Frank Hampson – Tomorrow Revisited by Alastair Crompton
A Celebration of the Life and Times of Frank Hampson
Published by PS Art Books, December 2010.
Original edition, as ‘The Man Who Drew Tomorrow’, published 1985.
ISBN: 978 1 84863 121 2
214 pages
Review by Mark Yon
For those in the know, Frank Hampson’s work as a genre artist is often seen as one of the best.
Though not a name many know well these days, his work in the 1950’s until the 1970’s, in particular in the UK, was instantly recognisable and iconic. Although Frank drew Westerns, adventure stories and even Biblical tales, it is his drawings of Dan Dare for the Eagle comic that set a phenomenally high standard, influencing contemporary artists such as Dave Gibbons, Graham Bleathman and Chris Foss. The first edition of the Eagle comic, published on the 14th April 1950, sold a previously unheard of number of copies – widely recognised to be about 900 000 – when comics in the UK typically sold less than 100 000 in a very good week* – and Hampson’s front page spread of Dan Dare, in colour, was seen to be a key factor in the comic’s continued success for the next twenty years. At its peak the Eagle has been estimated to have sold around one million copies a week.
Such was Dan Dare’s importance in the UK, produced at the height of the country’s rocket fever of the 1950’s, that it is claimed to have been a major inspiration for a generation of authors (such as Stephen Baxter and Chris Claremont) and those working in the UK space industry. Scientist Stephen Hawking claims that his interest in cosmology was inspired by the Eagle. Even now Hampson’s detailed watercolour drawings of Captain Dan Dare, facing his nemesis The Mekon, are recognised with awe and near-reverence for their depth, detail and precision. His work was truly ahead of its time. When the US had Marvel and DC, the UK had the Eagle comic.
Alastair Compton’s book, completely rewritten from its earlier incarnation published in 1985, is not so much a biography of the artist as a tale of how difficult the UK comics industry can be to work in. It shows how one artist influenced the thinking of a generation and gained considerable respect for his work but then ‘was driven out of Eagle, how his name was removed from reprinted Dan Dare strips, and how he was not credited as Dan’s originator on many Dare stories which appeared later…’ (page ix, Introduction.) It is a tale that many may see as one of injustice, up there with Joe Shuster and Jerry Siegel’s loss of copyright over the character they created, that of Superman.
In his engagingly honest Introduction Alastair explains his take on the issue and tries to keep things as even-handed and as accurate as possible through presenting many interviews and transcripts from details at the time. With rare photos and interviews throughout, the book shows what an innovative and inspirational place the offices of the Eagle must have been in the 1950’s and 60’s, although ultimately relentless and unforgiving.
Working ridiculous hours for comparatively little money, Tomorrow Revisited shows that the artist’s life was clearly never easy, even when artists like Hampson, at the top of their profession, received the accolades he deserved. The book highlights some of the complications of publishing also. Although Hampson drew and created Dan Dare, contracts signed to his publisher meant that Dare was owned by the publisher. Frank was unable to keep much of the original work he had produced, and as Dan Dare became one of the first runaway successes in UK merchandise phenomena, he lost control over any profits made by the publisher using Dare. As Tomorrow Revisited goes on the events become sadder and darker. By the 1970’s and 80’s Frank finds himself an outsider to the comic industry, struggling to get any work published. It is also apparent that such a punishing schedule earlier in his career contributed to his poor health and relatively early death in 1985 at the age of 66.
This story of corporate management and skulduggery would be a fascinating account in itself. However PS Publishing here have lavishly supplemented this tale with photographs and artwork to annotate the tale. Though many of the Dan Dare stories have been republished by Hawk Books and Titan Books since their original publication, this is the first time for many of them that they have been reproduced from the original drawings. Originals of Hampson’s drawings, Dare or otherwise, now fetch many thousands of pounds should they, on increasingly rare occasions, become available to buy. This book shows why.
Sadly we do not have full stories here, and at times not even the full page comic strip, but they are undoubtedly lovely to see. Whilst much smaller than their original printed versions, the clarity and colour of these new images are quite breath-taking. The detail in foreground and background is, at times, stunning, made more impressive by the fact that the limited printing processes of the time would not always show this detail.
The book shows us that Hampson was a gifted perfectionist, and at the Eagle’s peak the lengths he and his committed studio team would go to in order to make things accurate for the comic strip would rival James Cameron today in its intensity. Models were built to scale of key spacecraft, photographs were taken of the studio team dressed as characters to get poses and lighting right, models of cityscapes were constructed, from which details could be drawn into the comic strip itself. Some of Hampson’s ‘sketches’, reproduced here for the first time, are worthy of publication alone for their depth and detail.
This is not a sanitised version of the Eagle story – Frank was clearly a man who drove himself and those around him hard, who was clearly embittered at the end and, frankly, difficult to live with – and the end of his career is quite saddening. Alastair does not stint on such details, as he has them. But it is a salutary tale of how the publishing industry can take a talent and use it mercilessly and, as such, should be read by all budding, would-be illustrators of the future as an example of what to be wary of. It would be sad to think that such things still happen in the industry, although listening to some of artist Alan Moore’s stories, it would not be too surprising to hear that they still do.
Tomorrow Revisited is, it must be said, not a cheap read. But like Hampson’s work itself, it is one clearly produced with love, care and attention to detail, and is deserving of a read. Recommended for anyone with an interest in SF from the time of the UK’s Space Age.
*By comparison, one of the world’s longest running comics, The Dandy, has been estimated to sell about 8000 copies weekly in December 2012 as it announced a move to a digital-only edition.
Review by Mark Yon, March 2013
