Arrested Development

This Christmas was a lurch backward some 30 years. But unlike the fictional DI Sam Taylor, my return to the 1970s was one of choice. Moreover, making such a nostalgic trip to childhood had a high likelihood of let-down and disappointment. After all, what one recalls fondly of three decades past at the age of nine or ten, is unlikely to hold in (near;-)middle age.

This year I asked Santa and sundries for a series of Dan Dare comic books, all accurate reprints from the original plates used in the strip's initial run in the 1950s Eagle comic book.

**See detail below on Dan Dare, Pilot of the Future.

Far from disappointed, I've been very happily surprised, not only by the quality of the graphics, but of the sheer imagination in the storylines. And given that the strips were produced in the post-war austerity of 50s Britain, their ethics are decidedly enlightened.

Set in the near future 1990s, earth is a place of universal equality and hunger has been eliminated. In these stories, earth's threats lie somewhere in outer space (the Solar System) -- notably the Mighty Mekon of Mekonta hailing from the north of Venus. While somewhat 'whitebread' and patriarchal (our hero is terribly British, stiff upper lip and all), there's a strong female lead character too, Dr. Jocelyn Peabody, chief scientist, no less, a character of pluck and resource and far from simpering love interest. Ethnicities (green) are covered by a good Treen or Venetian, Sondar, who turned against the wicked Mekon.

Another graphical blast from the past which might have proven more troublesome ethically was the gift of a compendium of 12 of the best Commando comic strips.

All set in WWs 1 and 2, these stories are of brave Tommies overcoming the pesky Hun. All "Achtung!", "Gott in Himmel!", "Donner und Blitzen!" Well, on the face of it anyway... Actually, all the stories -- exceptionally inked btw -- are more about personal decency, honour and goodness than sticking it to Fritz. Battles (land, sea and air) against the Germans are merely a foil for characters to undertake personal journeys of test and discovery, a latter-day Gawain or Launcelot if you like.

OK, "Die! Englischer schweinhund", is extreme and bang out of order today, but again, like Dan, these strips were written in the 1960s, a very different time.

Once past the occasional post-war lapse of reason, and these too are damn fine -- nay meaninful -- entertainments.

**Dan Dare is a classic British science fiction comic hero, created by illustrator Frank Hampson for the Eagle comic story Dan Dare, Pilot of the Future in 1950.

Although the stories were set in the late 1990s, the dialogue and manner in which all the characters interact is reminiscent of British war films of the 1950s (it has been described as "Biggles in Space" or the British equivalent of Buck Rogers). Dan Dare was distinguished by its long, complex story lines (sometimes lasting for over a year), snappy dialogue and meticulously illustrated comic-strip artwork by Hampson and other artists.

Dan Dare first appeared on the cover of the first issue of the weekly comic strip magazine Eagle, on 14 April 1950. There were two large colour pages of this story per issue. The artwork was of a very high quality, being the product of a team of artists working in a studio system. This included scale models of spaceships, and models posing in costume as points of reference for the artists.

Attention was paid to scientific plausibility, with the science fiction luminary Arthur C. Clarke acting as a science and plot adviser to the first strip. The stories were set mostly on planets of the solar system, which were presumed to have extraterrestrial life and alien inhabitants, as was common in science fiction of the era before the space probes of the 1960s proved that the most likely worlds were really lifeless. The first story, for example, begins with Dan Dare as pilot of the first successful flight to Venus.

Dan Dare (full name Colonel Daniel McGregor Dare) was chief pilot of the Interplanet Space Fleet, stated as having been born in Manchester, England in the year 1967. Although not a super-hero, he would sometimes pull off exceptional feats of piloting, and often proved to be extraordinarily lucky. He excelled at hand-to-hand combat using jiu jitsu, but he would most often find non-violent solutions to his predicaments. He was bound by a strong sense of honour to the extent that he never lied, and would rather die than break his word.