This is from the era when Dan Dare had been relegated to black and white inside the comic. A far cry from the character's glory days in the 1950s when he was prominent on the front cover in full colour every week.
The Evil One sees Dan and his loyal sidekick Digby encounter an alien fugitive... in Blackpool! It may not sound like Dare's finest hour but the artwork by Keith Watson is top class and the script by David Motton is suitably entertaining. As these strips have never been reprinted before they're sure to be of interest to fans of the series!
With Titan's Dan Dare books and Rebellion's numerous Treasury of British Comics collections we're living in a golden age of British comics reprints!
You can pre-order Dan Dare: The Evil One here:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Dan-Dare-Evil-Graphic-Novel/dp/1785862936
Marvellous! My favourite Dan Dare story was the penultimate long serial, Give Me The Moon. Because it appeared as a double page spread over the centre pages (fortunately in colour) I don't think it was ever reprinted in book form. However the problem that created was more or less overcome more recently in some TV21 reprints where the middle section of the spread was duplicated on the right of the left hand page and the left of the right hand page, so perhaps that technique could be used.
ReplyDeleteHopefully they'll get around to reprinting that story eventually. David Leach is the editor so I'm sure he'll do a good job of it.
ReplyDeleteIf I got the description right, a digital edition "reprint" could handle double pages as "landscape".... goodness you look shocked. :-)
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile Marvel UK comics is serving nostalgic readers again by printing pages shrunk 2-into-1 and turned sideways. These usually aren't double pages but it recalls earlier years when Marvel disrespected the original layout and reading experience, the 1990s when U.S. stories were drawn sideways in the first place (but by this logic would be upside down... I suppose that could be rectified), and the Second World War paper shortage.
And wasn't there an edition with the staples in the short edge of the page...