  Joan Porter, Frank's studio assistant, took scores of 'Polyphotos' to use as references when drawing the strip. This is one of the master when he had just begun Dan Dare. |
In 1959, after nine years work on the best drawn strip cartoon
ever to appear in a paper for boys, Frank Hampson quit Dan Dare.
He planned a year’s sabbatical. He certainly deserved it. He was dedicated to his strip to the point of obsession. Time away to regenerate was vital. Without it he would collapse (not for the first time) and Dan Dare wither away for lack of fresh storylines and new visual ideas. He never took up Dare again. Instead he visited the Holy Land to research The Road of Courage, his strip rendition of the life of Christ. The Road ended at Easter 1961 and he began to create the strips on this website. Meanwhile Eagle was being crushed between two violently opposing cultures: the meticulous, caring, reader-respecting originators of the paper, and the penny-pinching, corner- cutting journeymen of Longacre Press who owned it now. Jealousy, professional rivalry and trouble over money, plus (it has to be said) Hampson’s own arrogance, led Longacre to declare him persona non grata. They seized his seven strips (his contract allowed this) consigned them to their art vaults and refused to use or return them to him. He never saw them again. To see the lost heroes, learn how they were discovered and partially restored, and how they arrived on this web-site, follow the links from the home page. To return to the home page at any stage click on the title. Most of the images on this site can be viewed at a larger size if you click on them. |