The Eagle ran for 991 issues from April 1950 until its demise in 1969 and - with a circulation of over a million copies a week - was Britain's best selling post war comic.

The Dan Dare strip - in one form or another - was a fundamental part of the Eagle and, for many years, was the front page story.

This Website is a tribute to the genius of Frank Hampson, creator of Dan Dare.

It will include artwork by him and other members of his team that - over fifty years ago - began one of the most innovative of SF creations: one that is still enthralling readers from around the globe in the 21st century.

Funnily enough, it was the late 20th and early 21st centuries that Frank wrote about and drew for the Dan Dare strip. Hampson's time period was not like ours: it was not only different from our 'reality' in terms of its science and astrophysics, but also in the way the Earth - and particularly Britain - has developed.

Frankly, Dan's Britain and ours are a 'world' apart. His was an extrapolation of Britain in the 1950's with the same thrusting advances in science, aviation and space technology. Ours... kind of isn't.

But it's not just in our reach for the stars that our reality is out of step with Hampson's creation. Dan's world was (or I should say 'is': the first story is, after all, set in the late 1990's) one shaped by plucky, resourceful, brave and - above all - honorable men (and women) which is, sadly, hard to recognise today.

This site - as I have indicated above - is simply intended to honour that philosophy and the great body of work that Mr Hampson and his colleagues have left us and - through the hard work of others - is still being added to.

It has nothing whatsoever to do, of course, with any recent TV cartoon series of a similar name.

No sir.

John Treadaway
2004