CAPTAIN CONDOR ARTISTS

 Some examples of the various artists who contributed to the Captain Condor comic strip in Lion.

Beginning with Ron Forbes,  who had what I best describe as a unique style, and certainly not in the same league as the Dan Dare artists, but he got the job done, and remember the Lion was the cheaper option, so no shiny quality paper here.

N.B. Lion  did eventually outlive and swallow up the original Eagle in the late sixties. The new Eagle would have the opportunity to return the favour some time later!

Ron's spaceships definitely had a Buck Rogers look about them.

Neville Wilson took over from Ron, and there is an improvement in  the art in my opinion. 

Geoff Campion did a stint on the Condor strip. One of his Condor stories would be reprinted a few years later in Ranger magazine, although it's retitled, Rip Solar.

Arguably, the best artist to work on Captain Condor, Keith Watson. You could be forgiven for thinking it was a Dan Dare strip.

Reg Bunn did some lovely detailed work. He was better known as the artist on Lion's, The Spider strip.

Captain Condor had a spell as a text story. I think the accompanying art is Reg Bunn.

Finally, excellent art provided by Brian Lewis.

DUCK!

I've been fixing up a Spanish Nacoral toy duck car.

It was missing it's bill.

This orange duck whistle might do the trick.

Watch this whistle!

CAPTAIN CONDOR LION ANNUAL COVERS

 Captain Condor, Lion's answer to Eagle's Dan Dare. Certainly a less sophisticated character, but still an entertaining read for many kids in the 1950's who enjoyed simple straightforward sci-fi adventure, and were probably more used to seeing Flash Gordon serials at the local cinema.

Condor was created by Frank S. Pepper, probably better known as the creator of Tiger's, Roy of The Rovers, using the pseudonym Stewart Colwyn.

When Lion comic was launched in 23 February 1952, Captain Condor was the headline strip, and the during the fifties, the  Lion annuals featured a Condor space scene from the related strip inside .

The original comic strips were drawn by Ron Forbes, who presumably also did these early Condor annual covers.

The initial Captain Condor  story had the heroic space pilot unjustly imprisoned, and leading a resistance against the 'Dictator of The Planets'! (I wonder if Terry Nation remembered reading the odd fifties copy of the Lion when he came up with Blake's Seven!)

Following The Dictator's defeat, Condor reverted to a more traditional space hero on space patrol.

Ron Forbes left the strip in 1957, replaced by Neville Wilson who redesigned the character. Other artists who contributed to the strip were Geoff Campion, Reg Bunn (best known for Lion's,  The Spider), Keith Watson (Dan Dare), and Brian Lewis (Jet-Ace Logan)

Captain Condor's original run lasted 14 years, until February 1966. 

The Making of the Dan Dare Pilot of the Future Pop-Up Book 1953

Woodsy,

Even though the Dan Dare - Pilot of the Future Pop-Up Book from 1953 has been well covered on the Blog before, this piece of information the seller of my example forwarded to me might be of interest. 

Here's a slightly edited version of his written account from 2021 about a close relative who worked on the book:

"Roy Jones Blatchford was a photo lithographer at Purnell's the printers in Paulton, Somerset. He started work at Purnell's in 1948 aged 20 as an apprentice photo lithographer and worked his way up to becoming a chief lithographer. He designed the illustrations for printing and the pop-up designs. My understanding is he worked out how the cardboard would need to be printed, then folded and cut and helped the printers set up the print run. This was a very rare skill as it meant he had to think in 3 dimensions, but arrange printing and cutting in 2 dimensions.

When the printers did a new print run, a copy of the books printed were kept back and safely stored as examples. When Mr. Blatchford was made redundant, he saved the books from disposal as the print works soon closed down. His favourite work was to design the layout of pop-up books."

Photos accompanied here with another Dan Dare book with the same provenance, Dan Dare's Space Annual 1963.

Arto

Helsinki Base

MORE SPACE SCENES

 A couple of space scenes from the 1963 Lion annual, drawn by Sydney Jordon, best known for his Jeff Hawke newspaper strip.

Terranova47's Frank Collins Space Pirates Strip

In the OKAY ADVENTURE ANNUAL, this space story is illustrated by Dan Dare artist Harold Johns:

SPACE PIRATES by Frank Collins.

Terranova47

USA

Terranova47's OKAY Adventure Annual

Hello Woodsy

Further to the Boardman published books from 1954 I also have the OKAY ADVENTURE ANNUAL with works gathered from a number of sources, one story in particular is space related and illustrated by Dan Dare artist Harold Johns; SPACE PIRATES by Frank Collins (watch this Space).

It also contains an Iron Man story that predates the Marvel creation.

Here also is my reissued Pyro x-200 from the late 90's.

Terranova47

USA