Comics UK

Post edited.

colcool007 wrote:Phoenix, that's a fair point, but I must admit that my selection of Messrs Dare, Digby, Guest et al is heavily influenced by this beautiful Bolland cover

Is there not some fuzzy thinking going on here, Colin? For a start, you have never previously mentioned Digby or Guest or any et als fom the Dare strip, so why have you included them now? Furthermore, they are clearly not considered that important anyway because they haven't been included on the Bolland cover you so admire. Whichever way you look at things, Dan Dare is the main man, the rest are merely adjuncts.

colcool007 wrote:I always thought that the flag was the Union Flag and by implication, that Dare was fiercely patriotic. Whereas you say that it is world patriotism, I still feel that it was always something forever British.

As far as the patriotism factor is concerned, I was careful not to state that Dare was a patriot. This was largely because the word patriot has evolved from the Latin word patria meaning native land, so it wouldn't be usable to refer to an entire planet, but also because I imagine that the sheer scope of his campaigns against galactic evil doers would result in Britain being reduced to the role of a seriously unimportant bit-part player. Incidentally, I don't know quite what you mean by the Union Flag. What Union? Is this something specific to 2000 AD? I don't know much about that paper. My Dan Dare was in Eagle, 1950s vintage, and I can assert that he wouldn't have been seen dead in that uniform. It's the kind of thing Kate Moss might wear to one of her celebrity parties.

Union Flag - it would be the flag of the UK, if the stars weren't on it.

Digifiend wrote:Union Flag - it would be the flag of the UK, if the stars weren't on it.

My previous post makes what I am asking crystal clear. I don't want information about what the flag would be if............, the presence of the stars is the whole point. Perhaps somebody with a collection of 2000AD may be able to clear this up.

Phoenix wrote: Is there not some fuzzy thinking going on here, Colin?

Of course there is fuzzy thinking going on. We are discussing comics after all and I always get warm and fuzzy discussing comics:)

Phoenix wrote:Furthermore, they are clearly not considered that important anyway because they haven't been included on the Bolland cover you so admire.

I only mentioned them to show I am not completely ignorant of the Dan Dare stories.

Phoenix wrote:Whichever way you look at things, Dan Dare is the main man, the rest are merely adjuncts.

No argument there

Phoenix wrote:As far as the patriotism factor is concerned, I was careful not to state that Dare was a patriot. This was largely because the word patriot has evolved from the Latin word patria meaning native land, so it wouldn't be usable to refer to an entire planet,

I don’t know. In the future imagined in the Dare stories, Britain’s importance always seems to be magnified and it is implied that the sun never set on the British Empire. ( I know it was all re-invented in 2000AD, but I am trying to stick to my meagre knowledge of the original Dare.) SO if the Empire is still extant, as it was in the 1950’s, surely any member of the Empire could claim most of the globe as his native land? A point to ponder perhaps?

Phoenix wrote:Incidentally, I don't know quite what you mean by the Union Flag. What Union? Is this something specific to 2000 AD? I don't know much about that paper.

As stated, I was indeed referring to the UK flag, which is known as the Union Flag and should only be referred to as the Union Jack where it flying on the stern of a ship.

Phoenix wrote:My Dan Dare was in Eagle, 1950s vintage, and I can assert that he wouldn't have been seen dead in that uniform.

My Dare was in 2000AD and Revolver, but let’s not confuse the issue even more by considering Morrison’s politicised version.

Phoenix wrote:It's the kind of thing Kate Moss might wear to one of her celebrity parties.

I am not going there or we will end up with an X-rated thread!

Phoenix wrote:I don't want information about what the flag would be if............, the presence of the stars is the whole point. Perhaps somebody with a collection of 2000AD may be able to clear this up.

I think that cover was a bit of a conceit on Brian's part and not really connected to the early 2000AD Dan Dare storyline, though later versions did go on to take up the idea of a British Empire extending to the stars - indeed, Pat Mills even 'revealed' that Dan himself was a Battle of Britain pilot who'd been accidentally catapulted forward in time. In fact there is something of a thriving sub-genre of parallel world stories in which the sun never set on the British Empire which includes Bryan Talbot's Luther Arkwright, Mark Millar's Ministry of Space, Edginton & D'Israeli's Scarlet Traces, Michael Moorcock's Oswald Bastaple stories, Harry Harrison's A Transatlantic Tunnel, Hurrah! and Christopher Priest's fascinating The Separation.

- Phil Rushton

There was another one too where a meteorite hit Britain, but fortunatley the entire government were on holiday in India so make that the new Britain and rule the empire from there.

There was also a DCT story in which the USA is destroyed by hundreds of atomic bombs going off at once, which also sets the atmosphere on fire and people flock to Britain to take off to Venus in the few spaceships which can be launched from here. Once on Venus an island rich in radium is chosen as the new Britain, which becomes super-rich because of this valuable material.

Just to go off on a slight tangent. It has always amused me to what extent Dundee based D C Thomson have featured strips and stories in their comics and story papers that were set at the time of the Jacobite Rebellion in which the English were the bad guys. Bloody Cumberland and his redcoat hordes may well have been deserving of the bad guy tag but this type of story featuring the likes of the Red MacGregor, Wild Young Dirky and Red Rory of the Eagles showed that, when push came to shove, Thomson's preferred the clan tartan to the Union flag.

philcom55 wrote:

Phoenix wrote:I don't want information about what the flag would be if............, the presence of the stars is the whole point. Perhaps somebody with a collection of 2000AD may be able to clear this up.

I think that cover was a bit of a conceit on Brian's part and not really connected to the early 2000AD Dan Dare storyline, though later versions did go on to take up the idea of a British Empire extending to the stars - indeed, Pat Mills even 'revealed' that Dan himself was a Battle of Britain pilot who'd been accidentally catapulted forward in time. In fact there is something of a thriving sub-genre of parallel world stories in which the sun never set on the British Empire which includes Bryan Talbot's Luther Arkwright, Mark Millar's Ministry of Space, Edginton & D'Israeli's Scarlet Traces, Michael Moorcock's Oswald Bastaple stories, Harry Harrison's A Transatlantic Tunnel, Hurrah! and Christopher Priest's fascinating The Separation.

- Phil Rushton

It wasn't Pat who came up with that revised origin, though he did write 'The Dare Report', which fleshed it out. The idea of Dan as a Battle of Britain pilot was introduced in the comics by Barrie Tomlinson, who wrote the first episode of Return of the Mekon, to tie the strip in to a proposed TV series which would have reinvented Dan as a kind of time lost Buck Rogers figure. A dreadful idea, I think, but I can see why it was necessary to link the Eagle strip into the show, though it ultimately never got made.

As far as the ultimate patriotic British hero goes, I think it has to be Captain Britain. OK, he was created by order of Marvel US (though oriiginal writer Chris Claremont was born in London) but by the time of Dez Skinn's 'Marvel revolution' he was British through and through and always struck me as a welcome antidote to the boringly virtuous Captain America and his ilk. Captain Britain was, as written by Steve Parkhouse, then Dave Thorpe, Alan Moore, Alan Davis and Jamie Delano, a privileged, sometimes rather pompous character who frequently hid a lack of self esteem under bluster, but never gave up and somehow always won through, often more by accident than design. But he was always, always totally committed to Britain, to the extent that he had real trouble believing it could ever be less than perfect. Where Captain America would make a rousing speech about Americans being the champions of democracy before charging in to beat up the bad guys heedless of danger or common sense, Captain Britain would moodily knock back a scotch, say 'sod it, I suppose someone'd better do something' and sullenly put matters right in half the time, moaning because his weekend had been ruined. I know who I'd prefer to have on my side.

Kashgar wrote:Just to go off on a slight tangent. It has always amused me to what extent Dundee based D C Thomson have featured strips and stories in their comics and story papers that were set at the time of the Jacobite Rebellion in which the English were the bad guys.

I had a similar reaction to all the American comics I used to read, where English redcoats were treated like Nazi stormtroopers in books like Tomahawk and Superman regularly classed Benedict Arnold alongside Judas, Hitler and Attila the Hun as one of History's most hated figures!

- Phil Rushton

tony ingram wrote:It wasn't Pat who came up with that revised origin, though he did write 'The Dare Report', which fleshed it out. The idea of Dan as a Battle of Britain pilot was introduced in the comics by Barrie Tomlinson, who wrote the first episode of Return of the Mekon, to tie the strip in to a proposed TV series which would have reinvented Dan as a kind of time lost Buck Rogers figure.

Interesting - I didn't realize that. As a matter of interest do you know if Sydney Jordan's short-lived Dan Dare strip was intended to tie in with the same idea? I seem to remember that the initial episodes also had a WW2 theme...

- Phil Rushton

I can't help thinking that the flag looked like a reversed confederate flag with a St George's Cross superimposed!

Thanks for all the replies folks. Looks like patriotic heroes are more of an American thing then. Glad to hear that really.

Lew

All this talk about Union Jacks and no-one's mentioned Union Jack of the Invaders/Knights of Pendragon.

Don't know if it counts but Albion of the aforementioned Knights sported a lion rampant. There's also Chuck Austen's version of Captain Britain, who went on to call herself Lionheart.