Category: Dan Dare

 

By Frank Hampson (Titan Books)
ISBN 1-84023-841-0

Earth is starving! The only hope is for the expeditionary force on Venus to find food! But Dan Dare and his team have not been heard from in weeks!

Colonel Dare has his own problems. Venus is inhabited by two advanced races trapped in a Cold War for that has lasted for millennia, but it turned pretty hot once the Earthmen got involved. As the Therons battle the ruthless Treens, the malevolent Mekon launches an invasion of our planet, too!

Breakneck pace, truly astonishing high concepts leavened with wholesome music hall larks and some of the most beautiful and powerful art ever to grace a comic page makes the concluding volume of Frank Hampson’s first Dan Dare adventure as much a magical experience now as it was in 1951. These stories captured and still hold the minds of a generation, and you’d be crazy not to see why for yourselves.

This volume also includes a fascinating and lavishly illustrated interview with the creator and a nominal ‘prequel’ in the form of a strip (from an annual) set on Mars eight years before that fateful trip to Venus.

This Titan Books series is glorious tribute to the unforgettable heroes of a forgotten future. They deserve and demand your attention. It makes one proud to be an Earthling.

© 2004 Dan Dare Corporation. All rights Reserved.

 

By Frank Hampton (Titan Books)
ISBN 1-84023-644-2

There is precious little that I can say about Dan Dare that hasn’t been said before and better. What I will say is that everything you’ve heard is true. The vintage Dan Dare strips by Frank Hampson and his team are a high point in world, let alone British, comics, that ranks alongside Tintin, Asterix, Tetsuan Atomo, Lone Wolf & Cub and the best works of Kirby, Adams, Toth, Noel Sickles, Milt Caniff, Elzie Segar and Carl Barks. If you don’t like this stuff, there’s probably nothing any of us can do to change your mind, and all we can do is hope you never breed.

The Titan edition is a lavish re-presentation of the first year or so (14th April 1950 – 12th January 1951) of the strip that headlined the groundbreaking and legendary Eagle. Earth is slowly starving and must find new resources to feed its hungry billions. Space Fleet, despite three tragic losses, readies another mission to the mystery planet Venus, where it is thought such resources could be hidden beneath the all-enveloping clouds. The Earth’s last hope might be a strong-jawed, taciturn pilot and his podgy Lancastrian batman.

Thus starts a fantastic, frenetic rollercoaster of action and wonderment, replete with all the elements of classic adventure: determined heroes, outlandish villains, fantastic locales and a liberal dose of tongue-in-cheek fun. This is landmark comic adventuring and it has never been bettered.

The book also contains interviews and text features to bring alive not just the context of the stories produced in the 1950’s yet still affecting our world today, but also a Who’s Who of the characters, features on the creators and a checklist and glossary of the original stories. If you’re into comics, you should definitely own these volumes. If you love a good read, you should seek out this book and its sequels. Or simply if you’re Decent and British, Dammit, you should love these stories!

 

By Warren Ellis, Chris Weston & Laura Martin (Titan Books)
ISBN 1-84023-924-7

This thematic and – artistically at least – stylistic revisitation of the glory days of British comic icon Dan Dare explores what might have happened if the ravaged and near bankrupt post-war Empire had captured those Nazi rocket scientists rather than the Soviets and Americans. By examining the rise of the UK Space Force and its ruthless creator Sir John Dashwood through the lens of post-Thatcherite cynicism, Ellis and Weston create a telling fable of patriotism and lost chances.

This is a sharp tale crisply told, and should be entertaining to long time comic readers and newcomers alike. In fact, no one but the most intransigent Dare fanatic or spandex junkie could find fault. I especially like the paper friendly, futuristic cover (is that Tyvek plastic? I’d love to know!).

© 2005 Warren Ellis & Chris Weston. All rights reserved.