© The Daily Express JH's COSMOS Vol. 1 - No.2 June 2003 (August) President: Sydney Jordan Editor and Designer: William Rudling

PRODIGAL SON H2951-H3024 WP SPACE RIDER H0001-H0138   SJ - Second Part

Dear Readers,                     I can use the plural now as we have over eighty members to date and more on the way! Your letters confirm that Bill Rudling has produced the right formula for this enterprise, catching the feel and nostalgia of the time and redressing the long-time unavailability of the strips in English. It was always a great pleasure to receive fanmail, but to my everlasting shame I did not manage to reply to it all. Now my new fanbase (!) allows me to respond with all the fervour of the guilty man who has been given a reprieve! This issue carries the story of two postscript events which caused me two very different kinds of dismay. Willie Patterson's death in 1986 robbed me of a lifelong friend and closed a chapter on a wonderfully happy collaboration which saw us both at the height of our powers.... Ten years later Andy Roper's efforts to promote a puppet/CGI film of Hawke's adventures were all in vain, despite the enthusiasm and cooperation shown by the people at Cosgrove Hall. The financial structures which surround film-making are convoluted in the extreme and are the nemesis of many such ventures. Not a tragedy, but a dismaying experience nevertheless. The Tìtan Book 2 which carried Willie's obituary also includes a most elegant and accurate listing of all the Hawke stories up to Heir Apparent. It was compiled by Tony O'Sulhvan, a long time friend and fan, and I would like to take the chance - however belated - to thank him for this invaluable reference work, on behalf of myself and, I am certain, many others who have found it a source of enlightenment. When your Editor and I decided to feature Willie Patterson in Issue 2 it seemed logical to reprint the piece I wrote in that fateful year when we lost him. It was written from the heart and has an immediacy which I would have found difficult to reprise. Here it is, then - I will add a postscript, but what you read here is the nearest I was able to get to describing a complex man in a few dozen words....

Sydney Jordan

Dear Member,                     The magazine was due to "land on your doorstep" in June, however this has not been possible due to professional commitments, so we offer our apologies for the delay.           The feed-back from the first issue was wonderful and has encouraged us to plan other features and stories.           Will Freeman, whose cartoon appears in the magazine, has suggested a club T-shirt. A club badge has also been mentioned, and we shall certainly look at this idea next year. The membership standing at 86, is a truly international membership: Italy, Denmark, Belgium, The Netherlands, Australia with the majority coming from the U.K.           We will put into the third issue, as a supplement, a section called "Space for Sales and Wants". You'll find details at the bottom of the Letters Page.           All your comments and ideas are much appreciated, as is your support, for the Jeff Hawke Club.

William Rudling

© Sydney Jordan 2003