Dan Dare Dan Dare Dan Dare is a British science fiction comic hero, created by illustrator Frank Hampson who also wrote the first stories. Dare appeared in the "Eagle" comic story "Dan Dare, Pilot of the Future" from 1950 to 1967 (and subsequently in reprints), and dramatised seven times a week on Radio Luxembourg (1951–1956). The stories were set in the late 1990s, but the dialogue and manner of the characters is reminiscent of British war films of the 1950s. Dan Dare has been described as "Biggles in Space" and as the British equivalent of Buck Rogers. Dan Dare was distinguished by
Eagle (British comics) David Hockney were first published in "Eagle". X-Men comic scriptwriter Chris Claremont read and enjoyed "Eagle", and cites Hampson's work as influential on his career. Watchmen co-creator Dave Gibbons has also praised Hampson's work, and the author Tim Rice, in his foreword to "Living with Eagles" (1998), cites the stories printed in "Eagle" as helping "me in my story-telling efforts through musicals many years on." Professor Stephen Hawking, when asked about the influence Dan Dare had on him, replied: "Why am I in cosmology?", and the entertainer Kenny Everett chose an "Eagle Annual" as his book on "Desert Island Discs".