scans_daily: Dan Dare

espanolbot (

espanolbot) wrote in

scans_daily,
@ 2012-05-01 05:47 pm UTC

Entry tags:

creator: garth ennis, creator: gary erskine, title: dan dare

Dan Dare - Issue 1

As the entire issue is avaliable for free on Newsarama, I think the rules say that I can post this.

Anyways, I thought that this series was an interesting, albeit it underrated, little gem and I thought that more people should be exposed to it. If only because it's written by Garth Ennis, and people need to be exposed to more than just his "I dislike superheroes" stuff.

A bit of context, first. This was originally printed as part of the shortlived Virgin Comics line, as a commissioned series by the wealthy fan and eager space tourist, Richard Branson. But since the imprint was shelved, the entire thing was collected and put into trade by Dynamite, which currently also publishes Ennis' Shadow series.

The series itself seems to be a parody of Blair Era Britain, and a study of what being British meant back when Dan Dare was originally made in comparison to what it means today, particularly when compared to, say, American patriotism. It's interesting, and worth picking up if you can find it.

Minor note: Some of the spacecraft designs in Dare's house seem to be from Gary Erskine's previous series, written by Warren Ellis, called Ministry of Space.
http://www.newsarama.com/php/multimedia/album.php?gid=767

If people are interested, I can post some more from the mini series. :)

(13 comments) - (Post a new comment)
(Flat) (Top-level comments only)

	no subject drmcninja 2012-05-01 10:13 pm UTC (link)
	Well then, consider me both impressed and intrigued. Well played, Garth, well played. It;s the political stuff that does it. Without that, it would be another sci fi comic with a famous hero, but the politics set it apart. Dan and Digby are men after my own heart, to be sure. (Reply to this)

	no subject sharky_chan 2012-05-02 03:37 am UTC (link)
	Dammit, Ennis...why can't I just dislike you and be done with it? _o_. (Reply to this) (Thread) (Hide 6 comments) (Show 6 comments)

no subject

shadur
2012-05-02 08:46 am UTC (link)

Because when he tries he /can/ actually write thought-provoking, insightful and/or entertaining dialogue and scripts; that's when you get stuff like Hitman and the best parts of Preacher and Wormwood.

... It's just that he's got the writer's equivalent of incontinence, Tourette's and diarrhea: when he loses his self control he all but literally shits all over and you get Crossed, the finale to Wormwood and that really pitiful one-shot issue about the superman/batman expy hero that was a compulsive sexual violator.

...No, that last one is not an exaggeration.

(Reply to this) (Thread from start) (Parent) (Thread) (Hide 5 comments) (Show 5 comments)

no subject

espanolbot
2012-05-02 09:23 am UTC (link)

The thing is... even CROSSED had parts that were well written and not just there because of the squick factor. There's the friendship between the survivors, and the relationship between the male and female leads, for example.

If there's one thing Ennis does well, and it's more than you'd think, it's writing convincing friendships in his work.

(Reply to this) (Thread from start) (Parent) (Thread) (Hide 4 comments) (Show 4 comments)

no subject

shadur
2012-05-02 11:16 am UTC (link)

The thing is, I literally couldn't GET to the "well written" parts of CROSSED. There's only so many pages of for-the-lulz rape, mutilation, cannibalism and necrophilia I'm willing to read.

Even Joss Whedon had the good taste to point the camera somewhere where the Reavers aren't currently entertaining themselves.

(Reply to this) (Thread from start) (Parent) (Thread) (Hide 3 comments) (Show 3 comments)

no subject

espanolbot
2012-05-02 11:36 am UTC (link)

Would you believe it if I told you that the sequels and webcomic (yes, there is a webcomic, it begins with a man raping a dolphin) are worse, but neither are actually written by Ennis?

The thing with Crossed is that it follows in the same type of horror as Neonomicon and Warren Ellis' Black Gas (the latter of which is pretty much the same as Crossed, only WORSE if you'd believe it) in the Extreme Horror subgenre.

Basically the idea behind it is that people are apparently so jaded these days that it takes a lot to genuinely invoke a sense of horror in the audience (the fact that both Ennis and Moore were in self admitted "bad places" when they wrote them may have contributed to the tone and content of both comics). Personally I'm not really a fan, I prefer horror to be fun, actually entertaining, as opposed to just horrible stuff happening to people. That's why I prefer things like Let the Right One In, the Wolfman, the Mummy and the like to stuff like the Human Centipede and Saw.

(Reply to this) (Thread from start) (Parent)

	no subject filthysize 2012-05-02 04:14 pm UTC (link)
	There's always the flipside to that. It's the one criticism that was lobbed heavily at the Hunger Games movie. Violence and rape are upsetting, so they should be upsetting, and it's arguable that it's morally worse to present those situations in a palatable PG-13 way, ie pointing the camera somewhere else. (Reply to this) (Thread from start) (Parent) (Thread) (Hide 1 comment) (Show 1 comment)

	no subject salinea 2012-05-02 04:37 pm UTC (link)
	sometimes, but it's very easy when one does it this way to fall into exploitative framework. See how so many works function as "violence porn". (Reply to this) (Thread from start) (Parent)

	no subject atom_punk 2012-05-02 06:31 am UTC (link)
	Huh. No gore-tastic decapitations. Ennis is on the other half of the sine curve.....for now... (Reply to this) (Thread) (Hide 2 comments) (Show 2 comments)

no subject

espanolbot
2012-05-02 06:59 am UTC (link)

Ah, for the bitter deconstructed version of the character go with the Grant Morrison version, which has Dare getting sodomised with an egg whisk by the main bad guy, leading to Dare killing himself and most of the South of England in the process.

Come to think of it, the twist as to who the big bad was working with and why is similar to the Ennis one, except here the ending is better and people manage to keep their dignity whilst doing so.

Basically, Dare was invented by people in the UK as a reaction to all of the EC Comicbook stuff that was going on in the 1950s, so he was created to present the values that they wanted children in the UK to take on by example. Things like fairness, honour, loyalty, bravery etc. etc.

So what Ennis is doing with this series is trying to show what happens when a character like that interacts with the cronyism, self doubt etc. that was and is present in 21st century Britain.

There's a wonderfil bit later in the book when Penelope is talking about how, since Dan is so overtly a British patriot, he's approached by a group that is essentially the BNP to ask if he'd be their spokesman. He politely declines, as he reasons that when the Empire was around Britain took a lot from people from other countries, so it's only fair that it give back to them and treat them like equals now. Then Penelope said how this meeting broke his heart, as the things he stood for were now associated with people who believe that being British means "picking on people who aren't white/aren't the right kind of white people", which is actually something true of English society today.

(Reply to this) (Thread from start) (Parent) (Thread) (Hide 1 comment) (Show 1 comment)

	no subject icon_uk 2012-05-02 09:28 am UTC (link)
	I remember the BNP bit and I was impressed at the reserved, calm, rejection he constructed, it wasn't a "NO! You repellent, horrible people" (Probably my own reaction in such a situation), so much as a "This is why YOU shouldn't do it either" (Reply to this) (Thread from start) (Parent)

no subject

owesome
2012-05-02 07:42 am UTC (link)

This whole series was easily the best thing to come out of Virgin Comics, and is an excellent example of Ennis at his best.

I think Ennis does his best stuff when he's forced to work within limitations- Hitman's mother-loving soft limits on cussing out mother-lovers - and is writing about something he sincerely cares about - War Stories, for example.

(Reply to this) (Thread) (Hide 1 comment) (Show 1 comment)

	no subject icon_uk 2012-05-02 09:33 am UTC (link)
	Oddly, limitations can sometimes work wonders creatively. Look at how great BTAS was when they couldn't kill anyone on-screen. It made the Joker more creative than he had been in the comics for YEARS. (Reply to this) (Thread from start) (Parent)

(13 comments) - (Post a new comment)
(Flat) (Top-level comments only)