Here comes Spaceship Away No.35

Part 35 of Spaceship Away thudded through my letterbox this morning and it's a cracking issue to herald the 65th anniversary of Dan Dare. The excellent cover is by veteran Dan Dare artist Don Harley and he's also painted a fantastic centrespread featuring Colonel Dare and crew, plus an exclusive back cover of Chaplain Dan Dare, based on the original concept of the character as a vicar in space!

Inside this 40 page full colour issue there are two brand new Dan Dare strips by Tim Booth featuring the latest chapters of Parsecular Tales and Mercury Revenant. I'm pleased to see that Tim is now using a better lettering font than Comic Sans. This new font suits his work far better. 

Other strips in this issue include the start of the 1950s Jet Morgan serial The World Next Door drawn by Terence Patrick and a Ron Turner Nick Hazard story Planet of Doom, coloured by Martin Baines. 

It's good to see two humour strips joining the comic too, with Ray Aspden's new Thunderpants page and an uncredited Davy Rocket strip. I think Davy Rocket is a 1950s reprint but there's no information in the mag.

There are some great articles in this issue too. Alan Vince has written a six page feature on the artist Harold Johns, very well illustrated with examples of his work. Andrew Darlington looks back on 1969's Lion and Eagle merger and how it affected the Dan Dare reprints, and Jeremy Briggs writes about The Lost Eagle, the proposed 1973 revival of the comic that never reached fruition. There's the cover by Frank Bellamy of the dummy issue below but you'll see it full page size in Spaceship Away.

All in all it's a splendid issue and well worth checking out if you've never read it. Spaceship Away is published three times a year, with high production values to its printing. A quality product. You can order issues from the website here:
http://spaceshipaway.org.uk/