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Post by Deleted on Apr 14, 2023 5:31:41 GMT -5
I first came across Dan Dare in a late 80s Eagle and Wildcat comic: At that stage in my life, that was the *only* Dan Dare I knew. He seemed akin to Dredd. Maybe he could have been inspired by the 80s action heroes like Arnie. He carried a big gun. Around late 1989, the original Dan Dare made his return to Eagle: While I enjoyed those stories, “original Dan Dare” meant nothing to me. Then, at some point in the 90s, I did buy some 1982/83 issues of Eagle at a jumble sale. One strip mentioned this Dare being the great-grandson (I think) of the original Dare. Anyway, to cut a long story short, once the worldwide web became a thing, I was able to research Dan Dare’s 1950s origins, his successors, the changes to the strips - and even his 2000 AD tenure: Now, a certain rude comic creator had a bit of a go at me years ago for stating that “my” Dare was the one I came across in the late 80s. Well, excuse me for not being around in 1950 when the original Dare debuted. We each come to a character at a certain time. Batman is a good example. You may have come across the Batman that travelled to alien planets. Or maybe “The Joker’s Five-Way Revenge” was your first experience of the Dark Knight. If you’re young, perhaps the Batman who was in Batman: The Animated Series was your first experience of the character. Why should Dan Dare be any different? For me, it was a culture shock when the original Dan Dare returned (because the concept of original Dare had no meaning in my world then). But I suspect that a person who first saw Dare in 1950 was probably shocked when he morphed into a Dredd-like tough guy in the 80s. We all come to things at a certain stage, and when that happens, we don’t immediately head to Wikipedia to look up the character. I only know of Dare’s historical context due to Google years ago. Who’s “your” Dare, if you follow the character at all? Also, is there anyone who’d recommend the 2000 AD Dare stories? I believe Rebellion put a volume or two out.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 14, 2023 7:11:04 GMT -5
I literally last year first encountered the character by way of this collection of the early 50's material. Fantastic reading (very "ahead of its time"), I need to pick up another volume come to think of it.
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Post by foxley on Apr 14, 2023 9:03:53 GMT -5
The only version of Dan Dare I really know was the one who ran in the New Eagle in the early 1980s. This was only traditional strip in the comic, as all of the other strips were photo-comics.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 14, 2023 11:33:44 GMT -5
I literally last year first encountered the character by way of this collection of the early 50's material. Fantastic reading (very "ahead of its time"), I need to pick up another volume come to think of it. You know, I need to get these. Soon. Your post has served as a reminder.
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Dan Dare
Apr 14, 2023 11:44:46 GMT -5
via mobile
Post by Hoosier X on Apr 14, 2023 11:44:46 GMT -5
I was thinking Dan Dare sounds familiar. But I don’t really read that many British comics, so I don’t think I would’ve seen anything that you’re talking about.
But then I started thinking I had seen a comic with a name similar to Dan Dare in a late 30s or early 40s American comic book. In a reprint of course.
I did a little online research, and found that, yes, there was a feature called Dan Dare in early issues of Whiz Comics, with Captain Marvel and Spy Smasher. I have not had a chance to look into it any further, but my memory tells me that he was a hotshot reporter, but I may be getting it mixed up with another of those early series.
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Post by berkley on Apr 14, 2023 18:11:52 GMT -5
Like Supercat I only started getting into Dan Dare about a year or two ago and it's one of my favourite comics that I've read during that time. I just read Rogue Planet not long ago and have Reign of the Robots lined up next. Unfortunately the next volumes in this series of Titan collections, Phantom Fleet and Safari in Space, are a bit expensive and I've held off buying them for now. I believe creator Frank Hampson left in the middle of the following story, so I'm not sure if I'll continue after those or not, assuming I manage to find copies of PF and SiS.
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Post by wildfire2099 on Apr 14, 2023 20:21:01 GMT -5
I feel like I should like Dan Dare, but when I tried reading that collection via Hoopla I couldn't stay awake to finish it. Maybe another time 'll have better luck.
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Post by codystarbuck on Apr 14, 2023 21:38:56 GMT -5
I first saw an excerpt of Hampson art, in Maurice Horn's World Encyclopedia of Comics. The first Dan Dare I came across was the later one, in one of those 2000 AD reprint comics, that appeared in the US, briefly and it did nothing for me. I have since gotten ahold of digital files for the original stuff, but have not read any of it, yet.
I do recall amusement from seeing Michael Palin wearing a Dan Dare t-shirt, during the filming of Around the World in 80 Days (jogging, in England and on the dhow, to India). I believe he was a big fan.
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Dan Dare
Apr 14, 2023 22:03:19 GMT -5
via mobile
zaku likes this
Post by majestic on Apr 14, 2023 22:03:19 GMT -5
My first exposure to Dan Dare was the Garth Ennis series from Virgin Comics. That led me to seek out reprints of the 50s series.
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Post by foxley on Apr 15, 2023 4:09:43 GMT -5
According to QI, Dan Dare's creator originally intended Dare to be a space chaplain, before being convinced that a pilot was a better option.
And the early strips prided themselves on their scientific plausibility, and the promising young writer Arthur C. Clarke acted as science and plot adviser for the first six months of strips.
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Confessor
CCF Mod Squad
Not Bucky O'Hare!
Posts: 10,051
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Post by Confessor on Apr 15, 2023 4:29:21 GMT -5
I really love the original 1950s and 1960s Dan Dare strips from The Eagle. I had some knowledge of who Dan Dare was when I was growing up thanks to my father talking fondly about the strip, which he had read sporadically as a child, and also just through the wider pop cultural references that I would encounter from time to time; there was, for example, an insurance advert on British TV in the early 80s that featured Dan Dare and Digby trying to buy insurance for one of their space rockets. But I think my first encounter with the character must've been through the re-imagined version published in 2000 AD in the late '70s, but I don't ever really recall particularly enjoying that strip. Having re-read some of it recently, I can confirm that it was really lacklustre and bore little relation to the classic version of the character. The early '80s iteration of the character in the pages of the new, re-launched Eagle completely passed me by, I'm afraid to say driver1980 . So, I think my first proper encounter with the classic '50s version of the character was, strangely enough, via the mid-80s home computer game Dan Dare: Pilot of the Future, which I used to play on my Commodore 64 PC in my early teens... I only finally read the original strips in the late 80s, when Hawk Books put out a number of full size facsimile reprints. I picked up the first volume, which reprinted the initial "Voyage to Venus" storyline, along with volume 3: "Operation Saturn". As soon as I read these collections I completely fell in love with the characters and setting and was hooked forever. Frank Hampson's painstakingly hand painted artwork on Dan Dare was absolutely gorgeous, with boundless imagination in evidence and the grandeur of the various inter-planetary locales that Dan visits often being genuinely breathtaking. Frank Bellamy took over art chores the early 60s and his artwork on the likes of the Terra Nova story line or "Project Nimbus" is really great too... Something that I always make mention of whenever I talk about Dan Dare in the forum is the wonderful "future-retro" aesthetic of it all. On the one hand, the strip is cluttered with the futuristic technology of the then-far flung late 1990s, but on the other hand it looks hopelessly outdated -- with the pilots of the Interplanetary Space Fleet all dressed in RAF Bomber Command uniforms, and with the spaceships looking sleek and futuristic on the outside, but inside their controls and instrument consoles all look like those of a Lancaster bomber. The stiff upper lipped, post-World War 2 Britishness of Dan and the central cast is just fantastic, full of manly heroism and honest, down-to-Earth British values, while the few women in the strip all swoon away at the slightest hint of danger. It's glorious.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 15, 2023 6:15:54 GMT -5
Great recap, Confessor, I learnt a lot from that, thanks! I did have this annual: And this one:
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Post by zaku on Apr 15, 2023 17:53:37 GMT -5
Fun fact: I've only read the Dan Dare miniseries written by Garth Ennis (liked it). So I read the character deconstruction without knowing what the pre-deconstructed original character looked like. I tried to use my imagination a lot!
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Post by berkley on Apr 15, 2023 23:16:00 GMT -5
The Frank Bellamy samples above have convinced me that I want to try at least the first collection where he takes over the art.
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Dan Dare
Apr 16, 2023 2:43:17 GMT -5
via mobile
Post by zaku on Apr 16, 2023 2:43:17 GMT -5
I've just read the wiki page about the character, and even Grant Morrison did a Dan Dare mini! Anyone read it?
Edit: this is what the page had to say about it:
The last part doesn't seem very encyclopedic to me 😅
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