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

 

Skipper Prossit

 

 

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 It contains two unpublished late stories namely “ Sails in the red sunset” and “ Even death can die” , although I take this to mean that they are hitherto unpublished and unavailable in Italian as they were certainly published in the Scottish Daily record.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.

 

 

Skipper Prossit

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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.

 

Skipper Prossit

 

 

 

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.

 

Skipper Prossit