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The Flight of
the Golden Hinde tells an unlikely tale of old-fashioned
derring-do. In 1935, the Royal Navy commission an exact replica
of Sir Francis Drake's famous ship in order to recreate Drake's
1577 circumnavigation of the globe. The new Hinde launches in
1937, commanded by Captain James Finch, and at first, the world
delights to the exploits of the ship and crew. Things take a
turn in September 1939 with the outbreak of war, and the captain
and crew are ordered by the Admiralty to abandon the Hinde and
return to England by air. Finch decides that he cannot abandon
his command, and so he and his crew try to outrun and outfox the
entirety of the German navy. Finch's plan receives the approval
of the Admiralty, who would view the safe return of the Hinde as
a humiliation for the Reich.
The Flight of the Golden Hinde was
yet another unpopular strip. Pat Mills often stated that naval
war stories were poorly received by the readership, even the
naval phase of Charley's War was unloved by the readers. Perhaps
the only exception to this is HMS Nightshade, which seemed to
work better than most. The original idea for the strip came from
Conforth, a freelance writer, but his pages were heavily
reworked by Mills and Wagner, who called the strip "a loser from
the start". With only two issues completed, the writing chores
were handed to Goodall, who remained to the end. Popular opinion
has it that the artist was Vanyo throughout the strip, but the
only official credit is to the Barden Agency, who represented a
number of Spanish artists working for IPC. The art itself
doesn't look much like Vanyo's later work, but suits the strip
in a crude way. |
