Jeff Hawke

"Jeff Hawke" was a science fiction comic strip created by Sydney Jordan. It was published in the "Daily Express" from 15 February 1955 to 18 April 1974. Despite its obscurity in English-speaking countries, it is often regarded as one of the most important science fiction comics ever released, especially in Italy and Scandinavian countries.

History

Sydney Jordan was a graduate of the Aeronautical Technical School in Reading. He long sought to draw a fantastic comic where he could exploit his skills in drawing aeroplanes. In 1955 he met Eric Souster and Jim Gilbert in London, two friends with whom he had served in the R.A.F. Together they created the character of Jeff Hawke.At first Jeff Hawke, presented as an ex-R.A.F. pilot (just like Jordan) was a rather ordinary, Flash Gordon-like heroic character. The plots were centered around ordinary adventure and sci-fi themes common in pulp comics and fiction of the age, and at this stage the drawings were only of average quality. Nevertheless the strip was good enough to be published daily in the "Daily Express".

In 1956 William Patterson joined his childhood friend Jordan, at first writing only the dialogue. However after a few years he began to produce plot lines and stories as well. This led to a dramatic improvement in the quality of the comic. Patterson made "Jeff Hawke" the first sci-fi comic strip for adults, not just children or adolescents. Jordan, now concentrating entirely on drawing, improved his style to a highly suggestive, realistic, contrasted black-and-white mark. The Patterson-Jordan period is considered the "true" Jeff Hawke by most.

In 1969 Patterson's poor health forced him to stop working on "Jeff Hawke". Jordan took back care of both stories and drawings, but without Patterson the quality of the strip declined again. Finally, on 18 April 1974 the "Daily Express" published the last Jeff Hawke strip.

Jordan then tried to revamp the character by publishing a similar strip called "Lance McLane" in the Scottish newspaper "Daily Record". After this failed to catch on, Jordan came up with an embarrassing plot hole in which McLane somehow transformed himself into Hawke. However the resuscitated strip never recovered the original brilliance of the Patterson period: Jordan left more and more work to his unnamed helpers, and rapidly the strip fell into oblivion.

Themes

"Jeff Hawke" started as a conventional hero-vs-aliens science fiction action comic, but under Patterson's direction it quickly developed its own individual style. The three frames format of the daily strip made it hard to create vivid action scenes, so the stories centered more on dialogue than on action and violence (although these do occur).

The Jeff Hawke character himself became more and more focused on reasoning, diplomacy and moral virtues instead of brute force and bravery, and he is frequently forced by circumstances to be the ambassador of mankind in front of alien species. There are many circumstances in which Jeff Hawke is more an observer than a participant.The "real" main characters in "Jeff Hawke" were the aliens. The universe of Jeff Hawke was highly populated with strange alien species that came in contact with humans for various reasons – accidental contact, commercial interests, and so on, but hardly ever for invasion. The plots of "Jeff Hawke" turned around the seemingly endless, baroque diversity of aliens and their worlds, their contacts with humans, and the ability of Hawke and his friends to manage relationships with so many different entities. The subtle wit of Patterson made the creatures and the plots revolving around them as fascinating as they were amusing, whereas the highly expressive Jordan drawing style fully captured the strangeness of the various worlds and creatures. The aliens were almost always much more technologically advanced and wise than humans, and often the plots were highly critical of various "primitive" aspects of the human race, like pollution.

Often in the plots of "Jeff Hawke" there was a connection between extraterrestrial entities, archeological mysteries and even supernatural creatures. The god Pan and the devil, among others, appeared in "Jeff Hawke" strips.

There was also a softcore erotic flavour in some strips. For example, there were some instances in which alien creatures took the shape of beautiful young women.

Characters

Apart from Jeff Hawke himself, there are not many recurring characters in the comic, and almost no stable one. Here are listed the ones that recur the most.

* Jeff Hawke: A well learned ex-pilot, with an outstanding scientific and archeological knowledge and a seraphic, ironic attitude. He usually wears a sober suit and a tie, unless when he's forced to use a spacesuit (which happens quite often).
* Laura: The girlfriend of Jeff Hawke, almost disappears after the first stories.
* Mac McLean: A Canadian air force pilot, he is Jeff Hawke's aid in many situations and one of the few human recurring characters.
* Kolvorok: The First Official of the Intergalactic Police. A funny, one-eyed, jellyfish-shaped tentacled alien, it is as verbose as inept.
* Chalcedon: A gigantic humanoid, and a mischievous, arrogant, clever interstellar criminal. He always manages to escape both Jeff Hawke and the Intergalactic Police.

Recognition

Despite being published in an English newspaper, "Jeff Hawke" is practically unknown in English-speaking countries. On the other hand, it gained considerable popularity in Italy, Sweden, Spain and some other European countries.

In USA, "Jeff Hawke" was reprinted in "Menomonee Falls Gazette".

Jeff Hawke and the Apollo Moon Landings

In the strip H1760 (see image), published 21 November 1959, it is possible to see a stone that commemorates the first human landing on the Moon, noting that it happened on 4 August 1969. Thus, Sydney Jordan and William Patterson forecast the real date of this event with an error of only two weeks, ten years before Neil Armstrong made the first descent to the Moon surface on July 21.

Original Model for Jeff Hawke

In the introduction to "The Jeff Hawke Book Two" (Titan Books, 1986), Sydney Jordan states:

"The discerning may recognise from my drawings of Hawke, that I used Hans Meyer as a model."

German actor Hans Meyer later went on to feature in a number of TV shows including BBC TV's Colditz (TV series) as Hauptmann Ullmann.

External links

* [http://hem.passagen.se/hakangbg/jeffhawke.htm A complete list of the "Jeff Hawke" episodes]
* [http://www.jeffhawke.com Unofficial "Jeff Hawke" fan site]