Dan Dare: Six Questions For Writer Rod Barzilay

In the 1990s Rod Barzilay had the idea to bring Eagle comic’s best known character, Dan Dare, back into print, not updated for a Star Wars audience as in 2000AD or as a political commentary as in Revolver, but rather as the original character read and loved each week in the 1950s by hundreds of thousands of British schoolboys.

To remain true to the original Rod decided to approach the original 1950s artists to see if they would be willing to return to the comic strip of their youth. Keith Watson and then Don Harley agreed to this and the magazine Spaceship Away was born. 29 issues later, and with many more of the original 1950s and 1960s Dan Dare artists involved along the way, Spaceship Away remains a high quality, full colour, glossy magazine that is published three times a year. So it was no surprise that when Haynes decided to add Dan Dare to their list of science fiction technical manuals that includes Star Wars, Star Trek and Thunderbirds, Rod was the man to write it.

Jeremy Briggs spoke to Rod about this new Dan Dare Spacefleet Operations Manual from Haynes as well as Spaceship Away.

downthetubes: When did you first encounter Dan Dare and what made him standout for you amongst the other strips in Eagle?

Rod Barzilay: I first saw a copy of Eagle in May 1954, at the tender age of seven. I remember green men caught my attention, the Mekon and his Treens in ‘Prisoners of Space’, and although I liked other Eagle strips as well, the idea of outer space adventures appealed the most.

Desmond Walduck was illustrating the strip at this time while the following year Frank Hampson and his team took up the reigns again. To a lad who knew nothing about artists then, the strip just seemed to get better and better until the end of the 1950’s when Dan Dare was updated which was very unsettling to previous readers. Many characters disappeared, equipment and uniforms drastically changed, and continuity with past events was almost totally lost. When the strip went to black and white my interest waned and I stopped taking Eagle at the end of 1963 (mind you I was more interested in girls then!). However, from 1960 onwards I began to chase the early stories I had never seen. It took ten years to fill in all the gaps and when the original Eagle folded in 1969 I also started looking for the later issues to complete the run. It was only then that I saw some of Keith Watson’s later impressive colour Dan Dare work like ‘All Treens Must Die’.

DTT: You began Spaceship Away in 2003 and it is now on its 29th issue. What inspired you start the magazine and how has it changed over the years?

Rod: The magazine was started as a means to get new 1950s style Dan Dare stories in print for the fans who longed for the original Dan Dare to be revived.

Although Dan Dare is the main focus of Spaceship Away, from issue seven we started adding other sci-fi strips as well, including Charles Chilton’s Journey Into Space reprinted from Express Weekly with artwork by Ferdinando Tacconi, and Sydney Jordan’s “Hal Starr” reprinted from the Dutch comic Eppo and its first time being published in English. Later on we added Ron Turner’s “Nick Hazard”, John Freeman and Mike Nicoll’s “Ex Astris” and eventually the Daily Mirror’s “Garth” with art by Frank Bellamy and Martin Asbury.


DTT: Where did the idea for the Haynes Dan Dare manual come from, did you approach them or did they approach you?

Rod: I believe Graham gave Haynes the idea to do a Dan Dare book, along with the suggestion that I could write it. He did bounce the idea off me and I was up for it. As Dan Dare has gone through so many changes over the years we decided to just stick with the original up until the point when Dan was made controller of Space Fleet. This was the period I knew the best and when the strip had the most interesting technology and ideas. The book took about six months to write and I was tweaking stuff right up until it went to the printers at the end of March. Some sections were rewritten when I reread the old stories again and spotted some references that I had miss-remembered, or forgotten about. Also as some information in Eagle had no reference time-line, or was at odds with earlier stuff printed in the strip or elsewhere, this did present some problems, and I had to work it all in somehow. No doubt I’ll get some interesting feedback on my solutions! I would have liked to have expanded some areas of the book had there been more space. Let’s hope nothing important got passed over – no doubt fans will let me know if that is the case!

DTT: How did you and Graham decide on what to feature in the manual? For instance how did you choose the Spacefleet theme rather than feature any spaceships that were in the Dan Dare strips?

Rod: The idea was that when Dan became controller of Space Fleet, he commissioned a manual for new recruits. This would not only give an outline of Space Fleet’s history so far, but would also include details of any craft or equipment they could encounter, be it older Space Fleet craft possibly lost in space, or alien ones that had already turned up in the Solar System and might reappear again someday - forewarned is forearmed. We investigate different drive technologies that Space Fleet has tried out, and alien ones it has encountered. There is a good look at lots of Treen spacecraft including the M.E.K.1 space station, and other important alien craft too, like Tharl’s Battleship, Black Cats, the Crypt inter-star ship, and the Zylbat. We also have notes on Theron, Cosmobe, Pescod, Nav, Triton, Pittar, and Krevvid spaceships, plus some unidentified ones that turn up in the saga as well.

DTT: Artist Graham Bleathman has provided cutaways for Spaceship Away in the past. How much interaction did you have with him over the details of the interiors of the ships and other vehicles featured in the book?

Rod: We both have extensive Eagle collections, which are rich in background details of spaceships and equipment, and did compare notes from time to time, talking over things not fully covered. Two spacecraft, the Marco Polo and the Delaware, were drawn up from my notes and designs in the comic strips in Spaceship Away, but it is Graham’s genius that brings them all to life in such fine cutaway detail. However, Eagle and related publications are a bit thin on the ground with details of Space Fleets early history so I expanded this area taking into account ideas put forward by other fans over the years.

DTT: If the manual is successful enough to warrant a sequel, are there other aspects of the Dan Dare universe that could be featured in a second book?

Rod: Oh yes – we could do a book on all the alien worlds that Dan Dare visited, looking at everything found there, futuristic cities, novel equipment, robots, other spacecraft and strange transport etc – not only in the Solar System, but further afield as well. Venus, Mercury and the Moons of Saturnia are rich in things to have a closer look at, as are planets in other star systems such as Cryptos, Phantos, Terra Nova, Zyl, Platinum Planet, Moss, for example. It would be great fun to do.

DTT: Rod, thanks for taking the time to talk to us.

• There are more details of the Dan Dare Spacefleet Operations Manual on the Haynes website

• There are more details of Spaceship Away on the magazine's website and Facebook page

• There are more details of Graham Bleathman's work on his website.

Dan Dare: Six Questions For Artist Graham Bleathman

For most comics readers Graham Bleathman's name is synonymous with large detailed cutaway paintings of buildings, vehicles and flying craft both real and fictional. It was not surprising then that he is now the artist behind four of the new series of Haynes Workshop Manuals that feature fictional vehicles rather that the real cars that the publisher is best known for. The latest of these is the Dan Dare Spacefleet Operations Manual which has just been published.

Jeremy Briggs spoke to Graham about these new Dan Dare cutaways as well as the rest of his work.

downthetubes: You are perhaps best known for your detailed cutaways of Gerry Anderson craft from TV series such as Thunderbirds, Stingray and Captain Scarlet published in the various 1990s comics that covered those series and the large format hardback cutaway books that followed. When did your love of cutaways begin and did you set out to be a cutaway artist?

Graham Bleathman: I first came across cutaway illustrations in the TV21 (and related) annuals that I picked up mainly second hand in the early 70s. A handful of cutaways also appeared in TV21 itself, which I also started to collect at around the same time that I was buying Countdown every week. I never bought (or had bought for me) TV21 when it first came out, so I relied on second hand and charity shops in the early 70s, along with jumble and ‘bring and buy’ sales, where in those days comics like TV21 and Eagle could still be found reasonably easily. It was at these sort of events that I found my first few copies of Eagle, and was of course somewhat taken with the centrespread cutaways as well as the more well known strips like 'Dan Dare' and 'Heros the Spartan'.

I don’t think I set out specifically to become a cutaway artist; it just sort of happened after I left college. During my time at Exeter College of art, I painted a cutaway of Exeter Cathedral, which was followed a year or two later by cutaways of Salisbury Cathedral and a few other buildings which were commissioned by the Salisbury Journal newspaper.

I was also involved in the Gerry Anderson fanzine SIG at the time, and I produced my first Anderson cutaway for that, which was a black and white illustration of the Battlehawk (SIG  issue 15, Spring 1986), from the then current Anderson production Terrahawks. 

DTT: Other than the many Anderson cutaways and the Haynes Manuals, what else have you worked on?

Graham: I worked on quite a few magazines, comics, and other products over the years. Some have an Anderson link; drawing many of the covers for the Fleetway comics (for which I drew the cutaways of course), artwork for Anderson and Star Trek jigsaws, greetings cards for Space Precinct, illustrations of film/TV locations and cutaways for TV series features in Radio Times, Cult TV, Inside Soap (yes, I’ve illustrated EastEnders, Neighbours, Coronation Street and Casualty!). I seem to have drawn thousands of ‘Sketch Cards’ featuring the Anderson shows for a company called ‘Cards Inc.’

A few real world illustrations have been drawn too in more recent years, such as cutaways for the now defunct RAF Magazine, Radio Times and a few books. I also have a ‘secret life’ doing the covers for DC Thomson’s ‘People’s Friend’! Under the name ‘J Campbell Kerr’, a team of artists has painted the landscape illustrations on the covers of the magazine since 1946. I started around 7 or 8 years ago (although I did do a brief stint in the mid 1990s) and, since the death of cover artist Douglas Phillips last year, I now paint around half of them on average.

I have no idea why the 'J Campbell Kerr’ name has been used all these years; no one seems to know the its origins, and nobody wants to break with tradition!

DTT: Your work for Haynes began with the first of the Wallace and Gromit Haynes manuals, Cracking Contraptions, a book that sold so quickly that it had to be reprinted almost immediately it was published and has since gone to a third printing. After your second Wallace and Gromit book you moved on to the Thunderbirds Haynes manual which, given your artistic background seems an obvious choice, and now the new Dan Dare manual. Where did your interest in Dan Dare stem from and how did the Haynes manual come about?

Graham: My interest In Dan Dare originates through TV21; many of the artists on TV21 were poached from Eagle, and I began to notice the work of Frank Bellamy and others in Eagle as I started to pick up second hand copies. The Dan Dare stories seemed to have parallels with many of the concepts seen in the Anderson shows (particularly the way they were developed in TV21), such as a World Government and a (generally speaking) optimistic view of the future.

I became involved with Haynes when by bizarre coincidence both myself and the writer of the Thunderbirds manual (Sam Denham, with whom I have worked before on a couple of books) approached Haynes separately with a view to doing a Manual based on that series. Initially, Haynes weren’t too keen, but as they were moving into doing manuals based on fictional subjects anyway, they offered me the job of illustrating two Wallace and Gromit manuals instead, having seen my Thunderbirds artwork and in particular a Wallace and Gromit cutaway (of Wallace’s house) for the Bristol Evening Post. The Thunderbirds manual was therefore put on hold for 18 months or so. The success of the Wallace and Gromit manuals prompted Haynes to proceed with the Thunderbirds edition, and that has proved successful enough for them to commission something I had also thought about for a couple of years, Dan Dare. That book is now complete and I have returned to the Anderson world with another manual with Sam Denham to be published next year.

DTT: The writer of the Haynes manual, Rod Barzilay, is a familiar name to Dan Dare fans due to him creating and editing the long running Dan Dare magazine Spaceship Away. How did Rod come aboard and how did the pair of you sort out which spacecraft and other Dan Dare vehicles to feature in the book?

Graham: I knew Rod from Spaceship Away magazine, having initially met him at a Dan Dare ‘Open Day’ at an exhibition in Bristol a few years ago, at which Eagle and TV21/Countdown artist Don Harley was also present. I have since drawn around 10 or so cutaways of Dan Dare spacecraft (and real world locations such as the artists’ studios in Southport and Epsom), for SA over the years, and Rod’s knowledge of Dan Dare’s ‘fictional’ history made him ideally placed to supply the basic text of the book and provide the expert knowledge that I lacked; I almost got the impression that the future history of the Dan Dare universe was more real to Rod than our own!

This meant that he could concentrate on Space Fleet’s history and characters leaving me to deal with the artwork and technical bits. His comprehensive knowledge was ideal for me to bounce ideas from, with comments like ‘Space Fleet wouldn’t use that sort of space drive until such and such a date’, etc! We also selected the ships and locations on the basis of how important (Rod in particular) thought they were important to the Dan Dare history. I’m sure a few favourites will have been missed out, but with around 45 cutaways and illustrations in the book (not to mention lots of Eagle frames and other new artwork), I hope most people will be pleased with the results.

DTT: Those Dan Dare craft, along with the majority of the fictional vehicles you have painted cutaways of, were never created to be analysed in the sort of detail your work requires. How much of any given cutaway is 'creative engineering' on your part and do you have any background in the technical drawing of engineering subjects to help you fill in the gaps that the original artist's imagination did not need to show?

Graham: There is a fair bit of ‘creative engineering’ in the Dan Dare book in particular, although as much applies to the Anderson subjects as well (and especially Wallace and Gromit!). For Dan Dare, the main problems are visual inconsistencies between instalments, and often from frame to frame. After all, apart from the Anastasia and a handful of other cutaways, no-one at the time gave too much thought about how the ships worked or whether the details altered from frame to frame. In the 1950s, some effort was made to keep things consistent with the use of studio models and endless photographs, but no-one had time to ensure that fine detail (the detail that I would need years later, anyway!) remained true through all the stories.

In terms of scientific accuracy, the technology seen in the strip has not been seriously updated, although a couple of aspects such as radiation proofing in spacecraft and spacesuits and polarised heat resistant windows on spacecraft (for example) do get a mention every now and then. I don’t have a scientific background, nor do I have a background in technical drawing either, so it does seem a little odd to many people that the one thing I’m well known for are cutaways of vehicles, locations and spacecraft, both real and imagined!

DTT: The diversity of your cutaway subjects is remarkable, from the Eurofighter Typhoon fighter/bomber for RAF Magazine to Holby City Hospital for the Radio Times, from Thunderbird 2 for Thunderbirds The Comic to the Precinct House space station for Space Precinct magazine, there must be few types of vehicles or constructions that you haven't covered. Which of these has provided you with the greatest challenge to depict and which, of all of them, is your own favourite of your work.

Graham: The cutaway that gave me most problems was one of Wallace’s ‘cracking contraptions’ from the one of the Wallace and Gromit Manuals. It was a device for changing channels on a TV set that involved cogs and catapults in true Wallace tradition (as opposed to a simple remote control). Unfortunately, there was no visual consistency from shot to shot when watching the contraption in action on TV, and the solution I came up with was the only one that Aardman didn’t like. A compromise of sorts was reached, although the result isn’t terribly satisfactory. I guess the makers of said sequence weren’t really expecting some poor sod to try and make sense of it a few years afterwards; the contraption and the short film in which it was featured was created for a laugh, after all.

My favourite cutaway? Probably the Thunderbird 2 I painted for the Thunderbirds FAB Cross Sections book published by Carlton in 2000.

DTT: Thanks for taking the time to talk to us Graham.


There are more details of Graham Bleathman's work on his website.

There are more details of the Dan Dare Spacefleet Operations Manual on the Haynes website.

There are more details of Spaceship Away on the magazine's website and Facebook page.

Dan Dare On The Radio: A Thrilling Serial

The spaceman character of Dan Dare was introduced to British comics readers in the first issue of Eagle comic in April 1950 and both he and the comic were an immediate success. In July 1951 the strip was transferred to radio with the commercial station Radio Luxembourg starting their long running Dan Dare drama series that was broadcast at 7:15pm  Monday to Friday, with each episode beginning with the phrase “Spaceship Away!” – a phrase that Rod Barzilay borrowed for the title of his excellent Dan Dare magazine.

Sponsored by Horlicks, the Dan Dare radio series proved to be very popular with the listening audience and ran for over 750 episodes. It even spawned its own Horlicks Spaceman’s Club for listeners to join as well as a selection of merchandise tie-ins that today are very rare and command high prices on the collectors market. Yet the series is not well known today as Radio Luxembourg, being a commercial station, did not keep an equivalent of the BBC Archive and they simply junked their material once it had been broadcast. Even something as seemingly simple as an episode guide of the series has been impossible to create – until now.

Serial Thrillers is a new book by radio researcher Charles Norton which looks at four radio dramas of the 1950s, the BBC’s Dick Barton: Special Agent, Paul Temple, and Journey Into Space plus Radio Luxembourg’s Dan Dare. With interviews with those in front of and behind the microphones along with information from the BBC Archive and contemporary magazines, Charles has put together an in-depth history for the four radio dramas as well as detailed episode listings of each.

With so little previously known about the Dan Dare radio series, the book doesn’t merely open a window on it, it throws the doors wide open with a wealth of new information as well as an episode listing culled from the pages of Radio Luxembourg’s 208 listings magazine. An interview with Charles Norton will appear in the next issue of Spaceship Away but, in the meantime, his book is available from the Kaleidoscope Publishing website and Amazon UK.

Serial Thrillers (softcover, 280 pages, ISBN 976-1-900203-45-6) is published by Kaleidoscope Publishing at a cover price of £16.99. It is available from the Kaleidoscope website, www.kaleidoscopepublishing.co.uk/books-serialthrillers.html and from www.amazon.co.uk

Spaceship Away 28 Available In Time For Christmas

Spaceship Away, the A4, full colour glossy magazine that covers original Dan Dare as well as a selection of other classic strips, has released issue 28 in time for Christmas.

Priced at £7.95, including UK postage, the 44 page issue features a new Marooned on Mercury cover from original 1950s Dan Dare artist Don Harley as well as a special one off Christmas Dan Dare story entitled The Tannenbaum Caper in which Eagle's Dan Dare and the Daily Express' Jeff Hawke meet for the first time. This fully licensed strip was written by Jeff Hawke creator Sydney Jordan and illustrated by Don Harley.

The other comic strips in the issue include the latest episode of the Dan Dare story Parsecular Tales written and drawn by Tim Booth, the continuing reprint of the Jet Morgan/Journey Into Space strip Shadow Over Britain! from Express Weekly illustrated by Ferdinando Tacconi, a Ron Turner strip The World That Dissolved published for the first time in colour, and the continuing reprint of the Garth story Finality Factor from the Daily Mirror also published in colour for the first time.

Spaceship Away continues its features on little known Dan Dare spin-offs with a piece on the pilot episode for a live action Dan Dare TV series featuring Robert Bathurst as Dan and Geoffrey Hughes as Digby. Other features include an appreciation of artist Ferdinando Tacconi, who passed away in 2006 along with a tribute to him from Jeff Hawke's Sydney Jordan, a career spanning interview with Sydney himself, and a piece on that other 1950s comic strip spaceman Swift Morgan whose adventures were illustrated by Denis McLoughlin.

The centrespread of the issue is a special preview of the new cutaway by Graham Bleathman of the J Series Space Station from the original Dan Dare strip in 1950s Eagle which will be featured in the Dan Dare Spacefleet Operations Manual due to be published by Haynes in 2013.

There are more details of Spaceship Away on the Spaceship Away website.

Spaceship Away 27 on sale now

Issue 27 of the Eagle-inspired comic magazine Spaceship Away is available now, this time with a background theme drawing on the Dan Dare story The Red Moon, featuring a number of paintings relating to that story from both Don Harley and Tim Booth.

Most importantly, aside from ne Dan Dare and other comic strips, the issue pays tribute to, and has last words from artist Bruce Cornwell, who sadly passed away earlier this year.

The strip line up is as follows:

• "Dan Dare: Parsecular Tales" by Tim Booth - part four of an epic new adventure continuing the original Dan Dare legend
• "Shadow over Britain", a Journey into Space story by Charles Chilton, based on the 1950s radio show
• “Thoughts That Kill” by Ron Turner, coloured by Martin Baines, a short one off story of the danges of telepathic civillisation
  
• "Dan Dare: Amberlint" (Part One) written and drawn by Nick Spender, an ex-student of Dan Dare's original creator Frank Hampson
• "Garth: Finality Factor" (Part Four) by Jim Edgar and John Allard, art by Martin Asbury

Alongside tributes to Bruce Cornwell, features this issue include 

• ‘Diego Valor’: downthetubes contributor Jeremy Briggs reveals the history of a Spanish spin off of Dan Dare.
  
• Graham Bleathman has produced a cutaway of Dan’s apartment, based on Eagle published frames and notes by Greta Tomlinson, who was a member of the strip's original studio
  

Looking ahead, the editorial team tell us they have some amazing items coming up in our autumn issue, including a Jeff Hawke / Dan Dare strip by Sydney Jordan and Don Harley. Issue 28 is due in November.

- To get Spaceship Away delivered to your door, head over to the official website: http://spaceshipaway.org.uk

Latest Spaceship Away features new Don Harley paintings

Issue 26 of the Dan Dare-inspired Spaceship Away is now at the printers and will soon be winging its way to subscribers and stockists.

Along with the regular strips the issue features three new Don Harley paintings, including a fabulous centre-spread of Frank Hampson working away in his studio under the watchful eye of Dan and the Mekon.

There are also three articles focusing on the audio versions of Dan Dare - Phil Harbottle and Penny Fabb review Dan Dare on Radio Luxembourg; Rod Barzilay hears from cast and crew of the 1990 BBC Dan Dare radio drama; and John Freeman tells us about the "Dan Dare Pilot That Never Flew", along with comments by actor Colin Baker.

Jeremy Briggs interviews Tom Kelly about his Dan Dare Musical that premiered nine years ago and there is some interesting feedback on previous issues in Chat-Back (which includes the late Bruce Cornwell's last ever sketch).

"Models from Dan Dare's World" also offers readers a look at Sid Clark's Treen "Green Magnet" fighter.

There is also the second and final part of the "Pre-Emptive Strike" Dan Dare adventure by John Freeman & Mike Nicoll, plus an Eric Eden painting in Readers' Corner, along with some details from "The Horlicks Spaceman's Handbook" relating to the Radio Luxembourg article.

Finally, Tim Booth's oil painting of Professor Peabody adorns the back cover.


Spaceship Away is available at selected British comics shops and directly from theSpaceship Away website. The cover price for the 2012 issues is £7.95 each which includes UK postage if ordering from the website. An annual subscription for the three issues is £21.50 for UK residents and non-UK subscriptions are available from the website.

• The Spaceship Away website, which includes ordering details for the 2012 issues as well as back issues and binders, is here

In Memoriam: Bruce Cornwell

It is with sadness that we have to report that artist Bruce Cornwell passed away on Friday 2nd March 2012. Bruce was best known to fans of British comics as one of the original Dan Dare artists in Eagle in the 1950s when he was part of Frank Hampson’s Dan Dare studio with his forte being the technical aspects of the hardware and spaceships. 

Dan Dare may be the work that he is best known for but he also produced such comic strips as Sammy In Space in Swift, Danny Dare in Wham, and Space Captain Jim Stalwart in Junior Mirror. His work stretched beyond comics into book illustration with many painted colour covers as well as internal line illustrations for books in the 1950s and 1960s including the two junior science fiction series written by EC Eliott, Kemlo and Tas.

In addition to comics and books he did commercial work for various organisations and companies including the General Post Office and the glass manufacturer Pilkington.In recent years, along with other Dan Dare artists of his era, he was persuaded to come out of retirement and contribute to Spaceship Away for which he produced Dan Dare themed paintings. Indeed the current issue of Spaceship Away, number 25, has a lovely painting by him of Dan’s spaceship, Anastasia, flying over Space Fleet Headquarters with the sea in the background.

 As a former merchant seaman, Bruce’s love of the sea could be seen in the colour cutaways that he produced for Eagle which were invariably of ships while, in 1953, he wrote and illustrated one of the Educational Supply Association’s People’s Jobs series of books entitled The Ship’s Crew. This gave the details of a fictional cargo ship, the TS Neptune, loading cargo, crew and passengers in the UK before setting off on its voyage and was illustrated with black and white line drawings and various cutaways of the ship.

We make no secret of the fact that here on downthetubes we are Dan Dare and Eagle fans: John Freeman was editor of the Titan Dan Dare reprint books, Ian Wheeler was editor of the Eagle Flies Again fanzine, Richard Sheaf writes for Eagle Times, the journal of the Eagle Society, while I also write for Eagle Times as well as Spaceship Away.

In recent years I had the opportunity to correspond with Bruce and he helped me out with information and quotes for a series of articles I wrote for Eagle Times on his non-Dan Dare comic strips. He was generous with his time while his memory of events, people and his work from more than half a century beforehand was quite remarkable.

His letters gave the impression that he rather enjoyed talking about this work, work that he had rarely if ever been asked about before, and he always appeared keen to help when I suggested moving on to the next article. Indeed the last thing that he wrote in what became his final letter to me was “keep your pen moving.”

On behalf of the team here at downthetubes, John, Ian, Richard and myself, may I offer our sincere condolences to Bruce’s family and friends at this time of sadness.

-- Jeremy Briggs

Spaceship Away Themed Issues For 2012

Des Shaw, editor of the impressive Dan Dare A4 magazine Spaceship Away has been in touch to show us dummies of the covers of the three issues that are due in 2012. Dare fans looking at them will see that this year there is a theme to the issues.

In addition to the new full colour Dan Dare and reprinted Garth and Journey Into Space strips, Spaceship Away will continue its usual selection of articles on different aspects of Dan Dare and Eagle comic but, in 2012, it is planned that each of the three issues will feature something on the first three Dan Dare stories that ran in Eagle in the early 1950s.

For Issue 26, due in March, it will be Voyage To Venus, the first Dan Dare story that began in Eagle Volume 1 Number 1 in April 1950 which took Dan and his colleagues to Venus and their fateful first meeting with the Mekon.

Issue 27, in July, will cover the second story The Red Moon Mystery set on Mars which began in Eagle in October 1952, while issue 28, due in November, will feature the third story Marooned On Mercury which began in June 1952.

The cover of each issue features a new painting by original 1950s Dan Dare artist Don Harley featuring a scene from each of the three stories, an "extra frame" if you like. The Voyage To Venus image shows Space Fleet Controller Sir Hubert Guest giving the order to send a rescue ship to Venus that effectively set in motion the entire Dan Dare saga. The image from The Red Moon Mystery is Dan saying good-bye to his archaeologist uncle Ivor who is working at the remains of the long gone Martian civilisation, while the image from Marooned On Mercury shows the point in the story when Dan and his friends see a Mercurian out of its protective armour for the first time.

The first of these themed issues, number 26, will include an exclusive interview with playwright Tom Kelly, the writer and lyricist of 2003's Dan Dare The Musical, which adapted the Voyage To Venus story for the stage.

Spaceship Away is available at selected British comics shops and directly from the Spaceship Away website. The cover price for the 2012 issues is £7.95 each which includes UK postage if ordering from the website. An annual subscription for the three issues is £21.50 for UK residents and non-UK subscriptions are available from the website.

The Spaceship Away website, which includes ordering details for the 2012 issues as well as back issues and binders, is here.

Spaceship Away goes Christmas Crazy!

Spaceship Away 25 cover by
Don Harley

The latest issue of the Dan Dare-inspired comic magazine Spaceship Away is on sale now from the title's official web site and selected comic shops and its content harks back to the days when a comic's editorial team really made the most of the Christmas holiday, offering a tie-in cover from veteran artist Don Harley and more.

Issue 25 - kicking off the magazine's ninth year in print - include a glorious Sydney Jordan scripted, Don Harley drawn Dan Dare Christmas comic story; more adventures of the Daily Mirror hero Garth; a further Journey Into Space episode (Bruce Cornwell takes over the artwork part way through); a two page Don Harley Dan Dare strip; and the continuation of Tim Booth’s “Parsecular Tales”.

Features include an article by Dan Dare artist Desmond Walduck, a new painting by Don Harley from the original Eagle story “Prisoners of Space”; an item about Spacefleet H.Q. by Charles Evans-Gunther; a fabulous Ian Kennedy centrespread, featuring three versions of Dan Dare (he worked on all three); news of another Frank Hampson find; another model by Sid Clark from ‘Dan Dare’s World’; and the board from the Dan Dare’s Race in Space game. (Time to get your dice and counters out at Christmas - what fun!)

Ian Kennedy's stunning Dan Dare
centrespread for Spaceship Away 25

The issue, which features a gorgeous Christmas cover by Don Harley, is topped off with a new Bruce Cornwell painting on the back cover.

Coming in the new year is the final episode of “Pre-Emptive Strike”, an all-new Dan Dare tale by John Freeman and Mike Nicoll (who are already at work on a further classic Dare story for the magazine), along with more artwork from Graham Bleathman, Don Harley and Gerry Embleton.

• Order Spaceship Away Issue 25 from the official web site here

Tim Booth conquers pages of latest Spaceship Away

Artist Tim Booth has pretty much taken over the latest issue of Dan Dare and Eagle-inspired comic magazine Spaceship Away, delivering not just art and story on most of its strips but colouring on a new Garth reprint, too.

We're sorry to report the issue doesn't include the second part of the new Dan Dare story "Pre-Emptive Strike". Unfortunately, artist Mike Nicoll was injured in a serious workplace accident and damaged his hand. As a result, he was unable to complete the artwork for the in time for this issue. However, it will continue in Part 25.

(Thankfully, although the accident was serious, Mike tells us he'll be back drawing pretty soon once it's healed and is already working on some new strip ideas).

Tim Booth has stepped in to fill the gap with an extra episode of a new Dan Dare tale,  "Parsecular Tales" that really gets his new story going.

Feature-wise, there are more photos from the Bayord Lodge Dan Dare Studio; a follow up on last issue's "Phantom Fleet" speculation; four new Don Harley artworks; and a newly coloured "Garth" story ("Finality Factor" which was drawn by Martin Asbury.

Three features also return: "Models from Dan Dare's World", "Chat Back" and "Readers' Corner".

• To get Spaceship Away delivered to your door, simply go to www.spaceshipaway.org.uk and follow the links. Spaceship Away is also available in some specialist magazine shops.

Panel Borders: Dan Dare in the 20th Century

Continuing Panel Borders month of shows about collectives and anthologies, the team have a recording of a panel discussion from Sci-Fi London in 2010, celebrating the continuing popularity of the iconic British Space Hero Dan Dare, whose first appearance in The Eagle was published in April 1950. Comics editor and writer John Freeman (The Science Service / Ex Astris) talks to a quartet of artists and writers who have created new adventures for the lantern jawed pilot in more recent years.

These include: Garry Leach, who drew Dan’s return to print in 2000AD, ten years after the end of the original Eagle, in the late 1970s and more recently covers for Virgin comics’ revival of the ‘Pilot of the future’ in 2008; Rian Hughes, who drew the Eagle inspired comic The Science Service in 1989 and then the Mekon’s final revenge in the Thatcherite satire Dare in the adult comics Revolver and Crisis a year later; Gary Erskine, who drew Dan Dare’s most recent official comic book adventures in the Virgin Comics periodical of the same name; and
Rod Barzilay, the then editor and one of the writers of Spaceship Away, the officially licensed Dan Dare magazine that has continued the original adventures of Spacefleet where the 1950s Eagle left off over the past decade.

This recording covers Dare's appearance in print from the 1950s to the 1980s. (Recorded and edited by Alex Fitch).

• Panel Borders: Dan Dare in the 20th Century airs at 5.00pm today on Resonance 104.4 FM (London) / streamed at www.resonancefm.com / podcast at www.panelborders.wordpress.com

Sneek Peek: New Dan Dare for Spaceship Away

We're pleased to report that the next issue of the Dan Dare-inspired comics magazine Spaceship Away is on course to go to press very soon, featuring its regular thrice-yearly mix of comic strip and features.

Now edited by Des Shaw, taking over from the title's founder Rod Barzilay, I'm also delighted to report that the new issue includes the first part of a two-part Dan Dare story written by me, John Freeman, and drawn by Ex Astris artist Mike Nicoll, with lettering from Jim Campbell.

I feel very privileged to have been given the chance to write a Dan Dare tale for an officially licensed magazine, given the importance of both the character and Eagle in the history of British comics. I hope fans will enjoy the story - set on the Moon and featuring some very bizarre aliens designed by Mike.

Here's a sneek peek of the first page of the story, "Pre-Emptive Strike", starting in Issue 23, on sale in April 2011.

The Spaceship Away team have reluctantly had to raise the price of the basic issue of an issue including UK postage to £7.50, but the EU and overseas prices are remaining the same, as they were increased last year. The multi-issue offer when it comes to subscriptions continues:  UK residents can order three issues for £20.00, EU and Overseas surface mail customers £24.00, EU airmail customers for £27.00 and overseas airmail customers for £30.00, including future issues, up to Issue 25.

• To order the magazine visit the official web site: www.spaceshipaway.org.uk

 

Dan Dare © 2011 Dan Dare Corporation

Spaceship Away 22 soars to the shelves

Spaceship Away Part 22, the comics magazine inspired by Eagle and featuring all-new Dan Dare advntures is now available from publisher Rod Barzilay.

This issue features a simply glorious wrap-around cover from Ian Kennedy and the Dan Dare adventure, Green Nemesis, has more pages than usual. Plus there's the usual selection of great comic strips including the start of a new Journey into Space tale, more of Frank Bellamy's Garth, coloured by John Ridgway, and another fine cutaway from Graham Bleathman.

Features include an article and more artwork from Eagle and Dan Dare artist Don Harley; while artists Bruce Cornwell contributes his own full Venus Shuttle colour cutaway development page from 1950 and Tim Booth gives an insight into his world.

Continuing the exploration of the history of Britain's favourite space hero, Pat Mills gives readers a behind the scenes, low-down on the later Dan Dares; Gary Erskine talks about the Virgin Dan Dare; and Rian Hughes is answering questions about his Dare, written by Grant Morrison. It's another cracking issue, so order now!

• To get Spaceship Away delivered to your door, simply go to www.spaceshipaway.org.uk and follow the links. Spaceship Away is also available in some specialist magazine shops.

Spaceship Away Turns 21

The new issue of Spaceship Away, the science fiction comics magazine inspired by and featuring the original Dan Dare, includes some stunning exclusives sure to appeal to fans of the original version of the Eagle space hero created by Frank Hampson.

Wrapped in a glorious new Dan Dare cover featuring ever major character from the strip from veteran artist Don Harley (click on the image above or here for a larger version), the issue also includes a glorious tribute to Keith Watson's work on Dare by Chris Weston, as part of a retrospective of the artist's contribution to the legend.

Garth: The Bubble Man - superbly coloured by John Ridgway - continues and, while there are two Dan Dare strips to enjoy this issue, proves the highlight of this issue's strip content for me, along with a cutaway of the Tempus Frangit vessel by Graham Bleathman.

In something of a coup for the magazine, this issue carries coverage of a little known news piece about the making of Dan Dare made by the BBC in the 1950s, complete with photographs of the event, and also features some incredibly rare Dan Dare art by Frank Hampson created for the BBC Nationwide magazine show in 1975.

• To order the issue online visit: spaceshipaway.org.uk

Spaceship Away Soars Again

The latest issue of Spaceship Away, the science fiction comics magazine inspired by and featuring the original Dan Dare has just gone to the printers and will be on sale in all its usual outlets, and online, soon.

This issue, with a superb cover from veteran Dan Dare artist Don Harley, continues two ongoing Dan Dare stories, "Green Nemesis" by Rod Barzilay and Tim Booth, and "The Gates of Eden" by Tim alone, a brand new Dare adventure strip, set a year and a half before “The Red Moon Mystery”.

"Garth: The Bubble Man" by Frank Bellamy, beautifully coloured by John Ridgway continues this issue, as does "Journey in Space: Planet of Fear" written by by Charles Chilton, and drawn by Ferdinando Tacconi. Also featured is the first part of "Homecoming", an Ex Astris story by John Freeman and Mike Nicoll.

Feature wise, there's a report on the recent Spaceship Away day event and full information on Alistair Crompton's new book on Dan Dare creator Frank Hampson, Tomorrow Revisited, out later this year. Graham Bleathman providea a cutaway of Dan Dare's spaceship, the Anastasia, and there are some images of the original models used in the creation of the Dan Dare strip back in his original Eagle days, and an update on Day2Day Trading's new Dan Dare action figure which we've reported on here.

• To order the issue online visit: spaceshipaway.org.uk


• While we're on the subject of Dan Dare, comic fans may like to know he's invaded France... sort of. A page of "Dan Dare: The Man From Nowhere", first published in Eagle Volume 6, Issue 21, cover dated 27 May 1955 is currently n display at the Comics Museum in Angoulême. downthetubes readers Chris Weston and Sean Phillips helped out with the identification of the piece for the Museum after an appeal for info from Paul Gravett.

Garth Debuts in New Spaceship Away

The latest issue of the Dan Dare-inspired comics magazine Spaceship Away is on sale now via the official web site, and as previously mentioned, features the first installment of the Frank Bellamy Garth story The Bubble Man, beautifully re-coloured by John Ridgway.

Spaceship Away Part 19 - the title's sixth birthday issue - also includes articles on Frank Hampson's Epsom College days and the creation of comic strip Nick Hazard, drawn by Ron Turner, which also features in the comic magazine (also re-coloured by John Ridgway); plus new artwork from John M. Burns and all-new original Dan Dare comic strips - Green Nemesis and The Gates of Eden, both drawn by Tim Booth.

• To get the magazine delivered to your door, go straight to Spaceship Away Order Page

Garth in Colour: Exclusive Sneek Peek!

Spaceship Away, the British science fiction comic anthology publishing all-new adventures of the original Dan Dare, adds Daily Mirror action hero Garth to its line up next issue (Click on the image or here for a larger version).

First published in 1943, Garth's time-travelling adventures lasted for over 50 years and covered 167 stories: the character has recently been revived online by the Mirror in partnership with comics artist Huw-J (read our interview with Huw here)

Featuring a range of time travel, contemporary and space adventures, Spaceship Away's initial re-presentation of the character begins with "The Bubble Man", drawn by the late Frank Bellamy and lovingly coloured by Commando and 2000AD artist John Ridgway.

First published in late 1975, the adventure sees Garth captured by a Mekon-like alien hellbent on conquest. The story, contrary to our earlier research, has never been reprinted widely in English and certainly never in colour: John has done a stunning job, with full respect for Frank Bellamy's detailed, crisp line work.

• Spaceship Away 19 goes on sale in October: you can subscribe to this high quality three-yearly title at www.spaceshipaway.org.uk

• Frank Bellamy Newspaper Work List

• Garth © 2009 The Daily Mirror

Ex Astris: Homecoming on myebook

In addition to publication of Ex Astris on ROK Comics and Clickwheel.net, a web version Ex: Astris Homecoming, a 10-page strip which first appeared in the British comic in Bulletproof Comics #2, is now available via myebook. Click on the image on the right to view the comic or follow this link.

This standalone story, written by John Freeman and drawn by Mike Nicoll, links with the strips published on ROK Comics and Clickwheel.net.

Included in this myebook is a one page article with some background on the origins of the strip, recently commissioned for an ongoing run in Spaceship Away for 2010.

myebook aims to revolutionise the way you can create, publish and share ebook content online. Built on a feature-rich social platform, complete with free-to-use powerful, browser-based, builder software, and a slick reader environment, it's an easy way for anyone and everyone to 'get it out there', and several independent publishers are using the platform to promote their projects. You'll find books such as new Garth by Huw-J, The Fat Man by Thomas Cochrane, previews of Marksoia titles, and comics from Orang Utan Comics, Insomnia Publications, Unico Comics and many others.

If you want to read Ex Astris: Homecoming in print, then head over to the Bulletproof web site and order a copy of #2, an 80-page anthology which also features strips such as Slumbertown by Rik Hoskin & Thomas Crielly, Simba Khan by Paul Birch & Jon Haward, Love Hurts by David Hailwood & Stuart Giddings, Sideburns by Jim Alexander & Jon Haward and Redstitch by Lee Langford & Klaus Belarski.

• Bulletproof Comics: www.bulletproofcomics.co.uk

• Read Ex Astris: Homecoming on myebook.com

Spaceship Away 18 Arrives!

After a few printing delays, we're pleased to report that Spaceship Away Part 18 - the British comics SF magazine inspired by space hero Dan Dare - is now available, and most prepaid subscriber issues have been posted.

Apart from its regular three Dan Dare strips - with Keith Page's Rocket Pilot prequel story reaching a conclusion this issue - artist Bruce Cornwell writes about his work on the Dan Dare comic for Eagle, artist Don Harley provides artwork of the 1960 Dare team and both Gerald Palmer and Harley have delivered an impressive 1960's Dan Dare centrespread while illustrator Gragam Bleathman provides a Zylbat spaceship cutaway and top Commando and Starblazer artist Ian Kennedy a painting of Dan Dare's ship, the Anastasia.

The issue also sees the final part, for now, of Ex Astris by John Freeman and Mike Nicoll, but the the strip will return to the Magazine next year - and this time, it will be for an ongoing run. (more on this on the Ex Astris blog)

It looks like it's going to be an interesting year ahead for the SF comic magazine: in addition to continuing Dan Dare stories and more, Issue 19 will see the arrival of the Daily Mirror's classic strip Garth, coloured by John Ridgway - a story that has never been reprinted in the UK.

• Spaceship Away Part 18 is being distributed to existing subscribers. For more about the issue, click here

• To order Spaceship Away, click here

Spaceship Away Back with More Dan Dare

The latest issue of British SF comics magazine Spaceship Away, on sale soon, continues to deliver a terrific mix of classic SF comics, including new Dan Dare adventures and more.

The magazine features three Dan Dare strips featuring the original version of the space hero from the 1950s Eagle comic, published under license from the Dan Dare Corporation - Green Nemesis by Rod Barzilay and Tim Booth, Rocket Pilot by Keith Page and The Gates of Eden by Tim Booth. Also included are re-presentations of other strips such as Journey into Space and Nick Hazard, the latter beautifully re-coloured by John Ridgway.

New, original strips for the magazine include Ex Astris, a CGI strip from Mike Nicoll, creator of the popular adult comic Saffyre Blue, which completes a three-part story this issue but will return later next year; plus a feature on 1960s Dan Dare comics, art by Ian Kennedy featuring Dan Dare's spaceship Anastasia, and more.

It looks like it's going to be an interesting year ahead for the title: in addition to continuing Dan Dare stories and more, Issue 19 will see the arrival of the Daily Mirror's classic strip Garth, coloured by John Ridgway - a story that has never been reprinted in the UK.

Talks are also going on with Sydney Jordan about completing the Dan Dare story he started
in the Planet on Sunday, and Keith Page tells downthetubes he'll be contributing what he hopes will be a fully painted steampunk story, Iron Moon, to the magazine.

While the magazine isn't cheap, the cost is down to the high quality printing and editor Rod Barzilay's determination that the creators receive payment for their work for the title, whose sales are steadily growing worldwide. We hope you'll give it your support!

• Spaceship Away Part 18 is being distributed to existing subscribers. For more about the issue, click here

• To order Spaceship Away, click here