Do you remember “Lance McLane”, the strip that picked up where “Jeff Hawke”, the creation of Sydney Jordan, left off… but only in Britain?
The tales of (more or less) contemporary air and space pilot Jeff Hawke, created by artist Sydney Jordan, ran in the Daily Express from the 1950s right through to the mid 1970s, when the strip finished in the newspaper but continued for a short while in syndication. Jordan then created a new character and eponymous strip, Lance McLane.
As author and archivist Duncan Lunan notes, “Lance McLane” is set in 2076, at a time when a huge explosion on the Sun had released a ball of plasma “almost as massive as the Earth”, which grazed the Earth-Moon system, forcing the Moon into a near-impact with the Earth which knocked a huge divot off it, forming a ring of debris around the planet and changing the orbit of both. Much of Earth’s surface was swept by tsunamis, before being covered with ice, leaving only a clear zone round the equator in which a few Post-Collision Survivors managed to hang on.
Lance McLane is a bearded surgeon commander aboard Hope, a spaceship in orbit around an ice-bound 2077 Earth, with humankind living on Mars, created for the Scottish Daily Record newspaper, Scotland’s most popular tabloid; a strip that was syndicated internationally, somewhat confusingly, as ‘Jeff Hawke’.
“Jeff Hawke” ran in the Daily Express from 1954 to 1974, followed by two years of strips in the Scottish Daily News, for foreign syndication. “Lance McLane” ran in the Daily Record, for twelve years, from 1976 to 1988. That run of 10,209 episodes in total probably makes the combined strip the longest running science fiction newspaper adventure in the world. The strip was syndicated in Italy, where it still has many fans, Sweden, Spain, ex-Yugoslavia and some other European countries.
The Origins of Lance McLane
“After the Daily Express dropped the “Jeff Hawke” strip in 1974, a staff member at the Daily Record in Scotland asked his bosses to consider taking the strip on,” comic artist, writer and archivist Bill Storie relates, “but the idea was rejected, as it was too closely associated with the Daily Express.
“However, the Daily Record negotiated with Sydney Jordan to create a new strip just for them – and ‘Lance McLane’ was born.
“It was an indication of the coming decline in newspaper strips when the Daily Express, now no longer under the patriarchal control of Lord Beaverbrook asked me to terminate the strip on a month’s notice,” Syd himself recalls of the end of ‘Jeff Hawke”, in a 2016 interview with Simone Brusca, that discusses the strip’s enduring popularity in Italy. “No time to plan a graceful end to the current story, no concern of the continuity of the storyline.
“As it happened I was nearing the end of this particular adventure and was able to link Hawke’s swansong back to his origins in a second encounter with the Shining Ones of the first story. For me, it was the end of an exciting era and eventually the paper dropped all of its serial strips-but already ‘Lance McLane’ was beckoning!”
“There is some online confusion over the ‘McLane’ strip,” Bill Storie notes, “because ‘Jeff Hawke’ was still being sold very successfully to non UK publishers in syndication so, presumably at the behest of those non UK publishers, the ‘McLane’ strips were ‘adjusted’ by Syd to make McLane look more like Hawke and so ‘Jeff Hawke’ continued everywhere, else except the UK.
“Of course, that left a rather messy plot hole, in that ‘McLane’ is set in a post apocalyptic future where life on Earth is pretty much wiped out and the remains of mankind live on huge spaceships – a very different scenario to the ‘Hawke’ tales.
“Syd created a bridging sequence set after the last official ‘Hawke’ story, showing how Hawke was removed from his own time and space and reborn in this desolate future.”
The first three ‘Lance McLane’ episodes – M1, M2 and M3 – for the first story, “Last Frontier” (M1 – 50) were printed together in the Daily Record, although they retained their individual numbering. In many reprints of the material in its ‘Hawke’ version, the first few stories were not included, and “Hawke’ jumped straight into the story “The Woman Who Would be King” (M370 – 470). It’s at this point that the strip becomes more of an SF adventure, rather than one focused on a space doctor.
The “Lance McLane” strips numbered M1 to M369 were, as far we are aware, only ever printed under that name in the Daily Record.
Some “Lance McLane” strips, Nos. M1-238, did run in London’s Evening News in 1978, but under the title “Earthspace”.
While not as well known as “Jeff Hawke”, and, for the most fans of the work across the globe of Syd Jordan’s work, “Lance McLane” (affectionately known as “Lance McBoil” to some of his more dedicated Scottish followers!) has his own fans, among them the internationally renowned comic artist Alan Davis.
“Although Syd Jordan is best known for his ‘Jeff Hawke’ work it was Lance McLane that caught my imagination,” he notes on his official website. “The post apocalyptic scenario, Fortuna android and endless alien weirdness and ancient mysticism were perfectly captured in an elegantly consistent reality.
“Paul Neary and I had been working together for months on Captain Britain before I mentioned the ‘obscure strip’ (printed in a Scottish paper) that I highly rated. He laughed, saying he knew all about it because he had worked alongside Syd for a time.”
Unlike “Jeff Hawke”, the “Lance McLane/Jeff Hawke” era was, Tony Sullivan notes in his guide to the stories for the Jeff Hawke Fan Club, left uncompleted, when the Daily Record ignominiously ceased publishing “Lance McLane” on 30th April 1988. Only four episodes of “Sing for Methuselah”, written by Marise Morland, were published.
“The paper cancelled the strip with very short notice, but Syd had two weeks of strips drawn,” Bill Storie notes. “Two more stories were prepped at the time, ‘Dire Straits’ and ‘The Ice Needle’, but of course no art was done for them.”
Given the parlous state of British newspaper publishing and revenues today, it is extremely unlikely we will ever see its like again. We remain in awe of the imagination and dedication Syd Jordan and all those who worked with him on this strip. Thank you.
Reprints and Collections
The first few “Lance McLane” stories were reprinted in the UK in the late 1970s, in a book entitled Earthspace, but this is hard to find, and can be quite expensive.
“Lance McLane” has had collections internationally, including in Italy, but was never widely syndicated in the United States, although “Jeff Hawke” did enjoy a brief run in some American papers between 1977 and 1978, featuring stories by Syd Jordan and Paul Neary.
As author Bobby Derie notes, some European editions continued the “Jeff Hawke” series numbering without interruption, which leads to some confusion, especially as some strips were created specifically for European magazines, or fanzines, that didn’t run in the daily paper.
In the UK, all the “Jeff Hawke” and “Lance McLane” stories have been reprinted, in five books, 30 Cosmos magazines and their own Earthspace supplement, edited by William Rudling for the Jeff Hawke Fan Club, complemented by extensive notes by Duncan Lunan. You may be able to find these through secondhand book sites or auction sites, and the Club still offers copies of some back issues.
The Jeff Hawke Fan Club completed their reprints of the original Jeff Hawke stories with Volume 7 Number 3, which also included the introductory McLane/Hawke story.
Sadly, plans to feature Earthspace in the Dan Dare-inspired zine Spaceship Away, coloured by John Ridgway, foundered, but he has previously shared some examples of What Might Have Been…
Head downthetubes for…
• Jeff Hawke Fan Club: Jeff Hawke/ Lance McLane/ Earthspace Story Guide
Having escaped the cosmic disaster which has turned Earth into a world of ice, Hawke’s new persona and the three great starships are now the sole link with man’s outposts in space and in isolated enclaves on the home planet. Hawke/ McLane is Surgeon Commander on board the vessel Hope.
• Jeff Hawke Fan Club: Jeff Hawke and Lance McLane Story Synopses
• The Orkney News: Space Notes: Jeff Hawke, Part 1 – Space Rider – By Duncan Lunan
• The Orkney News: Space Notes 22: Jeff Hawke Part 2 – First Citizen of the Space Age – By Duncan Lunan
• The Orkney News: Space Notes 23: Jeff Hawke Part 3 – The Extraterrestrials – By Duncan Lunan
• The Orkney News: Space Notes 24 Jeff Hawke Part 4 – Not As We Know It – By Duncan Lunan
A fantastic voyage through the adventures of the characters created from Sydney Jordan’s fantasy
• Jonny Cannon on Comics: Doctor Who, Jeff Hawke and Lance McLane
Discussion about the art style of “Jeff Hawke” and “Lance McLane”
• The Courier, 16th October 2023: Space-hero Jeff Hawke was born in Dundee and took comic-strip lovers into orbit and beyond
Graeme Strachan relates how Jeff Hawke was hatched in the nimble brain of Dundonian Sydney Jordan and became one of the most influential sci-fi comic strips of all-time
• Bear Alley: Jeff Hawke Fan Club Earthspace Review
Jeff Hawke in Finland
The most recent collections of Jeff Hawke are two beautiful looking collections published in Finland by Jalava, also publishers of Dan Dare collections there.
Available now are Jeff Hawke: Ihmiskoe (“Jeff Hawke: The Human Experiment”), which includes eight adventures and an extensive interview with Sydney Jordan, which the 96-year-old Jordan gave especially for this book, and ar, Jeff Hawke: Ylivaltias (“Jeff Hawke: Overlord”).
Jeff Hawke in Italy
• Lo Spazio Bianco: Sydney Jordan: a journey in space on a search for humanity (in English)
Syd pays tribute to Willie Patterson, who died in 1986, acknowledging his role in shaping Jeff Hawke, and how, he was unaware of just how popular Jeff Hawke had become in Italy until 1995. “Never having been paid syndication I was distanced from its success abroad…”
• A checklist of the original Milano Libri Jeff Hawke collections here, in Italian
Recent Italian Lance McLane Collections
• Jeff Hawke / Lance Mclane H8866-H9454 (AmazonUK Affiliate Link) | ISBN: 978-8897952114
This volume completes, after more than 20 years, Sydney
Jordan’s Jeff Hawke saga, which had been left unfinished since the Milano Libri edition: 590 strips with previously unpublished stories, translated and published in Italy for the first time.
• Jeff Hawke / Lance Mclane 2 – Storie Inedite (AmazonUK Affiliate Link) | ISBN: 978-88979521
With many tanks to Bill Storie and Richard Sheaf for their assistance in compiling this item
- About the Author
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John is the founder of downthetubes, launched in 1998. He is a comics and magazine editor, writer, and Press Officer for the Lakes International Comic Art Festival. He also runs Crucible Comic Press.
Working in British comics publishing since the 1980s, his credits include editor of titles such as Doctor Who Magazine and Overkill for Marvel UK, Babylon 5 Magazine, Star Trek Magazine, and its successor, Star Trek Explorer, and more. He also edited the comics anthology STRIP Magazine and edited several audio comics for ROK Comics; and has edited several comic collections and graphic novels, including volumes of “Charley’s War” and “Dan Dare”, and Hancock: The Lad Himself, by Stephen Walsh and Keith Page.
He’s the writer of comics such as Pilgrim: Secrets and Lies for B7 Comics; “Crucible”, a creator-owned project with 2000AD artist Smuzz; and “Death Duty” and “Skow Dogs”, with Dave Hailwood.
Categories: British Comics, British Comics - Newspaper Strips, Comics, Creating Comics, Features, Flashback Corner
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