page bordered with holly and the action in Dan Dare's long running Venus saga taking a short break as the characters aboard the Ranger spaceship reflected on the fact that it was Christmas, which led into scenes back home on Earth. The strip, produced by Frank Hampson and his studio team, continued on page two where Sir Hubert Guest, Digby and Professor Peabody also reflected on Christmas back home, despite the fact that they were prisoners of the Mekon. The episode ended with Dan himself in the land of the friendly Therons, planning a rescue mission.   

Inside the issue, PC 49 continued his adventures on page three and made no mention of the season as it would have clashed with the storyline, where 'Fortynine' is on the trail of a dangerous gang who have killed a fellow officer. PC 49 originated as a weekly radio series by Alan Stranks, who also wrote the EAGLE strip, which was then drawn by Strom Gould and would later be drawn by John Worsley, who took over in August 1951 and drew the strip until it ended in March 1957. On pages four and five, the text serial Thunder Reef , about smuggling on the Brittany coast, written by Adrian Seligman continued and again, not surprisingly, there was no mention of Christmas. The 'drop in' illustrations for this story were by John Worsley. Page six was divided into a half page Football Hints strip by Billy Wright, the England captain, which focussed on proper maintenance of kit and two short features on collecting. The first provided ideas for making scrap books and the other was for stamp collectors, with neither relating to Christmas. 

The colour page seven marked the very first episode of Riders of the Range, from the popular radio serials by Charles Chilton. Although Christmas played no part in Jeff Arnold's first episode, his arrival in EAGLE was quite special. The strip would run for more than eleven years. The first episode was drawn by Jack Daniel, who would illustrate the first two adventures before Angus Scott took over for the next three until Frank Humphris became the regular artist from 1952 to the strip's end in 1962, later illustrating Blackbow the Cheyenne until EAGLE's merger with Lion in 1969. The cutaway drawing on the top half of the centre spread was of the underground railway operated by the Post Office to carry mail between Paddington and Whitechapel, with the text emphasising the Christmas mail. The cutaway was drawn by Leslie Ashwell-Wood, who was the most prolific of EAGLE's cutaway artists. On the bottom half of the centrespread was an imported French strip called Skippy the Kangaroo, which had no connection with the later Australian TV series. This Skippy, drawn in a basic cartoon style, was a continuing story and did not relate to Christmas. It was credited to Danay, Dubriscay and Genestre and described as an Andre Sarrut production, which seems like a lot of people to produce such a simple strip, but this team were then in the process of making a cartoon feature film in France based on a Hans Anderson story, with the hope of building up a cartoon film studio to rival Disney. Unfortunately problems beset the company and while the film was shown unofficially against the director Paul Grimault's wishes in 1952, disagreements between Sarrut and Grimault resulted in it not being released properly until 1980! Consequently it never had the opportunity to succeed. Possibly Skippy was to have been their next film project. 

On the next page (ten) also in colour, two half page strips told the story of the Glastonbury thorn bush which reputedly flowers on Christmas Day and the origin of the Christmas tree, which was brought by Prince Albert from Germany, but was actually originated by an English missionary St. Winfred (also known as St. Boniface). Page eleven included the Editor's letter to readers and Marcus Morris used it to wish them a happy Christmas. He apologised that the issue was unable to provide more pages than the usual sixteen, writing that paper was still very scarce and continuing: 

"..but we have done what we can to give it a Christmassy look and to include a number of features telling you about Christmas traditions and customs. Most important of all, you will find on the back page the reason why we keep Christmas at all - the story of the birth of Jesus Christ over nineteen hundred years ago in the stable at Bethlehem." 

He was referring to The Great Adventurer, the long running serial on page sixteen about the life of St. Paul, where Christmas was cleverly included in the strip as Paul told his audience at Philippi the story of Jesus' birth. This strip was still being produced by Frank Hampson's team, with Jocelyn Thomas as principal artist. They would hand over briefly to Alfred Sindall early in 1951, before Norman Williams took over as the regular back page biographies artist in February 1951. 

Meanwhile, back on page eleven still, Norman Thelwell's weekly three frame Chicko comedy strip featured Christmas and there was also a half page Competition Corner with a series of Christmas based puzzles and activities. Due to paper shortages EAGLE never wasted space and Readers' Letters also appeared on this page, although none related to Christmas. Page twelve was a one off Christmas text story Bagpipes for the Gallant, about a young Scots lad who gets the set of bagpipes he had always wanted after saving his sister's life and his family cottage by putting out a fire. It was written by E. Vincent, who was Ellen Vincent, the Assistant Editor of EAGLE. The 'drop in' pictures were by Will Nickless, who had illustrated the Worzel Gummidge books of Barbara Euphen Todd during the 1940s and would later produce illustrations for many children's books, including EAGLE and Swift Annuals. The top half of page thirteen was a Sporting Personalities strip about the showjumper Lt. Colonel Harry M. Llewellyn O.B.E. This was drawn by 'Ross' who we now know was really Ron Smith, who would go on to have a long career in comic strip illustration. His future work would include many strips for D.C. Thomson's comics and Judge Dredd in 2000 A.D. weekly thirty years later. 'Ross' had also illustrated the short strip about the origin of the Christmas tree in the same issue. The bottom half of page thirteen featured advertisements for Rolo, Subbuteo Table Soccer and Philidyne Cycle Dynamo Lighting Sets. 

On page fourteen, John Ryan's Harris Tweed Extra Special Agent 'solves' (if that's the right word!) The Case of the Two Father Christmases in a complete whole page adventure and on page fifteen Tommy Walls, a full page strip sponsored by Walls Ice Cream also had a one off Christmas adventure about turkey thieves, illustrated by Richard Jennings and despite the cold weather, Tommy continued to encourage readers to eat ice cream. Although this was essentially an advertising strip, Tommy Walls was extremely popular with readers, especially after it changed from one off stories to continuing ones in May 1952. Tommy was actually granted a four page colour strip in the second EAGLE Annual, produced for Christmas 1952 - the only occasion that he didn't eat or refer to Walls Ice Cream. First drawn by Frank Hampson in Issue One, the strip was later drawn by Eric Parker (of Sexton Blake fame), John Worsley, Walter Pannett, Harold Johns and Richard Jennings. Jennings also wrote many scripts for Tommy Walls and he would continue working for EAGLE after Tommy Walls ended, drawing and eventually writing the Storm Nelson-Sea Adventurer strip. Later he would be well known for his Dalek strips in TV Century 21 and Dalek books. 

In subsequent years the issues leading up to Christmas would feature a lot of adverts for EAGLE related merchandise, but despite its overnight success, EAGLE's publisher, Hulton Press and other companies were not yet ready to cash in, although Hulton did release an EAGLE Diary for 1951 and The EAGLE Book of Adventure Stories, but there was no EAGLE Annual until the following year. This might suggest that Hulton and Britain's toy companies were slow off the mark,  but there were still shortages of many commodities as a result of the War and some rationing was still in progress. EAGLE's success had exceeded all expectations and annuals were significant publications in the 1950s and 60s, so additional staff had to be appointed to build on the initial success. In fact Dan Dare would be Britain's first heavily merchandised fictional character, with toys, clothes, filmstrip projectors, books, tooth powder, brushes, watches, cups, card games, Easter eggs and transfers being produced.    

Although EAGLE's huge popularity ensured that commercialism seemed to dominate the publication, in later years, the religious significance of Christmas was always promoted in the Christmas issues throughout the editorships of Marcus Morris and his successor, Clifford Makins. Perhaps ironically, it was only in the 1960s when the declining popularity of Dan Dare and EAGLE meant that they were no were no longer being heavily merchandised, that the religious aspect was overlooked. 

I am grateful to Lew Stringer for allowing me to use his scans of the front page of the Christmas EAGLE and the Chicko strip and to Richard Sheaf and Steve Winders for providing and clarifying some information.

EAGLE TIMES Vol.35 No.4 Winter 2022

The Winter issue of EAGLE Times is out now. This edition contains a tribute to our late Queen Elizabeth II by David Britton, who also contributes the final instalment of his series about the Canadian Pacific Railway and the final part of his detailed examination of the Riders of the Range adventure Last of the Fighting Cheyenne. Also in this issue is EAGLE and the Changing Face of Christmas by Andrew Newman, The Day I Met Frank Hampson by John Liffen, another In and Out of the EAGLE by Jim Duckett, the final episode of my latest Archie Willoughby adventure and my short appraisal of the third Luck of the Legion novel Carry On Sergeant Luck. The issue also contains details of our next annual gathering, which will be held at York from April 11th - 13th. 

IN AND OUT OF THE EAGLE 14

The very first Dan Dare story had no individual title, but when Titan Books reprinted it in 2004 they called it Voyage to Venus. In 2008 Orion Publishing produced an audio dramatisation of the first half of the story and gave it this title and then in 2012, Michael Shipway’s electronic music album inspired by the story took the title too. By 2016, when B7 Audio Productions dramatised several Dan Dare adventures, Voyage to Venus was the automatic title for the first adventure. Although it took fifty four years for this title to formally appear, it seems an appropriate one. Frank Hampson, like many of Eagle’s other contributors, favoured alliterative titles, giving us Marooned on Mercury, Reign of the Robots and Safari in Space, not to mention Dan Dare himself. Voyage to Venus was previously used as the title of the second book of C.S. Lewis’ space trilogy about Earth, Mars and Venus. As in Dan Dare this title was added later. First published in 1943, Lewis’ book was originally called Perelandra, which was the story’s name for the planet, but it was altered to Voyage to Venus when published in paperback in 1953. C.S. Lewis was one of several notable theologians who contributed articles for Marcus Morris’ Anvil magazine in the late 1940s and not surprisingly his book has strong religious connotations. The plot concerns the hero from Earth trying to prevent the fall of man (as described in the Book of Genesis) from being repeated on Venus. Lewis went on to write the famous Narnia series of children’s books, beginning with The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe in 1950.

The original Voyage to Venus was Achille Eyraud’s 1865 book, published the same year as Jules Verne’s From the Earth to the Moon. Eyraud’s book is the first to describe rocket powered interplanetary travel. However, despite its prophetic importance, it has only been available in an English edition since 2011.  

BOURNE HALL EXHIBITION

A free exhibition to celebrate the centenary of Frank Hampson's birth is being held at the Bourne Hall Museum in Spring Street, Ewell in Surrey. Running from December 4th 2018 until March 12th 2019,  the opening times are: 
Monday 9am - 10:30pm

Tuesday 9am - 11:30pm
Wednesday 9am - 10:30pm
Thursday 9am - 10:30pm
Friday & Saturday 9am - 5pm
Sunday Closed

Contact name: 

David Brooks

Telephone: 

+44 20 8394 1734

Contact email: 

dbrooks@epsom-ewell.gov.uk

Bourne Hall
Tel: 020 8393 9571
Email: BourneHallMailbox@epsom-ewell.gov.uk
Website: www.bournehall.org

PRESS RELEASE
The 100th anniversary of the birth of Frank Hampson is to be marked by an exhibition at Bourne Hall Museum. Frank Hampson came to Epsom in the early 1950s and was soon established in Bayford Lodge, which served as his home and his studio.  There, for a decade, he created the cartoon strips that held the nation's schoolboys (and others!) enthralled, as they waited eagerly each week for the latest edition of Eagle to learn whether Dan Dare, the intrepid space explorer, had survived his most recent mission. An exhibition about the life of the gifted illustrator will be put on display at Bourne Hall Museum from 4th December until 12 March 2019.The display will include original artwork which has been loaned by Peter Hampson, Frank’s son, including a front page of the Eagle – drawings of Treens, Therons and other alien characters from the comic – and covers drawn by Frank for the popular Ladybird books. Also on display will be the annuals which were such eagerly awaited Christmas presents, and comics which will bring back memories of trips to the newsagents to get a new copy, running back home to read the latest adventure. 

Museum curator, Jeremy Harte, says "There will be many people locally who remember, for example, the staged fights with ray guns outside Bayford Lodge, as Frank Hampson gathered material for the next instalment to go up on his drawing board."

IN AND OUT OF THE EAGLE 11

Biographies of Dan Dare state that he was educated at Rossall School near Fleetwood in Lancashire. Founded in 1844 as a sister school to Marlborough College, which had been founded the previous year, Rossall has produced several famous old boys. These include Leslie Charteris, the creator of The Saint, Sir Thomas Beecham, who founded both the London Philharmonic and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestras, the Booker Prize winning novelist J.G. Farrell, James Donald the famous film actor, Walter Clopton Wingfield who invented lawn tennis, Sir Francis Graham Smith, the former Astronomer Royal and Fr. Thomas Byles, the priest who refused to leave the sinking Titanic, insisting on remaining to help and console fellow passengers. 

Rossall was possibly chosen as Dan’s school in tribute to another old Rossallian, Terence Horsley, the editor of the Sunday Empire News, who was about to publish Frank and Marcus Morris’ Lex Christian strip when he died in a glider accident. His death prompted Marcus to create a whole comic weekly instead of a single newspaper strip and Frank to develop the East End Vicar Lex Christian into Dan Dare.

Most appropriately, in view of its most famous fictional old boy, the school houses the Lawrence House Astronomy and Space Science Centre, which includes an observatory and planetarium. Opened in 2006, the Centre resulted from efforts by parents and Governors to restore an old established observatory in the school. Since the 1990s Rossall has been co-educational and now includes a nursery and preparatory school, catering for children from ages 2 - 18.

Rossall was never identified as Dan’s old school in the strip. He visited his school in The Double Headed Eagle story in Eagle Annual Number Three but it was not named. The information originally appeared in Raphael Tuck’s ‘Happy Hours’ series book of Dan Dare Water Transfers produced in 1951. This book included twelve pages detailing Dan’s career, interleaved with six pages of colour water transfers. It is likely, but not certain, that the information was provided by Frank Hampson, but we can take it as official because in a radio interview in the late 1970s Frank himself told listeners that Dan had attended Rossall and the information was also repeated in the text accompanying the 1955 Presso Dan Dare Spaceship, the 1974 Dan Dare Annual and the Dan Dare Dossier in 1990, although the Dossier incorrectly stated that Rossall is in Manchester! 

(When this page first appeared in EAGLE Times I mistakenly believed that the information about Rossall originally came from The Calvert’s Toothpowder Dan Dare Picture Card album. However I am grateful to Charles Evans-Gunther, Adrian Perkins and David Gould for their correction and their work on tracking the origins of Dan’s background details.)

THE MAN WHO DREW DAN DARE

EXHIBITION REPORT BY DAVID BRITTON

A reception was held on Thursday evening 20th September at the Atkinson Art Gallery in Lord St. Southport, to launch three new exhibitions that all have a local relevance. The one of particular interest to our readers is dedicated to “The Man Who Drew Dan Dare”, an exhibition marking the 100^th Anniversary of the birth of Frank Hampson and his life’s work. The evening was opened by Stephen Whittle, Principal Manager at the Atkinson, who gave a brief background to each of the exhibitions and introduced Peter Hampson as guest speaker for Frank Hampson’s exhibition. 

Peter then related the story behind Frank’s career commencing with his demobilisation from the Army and the attendance at Southport College of Art. On leaving the College he was initially involved in producing commercial work for advertising and did illustrations for “Anvil”, Marcus Morris’ local church magazine that was later taken up by the Anglican Church. When Marcus decided to embark on his mission to create a comic or magazine to compete effectively with the gratuitous, pulp comics that were flooding the country from America, setting a higher moral standard yet appealing to children with an exciting product, he collaborated with Frank and EAGLE was born.  Shortly after Jocelyn Thomas, Greta Tomlinson and Joan Porter joined them at the Bakehouse, 22, Botanic Road, Churchtown. The Bakehouse has been restored recently and has a plaque honouring those who worked there in the early days of EAGLE.  Joan remained Frank’s assistant right through to the end.

Peter talked about the move to Epsom, the development of the studio at Bayford Lodge and of the humour that accompanied the hard work and weekly deadlines. That was followed by the unhappy departure from Odham’s , The Road of Courage for EAGLE , working for Ladybird books, more commercial work, such as an advertising strip series for the National Coal Board and finally the North East Surrey College of Technology (NESCOT) where he taught and worked.

The exhibition is really very well laid out and has examples of Frank’s work from the very beginning, with some beautifully executed pencil sketches and work in pen and ink. It continues through the early work on Dan Dare, illustrated by pages from the start of The First Venus Story, later episodes, pencil roughs and ending with post-EAGLE illustration for Ladybird books, a period that Peter described as a very happy one after the trauma of the final years with Odham’s. One of the highlights is some original pages for “The Road of Courage”, which for many represents the pinnacle of Frank’s output. Peter also pointed out the fact that Frank loved to put lots of detail into the background of his frames. This is apparent throughout his work.

The recognition that Frank received in Lucca in 1975 - The Yellow Kid  and his award of the title 'Prestigio Maestro' - the Best Comic Book Artist Since the Second World War, were also on display. 

Overall, the evening was a great success, although attendance may have been curtailed by a disastrous night of bad weather, with high winds and very heavy rain, as the tail of Storm Bronagh passed Southport. We were graced however by the presence of Frank’s sister Margaret, currently 91 years of age and her daughter Tina and son-in-law Les, as well as Peter’s wife Sue.

The exhibition runs until 16th March 2019 and is a must for all EAGLE, Dan Dare and Frank Hampson fans.

IN AND OUT OF THE EAGLE 6

WITH JIM DUCKETT

It’s a sobering thought but the first recorded Dan Dare adventure was set at least thirty years ago! This was Moon Run in the EAGLE Annual for 1961, which includes Dan’s first meeting with Digby and consequently must take place before the Mars 1988 story which was featured in the 1952 Annual where Dan and Digby already know each other. Born in 1967, Dan would now be fifty one, although having spent the best part of a decade in suspended animation, travelling to and from Cryptos, he would now effectively be about forty. With his return in 2012 and the Mekon’s invasion of Earth defeated, by 2016 the Pescod threat would probably be over too and by now Dan and friends may well be involved in the Terra Nova adventure, meaning we’ve reached the end of the Frank Hampson era in real time! At least Frank Bellamy, Don Harley, Eric Eden, Keith Watson and David Motton’s work should keep us going for a few more years, but none of us will be around in 2177 when Dan is revived with a new face for his 2000 A.D. adventures!

Most sobering of all though is the fact that in our version of reality, the possibility of a colony on Mars as depicted in Mars 1988 is still many years away. We have yet to land a man on the planet. But to end on a happier note, at least we aren’t likely to be invaded by robots controlled by intelligent reptiles from Venus any time soon, either.         

Tomorrow revisited (review)

Standard Trade Edition

Within the space of a few weeks two books related to ‘Dan Dare’ have been published. I have already reviewed the first, Daniel Tatarsky’s Dan Dare - The Biography. The latest is Alastair Crompton’s Tomorrow Revisited, or to give it its full title Tomorrow Revisited: a celebration of the life and art of Frank Hampson. Comparisons between the two books may seem inevitable, but I find their scope and purpose different, and I will avoid making any critical comparison here. 

Besides, there is another comparison to be made. In 1985, shortly after the death of his subject, Alastair Crompton had published a book entitled The Man Who Drew Tomorrow, on the subject of “how Frank Hampson created Dan Dare, the world’s best comic strip.” In Tomorrow Revisited, as implied by the title, he returns to the same subject matter. It is inevitable therefore that comparisons of Tomorrow Revisited with the earlier book will be made; indeed, one might ask, “having bought the first book in 1985, why should I buy the same thing over again?” Well, I have, and hopefully I can dispel any reservations other owners of The Man Who Drew Tomorrow might have. There is plenty for you in this book that was not in the earlier book. 

In his introduction, Alastair starts with a quote from Oscar Wilde: “Every great man nowadays has his disciples, and it is usually Judas who writes his biography”. He then declares that his book is not a biography, although it clearly has a lot of biographical content, and he states his rationale for revisiting the subject. With 25 years of water under the bridge, by his own admission, he believes now “that the first edition of this book ... was a slightly fourth form hagiography, showing my subject through rose coloured glasses, and allowing him to make claims which in this edition I am forced to question”. But while he might not take Hampson’s every claim with so much credence these days, he also declares that he is “not Wilde’s Judas”. He might have said (though he doesn’t) that he provides no Brutus to Hampson’s Caesar, for he gives no stabs in the back, either. There are many shades, which he tries to fill, and in this edition he is more careful (objective?) about how he spreads the blame and the glory, while remaining sympathetic to his subject. This is, after all, a celebration of the man who created and produced ‘Dan Dare’ for a nearly a decade, and who, in 1975, was crowned by his peers as Prestigioso Maestro - the World’s Best Comic Artist since the Second World War. 

The text has been “totally rewritten”, not to imply that everything changed was “wrong”, nor to imply that you won’t find repeated sections of text - you will - but often he finds a different way of telling his, or rather, Hampson’s, story. 

Having a similar page-count to the earlier edition, Tomorrow Revisited is slightly larger, with about an inch greater height. (It is also considerably thicker, but otherwise slightly smaller, than the volumes in Titan Books’ ‘Dan Dare’ reprint series.) The Man Who Drew Tomorrow had a dustjacket; this does not, but the Bookshop Edition has a very attractive red cover using black and white pictures of Hampson in his later years. Inside, the front and rear endpapers include in their design the information that would usually be on the fold-in elements of the jacket. The text layout is entirely different, with much use of inset colour, and the most noticeable impact from leafing through the book is the many examples of artwork reproduced from original illustration boards. 

The original book had 216 pages of which only 24 contained colour. The latest has a few more pages overall, but this time more than half contain colour. Around 70 pages are full-page colour and, of those, around 35 reproduce artwork from complete original artboards. Other pages have examples of single frames of original art, which really show the detail that went into the drawings. Most of the artwork is from ‘Dan Dare’, but there are also examples from ‘The Great Adventurer’, ‘Tommy Walls’, ‘Rob Conway’ (black and white) and ‘The Road of Courage’. 

Since the original artwork reproduced in Tomorrow Revisited is largely from Paul Stephenson’s (the publisher’s) extensive collection, most of these illustrations appear for the first time. They are superbly reproduced. Anyone who has never seen a page of original Hampson-produced ‘Dan Dare’ artwork will be amazed at the detail that went into every frame of each week’s episode - detail that was sadly lost in the printing of Eagle - as can be seen by comparing the examples in Tomorrow Revisited with their counterparts in the Titan Books series of ‘Dan Dare’ reprints (where ‘Dan Dare’ pages from Eagle are reproduced at a similar size). 

The book also includes biographical pictures, photographs of the models built to help the Dan Dare Studio to visualize scenes, equipment and characters, photographs of members of the Studio posing for particular frames of the strip, sketches from Frank Hampson’s studio reference sheets and notebooks, and some of the merchandising that spun off the character ‘Dan Dare’. Although, inevitably, some images from the earlier book are reused, a large proportion of the visual content of Tomorrow Revisited is different from the old. 

Something not previously published (in book form - some have appeared previously in Eagle Times magazine and/or on Alastair’s Lost Characters of Frank Hampson website) is a collection of “strips that never were”. These, mostly, are strips that Hampson was commissioned to create after ‘The Road of Courage’ but were never developed since he was dismissed by the new management. The original artwork is lost, but they were photocopied by “someone in The Mirror Group” in the 1960s and partial restorations made from copies (of the copies) are presented. The quality of this “lost” artwork only emphasises the genius of Frank Hampson and the tragedy that beset him after Eagle. 

For the pedantically inclined (this is after all a critical review, and nothing in this world is perfect!) I did spot a few errors, eg.

A caption below a reprint of the first published ‘Dan Dare’ page (Eagle No. 1) refers to “The first ever page of Dan Dare. At this early stage Hampson wasn’t into his stride and drew all the frames the same size”. Clearly the frame sizes vary on the page, and the caption should refer to the dummy page of ‘Chaplain Dan Dare’, which appears on the opposite page! 

Frank Humphris, the (third) artist on Eagle’s ‘Riders of the Range’, is quoted at one point but his name appears as “Humphries”. (A mistake not unknown elsewhere.) 

Bruce Cornwell appears at one point as “Cornwall”. (Another mistake not unknown elsewhere!). 

Hampson’s ‘Modesty Blaise’ samples are shown, along with the statement that “what you see here is the a row of Hampson’s Modesty, followed by a row of the same strip drawn by Jim Holdaway.” There is no Holdaway art shown (though is can be seen on the Lost Characters of Frank Hampson website! 

I suspect that at least one page of artwork (from ‘The Road of Courage’) has been reproduced at slightly the wrong aspect ratio (“squashed” in the horizontal). 

The above criticisms aside, for anyone newly interested, or renewing their interest, in Frank Hampson and ‘Dan Dare’, or more generally having an interest in the history and development of sequential graphic art (the posh name for “comics”), Tomorrow Revisited surely is a “must read”, and its illustrations are a “must see”. As I previously commented after first seeing Tomorrow Revisited, it provides a visual treat, being adorned with illustrations including, as I have indicated, many full-page examples that are reproduced from original artwork. 

There are two versions of the book, the standard Bookshop (or Trade) Edition, which I have reviewed, and a Limited (to 100 issues) De Luxe Edition, which I believe internally identical with the Bookshop Edition, but is leather bound and comes in a leather presentation case with an original ‘Dan Dare’ illustration by Don Harley, a print by Andrew Skilleter and a Certificate signed by Alastair Crompton, Peter Hampson, Andrew Skilleter and Don Harley.

I said I would avoid critically comparing Tomorrow Revisited with Dan Dare: The Biography, and so I will. They are sufficiently different in scope that any serious student of the story of Eagle and ‘Dan Dare’ should read both books. If you are new to this, I would recommend reading Dan Dare: The Biography first, as a primer, but you might want to steal a look at Tomorrow Revisited before you begin - if only for the wonderful artwork.

Tomorrow Revisited: A celebration of the life and art of Frank Hampson is published by PS Art Books in two hardback editions: 

Deluxe Slipcase Edition (ISBN 978-1-84863-122-9) at £299.95

Standard Trade Edition (ISBN 978-1-84863-121-2) at £29.99

Tomorrow Revisited - book launch

Alastair Crompton signing copies

The launch of Alastair Crompton's book Tomorrow Revisited took place at the Chris Beetles Gallery in London's Mayfair on 30th November, 2010. A good few people braved the winter-come-early weather and the resulting traffic chaos, the risk from rioting students and the film fans turning out for the premier of the latest Narnia film, to be the first to buy a copy, and to take a look at the original 'Dan Dare' artwork on display, and for  sale at the gallery (typically at £5,500 a board!). Alastair and his publisher and collaborator Paul Stephenson were in attendance, Alastair cheerfully signing copies of his book for those who wished to buy. These were advance copies, flown in especially for the launch. The main shipload was due to arrive by sea from China the next day, ready for the publication date of 6th December.

Tomorrow Revisited (as implied by the title) is a wholly updated, rewritten and redesigned version of Alastair Crompton's 1985 book, The Man Who Drew Tomorrow. It is a "celebration of the life and art of Frank Hampson", the creator of 'Dan Dare' and the artistic creator of the Eagle magazine. I hope to provide a full review when I have read the book, but visually it is a treat, being adorned with illustrations, including many full-page examples that are reproduced from original artwork, largely from Paul Stephenson's extensive collection.

There are two versions of the book, the Bookshop Edition at £29.99 and a Limited (to 100 issues) De Luxe Edition, which is leather bound and comes in a leather presentation case  with an original 'Dan Dare' illustration by Don Harley, a print by Andrew Skilleter and a Certificate signed by Alastair Crompton, Peter Hampson, Andrew Skilleter and Don Harley. The De Luxe Edition is priced at £299.95.

Classic Bible Stories

The first of an intended series of books reprinting Classic Bible Stories from Eagle has been published by Titan Books. The first volume collects two stories: 'The Road of Courage', the story of Jesus of Nazareth, written by the Revd. Marcus Morris and illustrated by Frank Hampson, and 'Mark the Youngest Disciple', written by the Revd. Chad Varah and illustrated by Giorgio Bellavitis. 'The Road of Courage' which appeared in Eagle in 1961, was Hampson's last work for Eagle and shows him, arguably at his best, and certainly at his most consistent. 'Mark the Youngest Disciple' appeared in 1954, and has been described as Giorgio Bellavitis' finest work for Eagle.

Although The Road of Courage was previously published as a hardback book by Dragon's Dream in 1981, none of the other Eagle bible stories has previously been seen in book form. A future volume of Classic Bible Stories is expected to collect 'The Shepherd King', the story of David, by Clifford Makins and Frank Bellamy, and 'The Great Adventurer', the story of Saul/Paul of Tarsus, by Chad Varah, Frank Hampson (and team) and Norman Williams.

The format of Classic Bible Stories is very similar to Titan's Dan Dare reprint series; ie, 9" x 12" red covered hardback with dustjacket. As with the Dan Dare series, all the strips in Classic Bible Stories are reprinted from scans of Eagle pages. It is well known that most of the original artboards for strips that appeared in Eagle have been lost, destroyed or dispersed to various collectors, so that most Eagle reprint series cannot be from original artwork. However, Dragon's Dream's 1981 offering of The Road of Courage was almost entirely (ie, with the exception of the third page) from the original artboards of that story, and comparison of the two versions is inevitable.

Whether the artboards were not available to the current publishers, or it was an editorial decision not to use them to achieve consistency of quality with the other stories in the series, or for some other reason, this reviewer does not know. Although a close side-by-side comparison with the Dragon's Dream version shows some increase in image contrast and loss of detail due to line thickening in the Titan Books version, the quality of reproduction is as good as the best of their Dan Dare reprint series, ie excellent. An advantage of reproducing the strip from scans of the published comic strip (combined with some careful restoration) is that the result is a close facsimile to the original published edition. A detraction of the Dragon's Dream issue was that new captions had to be created because they were not present on the original boards. Unfortunately, the captions were produced in an unsympathetic type-face, the size of which often was too small for the boxes in which the captions were placed.

Readers of Titan's Dan Dare reprint series might be surprised that, apart from the two stories, the title and credit pages and some brief information provided on the dustjacket, this volume has no further editorial content. It would seem this book has undergone a few changes along the way, meaning that some of the information on the book (eg at Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com), indicating feature content, is inaccurate. It would have been nice to have seen the article by Frank Hampson that was published in Eagle when 'The Road of Courage' was first published, describing his trip to the Holy Land and the research that went into the strip.

Although pre-publication pictures emphasise the Eagle legacy by use of the Eagle emblem and the name of Frank Hampson on the cover (with no mention of the other contributors!), neither of these elements are present on the front of the published dustjacket (though Frank Hampson is credited on the book's spine), nor does the Eagle emblem appear anywhere in the book. Presumably the book is aimed at a wider audience than "just" Eagle (or comics) enthusiasts.

Inside full credits are given to the creators of the strips including, on the dustjacket front flap, mention of Frank Hampson's assistant, Joan Porter. The rear dustjacket provides some extremely short biographical information on Marcus Morris, Frank Hampson, Chad Varah and Giorgio Bellavitis.

Classic Bible Stories [ISBN 9781848565258] is published by Titan Books at £14.99.

At the time of posting it was available from Amazon.co.uk at £10.74

Frank Hampson Revisited

The life-story, career and artwork of Frank Hampson, the creator of 'Dan Dare' and artistic creator of the Eagle, are to be revisited by Alastair Crompton in what is described as a "wholly rewritten and updated" version of an earlier biography. The earlier work, written by Alastair, and published by Andrew Skilleter's Who Dares Publishing in 1985, shortly after the death of Frank Hampson, was called The Man Who Drew Tomorrow.

The new book, to be published by PS Publishing to commemorate the 60th anniversary of Eagle's first publication, is titled (appropriately enough) Tomorrow Revisited, and promises us "the complete Frank Hampson story".

It will be a large format "coffee table" book, with over 200 pages of text and illustrations, including full colour reproductions from original 'Dan Dare' artboards (from the apparently extensive collection owned by Paul Stephenson). Also promised are sketches from Frank Hampson's notebooks and some of the many hundreds of photographs that were taken to help create the strip.

The book will come in three editions:

• A deluxe leather-bound hardback in leather-bound presentation case, with an original 'Dan Dare' illustration by Don Harley, an illustrated homage to Frank Hampson by Andrew Skilleter and a certificate of limited availability (signed by Alastair Crompton, Andre Skilleter and Don Harley). This edition is limited to 100 copies and is priced at £295.

• A cloth-bound hardback in a foil-blocked slipcase, with an illustrated homage to Frank Hampson by Andrew Skilleter and a certificate of limited availability (signed by Alastair Crompton and Andrew Skilleter). This edition is limited to 250 copies and is priced at £69.99.

• Bookshop hardback (unlimited) edition, priced at £29.99.

Note: PS Publishing are currently offering a pre-publication discount of 10% off the above prices for orders taken before 30th April 2010. Full details at the PS Publishing website.

More information about Tomorrow Revisited can be found in a two page pdf at Alastair's Frank Hampson website

Happy Birthday, Sir Arthur

Arthur C Clarke – Eagle contributor - reaches his 90th birthday.

As Arthur C Clarke, former Chairman of the British Interplanetary Society (BIS) and world-renowned science and science-fiction writer, reaches 90 let’s remember the contribution he made to the Eagle in its early days. Marcus Morris’ biography tells us that two days after the issue 2 of the Eagle appeared on newsstands, Arthur Clarke (then Assistant Secretary of the BIS) wrote to the Eagle’s Editor to report that, at a meeting of the Royal Geographical Society where he had been lecturing on space navigation, another speaker (D H Sadler, head of the Nautical Almanac Office) had ended a highly technical series of remarks about navigation in space, etc. with the question “Will Dan Dare reach Venus?” While another speaker was sure that he would, Clarke “had expressed fears that he might encounter space-pirates!”

Within the month Clarke had been commissioned by Morris to write a synopsis for 'Dan Dare'. This resulted in three episodes in the first 'Dan Dare' story. There is uncertainty which three, but it seems Clarke was responsible for suggesting the outline of Treen behaviour to Frank Hampson, and might have been responsible for appropriating the word Treen (from a town in Cornwall, or from a descriptor for small carved wooden articles) as the name of the belligerent Venusian race. Clarke became a consultant on 'Dan Dare', and it has been suggested by Stephen Baxter, (in Matrix, the media magazine of the British Science Fiction Association) that the Treen’s use of communications satellites is a sure sign of the Clarke touch. It was Clarke who first suggested (in Wireless World, May and then October, 1947) the use of geostationary satellites as radio communications devices. Clarke was also commissioned to write a 'Dan Dare' story (presumably to appear as a strip) for one of the Eagle Annuals. This appears to have come to nothing, but a four page article “Is Space Travel Possible” was published in the 1953 Dan Dare's Space Book.

Separate from Clarke’s approach to Eagle in 1950, it was Eagle’s Fiction Editor (Chad Varah) who discovered an unsolicited manuscript sent in by the agents of a then comparatively unknown science fiction writer. It is unclear whether the story that appeared under the pseudonym Charles Willis was originally submitted as the work of Arthur C Clarke, but the story “The Fires Within” appeared in Eagle Vol 1 No 17 , dated 4 August, 1950. This was one of a number of stories written in the 1940s by Clarke when he was a student at King’s College, London. He variously used the pseudonyms Charles Willis and E G O’Brien at that time. It is unclear whether Eagle’s editors knew that a story of the same title had already been published under Clarke’s other pseudonym in Fantasy, The Magazine of Science Fiction, in August 1947!

Eagle - How it began

The Eagle magazine was the brainchild of the Revd. Marcus Morris, the Southport Lancashire vicar who became its first Editor. Having engaged a young Southport-trained artist, Frank Hampson, and then others, in enlivening his parish magazine, The Anvil, and turning it from local church magazine to a nationally distributed periodical, he sought Hampson’s assistance in creating a Christian-based comic strip. The idea, fuelled by both men’s enthusiasm and Hampson’s artistic creativity, and not a little influenced by another man of the cloth (the Revd. Chad Varah), eventually resulted in not a comic strip but a complete magazine for boys. The Eagle, comprised a mix of comic strips, factual features and text stories. Rather than a Christian padre, as originally intended by Morris, the Eagle featured on its front cover the stirring science-fiction adventures in full colour of Dan Dare: Pilot of the Future. Inside it featured a variety of black-and-white, and colour, strips plus illustrated text stories and factual articles. The first “dummies” that sold the Eagle idea to its publishers, Hulton Press, were almost entirely the work of Frank Hampson, but soon a large team of writers and artists was needed to keep up with a weekly publication schedule.

There have been several fairly detailed accounts of the birth of Eagle, including (in order of publication):

• Best of Eagle, compiled by Denis Gifford and edited by Marcus Morris, Michael Joseph and Ebury Press (1977). This contains in an Introduction, Marcus’ own account – which can be read online, courtesy of Nicholas Hill’s Eagle and Dan Dare site.

• The Man Who Drew Tomorrow by Alastair Crompton, Who Dares Publishing (1985) is a Frank Hampson biography and the story of the Dan Dare studio, published the year of Hampson’s death.
  

• Before I Die Again by The Revd. Chad Varah, Constable (1993), is the autobiography of 'Eagle’s third man'.

• The Frank Hampson Interview by Alan Vince, Astral Publications (1994) records and updates an interview made by Alan with Frank Hampson in 1974. The interview has since been republished (further updated) in Dan Dare: The Voyage to Venus, part 2, Titan Books (2004).

• Living with Eagles, by Sally Morris and Jan Hallwood, Lutterworth Press (1998), is a biography of Marcus Morris by two of his daughters.

• Dan Dare: The Voyage to Venus, part 1, Titan Books (2004) contains an introductory article, ‘The Genesis of Dan Dare’ by Nick Jones.