Dan Dare and the Birth of Hi-Tech Britain

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 today’s hi-tech consumer society.

‘Planetfall’, an original work by Frank Hampson, creator of Dan Dare, 1977.

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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.

During the 1950s, millions of people – children and adults – followed the adventures of Dan Dare, as portrayed in Eagle magazine. Every week Dan Dare ranged across space, battling his arch foe – the power-mad Mekon. Meanwhile, back on Earth, another extraordinary future was unfolding – one which laid the foundation for today’s hi-tech consumer society.

‘Dan Dare – pilot of the future’ arrived in April 1950 in the first issue of the weekly Eagle comic, which sold a phenomenal 900,000 copies. The Eagle was an unlikely publishing success. It was conceived by Marcus Morris, a modern-minded vicar in Southport, Lancashire, who wanted to publish wholesome adventures that countered American comics, which he saw as ‘over-violent and obscene’.

Morris was delighted to make contact with Frank Hampson, a talented local artist who gave form to his idea and created the Dan Dare lead story. Hampson’s art education had been interrupted by the Second World War. While in Antwerp, during the closing stages of the war, Hampson saw the ‘innards’ of German V2 rockets which had been fired at the city and was captivated by ‘the beauty and precision of the working parts. ... It seemed to me that here was the birth of space travel’:

I wanted to give hope for the future, to show that rockets, and science in general, could reveal new worlds, new opportunities. I was sure that space travel would be a reality.

Dan Dare’s adventures were created by Hampson and his team of artists using an innovative method for drawing strip cartoons, using a film-like approach where the narrative was carried in a more fluid way between frames, and employing physical models of rockets and space cities to draw from life. This evocation of the possibilities offered by future technology enthused a generation, from James Dyson to Stephen Hawking. For many people, from schoolboys to scientists and engineers, Dan Dare symbolised the bright future that technology offered to the post-war world.

‘Earth orbit space station’, an original work by Frank Hampson, the creator of Dan Dare, 1977.

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Between 1945 and 1970, Britain set out to reinvent itself as a hi-tech nation. New technology, much of it from wartime research, created new industries and helped to modernise old ones.