Looks like your electrosphere primary accelerator's gone, mate: Classic car-repair manual publisher produces nuts and bolts guide to comic hero Dan Dare's spaceships



A new manual revales technology behind the spacecraft used by legendary comic book hero Dan Dare



New book has been produced by Haynes Publishing - famous for its car repair manuals



It features facts and technology about Dan Dare's personal spaceship the Anastasia among others




Forget Captain Kirk and his Starship Enterprise. Buzz-off Buzz Lightyear. And Star Wars Jedi knight Luke Skywalker can take a galactic hike too.



Make way instead for the first real interplanetary spaceman superhero who arguably inspired them all - Britain’s home-grown, lantern-jawed pilot of the future Dan Dare.



For today the firm most famous for its car-repair manuals is publishing the nuts-and-bolts inside track into the technology that propelled him through the solar system to worlds far beyond our own.

Pilot of the future: Haynes has published a manual revealing the technology that propelled Dan Dare to worlds far beyond our own, inspiring legions of fans along the way

Haynes Publishing's 'Dan Dare Pilot of the Future - Space Fleet Operations Manual ' is an engrossing labour of love from a team clearly devoted to the legacy of a hero who inspired a generation – in the hope that he may do so anew. It includes work from some of the original artists, as well as updated cutaways of space-craft, kit and weaponry that remain true to the original spirit.



For a generation of post-war children - largely though not exclusively schoolboys - Dan Dare’s interplanetary adventures were a vibrant and exotic escape from the grey austerity and rationing that persisted long after global hostilities ended.

From the moment the first Dan Dare strip blasted off in full colour on the front of the revolutionary new Eagle comic on Friday April 14, 1950 – priced at ‘3d’, or one and a half pence in today’s currency - the future never looked brighter. It caused a sensation and sold nearly a million.

The Anastasia: The new manual from Haynes gives an insight into the technology that powered Dan Dare's personal spacecraft, the Anastasia

Formidable flagship: The manual also focuses on the spacecraft used by rebel leader Tharl in the legendary Eagle comic

The Eagle comic was the brainchild of former RAF chaplain and parish vicar, the Rev. Marcus Morris, who wanted to create a morally-uplifting but no less interesting comic for children which their parents wouldn’t frown on and ban.



But it was artist Frank Hampson who created Dan Dare and assembled around him a team working at fever pitch in Epsom, Surrey, to script his stories, design his space-craft and gadgets and bring the character and his adventures to life.



Hampson used family, friends and colleagues to pose up in costumes for photographs which formed the basis of the finished drawn strips.



Legendary: The Eagle comic was a must-read for a generation of post-war children in Britain

But it wasn’t pure fantasy, with as much care taken with the science - as far as was known or hinted at at the time - as with the fiction. With hindsight there are some howlers, but most are forgivable and pale in significance to the majesty of the illustrations. Arthur C. Clarke, who would become the author of ‘2001, A Space Odyssey’ is said to have been a scientific advisor.

Originally conceived as a space chaplain complete with dog collar, Dan Dare emerged finally in print as chief pilot for the Interplanet Space Fleet on an a somewhat idealised planet Earth featuring a United Nations-inspired world government, glass domed cities, and beautiful garden landscape. But there were also problems. Dare’s first mission was to Venus to find food for a starving earth with a booming population explosion.

Dare's exploits were serialised on Radio Luxembourg, which aired The New Adventures of Dan Dare, Pilot of the Future, five times a week for five years from July 1951.



The back story is no less fascinating. In this alternative modern history of the known universe, it was Britain which won the space race, building on Germany’s wartime V2 rocket programme to pip the U.S. to land the first man on the Moon and plant the Union Flag on its lunar surface.

Later the UK was part of a joint mission to Mars with the Americans, using three spacecraft called Winston Churchill, Franklin Roosevelt and Charles de Gaulle after the three allied leaders during the Second World War.

As the uniforms suggest, the Space Fleet is a thinly disguised but updated version of the RAF, with green rather than blue colouring.



Our hero, Manchester-born and Cambridge-educated Colonel Daniel MacGregor Dare, with his distinctive wiggly eyebrow, embodies the true Brit spirit of heroism, fair play, and an inner moral strength – always willing to give even his worst enemies a second chance.



The manual includes profiles of his closest friends and colleagues – alien as well as human. Central among them are - for the time a gender stereotype-defying breakthrough – a smart, intelligent, brave and resourceful scientific space-woman and nutritionist, Professor Jocelyn Peabody, whose quick-thinking and fluency in alien languages ‘saves lives'.



And not forgetting his loyal side-kick Digby, a down-to-earth father of four from Wigan in Lancashire, who steadfastly refuses promotion to stay at his friend’s side in space.

Dan Dare manual author Rod Barzilay, 66, admits to having been a fan since boyhood. In the small-print of the acknowledgments he gives a salute to Sue, ‘my long suffering wife who became a Dan Dare widow for most of the time I was scribbling away'.



He says: ’Eagle took the world of children’s publishing by storm. But the feature that really caught everyone’s attention, and was to inspire a whole generation of future artists, writers and even scientists, was the Dan Dare Pilot of the Future science-fiction strip.

The Tempus Frangit: Dan Dare fans can immerse themselves in the space pilot's world once again thanks to the new manual

McHoo Asteroid Base: Dan Dare first blasted off on the front cover of the new Eagle comic in April 1950

‘It was superbly drawn and scripted and based on science facts of the time, with imaginative innovations thrown in for good measure. Hampson and his team realistically portrayed future equipment and inventions, kindling the imagination of its readers and encouraging a widespread hankering for space travel and interplanetary adventure’



Mr Barzilay went on: ’At the time post-war Britain was full of optimism for a better and brighter future.



'The Festival of Britain was being prepared, the aviation industry was about to steal a world lead with its Comet jet aircraft , and the country was entering upon a boom age which would prompt Prime Minister Harold Macmillan to famously state ‘our people have never had it so good'.

‘So to many of us space travel felt just around the corner and Hampson’s exciting ideas didn’t seem far-fetched at all’.



Labour of love: The 66-year-old author of the manual, Ron Barzilay, has been a fan of Dan Dare, his loyal pal Digby and arch enemy The Mekon since he was a young boy



The Zylbat: The manual features pictures of the spacecraft used by Dan and his loyal sidekick, Digby, as they journeyed through galaxies

M.E.K.I Space Station: The superbly drawn comic was based on scientific facts as they were at the time

The manual looks at the characters and technology. It includes cutaways and details of Dan Dare’s own personal two-seater space-craft, the Anastasia, which was ‘designed and built in 1997’ using alien technology as a special thank you gift.



It has four different propulsion systems including jet-power to fly, magnetic motors to hover, rocket boosters and revolutionary ‘impulse drive’, similar to what would emerge later in Star trek as ‘warp drive.’

Indeed many technologies which appeared in Star Trek in the mid 1960s had their first outing in Dan Dare more than a decade earlier. For example, ‘Beam me up Scottie’ became a catch-phrase in the transporter room of the Starship Enterprise.



Dan fans: The new manual from Haynes, seen above left and right, looks at all the characters and technology that captivated Dan Dare fans in post-war Britain



But the teleportation technology was seen as early as 1950 in Dan Dare where it was called a ‘telesender’ - technology which scrambled and unscrambled atoms to send people vast distances.

Space hero: Dan Dare can count Monty Python's Michael Palin and Terry Jones, as well as musical maestro Sir Tim Rice among his fans

Hampson, who died in 1985 aged 66, commented in later life that Star trek had ‘really cleaned out’ Dan Dare’s technology cupboard of ideas.

Dan Dare’s arch enemy is the Mekon, the green-skinned, dome-headed but small-bodied leader of the war-like Treens who inhabit Venus.

The manual notes: ’A Mekon takes 50 years to mature and lives for 300 years.



'He moves around by means of a personal flying chair that has been armoured against all known hand weapons.

It goes on: ‘He is ruthless in his dealings with those who fail him, destroying any who don’t deliver and has proved very elusive when things go against him. A number of times he has been presumed dead, only to resurface again.’

Dan Dare inspired a legion of avid fans including Monty Python’s Michael Palin and Terry Jones, who said: ’The combination of fantasy and humour, for me, was irresistible. I was hooked. It was pure genius.’



And musical maestro and song lyricist Sir Tim Rice, who had copies of the Eagle shipped over to him while a child living in Japan in the 1950s, said: ‘Dan remains an human and likeable character, an emblem of the optimism, straight-forward and culturally confident Britain of the 1950s which lives on in Dan Dare’s future, but sadly never made it in ours.’



As author Rod Barzilay concludes: ’Dan’s story has now become the future of an exciting parallel universe rather than our own.



'It nevertheless remains a fascinating place to be explored.’

Dan Dare's original home the Eagle was published from 1950 to 1969, before being relaunched in a new format from 1982 to 1994.

The space hero has also appeared in Revolver and the Planet, and was at the centre of a seven-issue mini-series published by Virgin Comics in 2008.

The strip has also appeared in Spaceship Away magazine, which was launched in 2003 and continues today.



The Dan Dare Manual (Haynes Publishing) is out now priced £16.99. Available from bookshops or direct from www.haynes.co.uk/dan-dare



