Dan Dare Omnibus

Product Information

Space Clothes: Averted in the case of humans, who wear 1950s clothes even while walking around their futuristic cities. The aliens wear classic Space Clothes, though. Dan Dare is a British science fiction comic hero, created by illustrator Frank Hampson who also wrote the first stories. [2] Dare appeared in the Eagle comic series Dan Dare, Pilot of the Future from 1950 to 1967 (and subsequently in reprints), and dramatised seven times a week on Radio Luxembourg (1951–1956). Cool Old Lady: Aunt Anastasia. Her Moment of Awesome came when she noticed a hidden distress message in a communication from Digby. She immediately headed to Spacefleet HQ, pushed past all the guards, barged into the Acting Controller's office and demanded that he listen. This ended with a commando raid on the visiting Treen ships while she sat quietly in the office with a cup of tea. Queen guitarist and astronomer, Brian May, put his enthusiasm and fascination for astronomy down to Dan Dare. He fondly remembered the Dan Dare strip as "incredible, these are like real photographs of real things happening in space".

The original strip, featuring the original characters of the 1950s Eagle, was revived in 1989, with artist Keith Watson providing the artwork for the initial run of stories. Watson had been part of the Dan Dare team from 1958 to 1960 and was sole artist on Dan Dare from 1962 to 1967. The artwork for the final stories was provided by David Pugh. The new Eagle ended in 1994. Episodes of The Adventures of Dan Dare were recorded on to what are commonly known as acetate discs (more correctly called lacquer discs), and later on tape. It is possible that even the taped episodes may have been copied to acetate discs for shipment to Luxembourg. Acetate discs are usually made of metal or glass with a coating of some lacquer into which the grooves are cut. They continued to be used quite widely in broadcasting until the early 1960s. When asked about the influence of Dan Dare, the late Professor Stephen Hawking replied: "Why am I in cosmology?" A cheerful, trustworthy soul, Dan had many friends who aided him in his exploits, including faithful batman Spaceman Class 1 Albert Digby, his boss, Sir Hubert Guest, Spacefleet Controller, fellow pilots Hank and Pierre, and boffin Professor Peabody, who was also distinguished by being a rather fetching young lady! Missions were usually undertaken in his personal spaceship, the Anastasia.In the late 1930s, and again in the 1950s and 1960s, Radio Luxembourg captured very large audiences in Britain and Ireland with its programmes of popular entertainment, despite the signal issues that often plagued listeners from around the country listening in.

The gravity on Venus is approximately 90% of that on Earth, giving every human a small degree of superstrength while on the planet. They're not Kryptonians, but it does give them a bit of an edge. I thought we might sell the idea to a Sunday newspaper and very soon we had the interest of the editor of the Sunday Empire News, Terence Horsley," he recalled. "But not for long: he was tragically killed in a gliding accident." It was a frustrating task on the nights of poor reception of Radio Luxembourg, which was often subject to a lot of interference in the winter and sometimes faded almost completely on the medium wave in the summer.” Many early stories in The Eagle were written by Chad Varah, who was later to go on and found The Samaritans. Heroic Lineage: The Dan who appeared in the 1980s strips was a great-grandson of the Dan from the 1950s strips.

Printer's Strike between June and August 1959; last Frank Hampson issue - Volume 10, Number 27; subsequently drawn by Frank Bellamy and others.

The Venus of the Dan Dare strips was a lush planet, with three main races living on it: the emotionless, technically-advanced Treens in the north and the peaceful Therons and Atlanteans in the south. Separating the two was the Flamebelt, a band of volcanoes and molten lava inhabited by the dangerous Silicon Monster. To show how science fiction mirrored life, the first issue of the Eagle featuring Dan Dare found Earth in the middle of a food crisis, with the launch of a desperate mission to reach Venus. This was a storyline which spoke to readers still living on post-war rations. A 350kW medium wave transmitter – relocated from Junglinster to Marnach to provide a better reception in England and Scandinavia – did not go into service until 1956. THE CAST

Horde of Alien Locusts: The story 'The Red Moon Mystery' featured "space bees" that would strip planets of organic life. Daniel Tatarsky, editor. Eagle Annual: The Best of the 1950s Comic: Features Dan Dare, the Greatest Comic Strip of All Time (London: Orion, 2007) [graph: illus/hb/] Professor Jocelyn Peabody's lovely looks were modelled on original Eagle studio artist Greta Tomlinson. Strangely, in later stories, the Prof's appearance was changed - perhaps because Greta had left the studio by then. The Mekon, super-intelligent ruler of the Treens, was Dan's archenemy. He escaped at the end of each story to return with an even more inventive scheme for the conquest of Earth.