Dan Dare Times Two, Exhibition in Southport

(with thanks to Stuart Roberts): Local Southport paper Champion reports the town, once home to his creator, Frank Hampson, can now boast two Dan Dare statues.

Two busts are currently being stored at Atkinson Art Gallery in Lord Street. A second statue was made for an exhibition, which is due to go on display at the Botanic Gardens Museum while the "real" Dan - a bust created some time ago which had been located at Cambridge Walks Arcade but had been vandalised - will be put in Wayfarers Arcade.

“Dan Dare is a massive part of the town’s history," Eagle Club member and local councillor David Tattersall says. "Everyone who knows about the Pilot of The Future should be able to see the bust in Wayfarers and share their memories.”

Meanwhile, the Southport Visiter, which regularly reports on Dan Dare because of the town's connection with his creator, has a feature on the new Dan Dare comic, reporting on the first issue's strong sales.

Colin Gould, of the town's Planet Eater comic book store in Union Street, told the paper he can’t sell his supply of the new comic quick enough.

He told the Visiter: “A lot of the regular customers have been coming in and asking for it, many are people who read the original Eagle in the 1950s.

“It is selling really, really well and the suppliers have had to order another shipment from America."

The paper also reports a collection of Dan Dare memorabilia, loaned by Frank Hampson’s son, Peter, is currently on display at Churchtown Botanic Gardens Museum.

Dead Zone, 4400 Cancelled

Ausiello reports that the USA Network has cancelled The Dead Zone and The 4400, both
of which have aired their last episodes.

4400 creator and Executive Producer Scott Peters confirmed the cancellation on a message posted on the official 4400 Web board, repeated on TV Guide's Web site, telling loyal fans "The 4400 has been cancelled. We've had a great time bringing you this story and submersing you in the lives of all these incredible characters.

"I just spoke to Joel [Gretsch, who played male lead Tom Baldwin] and we had a great talk about what we all accomplished and how much we'll miss our family that is our crew and our cast... and our fans. But at least we got to go out with a bang! I had an awesome time directing the last episode. I think I got to make almost every single cast member cry (on camera). How much fun was that?!"

The Dead Zone was an impressive hit for the USA Network in its early seasons but the show was revamped for its sixth season and the re-formatting proved unsuccessful.

• The 4400 IMDB Entry

More on those Dan Dare sales figures...

Earlier today, I posted news of Dan Dare #1's strong sales in the UK and a round up of just some of the reviews I found about the title (which have apparently astonished some Dan Dare fans who didn't like the book).

Hopefully, my blog post makes it clear that the strong sales are UK sales -- there was no claim in Virgin's press release that Dan Dare sales are as strong in the US. Indeed, recently published Diamond orders suggest to me that retailers there were basing their orders for Dare on their orders for other recent revamps of British characters.

Most Virgin books don't sell big numbers but Diamond orders for Dan Dare #1 are much higher than for some of their other titles -- 9,434 according to trade site ICV2.

If you look at Diamond orders for September 2006, orders for Albion #6 were 9,465, compared with 18,791 for #1 back in June 2005. Battler Briton #3, another Garth Ennis title, had orders of 9,985 in September 2006, more than for Albion #6.

Some downthetubes readers have sugested UK retailers may have under ordered Dan dare #1 and been caught out. I'm not sure if the ICV2 figures include UK orders -- I don't think they do -- but I would think that UK retailers would perhaps order more copies of a comic featuring such a big UK hero by a top 'Brit' writer, but it's clear they haven't ordered enough - we've had lots of people asking me where they can get copies.

It will be the orders for #2 and 3 that will be telling, but of course, those will have been placed before the sales of #1 were known.

Virgin is of course not dependent on the English language versions of its comics -- I assume there will be a translated edition of Dan Dare in the works for India, where they also sell, and perhaps Hong Kong, too, where theire John Woo book has apparently done very well (and was one of their best selling titles).

In Space No One Can Hear You Build...

If the Forbidden Lego book hasn't sparked your imagination for something to do with the kids' Lego once they have become bored with it after Christmas, maybe this website will give you a few ideas.

Lego Sci-Fi has Lego representations of the Tardis and Daleks from Doctor Who and the Liberator from Blake's 7. US TV isn't left out either with the Galactica from the original series of Battlestar Galactica and a Starfury from Babylon 5.

Even Lost gets the Lego treatment with a brick and minifig version of the excavation of the first hatch.

The challenge with building from scratch with Lego is to see the pieces as something other than what the Lego designers intended them to be.

From this website my favourite piece of lateral thinking has to be the use a circular Lego tree as the green engine dome of the Liberator.