Eagle Times, Vol 21 No 1

Spring 2008 Contents

• Comics 101 - I was there (part 1)
• Eagle Times on the Web
• Stills from A Case for PC49 (Hammer Films)
  
• Clevedon Confectionery's trade card album
• The Iron Man - EAGLE's popular android
• HMS Eagle's association with EAGLE
• Frank Hampson in The Post (part 2)
• A Tribute to Chad Varah
• Virgin's Dare is not for me!
• Chris Weston's Dan Dare
• PC49 - The case of the Pink Panic (part 1)
  
• The mysterious case of Dan Dare's space suit
• EAGLE on the Web
• Whatever Happened to Harold Johns? (part 4)
• Pop Music in Eagle Times - 1961
• EAGLE Autographs (part 3)
  

With this edition, Eagle Times marks over 20 years of continuous publication - longer than the original publication, Eagle, that we celebrate! The cover features just a few samples of the 80 covers that have preceded this one, from 1988 - 2007.

Dan Dare & the Birth of Hi-tech Britain

The way Britain reinvented itself as a hi-tech nation after the Second World War is to be revealed in a free exhibition, due to open on 30th April, 2008 at the Science Museum, South Kensington, London. Titled Dan Dare and the Birth of Hi-tech Britain, the exhibition is expected to run until at least October, 2009.

Eagle's space hero, Dan Dare - a fixture in the lives of millions of British children (and their parents!) in the 1950s and 1960s - introduces the exhibition, showing the optimism, faith in technology and spirit of adventure of the times. As Dan Dare is being rediscovered today, there will be a special display of original artwork, merchandise and memorabilia. In case enthusiasts should be wondering, Eagle Times has confirmed with the museum that the artwork on display will include Frank Hampson's Dan Dare murals, commissioned by the Science Museum in 1977, and alongside some original artboards from the 1950s/60s Eagle (the latter were acquired by the museum in the 1990s).

The official press release states that:

Dan Dare and the Birth of Hi-tech Britain will capture the essence of those pivotal post-war years, showing how Britain took striking wartime advances like the jet engine, radar and penicillin to create new industries. This was a time when the state rolled out huge new projects for a free nationwide health service, nuclear power, supersonic flight and a radical rehousing programme - major developments which created a revolution in national affairs and personal life.

The free exhibition also looks at the reinvention of the home, the emerging importance of design and the arrival of previously unheard of consumer goods. It will show that the period, from 1945-1970, started the long climb from austerity to affluence and laid the foundations for the Britain of today.

The signature exhibit representing hi-tech is the Bloodhound missile. Seven metres long, with fins, two ramjet engines and four booster rockets, Bloodhound was one pillar of Britain's defence against Soviet threat in the Cold War. Reaching speeds of Mach 2 (about 1,500 mph) in four seconds, it surpassed anything produced by the US. Also on display will be the British-built 'Bomb' - the WE177 nuclear weapon - Britain's ticket to the top table of nations.

Some of the finest examples of British manufacturing of the time will be shown. These include iconic products from designers such as Gordon Russell, Abram Games, the man behind the iconic Festival of Britain poster, and Pye radios designed by Robin Day. It will show, moreover, a 'lost world' of British manufacturing - a time when many people's first TV was a Murphy, not a Sony!

Further details about the exhibition can be read in the full press release on the Museum's website.

The two examples of Dan Dare original artwork shown above are from:

'Reign of the Robots' (Eagle Volume 8 No 17, 26 April, 1957)
'Platinum Planet' (Eagle Volume 12 No 43, 28 October 1961)

Thanks to the Museum's Press Officer, Richard Purnell, for allowing us to include them here.

Dan Dare is © The Dan Dare Corporation Ltd.

Sir Arthur C. Clarke (1917 - 2008)

Arthur C. Clarke, the writer and visionary, a former Chairman of the British Interplanetary Society, has died, three months after celebrating his 90th birthday.

Born on 16th December, 1917, in Minehead, Somerset, Arthur Clarke was the eldest of four children. Before leaving school he joined the British Interplanetary Society, which had been founded in 1933. During the Second World War, he served in the RAF as a radar specialist. Afterwards he attended Kings College, London, graduating in 1948 with first-class honours in physics and mathematics.

In 1945 he sold a short story called ‘Rescue Party’ to Astounding Science Fiction, and began his science fiction writing career. In 1947, ten years before the launch of the first artificial satellite, he wrote a technical paper, published in Wireless World, demonstrating the feasibility of using artificial satellites as relay stations for radio communications. The “geostationary orbit” now used by numerous communications satellites, has since been designated the “Clarke Orbit” by the International Astronomical Union.

It was around this time that he wrote a story ‘The Fires Within’ that would later appear in Eagle, under the pseudonym Charles Willis. Arthur Clarke’s contribution to the early days of Eagle and ‘Dan Dare’, for which he was for a time scientific advisor, was marked here on the occasion of his 90th birthday. It may have been small in the overall scheme of his life, but that association is remembered affectionately and respectfully here.

Arthur Clarke became a prolific writer of fact and fiction, with almost 100 books to his name; books such as The Exploration of Space, Childhood’s End, The Sands of Mars, 2001: A Space Odyssey and Rendezvous with Rama. The novel 2001: A Space Odyssey resulted from four years collaboration with the film director Stanley Kubrick, with whom he shared the credit for the movie screenplay.

Arthur C. Clarke was knighted in 1988.

Walt Howarth (1928 - 2008)

Walt Howarth, who has just died, aged 80, was born on 1st January 1928 in Bolton, Lancashire. His talent for drawing faces was noticed at 4 years of age, and at 13 he was offered a scholarship at Bolton Art School, where he studied for three years. His first professional work was for the cover of Bolton's Salute to the Soldier Week programme in 1946. An avid fan of Bolton Wanderers Football Club, soon Walt was drawing their programme covers and getting five shillings a time for caricatures of the players.

A prolific (if largely unsung) artist, the majority of his work was (via Industrial Art Services) for World Distributors Ltd, whose annuals will be remembered for their distinctive yellow spines. From 1950-1959 he painted six John Wayne Annuals and seventy-seven John Wayne Comic covers, plus for the annuals, illustrations to text stories, endpapers, title/contents pages, and the odd feature or game/quiz page.


In addition, during the 1950s and 1960s, Walt painted covers for many of WDL's Annuals including titles such as: Bronco Lane, Bonanza, Cheyenne, Tenderfoot, Billy the Kid, Rawhide, Maverick, Western Roundup, Cisco Kid, Gunsmoke, Gene Autry, Rawhide, Wells Fargo, Range Rider, Roy Rogers , Wagon Train, TV Favourites, Superman, Batman, Tarzan, Green Hornet, Bewitched and High Chaparral, work which required the skills of a portraitist in capturing the likenesses of the characters seen on television and in film.

Some of his other work (of particular interest to Eagle Society members) included the box art for the 'Merit' Dan Dare Cosmic Ray Gun (produced by J & L Randall in about 1953), and most possibly for other Eagle-related toys of that era. In the 1960s he painted the covers for Dan Dare's Space Annual 1963, and for Eagle Annual 1965.

Of more general interest, he was also responsible for the cover illustrations of the first two Doctor Who Annuals.

An illustrated article, 'Walt Howarth' by Derek Wilson was published in Eagle Times Volume 18 No 3 (Autumn 2005), and gives more details of Walt's career. It can be read at the Gateway site, where it was posted in March, 2006.

Other internet sites reporting the death and and paying tribute to Walt Howarth:

• This is Lancashire
  
• Bear Alley
• Down the Tubes
• Lew Stringer

Virgin's Dan Dare computer game

In 1986 Virgin Games Ltd produced a Dan Dare, Pilot of the Future game, developed by the "Gang Of Five" (Dave B. Chapman, Martin Wheeler). Somewhat different versions were created for three platforms: the Sinclair Spectrum, the Amstrad CPC and the Commodore 64. Rather than being based on the new incarnation of 'Dan Dare' then running in the "new" Eagle, the game (and particularly the packaging) owed more to the original 1950s Eagle character created by Frank Hampson, who had died a year earlier. The instructions included the following:

This game is dedicated to the memory of Frank Hampson, the creator of Dan Dare who sadly died on 8th July 1985. We hope he would have approved of our treatment of his characters.

This "speedrun" of Dan Dare, Pilot of the Future, recently posted by "tehvalli" on YouTube gives a flavour of the Spectrum version:

If that whetted your appetite, and you want to play the game, there are emulators that run under Windows and other operating systems, and you can download the games to run on them. (See The World of Spectrum). Here is a link to download a Spectrum emulator, called ZX Spin, that runs under Windows (from 95 to XP I understand - I've run it under XP): download ZX Spin. Just download and unzip the files into a folder of your choice. The emulator should run by clicking on the ZXSpin.exe application. There is a Help file in the application.

To download the Spectrum version of Dan Dare to run on the emulator, click on the appropriate link in this List of Spectrum Games beginning with D. (Sorry, creating direct links to the file doesn't work). The original instructions for Dan Dare are here. And if you need a map, view one here.

The game was very successful, and led to two further (somewhat less successful!) games being developed: Dan Dare II: The Mekon's Revenge and Dan Dare III: The Escape. You will find download links for those in the same list you found Dan Dare, Pilot of the Future.

NOTE: Sorry, Eagle Times cannot provide any more help with installing, configuring or running the emulator or the games on your particular computer, so please don't ask!

Spaceship Away # 14

For aficionados of Eagle's original 'Dan Dare, Pilot of the Future' the latest issue of Rod Barzilay's Spaceship Away, is just out. Spaceship Away is a three times a year, full colour, 44-page A4 glossy magazine that publishes newly created 1950’s Eagle style 'Dan Dare' strip stories along with humorous strips, articles and text stories.

Issue 14 continues the 'Dan Dare' serial strips 'The Green Nemesis' (written by Rod Barzilay; drawn by Don Harley* and Tim Booth),'The Gates of Eden' (written and drawn by Tim Booth) and 'Rocket Pilot' (written and drawn by Keith Page). There is also the text serial 'Murder on Mars' by Denis Steeper (which is illustrated on the cover by Martin Baines); and a new full colour 'Dan Dare' centre-spread by the renowned Scottish artist Ian Kennedy, who drew 'Dan Dare' in the "new" Eagle in the 1980s. The humorous strips are 'Dan Bear' (by Andy Boyce), 'Mekki' and ''Our Bertie' (both by Ray Aspden), and 'Dan Dire' (by Eric Mackenzie).

In addition to the 'Dan Dare'-themed material Spaceship Away also includes a couple of other SF strips: Sydney ('Jeff Hawke') Jordan's 'Hal Starr' and a reprint of Charles Chilton's 'Journey into Space' (drawn by Ferdinando Tacconi) that originally appeared in Eagle's rival paper Express Weekly in 1956. Eagle readers will remember that Chilton, apart from creating the original 'Journey into Space' serial for BBC radio, was also the author of 'Jeff Arnold and the Riders of the Range' in Eagle. The 'Riders of the Range' was itself originally created for radio by Chilton.

For further details of Spaceship Away, including how to subscribe, please go to the Spaceship Away website. Some direct links to examples of some of the strips (from previous issues) are provided below:

Dan Dare: Green Nemesis
Dan Dare: The Gates of Eden
Dan Bear
Mekki
Journey into Space
Hal Starr

* Don Harley is one of the 1950s Eagle 'Dan Dare' studio artists (acknowledged by 'Dan Dare'-creator Frank Hampson as "The second best Dan Dare artist").

Eagle Artists - Keith Watson

Keith Watson (1935 – 1994) was born in Ormesbury, Middlesborough. In 1950, at the age of fifteen, he was inspired by seeing Frank Hampson’s ‘Dan Dare’ in Eagle and he became an instant fan. Although he had received no formal art training, in 1957 or early 1958 he submitted what was to be a successful job application to Frank Hampson, a pastiche front page of Eagle showing, in strip form, Dan & Co.’s reaction to the arrival a new artist – himself. Although there was no vacancy, Hampson was suitably impressed, and in 1958 Keith joined the ‘Dan Dare’ studio team as an assistant artist. After Hampson left in 1959, and Frank Bellamy took over as lead artist on ‘Dan Dare’, Keith continued along with the remainder of Hampson’s team but, dissatisfied at the way of working, he too left in 1960 - to draw ‘Captain Condor’ in Lion.

Two years later, he returned to Eagle as the sole artist on ‘Dan Dare’, and continued until early 1967 when Eagle began reprinting old ‘Dan Dare’ strips. After Eagle, Keith drew strips for a number of comics: ‘Sky Shark’ in Topper, ‘The Space Girls’ in Tina and Princess Tina. In 1968 he drew ‘Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons’ in TV21, and the next year, the title strip in Joe 90. In the late 1970s, he took over the ‘Roel Dijkstra’ football strip for a Dutch publisher. In 1989, he revived the “original” ‘Dan Dare’ for Fleetway's “new” Eagle, after which, in the early 1990s, he drew for Thunderbirds: the Comic. His final work, commissioned by Eagle Society member Rod Barzilay, was for a new “old school” ‘Dan Dare’ strip. After producing some designs and the first page, Keith was diagnosed with cancer. The opening page of ‘The Phoenix Mission’ (which appeared, posthumously, in the first issue of Spaceship Away in 2003) was to be the last he drew.

Eagle 'Dan Dare'strips:

• The Ship that Lived* ( Vol 9 Nos 5 - 16)
• The Phantom Fleet* (Vol 9 Nos 17 - 52)
• Safari in Space * (Vol 10 Nos 1 -18)
• Terra Nova* (Vol 10 Nos 19 - 40)
• Trip to Trouble* (Vol 10 No 41 - Vol 11 No 11)
• Operation Earthsaver (Vol 13 Nos 10 - 23)
  
• The Evil One (Vol 13 Nos 24 - 32)
• Operation Fireball (Vol 13 Nos 33 - 42)
• The Web of Fear (Vol 13 Nos 43 - 52)
• Operation Dark Star (Vol 14 Nos 1 - 9)
• Operation Time Trap (Vol 14 Nos 10 - 38)
• The Wandering World (Vol 14 No 39 - Vol 15 No 13)
• The Big City Caper (Vol 15 Nos 14 - 22)
• All Treens Must Die (Vol 15 Nos 23 - 42)
• The Mushroom (Vol 15 No 43 - Vol 16 No 6)
• The Moonsleepers (Vol 16 No 7 - Vol 16 No 29 )
• The Singing Scourge Vol 16 No 30 - Vol 17 No 6)
• Give me the Moon (Vol 17 No 7 - Vol 17 No 26)
• The Menace from Jupiter (Vol 17 No 27 - Vol 18 No 1)

*Assistant on the Dan Dare studio/team

The illustration is a self portrait of Keith sent in by Richard Sheaf, who informs us it is from Strips '80, the handook of the Society of Strip Illustration. It is part of a directory of SSI members and was intended as an introduction for those who attended the SSI conference in November, 1980.

ET Refs:

• Roger Coombes Keith Watson interview (1991). Eagle Times Vol 4 No 3 – Vol 6 No 1 (7 parts)
• Vince, Alan. Keith Watson – the artist and friend (obituary) Eagle Times Vol 7 No 2
• Coombes, Roger. Keith Watson, a tribute (obituary) Eagle Times Vol 7 No 2
• Britton, David. He wants to be a ... Dan Dare Artist (on Keith Watson’s original job application) Eagle Times Vol 16 No 1
• Winders, Steve. Keith Watson’s Dan Dare Eagle Times Vol 20 No 1 – Vol 20 No 3