Desperate Dan Desperate Dan Desperate Dan is a wild west character in the British comic magazine "The Dandy" and has become their mascot. He made his appearance in the first issue which was dated 4 December 1937. He is apparently the world's strongest man, able to lift a cow with one hand. The pillow of his (reinforced) bed is filled with building rubble and his beard is so tough he shaves with a blowtorch. The character was created by Dudley D. Watkins, originally as an outlaw or ‘desperado’ (hence his name), but evolved into a more sympathetic type, using his strength to
Maurice Ward an interview. He began to try to mix different formulations of heat-resistant, non-toxic plastics, which he casually referred to as "Gubbins." He was highly productive in this, mixing up to 20 formulations a day. Eventually, he produced a formulation that seemed promising, and used the Extruder he had bought years before to make it into sheets. He tested it with a blowtorch, and it dissipated the heat perfectly. This is the material that became known as Starlite. This invention gained much publicity in the 1990s, after he was featured on the British television series "Tomorrow's World", holding a blowtorch directly