Now I am a child of the 1950s.
I may have grown into a teenager and left school in the 60s, but my formative years were set in the decade before, when the country was coming out of rationing, television was still for a few and bombsites vied with parks as places to play.
And for my generation …. both boy and girl, Christmas meant a comic annual.
Mine was and remained the Eagle.
The comic had first appeared in 1950, and its first companion annual was published in 1951.
Each annual was a mix of articles, hobby activities and stories, with a fair share of those stories turned over to picture strips featuring characters from the comic.
And foremost amongst the heroes was Dan Dare.
I can’t remember when I got my first annual, but it will have been around 1957, and from then on till I “put away such things” six years later the books were always part of my Christmas.
Dan Dare in the Vanishing Scientists was from vol 9 which was published in 1960, and told the story of Strombold “a renegade scientist” who has kidnapped a group of fellow scientists to use them to attack Earth.
Of course, he is defeated, but not before we have been given a glimpse of how the author thought the future would be like.
And not unsurprisingly amongst all the rockets, and advanced technology, there was much that was just 1950s Britain, including a “midnight feast” by students at Astral College, and a professor dressed in gown and hat.
But above all it was that good triumphed over bad, and criminals were defeated, prompting Sir Hubert Guest, head of Space Fleet to comment that men like Strombold “try to make science work for their own power instead of humanity – and that will never do!”
And you can’t say fairer than that.
Location; the Future
Pictures; from Dan Dare in the Vanishing Scientists, Eagle Annual 9, 1960
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| Page 1 |
I may have grown into a teenager and left school in the 60s, but my formative years were set in the decade before, when the country was coming out of rationing, television was still for a few and bombsites vied with parks as places to play.
And for my generation …. both boy and girl, Christmas meant a comic annual.
 |
| Page 2 |
The comic had first appeared in 1950, and its first companion annual was published in 1951.
Each annual was a mix of articles, hobby activities and stories, with a fair share of those stories turned over to picture strips featuring characters from the comic.
And foremost amongst the heroes was Dan Dare.
I can’t remember when I got my first annual, but it will have been around 1957, and from then on till I “put away such things” six years later the books were always part of my Christmas.
Dan Dare in the Vanishing Scientists was from vol 9 which was published in 1960, and told the story of Strombold “a renegade scientist” who has kidnapped a group of fellow scientists to use them to attack Earth.
Of course, he is defeated, but not before we have been given a glimpse of how the author thought the future would be like.
 |
| Page 8 |
But above all it was that good triumphed over bad, and criminals were defeated, prompting Sir Hubert Guest, head of Space Fleet to comment that men like Strombold “try to make science work for their own power instead of humanity – and that will never do!”
And you can’t say fairer than that.
Location; the Future
Pictures; from Dan Dare in the Vanishing Scientists, Eagle Annual 9, 1960
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