Virgin Comics closes New York office, prohects cancelled?

Updated 28/8/08: Publishers Weekly reports that Virgin Comics, the two year-old joint venture between the Virgin Group and India's comic book publisher Gotham Entertainment and publishers of the recent Dan Dare mini series by Garth Ennis and Gary Erskine, has closed its US offices in New York.

Among the apparent casualties of the cancelled comic line are a second, already-scripted Dan Dare, Grant Morrison's MBX web animation and, according to comics journalist Rich Johnston, Terry Gilliam's Time Bandits II, who also reports their have been redundancies at the company's Indian offices.

Hollywood Reporter notes that the closure is due "the current macro-economic downturn" in its report and CEO Sharad Devarajan and president Suresh Seetharaman, says Virgin hopes to restructure the business and consolidate its operations at a Los Angeles base.

Eight people have been laid off from the company, founded in 2006 to create superhero and adventure print comics based on Indian mythology, which could also be licensed for film and merchandising and financed by Richard Branson's Virgin Group. Author/speaker Deepak Chopra is Chairman of the company and his son Gotham Chopra is CCO and Editor-in-Chief of Virgin Comics and Virgin Animation respectively.

It has published 18 trade paperback collections and three hardcover titles and produced more than a dozen different comics series, with contirbuitors including Guy Ritchie, John Woo, Nicolas Cage, Ed Burns and musician Dave Stewart. Ritchie's The Game Keeper found a home at Warner Bros. but the status of the film is unclear this time and at this stage, it is also unclear what will happen to the rights to these properties.

Variety reports on the low sales for many titles and opines that the publishing label ddi not succeed with comicbook readers, mainly because the company focused much of its efforts on books with stories involving Indian mythology.

Hollywood, though, has grown increasingly interested in Virgin Comics because of its deals with filmmakers and talent.

In a statement but the company said it would not remain idle.

"We remain excited about the business and partnerships we have built through Virgin Comics and are working towards a restructuring that properly takes the business forward," said Devarajan.

Dan Dare Gary Erskine told downthetubes he remains hopeful the second series featuring the character may yet appear. "There are still discussions going on between Virgin and Gotham," he said in a brief statement.

• Heidi MacDonald offers a thorough analysis of Virgin Comics demise on The Beat: Requiem for a Virgin... "... Starting a comic book company just to get movie options as a business plan... that does not work..."

Tube Surfing: 25 July 2008

• Steve Winders has reviewed Dan Dare: Pilot of the Future Voyage to Venus Part 1 , Orion’s new audio version of the first half of Dan Dare’s first ever adventure from Eagle for Bear Alley, noting it sticks rigidly to Frank Hampson’s original script and this is a major strength of the production. "Hampson’s story is well paced and his witty script, with strong character interplay, transfers well to audio."

• We're sorry to report that Randy Pausch, inspirational author of The Last Lecture, died today, aged 47. We ran a news item on him and his famous lectureback in March - creators could do worse than view his talk. The Los Angeles Times (among many others) posted a tribute to him, noting his book, , has sold over two million copies and is being published in 29 languages. Memorial donations may be made to the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network, www.pancan.org, or to Carnegie-Mellon's Randy Pausch Memorial Fund, www.cmu.edu/giving/pausch.

• A quick reminder that this Saturday sees the Edinburgh Zine and Small Press Fair, which is due to take place from 12 noon to 5.00pm in the upstairs section of the Forest Cafe, 3 Bristo Place, Edinburgh. Malcy Duff's new comic The 4th 4th Bridge should be on sale at the fair as well as from his Missing Twin website.

• Over on the Birmingham Mail's Speech Balloons, Paul Birch reports that on Sunday 27th July three young local comic creators will be featured on Carl Chinn's BBC Radio WM show. Among other things, Matthew Craig, Donato Esposito and Jack Davies will be discussing their new webcomic Bostin Heroes.The Mail also has a feature on the comic here. To hear the Carl Chinn radio show featuring Bostin Heroes visit:
www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/radio#local

• Doctor Who had them back in the Tom Baker years. Now Judge Dredd has followed into the netherwear universe with the release of Judge Dredd underpants, avalable from August from Asda stores across the UK. A snip at £3 a pair. Will the lawman be investigating how Asda make them so cheaply? "Are these standard issue Justice Department knickers, I wonder?" ponders Joe Gordon over at Forbidden Planet International. "I’d have thought Dredd might need something with some padding around the back to make sitting on that bike all day more comfortable and prevent chafing." Coming soon: Halo Jones thongs and Gronk nose pins. (Sorry, we made the last bit up, especially about the nose pins).

• More up the street of reader here is probably the Dredd vs Death statue from First4Figures, now available from http://www.2000ADshop.com. Based on an image by artist Greg Staples, the figurine features the future lawman locked in a deadly struggle with the alien superfiend - and all orders taken through the webshop will come with an exclusive print signed by the Staples droid, which isn't available in any stores. A snip at £119.99 (Earth money). Recession? What recession? Your domicile demands it!

Tube Surfing: 23 July 2008

Two DVD releases coming soon from the worlds of Gerry Anderson are worth a mention. The last of the major Anderson productions to reach UK DVD, the 1969 live action feature film Doppelganger, will be released under its American title of Journey To The Far Side Of The Sun on 8 September. Doppelganger was very much the prototype for the UFO TV series which made use of much of its hardware. The other Anderson release is the complete Thunderbirds TV series on Blu-Ray on 15 September. This will be the first time that any of the Anderson titles has been released in a high definition format although the 4:3 format of the originals will probably be zoomed and otherwise reformatted for 16:9 widescreen.
• Buy Journey to the Far Side of the Sun from amazon.co.uk (Region 2)
• Buy the Thunderbirds Blu-Ray set from amazon.co.uk
• Buy Journey to the Far Side of the Sun from amazon.com (Region 1)

The second Hillhead Comic and Toy Fair of 2008 will take place in Hillhead Library, Glasgow on Saturday 6 September starting at 11am and running to 3pm. Entry is free and there are more details on their Myspace page.

The special Virgin Dan Dare hardback which reprints the first three issues of the seven issue limited series is now in the shops. This should not be confused with the full version of the story which will be released as a graphic novel in October. The seventh and final part of the Garth Ennis/Gary Erskine title is available from this week and it is a double issue.

Tube Surfing: 29 June 2008

• Tim Perkins and other comics creators and web sites includng The Beat report the sad news that US artist Michael Turner (Witchblade, Fathom and many superb covers for Marvel) has died aged just 37 after a long battle with cancer. Our sympathies to his family and friends. Tim's post inlcudes some of Michael's outstanding art. Anyone wishing to make a charitable donation to please send to Michael Turner's requested charities: The American Cancer Society or The Make-A-Wish Foundation.

• To celebrate the release of the over-sized hardcover Dan Dare collection, MySpaceTV is airing an exclusive trailer of Virigin Comics take on the doughty pilot of the future. To view the bold, new trailer journey here. The over-sized hardcover edition collects issues 1 through 3 of Dan Dare, written by Garth Ennis with art by Gary Erskine.
• Preorder the collection (out in October) from amazon.com or amazon.co.uk

• Comic artist Al Davison (Spiral Cage, Sprial Dreams and many more great works) is hosting a five week life drawing class which begins on Wednesday, 9 July. For more information contact Al via his Astral Gypsy website

• The July 2008 issue of scifi webmag SFcrowsnest.com is now online. There are lots of goodies to read, including interviews with SF/F writers Robert J. Sawyer, Jacqueline Carey, Steven Erikson, Paul Kearney, Conrad Williams and Nancy Kress, articles in memory of Stan Winston and Algis Budrys, a movie review of the The Incredible Hulk, while author Philip Palmer reports back from the Cannes Film Festival with a fan's eye on events.
US author L.E. Modesitt also asks what's likely to last in the genre, and there's more news and reviews of books, dvds, comics and magazines than you can shake a lightsabre at. Point your ordinance at www.SFcrowsnest.com

• Talking of SF, Steve Holland's Bear Alley is proving avtreasure trobve for fans of SF book cover art of late. One of his latest postings is devoted to John Harris, another illustrator being covered (albeit briefly) in Steve's upcoming Sci-Fi Art book so I won't say much here. A very good book of his work came out in 200, Mass, with text written by Ron Tiner, which offers a lot of insight into his thinking and techniques.

• The Beat has published several new photos from Batman: Dark Knight, which has been dedicated to Heath Legder, who completed his role as The Joke shortly before his untimely death.

• Talk about memorable reading. Over on blog London Loves Comics there's a plug for the 1981 2000AD annual, which features the Mekon's "10 ways to destroy the world". One of them, which operhaps stuck in the mind of Garth Ennis when it came to the new Virgin Dan Dare series, is to introduce a black hole to the solar system and watch it such all the energy from the Earth...

• Neil Gaiman offers a disturbing post, The New Paranoia, on the tricks authorities might get up to when you enter a country with your laptop. "I have friends who practice ultra-safe computing when crossing borders: examine their computers and you'll find yourself on something almost data-free, so you'd not be looking at encrypted files, you'd simply not be looking at files -- the same kinds of things that Cory Doctorow describes in Little Brother. And I've always thought they were being, well, silly." Then Neil read an article in the LA Times which reported that US Courts have ruled, as recently as this spring in a case stemming from a search at LAX, that there's no need for warrants or suspicions when a person is seeking to enter the country because any "routine search" is reasonable under the Fourth Amendmentm and started to worry... . In effect, it's like luggage: anything and everything in your laptop, cellphone, BlackBerry or digital camera can be examined and copied by US Customs and Border Protection agents. Read Neil's full post

• Finally for this TubeSurf, a quick reminder about the excellent Alan Moore interview published earlier this month on the Forbidden Planet International blog (part 1, part 2) and a plug for writer Pádraig Ó Méalóid’s Glycon live journal. It’s a fascinating repository of all things Alan Moore, including a lot of completely unavailable and extremely rare work, such as these incredible examples of Moore’s artwork for the From Hell series (thanks to Joe Gordon for the link).

Latest Spaceship Away Now Available

The fifteenth issue of 'Classic' Dan Dare magazine Spaceship Away is now on sale direct from the official website or from specialist shops.

Behind the Tim Booth cover are the regular Dare strips of Green Nemesis with art by Don Harley and Tim Booth, Booth's own Gates Of Eden and Ray Aspen's Dan Dare based humour strips Mekki and Our Bertie. Keith Page's Dare prequel Rocket Pilot and the 1950s reprint strip Journey Into Space continue whilst Sydney Jordan's Hal Starr draws to a conclusion. A new strip begins in the CGI shape of Iain McClumpha's Space Girls which, based on a single preview image in the previous issue, has divided opinion in the letters column as to whether it should be included in the title or not. The highlight of the issue however is a warts and all reminiscence by original Hampson studio artist Greta Tomlinson for her time working on Dan Dare combined with a painted cutaway by Graham Bleathman of the Bakehouse studio that she worked in in 1950.

There is also a sneak preview of Mike Nicoll's highly detailed CG art for downthetube's own John Freeman's space strip, Ex Astris, which begins in the next issue. Also starting next time is Ron Turner's Nick Hazard strip newly coloured by John Ridgway.

Spaceship Away issue 15 costs £6.99 for its 44 glossy colour pages. More details are available on the website along with details of the new Spaceship Away binder.

21st Century Dare Merchandising

With the new Virgin version of Dan Dare drawing to a close with issue 7 of the limited series, Virgin have jumped onto the merchandise bandwagon with an item about as far removed from the metal toys and bagatelles of 1950's Dare merchandising that it is possible to get.

They have released an iPod Classic skin featuring Bryan Talbot's cover artwork for issue 1 of the limited series. For our readers who still prefer sliding a C-90 into their Walkman, an iPod skin is an illustrated cover for the portable digital music player. This particular one retails at $15 from the Virgin Comics Store, although they are currently free if you order one of the Dan Dare hardback books that reprints the first three issues of the series.

If you like the illustration but would prefer it in a more traditional format then a limited edition lithograph of the same cover is also available. The lithograph is 24 x 18 inches and retails at $49.99.

Visit the Virgin Comics Store for more details of their Dan Dare collectibles.

Dare, Mekon T-Shirts On Sale Online

In our recent review of the Dan Dare and The Birth Of Hi-Tech Britain exhibition at London's Science Museum, Jeremy Briggs mentioned the Dan Dare/Mekon t-shirts and how they weren’t in the online store.

Peer Lawther, E-Marketing Executive at the Museum, has kindly been in touch to say this problem has now been rectified.

The Dan Dare and Mekon shirts come in 100% cotton and are available in black or white in children and adult sizes.

• Buy the Dan Dare shirt from the Science Museum Store

• Buy the Mekon shirt from the Store

Dan Dare Cap Badges, Dredd Buckles Released

Following the sell-out success of its Judge Dredd badges, Termight Replicas has announced two new licensed products available for pre-order. Both are full-sized props, with the same gold-plating as the Dredd badge, but this time combining it with coloured hard enamel.

The Dan Dare cap badge will be 4.5cm in diameter and costs £9.95. The concept art is by Chris Weston, based on Frank Hampson’s original design.

The Judge Dredd buckle will be 12cm wide by 9cm tall, and costs £39.95. The concept art is by Michael Carroll, based on Cliff Robinson’s design and input.

• Both items can be pre-ordered by cheque or PayPal post-free worldwide from the Termight Replicas website: www.termight.co.uk/dtt.php

Judge Dredd © 2008 Rebellion A/S. Dan Dare © 2008 The Dan Dare Corporation Ltd.

In Review: Dan Dare and The Birth Of Hi-Tech Britain

Dan Dare And The Birth Of Hi-Tech Britain is one of the exhibitions currently on at the Science Museum in London. Using the character of Dan Dare and the cutaway illustrations from Eagle comic, the museum relates the technological advances in post-war Britain from 1945 through to 1970.

Located on the second floor the exhibition begins with the Dan Dare section including the two murals Dan Dare creator Frank Hampson painted for the museum in 1976. The originals of these are on display as well as large reproductions on banners covering the museum's windows.

Two display cases contain original Dan Dare artwork and Hampson's ideas book which is open at an illustration of a Phant Army Lorry, previously published in Spaceship Away. The cases also contain an impressive selection of 1950's Dan Dare toys and games from the collection of David Britton.

The single largest item on display is an RAF Bloodhound 1 anti-aircraft missile which hangs in mid-air just beyond the balcony railing and which which is displayed with L Ashwell-Wood's cutaway illustration of it from Eagle.

The two balconies are divided into Reinventing The Home, which shows some of the technological breakthroughs of the time, from a coffee percolator to a video cassette recorder, and Building A New Britain, which shows items relating to the nuclear power industry, jet airliners and a practise round of the WE177 free-fall nuclear bomb carried by RAF bombers of the time.

While the Dan Dare section is relatively small in comparison to the rest of the exhibition, illustrations, cutaways and the Eagle masthead style yellow lettering on a red background visually tie the two separate galleries into the Dan Dare section well.

The Science Museum shop has a selection of tie-in merchandise specifically relating to the exhibition with two different t-shirt designs, one featuring the head of Dan Dare and and the other featuring the head of the Mekon, in a variety of children's and adult sizes, a set of seven postcards in a presentation wallet consisting of a series of head shots of different Dan Dare characters, and a separate postcard of the main exhibition advertising illustration.

Dan Dare And The Birth Of Hi-Tech Britain is on at the Science Museum in London until 25 October 2009 and entrance is free.

• Buy the Dan Dare t-shirt from the Science Museum Store

• Buy the Mekon t-shirt from the Store

Dan Dare Exhibition Reviews

Several newspapers and web sites have reported on the new Dan Dare and the Birth of Hi Tech Britain exhibition at the Science Museum in London.

• The Guardian has posted a gallery of images from the strip and images of the exhibition, including a great shot of Frank Hampson's glorious murals, painted back in 1977, while Jonathan Glancey offers a fascinating commentary on Hampson's work on Dan Dare in an article titled "Sufferin' satellites! We've built the future!"

"Hampson's drawings, together with the contemporary hi-tech ethos they evoked, affected both domestic life and scientific endeavour in 1950s Britain," he opines. "Yet it was architecture - not the main concern of the Science Museum show - that was actually most influenced by the Dan Dare dream of a futuristic Britain." It turns out that arhitects such as Norman Foster are among Dan Dare's many fans. ""I loved the coloured, cross-sectional, technical drawings that appeared in the middle of the Eagle after Dan Dare," Foster says of reading the strip, and he still does, as is Laurie Chetwood, one of Britain's leading architects, whose most recent proposal is a $300m space-age sanctuary for world leaders in the Nevada desert.

"Although Dan Dare parked his spaceship for the last time nearly 40 years ago, the pilot of the future's adventures continue to be played out in the architectural fabric of Britain and beyond," Glancey argues. "Hampson died in 1985, yet his vision of a genuinely decent, exciting and even noble future - set in thrilling vistas made possible by science and daring design - remains an inspiration even in our own knowing, clever age."

• Toby Clements also admires high-tech relics at a show inspired by a comic-strip hero in the Telegraph, in an article titled "Dan Dare: Where Dan dares, boffins follow".

• Ben Hoyle focuses more on the science side of the period in his article for the Times, rather dully titled "Dan Dare exhibition latest to revisit lost era of the Fifties". in it Chris Rapley, the director of the Science Museum, says that the show “revealed a surprising lost world of British technology and manufacturing when most things we bought had a national identity and the television in the corner was a Murphy [from Welwyn Garden City] rather than a Sony.” Hoyle also plugs another 1950s-styled exhibition running right now at the Imperial War Museum - For Your Eyes Only: Ian Fleming and James Bond. More than 12,000 visitors have seen it since it opened two weeks ago, which author David Kynaston, writer of last year's bestselling Austerity Britain, a 692-page social history of the years 1945-1951 puts down to a resurgence of interest in the 1950s that is principally down to demographics.

“There is always a desire in popular culture to go back a generation or two," he told Hoyle. "A lot of people approaching retirement age now are interested in exploring the context in which they grew up and finding out about the world when their parents were young adults.”

New Scientist reports Andrew Nahum, head of the team that put together Dan Dare and the Birth of Hi-Tech Britain, as explaining that Dan Dare embodied the spirit of the time, referring to the 1950s, but the magazine's article (subscription required) focuses more on the work of real world hero and visionary engineer Theo Williamson. "Williamson had been honing his electronics skills since childhood," the magazine explains. "As a boy in the 1930s he designed circuits and built receivers, transmitters and increasingly sophisticated amplifiers. In 1946, with Williamson now a fully fledged engineer, the magazine Wireless World published details of his latest amp. Far superior to anything that had gone before, it was an instant hit. Tens of thousands of people made the amp by following the instructions in the magazine. One US company manufactured and sold 100,000 of them. Williamson had unwittingly started the post-war craze for home-built hi-fi, a phase that lasted well into the 1960s, when manufactured equipment of similar quality became widely affordable.

• The Eagle Times blog also carries a full report on the exhibition, including links to some videos. "I can assure you that it's well worth a visit," advises Will Grenham. "That applies not only to fans of the original Eagle and their contemporaries, but to anyone who wants to know more about the development of technology in Britain between 1945 and 1970, and the impact on home life of design and innovation in those "Eagle Times".

• MSN.com have put up some thumbnail images from the exhibition, while in Design Week, exhibtion Nahum explains how Dan Dare has been used as a "tempter" to lead people to discover designs including nuclear weapons, coal-cutters and gadgets at the Museum.

• Finally, the Evening Standard points out that although the show symbolises an age when Britain dared to be different, it is not all positive. The show also chronicles the crash of Comet 1, the world's first jet airliner, as well as a lost world of British goods which, by 1968, were losing out to overseas competition.

• Dan Dare and the Birth of High-Tech Britain runs until Sunday 25 October 2009 at The Science Museum, London. Bookings and Enquiries: 0870 870 4868.

Free Comic Book day

Tomorrow is Free Conic Book Day worldwide and your local comic shop may well be supporting it. A free comic featuring Dan Dare from Virgin Comics is just one of the many offerings.

Find out if your ocal comic shop is taking part using this store locator on the Free Comic Day web site (You'll need to do a specific search for towns outside the US and Canada).

The annual event is the perfect opportunity to introduce your friends and family to the many worlds of wonder available at your local comic book store. From super-heroes to slice-of-life to action/adventure and beyond, Free Comic Book Day has a comic book for everyone! Free comics being given away this year include a special Simpsons Comic, All Star Superman and a Stranded/Dan Dare flip book from Virgin Comics.

• Click here for the full list!

Dan Dare at the Science Museum

Good news for Frank Hampson fans. The upcoming Dan Dare and the Birth of High Tech Britain exhibition at London's Science Museum, which opens next week, now includes murals drawn by Dan Dare creator Hampson back in 1977.

Talking of this new exhibition, the Science Museum includes some Dan Dare related items on its new "Object Wiki" and people are being invited to comment on the items. These include some Dan Dare art boards, such as this one by Don Harley, and an entry for a Frank_Hampson "Ideas Book"

The description for this intriguing item reads: "A great deal of study and background work went into the development ofeach Dan Dare story. New equipment, vehicles and spaceships were sketched and thought out in great detail before being drawn for thestrip. This album shows war machines featured in the story Rogue Planet during 1956."

Ther'es also an entry for Dan_Dare_Toys, but, like the "Ideas Book" no image has yet been posted.

• Dan Dare and the Birth of High-Tech Britain runs from 30 Apr 2008 until Sun 25 October 2009 at The Science Museum, London. Bookings and Enquiries: 0870 870 4868

Dan Dare's Holy Grail

First broadcast in the 1950s, Radio Luxembourg's Dan Dare Radio Show has become something of a 'Holy Grail' for fans, some still believing copies of the series may yet be found.

Aired on Radio Luxembourg between July 1951 and May 1956, the series, based on the first Dan Dare comic story from Eagle, was made on wax discs that were then sent to Luxembourg to be broadcast.

The Dan Dare Info site reveals Bob Danvers-Walker announced the Adventures of Dan Dare, whilst former Dick Barton actor Noel Johnson took the part of Dan, Digby was played by John Sharpe, Peabody by Anne Cullen, and the Mekon by Francis De Wolfe. Other parts were played by Kenneth Willams and Ralph Richardson. The series was produced in London by John Glyn-Jones.

The Dan Dare Radio Show was sponsored by drinks company Horlicks, who encouraged young listeners to enroll in the Horlicks Spacemans Club, and then marketed a series of related items that could be bought - usually for six pence and a label from a Horlicks jar. The Spaceman Club items included The Spacemans Club Handbook, a Dan Dare Tie, Spacefleet Service Identity Card, The Spacemans Club Badge, the Dan Dare Spaceship Cup (for drinking one's Horlicks, of course), and a Periscope.

RTL, the former Radio Luxembourg have been kind enough to search their archives for one fan, but copies of the show have never been found there and it is believed they were either destroyed after the broadcast, or when their "sell by date" expired.

However, like Doctor Who fans tracking missing TV episodes, there is a remote possibility copies of the show may exist elsewhere. Eagle, and many of its strips, was republished in many countries including Australia, France, Potugal and Croatia (to name but a few) and the radio show was also broadcast in Australia. The original scripts were also sent to Spain where they were translated into Spanish and broadcast by Spanish actors. (The name Dan Dare was quickly changed to Diego Valor).

In Australia, 4AK QLD and 4BK QLD Radio broadcast the show each Monday and Tuesday but so far, no-one has had any luck tracking copies down under. Unlike the Biggles radio show, the Australian National Film and Sound Archives does not appear to hold copies, but now fans are trying to find out of the series was ever broadcast or elsewhere.

It seems unlikely the show was broadcast in South Africa - as yet, no-one seems to have tracked down South African versions of Eagle comic - but New Zealand is a strong possibility.

The BBC’s Radio 4 produced a four part Dan Dare radio serial in 1990 - Dan Dare, Pilot Of The Future, again, based on the first comics story. This time Dan was played by Mick Ford, with Terrance Alexander as Sir Hubert.

• If anyone has further information they think might help tracking down these elusive recordings, please get in touch.

Dan Dare at the Science Museum

The Eagle's Dan Dare will be the focus of a new exhibition at London's Science Museum later this month.

Titled Dan Dare and the Birth of High-Tech Britain, Dan Dare enthusiast Dave Britton, who, among other things, has helped organise several Dare exhibitions in the past across the UK, tells us there will be one or two cabinets with items he is lending the Museum, and other references to Dan Dare and Eagle and their context in shaping the role played by technology in creating post-war Britain.

"There is also the possibility that the two murals that Frank Hampson painted for the new Space Gallery that opened in 1977, will be put on display," says Dave. "That is not final yet."

• Dan Dare and the Birth of High-Tech Britain runs from 29th April 2008 to 3rd May 2009. Entry is free and details may be found on the Science Museum Website.

Dan Dare Sale

Steve Holland reports on the recent collection of the late Bob Rothwell, a major Dan Dare fan and collector, over on Bear Alley. "A huge number of collectable Dan Dare items went under the hammer—so to speak—and some were fetching silly amounts of money," he recounts. Read his full report...

A few highlights from the auction included a Dan Dare bust, only the third ever made by John Fowler and originally sculpted for Southport's celebration of Dan Dare back in 2000. This went for £120, although all prices also had a 15% buyers premium plus VAT where applicable, while a Dan Dare spaceship (boxed) went for £150, a presentation belt (Crafton) and tie (Theros) in original box went for £70.

Steve has a number of pictures of lots from the auction which are sure to be of interest to Dan Dare fans but as he says, it's sad to think that Bob's collection, which he spent a lifetime collecting, was sold in under 30 minutes...

Spaceship Away #14 counting down

Spaceship Away, the glossy magazine that is home to new Dan Dare adventures as well as reprints of classic sci-fi strip Journey Into Space and Sydney Jordan's new Hal Starr strip, is nearly out again.

Issue 14 (cover seen left, artwork by Martin Baines) promise to include the following...
The Green Nemesis story continues, Murder on Mars concluding, Jet Morgan's problems escalate in Planet of Fear, Sid Clark's latest model is of a Phant war-machine, Andrew Darlington writes about Dan Dare lives after the original folded and Hal Starr reached the penultimate episode.

And there will be a full colour centrespread by British illustation legend Ian Kennedy. His first work on Dan Dare for many years.

This and much more will be squeezed into 44 full colour pages of A4 loveliness for you to enjoy.

The issue is at the printers currently but will be available at the end of February.

The website with all the details of how to subscribe is avilable here
http://spaceshipaway.org.uk/

Elton John's Dan Dare recording unearthed

(via the Eagle Times blog): Way back in October 1975, Elton John recorded Dan Dare (Pilot of the Future), written by Bernie Taupin, for the Rock of the Westies album, a song lamenting that he won't be joining Dan on his rocket, but also revealing that he secretly prefers The Mekon to Dan.

27 years after the song's release, it featured as the theme song for the Dan Dare Corporation's Dan Dare Pilot of the Future CGI cartoon series, which was shown in the UK on Channel 5, and is now (partly) available on DVD.

The song is of course just one of many pop culture references to Dan Dare, many detailed on this web site.

Here, via YouTube, is a rare live (audio) recording of the song performed by Elton at the Rainbow Theatre, London on 13 May, 1977.



• While scouring the web for more information on the song, I came across Colonel Dan Dare's MySpace page. Weirdness!

Brendan McCarthy's New Blog

(with thanks to Matthew Badham) Top comics artist, designer and illustrator Brendan McCarthy has a new blog, The Strangeness of Brendan McCarthy.

The new blog includes storyboard artwork Brendan completed for Tim Burton’s new Sweeney Todd movie, which opens in the UK next weekend and upcoming covers Brendan has drawn for 2000AD and Dan Dare #3, the latter on sale 23rd January.

Titan's Dan Dare books to continue

Contrary to reports on some web sites, the upcoming Titan Dan Dare book, Reign of the Robots, is not the last Titan collection.

downthetubes spoke with the head of Titan Books this morning and the company is all set to continue the range.

Late last year, publisher Orion laid claim on Amazon.co.uk to being the new Dan Dare publisher in its promotion for Eagle Annual of the 1950s, a
claim they subsequently refuted when challenged but which has not been removed from the description of the book. This may have been where the rumour started.

As yet, there are no release dates for forthcoming books but we'll let you know if we hear anything more -- and welcome reports from our Eagle-eyed (sorry!) Dan Dare-loving readers!

The next major Dan Dare-related release from Orion is Dan Dare, Pilot of the Future: A Biography by Daniel Tatarsky in 2009, although we are puzzled as to just how he is going to speak to the original creators as claimed...

Read Yourself Raw Updated

The latest update of UK-based comics site Read Yourself Raw includes previews of new book, comic and manga releases for March 2008, including Kafka's The Trial, adapted by David Zane Mairowitz & Chantal Montellier and The Complete Terry & The Pirates Volume 3 (Paul Gravett talks about Milton Caniff here), and Titan's Dan Dare: Reign of the Robots.