Dan Dare revived from suspended animation after two hundred years to find himself in a different world. The Mekon had also survived but otherwise the cast was different, as was the tone of the strip (heavily influenced by the punk movement, as was much of "2000 AD") and the personality of the title character. Written by Kelvin Gosnell and then Steve Moore, the strip was initially illustrated by Massimo Bellardinelli, whose Dare owed nothing to the original apart from the wavy eyebrows. After 23 issues in this format the strip took a break for a month and then returned in a revamped
Eagle (British comics) in the Churchtown district of Southport. The building was described by "Eagle" artist Greta Tomlinson as "very basic, a flagstone floor and a tin roof; there was cold running water in the corner. It was freezing cold in the winter and boiling hot in the summer". Working to a tight schedule, Hampson created each Dan Dare episode first in pencil, and then in ink and colour. He and his team of artists posed for photographs, in the positions drawn in his pencil sketches (Hampson usually posed for Dan Dare). These photographs were combined with the rough sketches, and his colleagues