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Dan Dare: Pilot Of The Future: Voyage To Venus Part 1 by Frank Hampton
01/09/2004 . Source: Geoff Willmetts 
pub: Titan Books. 95 page graphic novel hardback. Price: £14.99 (UK), $19.95 (CAN). ISBN: 1-84823-644-2). Dan Dare: Pilot Of The Future: Voyage To Venus Part 2. pub: Titan Books. 95 page graphic novel hardback. Price: £14.99 (UK), $19.95 (CAN). ISBN: 1-84823-841-0). Buy from Amazon US - Buy from Amazon UK
nb: US titles may only be available from Amazon US, and UK titles from Amazon UK. check out website: www.titanbooks.com
Titan Books
It's very hard to review these two books as separate entities. Although they were released a couple months apart, I doubt if you'd buy the second one without having the first one because they are all part of the same story. Parts 1 and 2 should give that away. The story in question is the very first Dan Dare story from 'The Eagle' British comic spanning April 1950 to September 1951. Practically 18 months at 3 pages a week. Imagine the kids of today keeping their interest up for so long a period over a single story. Mind you, in those days not everyone had TV and there was a far greater dependency on radio and one's own imagination. Having a comic such as 'The Eagle' landing on your doorstep after week must have brought light to many a kid's rainbow. I wasn't born when it first came out but I recognised the effect when I had my own generation equivalent when 'TV21' came out. Looking over this reprint of Dan Dare's first story, although very much a period piece now, is also a remarkable piece of work.
 
The year is 1996 and with food resources lower than the unit population and everyone living off vitamin block food, it is decided to send spaceships from the Interplanet Space Fleet to Venus to see if it could supply additional foodstuffs. Obviously, in those days, no one was really applying concentrated farming.
The only problem is these vessels are destroyed as the approach the second planet. Colonel Dan Dare, his batman Rigby, Professor Jocelyn Peabody and Sir Hubert Guest figure out the problem and land on Venus. There they discover three distinct species. Most dangerous of these are the green-skinned Treen, led by the arch-brain Mekon. Under his leadership, the Treen are in favour of scientific approach to everything, including finding out what makes humans tick with the captured astronauts. The other two species are the blue-skinned Atlanteans and the pink-skinned Therons - descendants of Earth natives brought to Venus centuries ago. Thought dead by the Treens after escaping, Dan Dare has to seek out and befriend these two species and build up a revolution that will over-throw the Mekon before he conquers the Earth.
There is a lot of extra information with these books about the history and design of the comicstrip and an interview with Frank Hampson himself before he died. I wish there was some elaboration as to what Arthur C. Clarke was used as consultant for with this series. It certainly couldn't have been with life on Mars or Venus, not with the spaceships which owed more to Buck Rogers in the means to sort out the world food problem. There doesn't seem much left after that. Frank Hampson, as artist and writer, was a perfectionist and it's interesting to see how his art becomes more elaborate as the story unfolds over the 18 months.
Dan Dare is very much a major part of British comicbook history and with Titan's plans to release a book of his adventures every couple months means there is a great opportunity to add his stories to your bookshelves. This deserves to succeed and might encourage Titan to examine other notable stories pre-2000AD comic for other such releases.
GF Willmetts 
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