SPECIAL PROJECT DAN DARE: “DAN E FRANK, TWO BRITISH HEROES – part 1” – by Gianfranco Sherwood

This article starts the SPECIAL PROJECT “DAN DARE, Pilot of the Future“, suggested some time ago by our friend and traveling companion John Freeman, expert about British comics, whom we obviously involved and whose precious and interesting contributions – as all the materials that FUMETTOMANIA offers you – will soon be on-line here.

This is the first of eight parts that compose a long essay centered on the story of Dan Dare and his creator Frank Hampson, an article published eleven years ago in the digital magazine “Terre di confine“, which kindly allowed us to republish it. At the bottom of the article we report a note with all the information on the magazine and the rights holders of this material.

Hope you will find this debut material very interesting, we wish you a good read and be ready for the second part in seven days.

Mario Benenati and Daniele Tomasi, editors of the SPECIAL PROJECT DAN DARE

Note: this Special Project, like all others on this digital magazine, is no-profit and just for informative purposes, as the images used which are © of the rights holders.

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DAN E FRANK, TWO BRITISH HEROES – part 1 – by Gianfranco Sherwood

Presenting the story of one of the most fascinating science fiction characters ever drawn, and of his brilliant and unfortunate creator.

The end of the Second World War finds Great Britain exhausted by years of Nazi siege and burdened by a heavy foreign debt. The former leading naval and economic power in the world begins to dismantle its now anachronistic empire: in 1947 Burma, India and Pakistan obtain independence, and the following year the English troops also abandon Palestine to a tormented fate.
Meanwhile, radical changes are also taking place in the lives of ordinary people. In 1945, the reaction to the enormous disparity between classes – one of the distinctive but no longer tolerable traits of English society – brings the Labour Party to government, which launches a vast program of nationalizations and social reforms. It is the birth of the Welfare State; despite the daily difficulties (rationing remained in force until 1953), the English now look to the future with great optimism. It is in circumstances like these that the collective unconscious seeks archetypes that can express aspirations and hopes…

Since 1945, in the parish of St James in Southport, works Marcus Morris, a dynamic and ambitious thirty-year-old Anglican priest. Alienated from dogmatism but convinced that it’s the Church’s duty to publish educational and morally irreproachable readings, Morris tries out as a publisher by printing The Anvil, a well-curated family magazine, which however sells poorly.

To overcome the public’s indifference, the parish priest thinks of resorting to comics. In reality, he is also motivated by other reasons. In the USA, psychologist Frederick Wertham is on a crusade accusing comics of fomenting cruelty and depravity. Although it is a poorly argued thesis, the parish priest fully agrees with it. In addition to the pornography and sadism attributed to poor Batman and Wonder Woman (but Wertham is even wary of Bugs Bunny), Morris is sorry that American comics are crudely drawn and printed; he therefore decides to create a weekly magazine, aimed at the 9 to 14 age group, which offers quality, irreproachable characters and, above all, gripping stories – because, although his intentions are educational, as a practical man he knows that no boy would willingly read sermons, even if they are presented in the form of a comic strip.

He involves Frank Hampson in the project, a veteran (in the war he was a truck driver and aspiring RAF pilot) slightly younger than him who has been collaborating as an illustrator at The Anvil since 1948, demonstrating an uncommon talent.

Morris’s project excited him and the two got to work, determined to create something never seen before. The greatest creative contribution was Hampson’s: he defined the outline of the texts and the comics and designed the magazine’s logo (the name, Eagle, was the fruit of his wife Dorothy’s inventiveness).

Hampson admired Harold Foster, Milton Caniff and Alex Raymond, the acknowledged masters of adventure comics made in the USA, from whom he learned that excellence does not only come from beautiful lines: it is also necessary to master the peculiar language of comics. Up until then, stories in England had been made up of disconnected images, wooden even when well-made: it is not the sequential art – as Will Eisner would later define it – that Hampson aspires to. Furthermore, as an inflexible perfectionist, he is convinced that the suspension of disbelief is obtained only when the physiognomies, the machinery and every little detail appear realistic, also thanks to the generous use of color. The reader must be fascinated by a parallel but plausible world.

In the end, he has an epochal intuition: since it is a question of attracting readers from the first page with the most colorful and compelling images possible, what genre can satisfy this need better than science fiction?
Believing that Eagle needs a flagship character as the main attraction, he immediately thinks of the chaplain of a futuristic Inter-Planet Patrol.

Then decides to appropriately remove his priest’s collar to make him a colonel pilot in the UN Space Fleet, while retaining the context, supporting characters and name of the hero. Dan Dare, Pilot of the Future, is born.

As for the rest of the Eagle, comic and adventure characters are planned (the latter prevailing), comic biographies, scientific articles. The magazine must have twenty pages, eight of which in color. On this basis, in the spring of 1949 Hampson begins to compose the first mock-ups, associating other young local artists with the enterprise. The drafts of three issues are completed and, with these under his arm, a hopeful Morris faces Fleet Street, in London, the traditional headquarters of English publishers.

The parish priest is also keen to free himself from debts with the banks, caused by the liabilities accumulated by The Anvil and by the fact that he is paying Hampson and the rest of the staff out of his own pocket. The first contacts, however, are not encouraging. The major publishers, while recognizing its value, doubted that the project could be profitable, given the unusual tabloid format and the need for an expensive type of photogravure to ensure the best rendering of drawings and colors. But it so happened that in that same period the Hulton Press, a solid publisher even if not a leading one, was going through a crisis; so, when Morris approached them, the Hulton executives were convinced that Eagle could help them overcome the impasse, and on October 10, 1949 they telegraphed that they were “definitely interested”.

In the six months between that date and the magazine’s debut, Hampson, appointed chief designer (with Morris as director), worked frantically to find designers and scriptwriters of the right caliber, hiring, along with valid professionals, even unknown talents, among whom the still inexperienced Don Harley stood out. In the meantime, Hulton works to ensure the success of the enterprise: in addition to paying a good salary to those who are now her employees – and to solve Morris’s financial problems – she has a rotary press built capable of printing in photogravure the million copies with which the magazine is intended to debut and, to be sure that they will sell, she launches an unprecedented advertising campaign. Things therefore seem to be going well, although, in the enthusiasm of the moment, Hampson overlooks a detail that will be the harbinger of painful consequences: Morris has granted Hulton ownership of the Eagle characters, including Dan Dare.

In any case, on Friday, April 14, 1950, Eagle makes its triumphant debut on newsstands. The million copies are barely enough to satisfy demand; sales subsequently stabilize at 750,000 copies a week, a print run that exceeds all expectations.
Eagle is truly something never seen before, which excites readers of all ages and classes. In addition to well-represented adventure characters, it offers scientific articles tailored for children, wonderful centerfolds with cross-sections of factories and machinery (the very famous cutaways, mostly edited by Leslie Ashwell Wood, a master of this type of technical drawing), biographies of historical figures, humorous stories, in splendid colors, often watercolored. All by an editorial staff that settles on two hundred units.

The success generates supplements, annuals, three twin publications of equal quality also directed by Morris (Girl aimed at girls, Robin aimed at the 7-8 age group, and Swift intended as a link between Robin and Eagle, for a total circulation of 2 million copies weekly) and a lucrative merchandising based on the most popular characters: Jeff Arnold, protagonist of a mature and realistic western, splendidly drawn by Frank Humphris; the French Foreign Legion sergeant Luck, hero of adventures as politically incorrect as they are captivating; P.C. 49, a bobby already protagonist of a radio serial written by Alan Stranks. But it is Dan Dare who becomes the national wonder, the object of worship by an entire generation.

[to be continued in part 2]

(Thanks a lot to Richard Sheaf for pointing out a mistake in a name and providing the correct version, which we have inserted.

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NOTE

Source:

TERRE DI CONFINE magazine n. 2 – Aprile 2014
First publication: April 17, 2014 – ISBN 9788898585113
Un-periodical magazine about fantastic realized by Associazione Culturale TERRE DI CONFINE
in collaboration with PLESIO Editore
©2014 A.C. TERRE DI CONFINE
Largo S. Carlo 3/13, 33085 Maniago (PN)
redazione@terrediconfine.eu – www.terrediconfine.net
©2014 PLESIO EDITORE
Via Plutarco 38, 47121 Forlì (FC)
info@plesioeditore.it – www.plesioeditore.it
• All rights reserved •

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BIOGRAPHY

DANIELE TOMASI is a multifaceted creative in the field of ComicArt, acting as artist, letterer, colorist, editor.

With the DTE brand, “the smallest publishing house in the world”, he edited and published three volumes of the “DebbieDillinger” series (where he is even the artist), the first number of “TetroTeatro” magazine (author of texts and drawings), the digital magazine “Continua…” (a free-distribution magazine with comics of various genres and authors, seven issues so far) and three issues of the magazine “Gli Archivi del Fumetto” (new issues and large-format volumes are planned).

He has created comics and illustrations for various Italian publishers (Tunuè, ProGlo, ComixCommunity, UndergroundPress, BotteroEdizioni, Pegasus/Comicus, Antani, Apache, AltaFedeltà).
He has worked as graphic designer for Italian publishers ProGloEdizioni, GreencomService, Shockdom, Palabanda Edizioni and Chimbe.
He has made lettering for Black Velvet and RW Edizioni.
He organizes courses about the Language of Comics.

In Internet you can see some of his artworks on the website danieletomasi.altervista.org , see other works and read some of his thoughts and opinions on the blog danieletomasi.blogspot.com , read for free some of the DTE publications in issuu.com/dteditore, read for free a fake storyboard of the “Spider-man” movie by James Cameron downloading the pdf (screen or print resolution) from the site spidercameron.altervista.org , write to him at the e-mails danieletomasi@gmail.com and dteditore@gmail.com