Revelations: The Second Eagle Dummy

Eagle Times is celebrating its coming-of-age year of publication in style with a fine Summer issue (vol. 21 no. 2), which contains details of a fascinating discovery made by Bear Alley contributor Richard Sheaf: the dummy for the second issue of Eagle.

Most British comics fans will have some notion of the origins of the famous paper: Marcus Morris wanted to produce a comic that was adventurous without being gruesome like the 'horror comics' that were available cheaply in the UK at the time from publishers stepping into the breach while the big two publishers (Amalgamated Press and D. C. Thomson) were producing titles at a reduced rate due to the post-WWII paper shortage. Morris was the vicar of St. James' in Birkdale, Southport, and one of the founders of the Society of Christian Publicity, through which Morris expanded his local parish newsletter, The Anvil, into a magazine which he hoped would gain national distribution. Morris hired a young, local artist called Frank Hampson to illustrated Anvil, a partnership that was soon to flourish as the two pieced together what was to become Eagle.

Morris and Hampson, with the assistance of other local artists and acquaintances, produced a printed dummy which, in November 1949, Morris hawked around a number of major London-based publishers. Hulton Press responded and the small, inexperienced team led by Morris suddenly found themselves with the task of putting together a finished product for publication. An announcement that paper was to come off the ration brought forward the deadline: Hulton wanted to launch Eagle in April to benefit from the increased supplies and establish their new title before other publishers launched their own new papers.

Richard Sheaf discovered the 12-page second dummy amongst recently acquired material at the London Cartoon Museum. Dated 10 March 1950, only five weeks ahead of the date on Eagle's launch issue, the second dummy looks far closer in style to the finished product. The large, red title panel is in place; the Dan Dare strip has moved to the front cover and the artwork is reasonably close to what was to appear six weeks later (the biggest 'tweak' between dummy and final product was to change the uniforms from purple to green). The contents had still not been finalised: the text story was 'The Speed Master' (replaced by Chad Varah's serial, 'Plot Against the World'); Norman Thelwell's unpublished 'Pop Milligan' and Walkden Fisher's 'Hiawatha' strips were to be dropped from Eagle; 'Rob Conway' was printed in colour...

This is a fascinating opportunity to see how Eagle—still rated amongst the finest comics ever published in the UK—evolved. Richard has given further details in his Eagle Times feature and there's an additional commentary from Adrian Perkins & Tony Cowley.

And that's just one feature. There are others, too (on the Science Museum exhibition, the many faces of Jeff Arnold, Blackbow the Cheyenne...), plus reviews and much more. It's well worth taking out a subscripition: £22 for four issues (overseas £26 in sterling) from Keith Howard, 25A Station Road, Harrow, Middlesex HA1 2UA. Give it a try.