Merry Christmas – Don’t Eat Too Much!

By John Freeman on 25 December 2011

As you sit down to your Christmas dinner, or alternatively are recovering from it, we couldn’t resist showing you this illustration of a Christmas meal in Tudor times taken from The Stories Of Our Christmas Customs which was first published by Ladybird in 1964.

If you think the bearded gentlemen serving the boar’s head looks a little familiar that is because the artist for this book was Dan Dare creator Frank Hampson and the model he used for the man was his father, Robert ‘Pop’ Hampson, who was also the basis for Sir Hubert Guest, Controller of Dan Dare’s Space Fleet.

I wonder how many Dan Dare fans realised the similarity at the time?

Merry Christmas.

Ladybird Books © Penguin Books Ltd

About the Author
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John Freeman

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.