18 June 2017

Only a small offering this week, namely a model of the Judge’s robot clerk-of-the–court from COUNCIL FOR THE DEFENCE, made by one of our club members. The Jeff Hawke strip seems to have a fondness for ill-matched pairs, The Demon and the troll, Kolvorok and His Excellencey and the Judge and his clerk to name but three. Visually the latter pair work brilliantly, for they are basically a stick and a circle, a kind of Galactic Laurel and Hardy. Unfortunately the robot clerk only lasts for this single story as he is blasted to pieces as Chalcedon makes good his escape from Galactopolis. Skipper Prossitt

 

11June17

It has always been the purpose of the Jeff Hawke Cosmos to publish the complete series of Jeff Hawke stories in English and our editor William Rudling has worked hard to do this.

Unfortunately a problem occurred with one of the stories in the forthcoming volume ( 10.no.2) because the agency from whom we have always obtained the originals had no trace or copy of “ Sails in the red sunset” . But nothing daunted William tracked down an Italian version of the story , and was able to obtain an original English text. Compiling   the two together   he was able to publish a complete English version, and with only a couple of weeks delay from the original deadline. It is currently at the printers and subscribers should receive their copies shortly.

For more information about subscribing to the JHC email the contact address on the main website.

3 June 2017

A passing reference to our hero was made in one of the famous Giles cartoons , which like Hawke became a staple of the Daily Express for many years . Ronald Giles began work for the Daily and Sunday express in 1943  and continued until1 989, during which time his famous extended “Giles” family of characters became a national institution.  The cartoon which mentions Hawke appeared  on November 14th 1957, and  makes reference to the biggest news story of the day, namely the launching of the first man-made satellite , Sputnik, which the Soviets had successfully put into orbit a month before.  The reference made in the cartoon is to a speaker at the Church assembly meeting on 12th November 1957 in London which Anthony Wedgewood Benn recorded in his diary. He writes that the speaker declared that ”  the Church should send a Sputnik into outer space with a bishop inside it  ”  and that the current generation was more concerned with technology than religion.  The recent publication of  CP Snow’s  “The new men” just three years earlier had made this division of science and humanities  a popular talking point at the time.  Skipper Prossitt