Sydney has recently received , as a mark of thanks for his co-operation in the production of the last two collections of Hawke stories, a large vignette , which reproduces in 3D ,the cover picture on  the very last volume . It was commissioned by Fondazione Rosellini, the publishing house which produced these last two volumes and which we reviewed here last February. The piece was the work of talented Italian sculptor/model-maker Gianluca Gianfaldoni , and beautifully depicts Hawke and Fortuna in about 1/12 scale with part of the “Hope”

behind them ,and with a view of the Earth and shattered moon beyond that.

Gianluca specializes in Sci-fi sculpts and models which have covered many subjects familiar to British science-fiction enthusiasts including SPACE 1999, UFO and Blake 7. His interesting website gianlucagianfaldoni.com , although still under construction is certainly worth a visit.  Skipper Prossit

1956 was perhaps the Anno Mirabilis of the Hawke strip, the year in which Jordan and Patterson got into their stride and everything changed.

This creative pair decided that something extra was needed in the daily strip; Just as Dan Dare had the Mekon and Holmes had had Moriarty, so Jeff Hawke needed an arch-enemy. Between them they created the character Chalcedon , a larger than life (literally) space-pirate and outlaw, full of braggadocio and low cunning. He made his first appearance in the story SANCTUARY in panel H717 , where we see him as a shadowy and menacing figure on the research satellite “Cupid”. and we are kept in suspense for a full six weeks until we see his face for the first

time!

This decision to create Chalcedon was more momentous than they realized at the time. For it led to unanticipated consequences for the strip, consequences which would completely change the character of the stories and transform the strip into its definitive form. Although the initial plan was simply to introduce an arch-enemy , the ramifications for the strip didn’t stop there. . For if you want to introduce an alien outlaw, that suggests that there is a law which he is outside. Thus almost by accident the Galactic federation was summoned into existence, headed by its two stalwarts, His excellency and Kolvorok, characters who in time were to be as emblematic of the strip as Hawke and Maclean themselves. And being a galaxy wide body this federation was depicted as a heterogeneous array of many different alien types working together , a trope introduced at this point for the first time that in later years was to be a defining characteristic of the Hawke strip.

From this one decision and the consequences that flowed from it Patterson and Jordan did something most unusual in sci-fi writing . This group of newly minted aliens , were they to have followed the usual conventions of sci-fi , would have either been cold calculating inhuman creatures with whom Hawke and co would have fought their battles, or would have been creatures like the Ptyrrans whose interests co-incided with those of the humans but who were ultimately mysterious and unknowable.

Instead they made them sympathetic beings with whom the reader could identify and sympathise ;

beings with the same worries and exasperations that we have . In doing this   there were thus created two foci in the strip with which the reader could identify :on the one side Hawke and his human companions , and on the other   the aliens themselves for whom the humans are causing so many problems in their efforts to police the galaxy. In many stories the members of the Galactic federation act as a sort of Greek chorus , commenting on and giving perspective to the actions and follies of the.Earthmen. And in fact the aliens occasionally had stories of their own where Hawke and co never appeared at all . Thus was created that magic ingredient which in the end was to lift the JH stories far above the usual run of science fiction and raise it to a new level.

From here on the stories were no longer parochial and geo-centric – us vs the aliens – but took on a much larger vista and an almost galactic point of view,

where the actions of the humans were just part of a much larger pattern.  The Hawke strip was never the same after Chalcedon and his unexpected consequences lifted it head and shoulders above its contemporaries.   Skipper Prossit

 

The recent impressive flyby of Pluto by the New Horizons spacecraft and the surprising revelations that its close up photography revealed about the planet reminded me of the Italian version of Sydney’s HERE BE TYGERS which is entitled L’ENIGMA DI PLUTONE   ( THE PLUTO ENIGMA), a story which starts with Jeff and Mac surveying the planet in their ship the “Galileo “ before being sent to investigate a strange ship which is lying out beyond the Pluto system. Like all other depictions of Pluto before New Horizons revealed   its active geology and young surface, the Hawke version of the dwarf planet is of an old ,many cratered world beset by jagged mountains. Hawke comments that the atmosphere is “frozen to the rocks” and indeed it is now thought that the “ice`’ on Pluto’s pole is frozen molecular nitrogen.

As it hurtled past Pluto at almost 31,000 mph New horizons also captured detailed images of Pluto’s moon Charon which proved another surprise with its geologically active surface, showing a huge canyon somewhat reminiscent of the Valles Marinaris on Mars.

Sydney produced a colour painting of a spacecraft   in orbit between Pluto and Charon a few years back, entitled “At the systems edge” an image which was reproduced in black and white in the JH cosmos ( Vol.3 no.3)

We are reproducing here for the first time the full colour version.

 

Skipper Prossit

Below are a couple of photographs of a model depicting the robot Groka from the alternative SPACE RIDER story  from Junior Express weekly in 1956 , a story which was featured here in April. It was made by one of the members of the Jeff Hawke club and although not up to my exacting standards I suppose it is a passable effort for a primitive.  Kolvorok