SCREAM! It's The DRACULA FILE...

Images copyright REBELLION.  Cover art by CHRIS WESTON

REBELLION (publishers of 2000 A.D.) are releasing some great reprint volumes at the moment.  I've got The LEOPARD From LIME STREET, MARNIE The FOX, FACEACHE, and now also The DRACULA FILE volume.  I've already got all 15 issues of SCREAM! plus all the Holiday Specials, but there's something about having the stories in a handy single edition to browse through whenever I want.

Take a look at the page below though.  The writer obviously didn't know his vampire lore, as he has Dracula casting a reflection.  Everybody and his dog knows that ol' Vlad doesn't cast a reflection (well, everybody, that is, except the director of ABBOTT & COSTELLO Meet FRANKENSTEIN), so how the error managed to sneak past the editor back in the day is a mystery.  (Especially as an earlier story in the weekly adheres to the principle, though this one is from a Special.  Different editors maybe?)  Dracula does cast a shadow (as far as I remember) so I'd have made that the giveaway of his presence in this particular tale.

Anyway, The Dracula File contains some great art by ERIC BRADBURY (I lettered his work at least once for 2000 A.D.), so pop along to your nearest comics shop or bookstore and snap up your copy today.

I think the artist here is KEITH PAGE, but I'm not 100% sure

"DARE TO BE A DANIEL" - THE FIRST DAN DARE...

Images copyright relevant owners

Contrary to what you've been led to believe (especially if you're British), the original DAN DARE is not a spaceman who appeared in the first issue of EAGLE in 1950, but a private detective who debuted in WHIZ COMICS #2 (but was actually the first issue), cover-dated February 1940.  (Though it may've gone on sale around November 1939.)  This means that a Dan Dare was featured in comics a whole ten years before his admittedly more iconic namesake first saw the light of day.

'Tis said that our Dan was named after the Sunday School song "Dare To Be A Daniel", but I wonder if MARCUS MORRIS and FRANK HAMPSON were aware of their hero's predecessor and simply 'borrowed' the name?  The fact that it so aptly tied in with the mood of the song (as well as the ethos behind the character) could've been the deciding factor in them using it for their own comic strip creation.  After all, both explanations aren't necessarily mutually exclusive, though admittedly the possibility of there being a connection is pure speculation on my part.

Anyway, enjoy the first Dan's debut instalment from another century - and millennium.  (Click on images to enlarge, then click again for optimum size.)     

BABE Of The DAY - MICHELLE KEEGAN...

Using the keen deductive skills for which

I'm renowned, I detect the above elegant creature

is a woman!  Nothing gets past me.  Her name?

The one and only MICHELLE KEEGAN.