This post is aimed at those who have stumbled across this website but are not familiar with the Jeff Hawke club. The JHC is a unique and very successful publishing venture, re-printing for the first time ever the entire run of Jeff Hawke stories , probably the greatest sci-fi strip of the 20th century.Created and drawn by Sydney Jordan, Jeff Hawke ran consecutively as a syndicated strip in two British newspapers from 1954 until 1988 and was a sci-fi strip aimed at an adult audience. Its themes are subtle and thought provoking – its artwork mature and realistic. The entire corpus comprises 111 stories and until the JHC began its work, only six of these were available in reprinted form in English. To date , since its formation in 2001, the club, with full co-operation of Sydney Jordan, has re-published 93 of the stories in a series of large-format books, which reproduce the strips ( from master-prints  in the newspaper archives) at their original size. Accompanying each story are extensive notes, both by Sydney and by well known science author and collaborator Duncan Lunan.

The books are published three times a year and are available exclusively to members of the Jeff Hawke club. Membership fee is paid annually and for this you receive the next three books as they become available. Membership also allows you to purchase all the other books in the series and thus to obtain the entire collection of Jeff Hawke stories to date.This is a unique opportunity to own and read this groundbreaking sci-fi series, available nowhere else.

Annual membership rates ( including regular postage)  are as follows ( assuming that you pay via Paypal)

U.K. £28.50        E.U.  £34         Rest of the world   £41

U.K. £26 ( if paid by cheque, bank transfer etc)  Contact our club secretary at the email address at the bottom of the page for more details

 

Skipper Prossit                                               (some of the JHC books below – click to enlarge)

 

 

Here is an interesting cutting from the Daily Express from 1956  in the early days of the JH strip, where a keen reader is wondering where the inspiration for the stories came from. Sydney included a little pen and ink self-portrait in the column and says he added a tartan tie to fly the flag for his Scottish ancestry.

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The first story in which Sydney used the photo-references of Hans Meyer and other models was PASTMASTER (H2287 – H2351) in which Ap Tiryns, a criminal scientist from the far future plans  to transport the entire Lunar colony with its 20th century technology , back 13,000 years in time and thus to re-write all of human history from that point.

It is interesting to compare the existing images from the photoshoot to the panels in which they were used. An example is included below together  with some full body shots of Meyer in action poses

An interesting feature to note about PASTMASTER is the existence of the Time Guardians whose purpose is to prevent the timelines of history from being changed  and to avoid all the ensuing paradoxes that time travel might create. This story was written in 1961 long before the Timelords of Doctor Who or Sapphire and Steel came onto the scene. Another first for Jeff Hawke!

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As promised , here is the second part of the unfinished  strip –  STAR VENTURER . This was a late Jeff Hawke story written in 1974 when the future of the strip was uncertain. The last complete story to appear in the Daily Express was FIRST PERSON PLURAL whose last panel was published in April of that year. Sydney had started work on STAR VENTURER at the time but the cessation of the Hawke strip in the Daily Express meant that the project was abandoned. The last three Hawke stories , written for syndication, appeared in the Scottish Daily News. These were THE WINDS OF MARS, MORATORRO and HEIR APPARENT. As mentioned in a previous post, Sydney used the germ of the storyline developed in STAR VENTURER, that of a terrifying entity  which destroyed all in its path, as the basis for the plot of  MORATORRO

 

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A second and final volume of the last Jeff Hawke/ Lance McLane stories is now available , again produced by the Italian publishing house Fondazione Rosellini . It contains two unpublished late stories namely “ Sails in the red sunset” and “ Even death can die” , although I take this to mean that they are hitherto unpublished and unavailable in Italian as they were certainly published in the Scottish Daily record. Unlike the five stories in the first volume which started at H8866 ( the point at which the Milano Libri series finished) these stories are un-numbered but their publication dates in the Daily record place them between “ Pharoah’s army got drownded” and “ Doppelganger”.

Unlike the first volume these two stories are in colour . The first features a return to Mars and an exploration of an active volcano which leads to a remarkable discovery about the evolution of life. The second is a dark story which incorporates the strange mythos of Cthulhu , a nightmarish pantheon of monsters whose creator HP Lovecraft is an acknowledged master of the horror genre.

The book itself includes other features on the history of Sci-fi in comics, an interview with Sydney ( previously published in SPACESHIP AWAY ) and also some of his other artwork, much of it space-related.

A most useful addition is the inclusion of a complete and comprehensive list of all the Hawke/McLane strips and collections ever produced

Like volume 1 the book is in Italian and the price is €35 – it can also be obtained from the sellers that I mentioned in my post of 28^th January.

 

 

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Sydney Jordan began the Jeff Hawke  strip with a hero , who he himself admits, owed something to the influence of Alex Raymond’s Flash Gordon . But as the stories progressed and the strip found its own style, not only did the storylines turn from the superhero form of SPACERIDER to a harder more realistic science fiction, but the characters themselves developed into more rounded personalities. The appearance of Jeff , Mac and Laura firmed up quickly into the recognizable characters that we all came to know . The drawing style continued to develop through the first 6 years of the strip as Sydney showed increasing adeptness and confidence both in the line art and   the beautiful chiaroscuro of light and shade that was to become the hallmark of his drawing.

While happy with his skills in the technical depiction of spacecraft and vehicles of all kinds, Sydney wanted to give his characters a commensurate realism which he knew could only properly be achieved through drawing them from life.

But where to find someone to serve as a suitable model for Jeff Hawke??

By an odd chance Sydney spotted a newspaper advertisement for cigarettes which featured a model who bore an uncanny resemblance to his Jeff Hawke character. By the good offices of some contacts in Fleet street it was discovered that the model used in the ad was one Hans Meyer. A South African of German parentage Meyer had only recently arrived in England to pursue a career as an advertising model . He was later to break through into both film and television – his most notable role , at least for English audiences being that of Hauptmann Ulmann in the COLDITZ series.

Sydney met Meyer and arranged a photoshoot in May 1961 in which Meyer and other actors would pose in a variety of portraits and sets which would form a photo reference for future JH stories. The first story to use these photographic references was PASTMASTER. Sydney could now draw his characters with a whole new level of depth and realism . Hawke did not look substantially different from before , he just had a greater psychological depth with a subtler depiction of emotion. The fact that Hans Meyer looks so much like the original Hawke as Sydney had envisaged him allowed for a semless transition to this new way of working. The enclosed pictures show some of the many individual photos taken during the shoot. In a later blog we will see some of the posed sets containing several actors and the final results as they appeared in PASTMASTER.

 

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According to Sydney STAR VENTURER was to be the story of an encounter with a vast intelligence which threatened to overwhelm the galaxy or at least part of it. As you will see in the strips which we will publish here, this awful intelligence is first chanced upon by the unlucky Kolvorok whose patrol ship discovers a wrecked vessel drifting in space and Kolvorok himself, in an uncharacteristic display of bravery goes to investigate. Although the story itself was abandoned before completion, the theme of a vast and intelligent entity which destroyed all life and civilisations in its path was taken up again and reworked by Sydney in MOROTORRO  the penultimate storyline in the original Jeff Hawke series. We will be publishing all existing strips from STAR VENTURER  on this website in the weeks and months to come.

 

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There have been several enquiries about the new Jeff Hawke book reviewed here on Jan 21st. and where to obtain it. You can but it direct from Fondazioni Rosellini ( www.fondazionerosellini.it/) where it is featured on their Homepage, though their online ordering is a little confusing if your Italian isn’t up to scratch. Alternatively there are a couple of Ebay sellers in Italy who will post the book to the U.K. for a reasonable price. Both speak English and I have always found them helpful and prompt. One is called “Gasp comics”  and the other ” Supergulp”. If you type either name into the “Advanced search ” in Ebay.co.uk  you should find them. The book retails for around  35 Euro  – not cheap but well worth it for the superb artwork.

 

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We are delighted to announce that the Jeff Hawke club has been given exclusive access by Sydney to some JEFF HAWKE strips never before seen or published anywhere. The story for which they were drawn was abandoned before completion but the panels that do exist are in completely finished form ( see sample below)  and we will be featuring them all on the blog in the next few weeks. So check back regularly  for an exclusive viewing of JEFF HAWKE – STAR VENTURER

 

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The most comprehensive coverage of the Jeff Hawke stories so far ( that is until the Jeff Hawke Cosmos is complete) has been the Italian publishing house Milano Libri whose multi-volume hardback series covers all the stories from H1 to H8865 ( Pharoah’s army got drownded). But last year Fondazione Roselllini an Italian company has announced the publication of two new books which contain the last hitherto unpublished stories in the Jeff Hawke series.

Volume one has 590 strips and contains five stories which start at H8866 where the Milano Libri series stops . In addition it also re-prints the “Angel of Mercy” which contains the first appearance of Fortuna . The five new stories are VIRUS ( elsewhere called Doppelganger), A MESSAGE FROM MEDUSA, TIME’S JEST, OUT OF THE ECLIPTIC and SONG FOR METHUSELAH. Also there are articles on the history of Sc-fi in comics and a piece on the evolution of the Jeff Hawke character. The book is a large format softcover and has 224 pages with numerous B&W pics and photos as well as the strips. It is in Italian only , but is well worth the money if only for the beautiful artwork. And of course if you have the patience you can always use Google translate!

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