Absolutely gorgeous artwork.

JB, can you recommend any compilations/trades of Dan Dare? 

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I'm prejudiced, of course, but if you start with SAFARI IN SPACE, halfway in you will come to the first chapter of TERRA NOVA, which is where I started!

I have collected all the Titan DARE books, for "historical completeness", but it really was around this time -- and the immediately preceding stories, THE MAN FROM NOWHERE and REIGN OF THE ROBOTS -- that the Hampson studio really kicked into high gear. TERRA NOVA was the zenith, in my not so humble opinion.

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Maybe yes, maybe no. Bellamy did most of the illustrations for the (TV) AVENGERS episode "The Winged Avenger" -- and altho he brought his magic to those images, he was clearly constrained by having to draw the wonky costume the actor would be seen wearing later in the show.

Still, I have wondered many a time what he might have done with Hawkman -- or Batman!

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You're welcome! But, be warned! The SAFARI IN SPACE/TERRA NOVA volume ends on a cliffhanger, so you may be sucked even further into this world.

(Not that that's a BAD thing!)

At least the next volume, TRIP TO TROUBLE (which includes PROJECT NIMBUS, my favorite DARE story) is already out, so you won't have to wait MONTHS for the resolution, as I did back in 1960!!

"... Calling Controller, Spacefleet H.Q. - 'SPA-ONE' Calling Controller..."

Yah Don, your going to love it!

"would any of these artists have been a good fit for the super hero genre?"

The Garth strip, which Bellamy did later, was arguably a superhero strip, albeit not a costumed crimefighter strip. Garth certainly was "superhuman" in many respects, and there were lots of sci-fi and supernatural elements in the strip, as well as time-travel (of sorts).

And I think Bellamy did that quite well.

Ordered!

I find the prices for these beauties incredibly reasonable.

Let's see if I feel that way when I'm purchasing my fifth volume...

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For the present, that will mean going back in time! And poor Dan & Co. are very close to falling on hard times.

Bellamy signed on for only one year, and Hampson was rather roughly booted from any connection with the strip. His studio soldiered on, with writer Eric Eden and artist Don Harley and Bruce Cornwell producing some admirable efforts after PROJECT NIMBUS (the Harley/Cornwall team turns up most visibly there first, in fact, as Bellamy was able to produce only ONE of the two pages DARE claimed in each weeks EAGLE). MISSION OF THE EARTHMEN, THE SOLID SPACE MYSTERY, THE PLATINUM PLANET, THE EARTH STEALERS ---- but a lot of the magic was gone.

Mind you, as a kid reading these stories I was still swept away by the wonder of these worlds, and it is only thru adult eyes that I can see the decline -- the spirit had been sucked out of the strip. And soon the editors of EAGLE made things worse, by reducing Dan's front page status by 50%, adding a "new feature" called MEN OF ACTION, about real life heroes of sports and adventure. The DARE stories must have been plotted out a long way in advance, tho, as when this happened the panel count did not diminish, making for some very crowded second pages!

And the editors were not done! Soon Dan lost his front cover status and found himself on interior pages -- in black and white! Artist Keith Watson took over, and altho he had been part of the Hampson studio he did not have quite the same gifts as those who went before him. I was very aware at the time that something was "off", without really being able to put a finger on it. Different writers changed the dynamics, too. Familiar supporting cast members were shunted into the sidelines, and new (and to my eyes less appealing) characters came in. (Still, that didn't stop me, two Xmases ago, from treating myself to a grey ink wash Watson page from the last DARE story I read -- and featuring Dan's recurrent nemesis, the Mekon!)

I have found myself wondering how Titan Books will deal with some of this. After NIMBUS, will be see those other stories? And how will they deal, if at all, with Dan's brief foray onto the centerspread?