27 March 2016
1981 saw the publication of the Sydney’s story MAILORDER in which Hawke and his crew investigate a strange UFO, which, in a curious echo of the Russian classic Solaris, can make solid objects out of human thoughts and desires. It was also the year of the royal wedding in the UK, an extravaganza which seemed to grip the nation and indeed the world at large. Diana Spencer was fast becoming the most photographed woman in history and she appeared everywhere from magazine covers to TV media. Not to be left out of the zietgeist , Sydney also used her image to create one of the characters in the story, namely Lieutenant Spicer, part of the first team sent to investigate the UFO. The images that Sydney used for the story where those of the young , somewhat awkward and shy Diana, before the designers had turned her into the mirror of fashion.
As a footnote, I first saw this likeness while reading through the Milano libri edition of JH and was delighted to have spotted this connection. But when I checked Hawke’s notes for the same story I noticed that Duncan Lunan had (as usual) seen it first. Skipper Prossitt
When I saw the strip in the Daily Record on first publication I did wonder if Sydney was having a little joke with us there – and the reference to “Chuck” was the icing on the cake!! Not 100% certain of this as my old memory cells are getting few and far between but I do seem to recall a few readers writing to the newspaper’s letters page at the time (we were all in the middle of “Di-mania” asking if it was intentional.I suspect that whatever reply they got was fairly non-committal.
I wonder if any other characters were based on real people? I always felt that Otto was like an older version of Albert Einstein for some reason – dunno why tho – and as for Fortuna…..hmmmmm.
Yes I think “chuck” was the clincher!