Chris K. :: DAN DARE (Bellamy, Eden, Hampson)

Hampson, Frank - Dan Dare; Reign of the Robots (July 19, 1957)

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Artwork Details

Title:	Hampson, Frank - Dan Dare; Reign of the Robots (July 19, 1957)
Artist:	Frank Hampson (All)
Media Type:	Mixed Media
Art Type:	Title Page
For Sale Status:	NFS
Views:	1,566
Likes on CAF:	2 3
Favorited on CAF:	1
Comments:	3
Added to Site:	5/14/2015
Comic Art Archive:

Description

Frank Hampson lived from 1918 – 1985. From the ages of 32 to 44, he created, together with a team of professionally trained artists, 1,000 pages of Dan Dare: Pilot of the Future and another strip, The Road of Courage. As a teenager, he was introduced by an uncle to the U.S. phenomenon of the ‘funny papers’ (his early influences include Chester Gould’s Dick Tracy, Milton Caniff’s Terry & the Pirates and Alex Raymond’s Flash Gordon. His love of the funny papers notwithstanding, early on Hampson thought of himself as a fashion illustrator, leaving for London in 1949 to break into fashion magazines and advertising. But, he found his artistic voice with strip art & the creation of Dan Dare. As he would put it - ‘the inter-relation between picture and word seems delightful and natural to me.’ It must have – he left in 1949 with the intent of breaking into fashion illustration…and the first Dan Dare would appear in April of 1950.

Hampson was a man of strong principles and a work ethic second to none. As an artist, he drove the effort to distinguish the strip from competitors of the day whose work was largely characterized by panels of the same size, black & white art on cheap paper and stories that lacked depth and character. He would present changing frame sizes, perspective and dynamic use of light, shade & coloring in every page of Dan Dare his studio produced.

Hampson would set his stories in the 1990’s and mostly on the planets of our solar system – all at a time when the space probes of the 1960’s that would prove all other worlds were lifeless had yet to be launched. So, even though Hampson had a fairly decent command of cosmology, he was not burdened nor limited by what we know of our solar system today. Rather, he could send his protagonist out to explore worlds as he envisioned them. He started them in a fully visualized 21st century Earth – and then shot them across space.
As important as the character was, so was the setting. It’s late 1949 when Hampson was developing the concept – and England had obviously just come off a brutal war. Dan Dare is set in the future where war no longer exists, leaders are men of character and human beings are stretching their wings technologically and exploring other planets. It took the view of the reader forward and focused on what we could become, not what we had been. It’s no accident that, against the backdrop of readers still living on food rations after the second world war, the first story found the Earth in the middle of a food crisis, with the launch of a desperate mission to reach Venus and salvation. Like all great storytellers, Hampson had a keen sense of the times within which he wrote. He knew what his readers wanted – and he gave it to them.

In coming years, the influence that the strip had on its targeted audience became very clear – in the world of comics, young English men exposed to the strip as youngsters would grow into modern comic art greats (creators such as Dave Gibbons, Brian Bolland, John Byrne, Bryan Talbot, Chris Claremont, David Lloyd and Garry Leach) and all consider him influential on their work.

And the strips impact on young Brits was not just confined to artists and comics. In the world of music, Dan Dare was written into songs by artists such David Bowie, Elton John and Pink Floyd founder, Syd Barrett.

And in what has to be the most obvious of inspirations, Stephen Hawking, theoretical physicist, cosmologist and Director of Research at the Center for Theoretical Cosmology within the University of Cambridge (and who was ~ 8 ½ when the first issue was released), when asked how Dan Dare had influenced him, answered ‘Why am I in cosmology?’ Wow.

I would be remiss if not ending with a ‘thank you’ to Terry Doyle for introducing me to the world of Dan Dare. That ended up being a really expensive round of Guinness, Terry!

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About the Owner

	Chris K. Premium Gallery Owner
Joined:	August 2008
Last Login:	September 2025
Country:	UNITED STATES
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Comments on this Artwork

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dale jackson
Member Since 2007

Posted on 5/29/2015

My favorite artist .. Beautiful !

Terry Doyle
Member Since 2004

Posted on 6/8/2015

No scan can do the original artwork full justice, which has to be seen 'in the flesh' to be fully appreciated!

Adam Ianbarry
Member Since 2010

Posted on 11/19/2015

Awesome Art! That first panel's a belter!

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