A Dan Dare cartoon, taken from the new Science
Museum exhibition.
Photograph: Dan Dare Corporation Ltd
Dan Dare was no ordinary Manchester lad. Born there in 1967, he studied at Cambridge and Harvard before joining Space Fleet and leading the first manned mission to Venus in 1996. It was there he first set eyes on Mekonta, the futuristic city where the Mekon, a Venusian Hitler type with a giant head, ruled over the unfeeling, raygun-happy Treens.
Colonel Dare - "Pilot of the Future" - had countless thrilling adventures in which he liberated oppressed peoples and beings, whether on Venus, under the sea on Earth, or on distant planets, many featuring persuasive futuristic architectural backdrops. His exploits appeared in the colourful pages of the Eagle, the hugely successful boys' adventure comic founded in 1950 by a Lancashire vicar, the Reverend Marcus Morris, with Fleet Street's Hulton Press. The first issue sold a staggering 900,000 copies and, during the 1950s and early 60s, its influence on the younger generation - many of whom would go on to be designers, engineers and architects - was huge.
Drawn and scripted by Manchester-born Frank Hampson, the comic strip may have been set in the then-distant 1990s, but it was very much the story of Britain in the 1950s, battling its way in the postwar world, still optimistic about its global clout, bolstered by technological prowess and cutting-edge design savvy. Dan Dare was really a second world war pilot, a plucky RAF chap exporting decency, fair play and exclamations like "Sufferin' satellites!" across the universe.
Although the Eagle folded in 1969, the dashing, lantern-jawed hero has now returned for a new adventure: Dan Dare and the Birth of Hi-Tech Britain, an intriguing exhibition at London's Science Museum that examines how Hampson's drawings, together with the contemporary hi-tech ethos they evoked, affected both domestic life and scientific endeavour in 1950s Britain. Yet it was architecture - not the main concern of the Science Museum show - that was actually most influenced by the Dan Dare dream of a futuristic Britain.
Not only were the strips pacy, patriotic reads, they were astonishing in terms of their architectural prescience. Hampson pushed design boundaries, showing how a bowler-hat, pinstripe Britain could endure quite happily in a future world of atomic-era design. His imaginings were eagerly lapped up by some of the youngsters who would go on to create Britain's highly regarded school of hi-tech, space-age influenced architecture.
(The Guardian)
The exhibition at the Science Museum in London
is from April 30 to October 25 (Admission Free)
Dan Dare’s rocket fleet roars high over Venus to trounce his arch foe – the power-mad Mekon. Meanwhile, back on Earth, another extraordinary future is unfolding – one which laid the foundation for Britain’s hi-tech consumer society.
After 1945, though war-weary and broke, Britain found huge pride in wartime advances such as radar, penicillin and the jet engine. Discoveries like these were now tipped to kick-start world-beating industries, bring prosperity and bankroll the emerging welfare state.
In an age before globalisation, products from rockets to radios sprang from local roots. Together they reveal a fascinating ‘lost world’ of British design and invention – a glimpse of a time when the TV in the corner was a Murphy, not a Sony.
This exciting new temporary exhibition explores the role played by technology in creating post-war Britain.
