Sydney Jordan (born

Dundee Dundee (; sco, Dundee; gd, Dùn Dè or ) is Scotland's fourth-largest city and the 51st-most-populous built-up area in the United Kingdom. The mid-year population estimate for 2016 was , giving Dundee a population density of 2,478/km2 or ...

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...

, 1928) is a comics artist best known for his daily science fiction strip '' Jeff Hawke'', which ran in the ''

Daily Express The ''Daily Express'' is a national daily United Kingdom middle-market newspaper printed in tabloid format. Published in London, it is the flagship of Express Newspapers, owned by publisher Reach plc. It was first published as a broadsheet i ...

'' from 1955 to 1974.

Career

He studied aeronautical engineering at

Miles Aircraft Miles was the name used between 1943 and 1947 to market the aircraft of British engineer Frederick George Miles, who, with his wife – aviator and draughtswoman Maxine "Blossom" Miles (née Forbes-Robertson) – and his brother George Herbert ...

's experimental college in

Reading, Berkshire Reading ( ) is a town and borough in Berkshire, Southeast England, southeast England. Located in the Thames Valley at the confluence of the rivers River Thames, Thames and River Kennet, Kennet, the Great Western Main Line railway and the M4 mot ...

, but returned to Dundee and worked as an assistant to comics artist Bill McCail, and learned by studying the work of

Alex Raymond Alexander Gillespie Raymond Jr. (October 2, 1909 – September 6, 1956) was an American cartoonist who was best known for creating the '' Flash Gordon'' comic strip for King Features Syndicate in 1934. The strip was subsequently adapted into m ...

Milton Caniff Milton Arthur Paul Caniff (; February 28, 1907 – April 3, 1988) was an People of the United States, American cartoonist famous for the ''Terry and the Pirates (comic strip), Terry and the Pirates'' and ''Steve Canyon'' comic strips. Biography ...

and Stan Drake. In 1951 he assisted Len Fullerton on his comic strip ''Dora, Toni and Liz'', before creating ''Jeff Hawke'' for the ''Daily Express'' in 1954. Jordan's friend Willie Patterson came aboard as writer in 1956, and Jordan wrote the later strips himself. The series has been reprinted all over Europe.

Later work

After ''Jeff Hawke'' finished, Jordan created another science fiction strip, ''Lance McLane'', which ran in the Scottish newspaper the '' Daily Record'' from 1976 to 1988. In the mid seventies Jordan produced the one shot "Hall Star" for the Dutch comic strip weekly ''Eppo'', which he did not complete until the mid eighties. It was published in 1987 and 1988 as ''Stranded on Thyton''.

Assistance

Another artist and close friend of Sydney Jordan,

Nick Faure Nick Faure (born 28 May 1944) is a former English Sportscar racing driver, and purveyor of Porsche in the United Kingdom of his era. Known affectionately as ''Mr. Porsche'', Faure achieved fame through racing and selling Porsche 911 and 356s, sin ...

(born in 1944) worked alongside the master, and aside from drawing his own commissions from the newspapers in Fleet Street, he helped as an inker to draw some the "likenesses" and realistic "ladies" in the stories at the latter period of the strips existence as Sydney was always the master of effects. Thanks to Sydney's connections at Porsche Cars GB, Nick went on to become a well known Racecar driver for Porsche in the UK and achieved his own success as "Mr. Porsche" with a career which included 11 participations in the legendary 24 Hours of Le Mans. Also assisting Jordan at times were up and coming artists

Paul Neary Paul Neary (born 1949) is a British comic book artist, writer and editor. His first work was for Warren Publishing in the 1970s before working with Dez Skinn at Marvel UK as well as work for '' 2000 AD''. He later became editor-in-chief of Ma ...

Brian Bolland Brian Bolland (; born 26 March 1951)Salisbury, Mark, ''Artists on Comic Art'' (Titan Books, 2000) , p. 11 is a British comics artist. Best known in the United Kingdom as one of the definitive Judge Dredd artists for British comics anthology '' 2 ...

and Trevor Goring.

References

External links

Sydney Jordan
at the

Lambiek Comiclopedia Galerie Lambiek is a Dutch comic book store and art gallery in Amsterdam, founded on November 8, 1968 by Kees Kousemaker (, – Bussum, ), though since 2007, his son Boris Kousemaker is the current owner. From 1968 to 2015, it was located ...

Audio interview with Sydney Jordan at Bristol Comics Expo, 2 June 2011Jeff Hawke Club
Scottish comics artists Year of birth uncertain Living people 1928 births Artists from Dundee Daily Express people {{UK-comics-creator-stub