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.  

Dan Dare: Trip to Trouble

Trip to Trouble is the thirteenth in the Titan Books series of reprints of 'Dan Dare' from the original Eagle magazine. The volume contains four 'Dan Dare' adventures, two from Eagle in 1959-1960 and two which first appeared in Eagle Annual in 1957 and 1958.

The title story, 'Trip to Trouble', continues directly from 'Terra Nova' (which appears along with 'Safari in Space' in Titan's previous volume, which I reviewed on 19th December 2009) and thus concludes the trilogy that began with 'Safari in Space'. 'Terra Nova' ends on a cliff-hanger as Dan has a bright idea that will put him back on the trail of his missing father. Here, in 'Trip to Trouble', he continues the quest, along with Digby and Lex O'Malley, travelling across Terra Nova by raft to Lantor, where he intervenes in a war between the Lantorites and the invaders from Gaz, finally learns the fate of his father and is able to return home. 

'Trip to Trouble' was an appropriate title, in light of the editorial changes happening at Eagle when it was first published, and although 'Project Nimbus' followed it there was more than just a break in the continuity of storyline. Readers of Eagle were surprised when the issue for 19th March 1960 took a new look (and a price hike). The Eagle masthead had been changed and the world of 'Dan Dare' had been totally redesigned by Frank Bellamy (under editorial orders). Although some of Dan's Spacefleet colleagues were still around everything else had changed - architecture, uniforms, spacecraft - with no explanation for the reader! Some time before, the Eagle's new executive had decided on a revamp of Eagle and its lead strip. They called for the story arc started by Frank Hampson in 'Safari in Space' to be wound up. Without Hampson, the story had already diverted from the path in which he might have taken it, and it is unlikely Hampson would have brought his characters back to the Solar system so soon. 

In 'Project Nimbus', Dan has returned to Earth - and a very different Spacefleet - from where he is soon heading into space in the Nimbus Two in search of Nimbus One, a protoype photon-drive spaceship that has mysteriously disappeared on its maiden voyage. This leads him and Digby, Hank Hogan and Pierre Lafayette to the moons of Jupiter and an encounter with non-humanoid aliens.

Frank Bellamy had taken over from Frank Hampson as lead artist during 'Terra Nova', and continued to work "with" the remaining studio team members, who included Don Harley, Keith Watson and Gerald Palmer along with Eric Eden, who provided the script. Palmer is not credited on the title page, although he remained with the team for 'Terra Nova' and most, if not all, of 'Project Nimbus'. I believe Watson departed somewhat earlier in 1960, around the end of 'Trip to Trouble'(?), when he went off to draw 'Captain Condor' for Lion. Throughout his one-year tenure as lead artist, Bellamy produced about 50% of the boards himself, and the rest were produced separately by the rest of the team under his general direction. 

Under the new editorial management, and without Hampson's creative input, the 'Dan Dare' stories became much less epic in scope. So the two Eagle stories included in Trip to Trouble only fill about two-thirds of the volume. To fill the remainder, Titan have included two 'Dan Dare' stories from Eagle Annual. Both are from the time when Hampson was still working on 'Dan Dare'. The first, 'Space Race', is from Eagle Annual No. 7 and was drawn by Desmond Walduck, presumably from roughs provided by Hampson or members of his studio team. 'Operation Moss' is from Eagle Annual No. 8 and visually is so much better, being a "Frank Hampson Production" drawn by Frank Hampson and Don Harley. It is in my view the best of the annual strips, and shows Hampsom and Harley at their collaborative best.

An addition to the book is a text article by Jeremy Briggs, 'Dan Dare's Solar System', which reflects on the differences between Dan Dare's imaginary universe and what has been revealed about the solar system since the 1950s by real space probes.

 

I note that I pre-ordered Dan Dare: Trip to Trouble from Amazon over a year ago, soon after the publication of Dan Dare: Safari in Space. I believe the publication date was put back (possibly twice), although the reason for the delay is unclear. If it was to make sure of the quality, then it was worth the wait. Like the previous volume, the artwork, although inevitably reproduced from printed copies of Eagle (rather than from original artwork) benefits again from the loving restoration of Des Shaw (of the Spaceship Away team).

Let's hope in these austere times that this series continues, and Titan can complete the whole series of strips from Eagle. The previous venture by Hawk Books was spoilt by missing out a large portion of the strips that appeared in the 1960s.

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

Dan Dare: Safari in Space

Safari in Space, the twelfth volume in Titan Books' Dan Dare Pilot of the Future series, collects the two 'Dan Dare' adventures 'Safari in Space' and its follow-on, 'Terra Nova'. The scripts are credited to Alan Stranks, Frank Hampson and Eric Eden. The stories first appeared in Eagle in 1959 and mark the 'Dan Dare' swansong for the artist Frank Hampson, and the 'Dan Dare' debut for the artist Frank Bellamy. Other artists on the strip included Joan Porter (who left at the same time as Hampson) and the remaining members of the Dan Dare Studio team (Don Harley, Eric Eden, Keith Watson and Gerald Palmer) who continued to draw about 50% of the pages under Bellamy's general instruction.

After arriving on Venus for a photographic safari, Dan Dare with his companions are abducted to the secret asteroid base of Scottish scientist/engineer Galileo McHoo. Informed that Dan's father who disappeared years ago was the pilot of an experimental spacecraft that set out for a new world, light-years away, Dan and Co. are induced to join McHoo's expedition to find out what happened to the earlier expedition, and to try to discover the fate of Dan's father. On Terra Nova the expedition finds evidence of Dan's father's earlier presence, and help one of the inhabitant populations, the Novads, to combat the Nagrabs, a species of giant man-eating ants which is threatening their existence.

The book is the first to be issued since John Freeman took over editorship of the series. If you've seen any of the previous volumes you will know that the quality of reproduction has been variable - hence the apologia carried in the front of the books:

"Much of the comic strip material used by Titan in this edition is exceedingly rare. As such we hope that readers appreciate that the quality of the material can be variable."

The apologia remains in this book but is, in my view, superfluous. The reproduction quality is consistently excellent throughout. The provision of the comic strip pages from the original Eagle is credited to Des Shaw of the Spaceship Away team. It shows what can be achieved when someone takes the care to obtain the best available source material, and then apply sensitive restoration. The pages look pristine - you might think some were from original artwork, rather than 50 year old comics, though it probably helps that the format is smaller than the original, as this will have had the effect of sharpening the images.

In format the book follows the pattern of the earlier books in the series, with 'Safari in Space' beginning on a right hand page. As the original stories appeared in Eagle on the front and second pages, this is consistent with how the material was originally presented in that publication. However, with a single page separating the two stories 'Terra Nova', possibly controversially, begins on a left hand page. This results in each week's two-page episode being shown on facing pages. It's possible some people might not like this. My personal view is that it is better presented this way. Somehow the Eagle quarter-page masthead, which inevitably is reproduced every other page, seems less intrusive. It gives a freshness to the presentation, allowing each episode to be viewed as a whole (as it has never been before), and it leaves the cliff-hanger ("What will happen in next week's episode?") at the turn of the page.

In addition to the two 'Dan Dare' stories, the book contains 'Dan Dare Abroad', an illustrated text article by Eagle-timer Richard Sheaf, reviewing the history of Eagle's and Dan Dare's syndication and reproduction in periodicals outside of UK .

All in all a splendid publication, and out just in time for Christmas!

Dan Dare: The Phantom Fleet

The latest in Titan Books' reprint volumes of the original Dan Dare series has recently been published. My copy arrived from Amazon.co.uk on 14th May, 2009. 

The full list of published Dan Dare titles can be seen at the Titan Books website. Although the 10th story in the Dan Dare series, The Phantom Fleet is the 11th volume in Titan's series since the first (Venus) story and 'Operation Saturn' were each split over two volumes and 'The Ship that Lived' was appended to 'Reign of the Robots'. This book also includes the Dan Dare story 'Operation Plum Pudding', which originally appeared in Eagle Annual No 5. Thers is an Introduction by Jeff Wayne (composer of the award-winning musical version of War of the Worlds), and an article on the life and work of Frank Bellamy (Frank Hampson's successor on 'Dan Dare,), by Paul Holder.

 

With echoes of the first Dan Dare story, 'The Phantom Fleet' opens with a spaceship awaiting take-off. But, rather than the terrestrial "Headquarters of the Interplanet Spacefleet some years in the future", the scene is now "Spacefleet Base on the Moon, some years in the future...'  On board is Dan Dare, Chief Pilot of the Spacefleet, making a routine check flight. Take-off goes well, but the ship has to return to the Moon in an emergency when all Spacefleet communications are mysteriously jammed. Dan and Co. investigate, and discover a race of highly intelligent aquatic aliens, the Cosmobes, who are intent on Earth colonisation. But it turns out the Cosmobes are fleeing a much more aggressive foe, from their dying home world...  

 

Die-hard Eagle fans may already have their collections of original Eagles and the Hawk Book reprints, but that shouln't stop them collecting these too! Beautifully produced in hardback with wrap-around dustjacket and in a convenient size, if you don't know what Dan Dare is about, or came to Dan Dare in one of his later incarnations, this series is the best place to start to find out about the original 1950s Frank Hampson creation. 

First published beginning 25th April 1958, the opening episodes of 'The Phantom Fleet' shows some of the Dan Dare production team's best work.  It's good to see this series continuing. Although I appreciate there may be formatting issues with some of the later stories, I can only hope that Titan manage to complete the reprints of the whole series, rather than cut it short as the Hawk Books series did. 

Although at a reduced size compared with the originals, with pages a little over A4 in size, this does make for a more handleable product. The more observant will notice that picture of Dan on the cover is different from that used for promotion before publication, which recycled an image of Dan from 'Operation Saturn'.