Issue 69


Part 69 (36 pp) Summer 2026	Pages	CONTENTS - Part 69
	Front	The Spacefleet "Lunabus" - an Earth - Moon shuttle
	2	Editorial - including picture of Stephen Philip Dowling, receiving the Ally Sloper Statuette Award from Dennis Gifford and Bob Monkhouse.
	3-8	The Rotorcruiser Affair (Part 8, concludes) Dan & Co board Rotor-2 where Rodrequs and his gang are trapped on the inside of the hull, paralysed by the centrifugal force of the rotation. They are released by slowing the rotation rate and are persuaded to reveal how the Moon-destroyer bomb can be deactivated. Dan, Digby Hank and Peabody land close to the location of the bomb and, carefully cut the cables from detonator to the bomb in its shaft, far below. Big sigh of relief. The Earth is saved..
	9-13	Nat Brand: Daredevil of the Stratosphere, by Andrew Darlington.. It's not just Nat Brand. Andrew greatly extends our knowledge of children's adventure hero stories and strips, and the artists who illustrated them, from 1942 to 1973. (N.B. Note the term "Stratosphere" for space. There's a junior science fiction book (published in the 1950s, called "Adrift in the Stratosphere", by A..M..Low. The story didn't take place in the stratosphere, but in space,)
	14-17	Rescue Party (Part 1), A new *Jeff Hawke* adventure. A Sphinx-shaped spacecraft lads near the ancient pyramids of Giza, in Egypt, It has landed, facing the ancient Egyptian Sphinx. Jeff Hawke, Mac, and an archaeologist, and his sister have come to investigate, They are also accompanied by an un-named Egyptian. Perhaps we'll find out who he is, later The metal sphinx is uninhabited. While inside, the hatch door shots, and sphinx takes off, its destination a remote star system....
	18-19	Centre-spread: another superb cut-away diagram, by Grapham Bleathman, of the Spacefleet "Lunabus" Earth-Moon shuttle craft.
	20-23	Space Review. More progress in space launch and startling new astronomical discoveries in recent times, related by Ray Wright. SpaceX testing of it Starship/booster combination continues. There's more evidence of the steadily worsening of astronomical observations from telescopes in the ground, due to the increasing orbital satellite population. Clouds on a distant exo-planet can now be studied, and a new comet from interstellar space is investigated using the James Webb Space Telescope.
	24-25	Glencoe Models "Kitted Out for Space", by Gerald Edwards,. In the 1950s, awareness of the space exploration and exploration to come was increasing rapidly. This prompted the creation of a range of plastic models of space rockets, and space stations, based on various designs being considered by (mostly) US aerospace companies. The model of a rocket-propelled "Convair Manned Observational Satellite Vehicle" was prominently labelled "US SPACE FORCE". (Just to remind you who's boss!) Convair Corporation was a US aerospace company, later absorbed by General Dynamics. The most recent of the rather fancifully-designed. science-fiction-like kits was on sale in 2017. They have, however, become rare and, consequently, collectable!
	26-29	The Ice Age,- a new adventure, by "Ron". Bill Merrill, and Velma, of the Scientific Investigation Bureau investigate a mountain of ice that grown from something that fell from the sky. Rather than melting, it begins to freeze its surroundings. What next?
	30-34	Garth Comics Around the World, by Philip Harbottle. Stephen Phillip Dowling and Gordon Bosshell brought Garth, the adventurous he-man into existence on the printed pages of the Daily Mirror in 1935. Later on, syndication of the Garth strip took it to Austrlia and New Zealand, and beyond.
	35	Space-Humour: Earthward Eound In the universe of cheese, Sir Stilton is taken prisoner by two of the Moonie elite and let to languish in a dungeon. His pacing about his prison has been picked up by a Moonie political prisoner in the cell below, who makes contact with him telepathically.
	Back	A montage based on The Rescue Party (anon)