Sydney Jordan was born in Dundee and trained with Miles Aircraft before moving to Fleet Street, where he created ‘Jeff Hawke’, the world’s longest-running science fiction strip cartoon, 1954-1988, for The Daily Express, later for Scottish Daily News, followed by ‘Lance McLane’ for The Daily Record, which became a reincarnation of Jeff Hawke elsewhere; both were syndicated in Europe and beyond, and three collections of Jeff Hawke stories have been published by Titan Books. The complete ‘Jeff Hawke’ has been published in book form in Italy, and there is now a Jeff Hawke Club reprinting the stories in magazine and book form in the UK, for which Duncan Lunan writes the accompanying ‘Hawke’s Notes’— visit www.jeffhawkeclub.co.uk to find out more.
Sydney’s other strip credits include Time and Ms Jones, for the Sunday Times, the rebirth of Dan Dare for the short-lived Sunday Planet, and Hal Starr, now re-published in book form in Italy.
Sydney frequently illustrated articles in The Daily Express and his work has appeared in many newspapers and magazines including New Worlds, Starburst and The Sunday Times.
Subsequently he worked in advertising and the film industry and his credits include some of the story-boards for Independence Day.
He has illustrated articles and stories by Duncan Lunan in World Magazine, The Journal of Practical Applications in Space, Asgard, Nuclear Free Scotland, Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact and Jeff Hawke’s Cosmos, created the cover painting for Starfield: science fiction by Scottish writers, edited by Duncan for Orkney Press, and illustrated Duncan’s book Children from the Sky.
More of his artwork is included in Duncan’s most recent book, Incoming Asteroid! What Could We Do About It?