24 July 2016

In conversation with Sydney recently, I asked him what, if any, were some of the  early influences that inspired his interest in science fiction.  He recalled some space stories from his boyhood and one in particular called “The last rocket to Venus” published in HOTSPUR comic in August 1939 which he remembered making a strong impression on him at the time . His recollection of the story was not detailed but he recalled the general outline ; a space programme is started which will launch a series of rockets to Venus in order to colonise the planet because the Earth is under some threat of imminent destruction.

In fact when I researched the original story , it contained some fascinating portents of what was later to appear in the Jeff Hawke universe. The story is set in the future when due to some celestial catastrophe, the Earth’s rotation has slowed and the Moon, orbiting ever closer is breaking up. A new ice age has the world in its grip and the polar regions have spread across the globe . A British engineer, Gavin Ainsworth has discovered that Venus is habitable. He is building a fleet of spaceships and is planning to send men and women to Earth’s sister planet in order to ensure that humanity survives at least somewhere in the Solar system . The story continues on for several months in HOTSPUR, and tells of the journey to this new world and the fearsome aliens, including man-eating Eagles and faceless men that they encounter when they arrive .

But the aspect which interests us is the setting of the frozen world and the unstable Moon , fragments of which are falling to Earth as the story develops.

It is interesting to note that Sydney had no conscious memory of these details but perhaps filed away the germ of this idea subconsciously, only to retrieve it and fashion it anew almost forty years later, when he set the scene for Jeff Hawke’s new incarnation after Collision Day. In the Hawke story the sun has thrown out a vast plasma bolt which grazes the Moon and alters the Earth’s orbital distance from Sol, only fractionally, but sufficient to trigger a second Ice-age. This, of course is a more sophisticated scenario but one which may owe its origins to   an exciting adventure enjoyed in boyhood.   Skipper Prossitt

17 July 2016

I recently discussed with Sydney the many changes that took place in Science-fiction writing over the period covered by the Hawke strip and how these changes are themselves reflected in the evolving themes and emphases in the strip.

In the nineteen fifties the solar system was a very different place, at least for the writers of Sci-fi. The carbon cloud covering the surface of Venus hid dense jungles which were the home of exotic giant reptiles, while Mars, although visibly lifeless , showed even from Earth , the traces of its dead or dying civilisation in the form of its canal network . Stronger telescopes or future spacecraft would doubtless reveal the delicate city spires, described by Bradbury and others. Our future as a spacefaring species was very near at hand. Science fiction , both pulp and  serious, reflected this optimism about our destiny among the planets. The change in this vision was slow but inexorable and occurred by degree through the succeeding decades. Sydney and I discussed this change and there seems to have been two key turning points which accelerated it. Firstly the winning of the space race by the USA , after which most of the public enthusiasm for space travel, which had been boundless until that point, seemed to dissipate, and the rest of the Apollo

missions appeared technical and anticlimactic. The second key event was the first close-up flyby of Mars by Mariner 4 in 1965, whose relayed pictures showed the red planet to be a lifeless and frozen desert, cratered and moon-like. Fact had replaced imagination and like the cartographers of the eighteenth century we could no longer write “here be dragons” on any part of the Martian surface. Science fiction also reflected this change in the public attitude and as time went on , itself became more reflective and introspective. The bright worlds envisioned in the fifties , with their gleaming domed cities , personal jet cars and regular shuttles to the moon and Mars were replaced by gloomy distopias . These new visions of the future were also fuelled by the increasing preoccupation with environmental degradation and the finite supply of fossil fuels.   Covering, as it does, the whole span of these decades , the Jeff Hawke strip , almost uniquely, plots this change in the content of its stories and it’s

changing attitudes and preoccupations . Obviously there is not a continuous trend from one story to the next   and Messrs Jordan and Patterson had their own unique take on all these themes, but taken as a whole body of work the Hawke strips serve as a barometer for this fundamental change in the way science-fiction developed.    SPACERIDER, the earliest story, gives a nod to Alex Raymond and the space stories of an earlier era , the prime examples of which are Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon, while Sydney’s MARTIAN INVASION plugs into that popular invasion theme of the fifties engendered by the 1953 movie version of H G Wells classic and the fear of the Soviet Union. Heinlein’s PUPPET MASTERS (1951)and Arthur Clarke’s Childhood’s end(1953) are also contemporary examples of this.

As scientific research progressed and the likelihood of Solar System life receded ever more, sci-fi had to look further afield to place its aliens and  other star systems became their natural choice.   The Hawke strip used the setting of Proxima Centauri , one of our near galactic neighbours for the DREAM PEDLARS series .

Another popular trope became the theme of ancient aliens visiting Earth in its distant

past, an idea made popular at the time by Velikovsky’s WORLDS IN COLLISION and later by CHARIOTS OF THE GODS . Kurt Vonnegut uses this theme of ancient aliens influencing the destiny of our species in his SIRENS OF TITAN (1959) and Arthur Orton in his influential short story THE FOUR_FACED VISITORS OF EZEKIEL (1961) explores the possibility of alien encounters in the ancient lands of the bible.This popular theme was reflected in such JH stories as SACRIFICE, THE WONDROUS LAMP   and THE IMMORTAL TOYS, though in his case Sydney anticipated rather than followed the trend .

To be continued  Skippet Prossitt

As Hawke arrives back on Satellite 1, the station commander shows him a fragment of the bomb that has been retrieved from the wrecked ferry, a fragment which shows that the bomb was hidden in some of Professor Bodwin,s equipment. Bodwin himself, who has come up from Earth to take his nephew back home, is immediately arrested , while security police back on Earth are instructed to search his lab and home for evidence. They soon uncover documents which show Bodwin to be the mastermind of a secret group which is determined to stop mankind from ever venturing into space. Convinced that all the danger is past and because news has just come through that satellite 2 is now complete, the station commander now orders the

ferries back on Earth , which are carrying the personnel who are to work there to take off and rendezvous with the new station. Jeff however , has misgivings and   forces Bodwin to admit that there is still a powerful “Gravity bomb” on the newly built station. Taking the professor with him, Jeff returns in his moonship to Satellite 2, where the new crews and their families are already disembarking. A search reveals a small explosive device which is made safe, but the gravity bomb is still to be located.   A frantic search ensues after Bodwin reveals that the device is set to explode in just over an hour. Fortunately Scrubby and co come to the rescue when they tell Jeff of the lettering that Scrubby spotted on a patch on one of the construction girders when the boys were out on their “space-walk”.   Realising that this must be the location of the bomb, Jeff and his team quickly locate the girder, and after a few minutes, manage to extricate the device. It is taken out into space and explodes without damage to the satellite. All ends happily and the new station comes into operation.

This was the last of the Junior Hawke stories published in Express weekly . They were replaced by   a   comic strip version of Charles Chilton’s famous radio series “Journey into space”

The Junior Hawke strip never really found its pace, and each story tried a different combination of characters and scenarios in an attempt to get into its stride. The artwork was not at fault , particularly in the last story where the Italian artist Tacconi produced some beautiful colour work. It was the story lines that displayed an unimaginative and journeyman quality and one wonders   how it might have turned out had Sydney been at the helm to weave his own tales in the juvenile version of his great sci-fi creation. Skipper Prossitt