Back in the 1990s, when Egmont/Fleetway still had the rights to Dan Dare, fellow comic writer Stu Taylor and I worked on a proposal for a Dan Dare Magazine which we submitted to the company. The comic was intended to be mainly reprint, using the original Frank Hampson strips in order. But we hoped that there would be a budget large enough to allow us to produce seven pages of new material each issue. We wanted these strips to fit into the continuity of whichever strips we were reprinting that issue. It fell to me to produce the first script. I didn't want to copy the Fifties style of storytelling of the original strips as I knew that would be very limiting. I wanted to bring the modern style of comics (large picture, splash-pages, flash-backs and a fast pace), but remain true to the characters and the spirit of Hampson.
What I produced in the end was a long way from what Frank had produced, but unlike most of the recent DAN DARE revivals, I like to think that it wouldn't have horrified him! Fleetway of course, rejected the idea and the script sat on a shelf for a few years. In 2000 I found myself working with talented artist Rehaan Akhtar and we were looking around for a strip which we could submit as a sample to publishers. Remembering my unused script for Dan Dare Magazine, I sent it to him. What he produced was the stunning strip which follows. It's one of my best scripts, coupled with Rehaan's wonderfully rich full-color painted artwork.

John 2004