Eagle Times v39 no2 (Summer 2026)

That there are still discoveries to be made, even as we enter the summer of  the 39th year of Eagle Times is proven by Jeremy Briggs' opening feature that offers a unique insight into two previously unknown Dan Dare stories, written in synopsis by "Leslie Brent". If you've never heard of Brent, don't worry—nobody has. 

The author was actually Peggy Cornwell, wife of artist Bruce Cornwell, and the stories were submitted to Eagle in early 1956 via an agent. The full synopses are printed following the article, so readers can see precisely how stories were submitted at that time. They appear here for the first time, having never appeared in any form in Eagle or Eagle Annual.

The Eagle Society had its annual gathering in Peterborough earlier this year and Eagle Times stalwart Steve Winders gave a speech, reproduced here, discussing collecting, lost bookshops and owning a Tintin book translated into Cornish. Reg Hoare offers his perspective of the weekend and there are plenty of photos and details from various talks.

There are the usual miscellany of features, including Peter Barr's look back at the career of speedway rider Jack Parker, part two of the latest PC49 adventure, 'The Case of the Funny Money' penned by Steve Winders (who tells me these are new adventures, not (as I had supposed) based on the old radio show scripts), and David Britton's continued look at the historical background of the Jeff Arnold (Riders of the Range) stories. 

The quarterly Eagle Times is the journal of the Eagle Society, with membership costing £30 in the UK, £50 (in sterling) overseas. You can send subscriptions to Bob Corn, Mayfield Lodge, Llanbadoc, Usk, Monmouthshire NP15 1SY; subs can also be submitted via PayPal to membership@eagle-society.org.uk. Back issues are available for newcomers to the magazine and they have even issued binders to keep those issues nice and neat.

Eagle Times vol.39 no.1 [Spring 2026]

For transparency's sake I'll say up front that there's an article written by me in this issue of Eagle Times. Is it the best thing in the issue? I'll have to leave that for you to decide (I'm biased!), but it does highlight something that's always worth a mention. The volume number shows that Eagle Times is in its 39th year, but there's always something new to write about when it comes to Eagle and the other related Hulton papers.

You would think that a strip that appeared in the early issues would have been widely covered, but that wasn't the case when I began looking into the origins of 'Skippy the Kangaroo'—no relation to the TV show—which was assumed to be a reprint from abroad. Not so, as I quickly discovered. I'm not going to repeat the whole article here, but it involves an animation house set up by "the French Walt Disney" Andre Sarrut, two brothers from Russia who began producing films in the UK, and a good deal of post-War misfortune.

Skippy is only one of ten features in this issue. Given the detail that some of the articles goes into and that they discuss strips that may have lasted for years, it's no surprise that many of them are multi-part, so in this issue we have part 3 of David Britton's look at 'Heros the Spartan' and part 4 of his look at 'Jeff Arnold, Rustler and the 6T6 Outfit', which this time has an emphasis on the Texas Rangers and local flora. I did say that the articles could be quite diverse.

Steve Winders offers a short tribute to the late Alan Vince, a story about P.C.49 (adapting one of the radio plays), the first part of a look at 'The Last of the Saxon Kings' drawn by Patrick Nicolle, an unwelcome addition to the paper when it first appeared across Eagle' centre pages and the first part of a look at 'Ordinary people and familiar places in Dan Dare'. So half the articles are written by people called Steve... that has to be a record for Eagle Times, surely!

Jim Duckett's lead article features 'The Adventure Club', an almost forgotten series of stories by thriller writer J. Jefferson Farjeon, whose novels I have been enjoying in the British Library Crime Classics series (notably The Z Murders, an early serial killer yarn, but also locked room murder mysteries Mystery in White, Thirteen Guests and Seven Dead). And at the magazine's opposite end, Alan Candish looks at the 'Greatest Britons' survey of 2002 and how many appeared in Eagle. 

The quarterly Eagle Times is the journal of the Eagle Society, with membership costing £30 in the UK, £50 (in sterling) overseas. You can send subscriptions to Bob Corn, Mayfield Lodge, Llanbadoc, Usk, Monmouthshire NP15 1SY; subs can also be submitted via PayPal to membership@eagle-society.org.uk. Back issues are available for newcomers to the magazine and they have even issued binders to keep those issues nice and neat.

Eagle Times vol.38 no.4 [Winter 2025]

The Christmas issue of Eagle Times brings its 38th year to an end with a spray of snow and holly and no less than eight features ranging from an interview with Keith Page to a look at the New Year issue of Plavi Vjesnik, the Yugoslavian Eagle, from 1960.

As has been the case for the past couple of years, the majority of the magazine is the work of two writers, David Britton and Steve Winders, both acknowledged experts on the historic comic and both always capable of teasing out something new from a study of the Eagle's colourful pages. David continues his look at Jeff Arnold with the third part of a feature on his days with the 6T6, drawn by Jack Daniel; and the second part of his look at Frank Bellamy's 'Heros the Spartan', one of my favourite strips from Eagle.

Busy Steve Winders looks at Stonewall Jackson, The Happy Warrior and his ever-welcome PC49 tale, as well as conducting the interview with Keith Page. The latter is perhaps the most interesting as Keith's career has encompassed everything from an important stint on Dan Dare following in the footsteps of Keith Watson, to – one of his latest publications – a biography of Tony Hancock. Some of the highlights have included his work on various Gerry Anderson comics, contributions to Starblazer and Commando, and the 'Charlotte Corday' stories.

'Stonewall Jackson' was an oddity in Eagle, originally appearing in the pages of Comet and reprinted in Eagle shortly after a new editorial regime was imposed on the paper. It was written by Leonard Matthews, who now had overall control of the Hulton papers and who was overseeing a cost-cutting exercise; however, the author concludes that Matthews's biography was accurate, albeit over-written.

This is not an accusation that can be aimed at The Happy Warrior', which concludes this issue. The strip had to be accurate (to the point of hagiography) as Churchill, its subject, was still alive. Indeed, he was presented with a leather-bound copy of the strip when it was reprinted in 1958; that copy later sold for £2,750 at auction in 2014.

Elsewhere in this issue, Alan Palmer offers a comprehensive look at the Dan Dare Space Book and its creative talent and Jim Duckett dips into 'Martin Mere', a lost Hampson strip, and the Anastasia Presso Book. 

This issue is also the last chance readers have to win the artwork by Graham Bleathman that graced an earlier issue. It's also the last issue of the subscription year, so maybe you can take a punt at joining the Eagle Society.

The quarterly Eagle Times is the journal of the Eagle Society, with membership costing £30 in the UK, £50 (in sterling) overseas. You can send subscriptions to Bob Corn, Mayfield Lodge, Llanbadoc, Usk, Monmouthshire NP15 1SY; subs can also be submitted via PayPal to membership@eagle-society.org.uk. Back issues are available for newcomers to the magazine and they have even issued binders to keep those issues nice and neat.

Eagle Times v38 n1-3

After a short break in the supply chain, I'm back on the mailing list for Eagle Times and have been able to catch up on the latest three issues, which have included their usual diverse mix of articles about and around the classic Eagle comic of the 1950s and 1960s.

The magazine runs to 48 pages with colour covers and its contents are chiefly the work of David Britton and Steve Winders now that so many of the former contributors have passed on to ventures new or simply passed on. Sadly this will happen when you have a magazine that is (a) about a comic that debuted 75 years ago; and (b) is now in its 38th year.

I'll scamper through the contents of all three issues as some articles are multi-part ventures and a new number for the year will often see a spate of "part 1" episodes. In this instance we have the launch episodes of articles on Blackbow the Cheyenne, The Happy Warrior and Montgomery of Alamein (also the debut of a new tale featuring PC49, 'The Case of the Elusive Elvis').

The issue begins with another regular, 'The Way We Were', a selection of readers' letters from 1950 issues showing how attitudes to some things have changed over the years. Blackbow begins with a brief overview and then concentrates on a single story which David Britton considers well thought out by author Ted Cowan, with Frank Humphris providing some high quality artwork.

The Happy Warrior (Winston Churchill) and Montgomery of Allemein are two strips written by Clifford Makins and drawn by Frank Bellamy that should need no introduction. That's not to say that they don't deserve study, and Steve Winders certainly puts both under the microscope.

David Britton has been writing a series on female contributors to the Eagle group which now includes June Mendoza and Daphne Rowles as well as his ongoing study of Jeff Arnold.

One-offs on the subject of Cricket, the Eagle Dinner, Wrath of the Gods and a new debut in the autumn number, a look at Luis Bermejo's contributions to Heros the Spartan, are all welcome and fun to read. I would also recommend Eric Summers' feature in the Summer number on George Beardmore and Jack o' Lantern in which the author discusses how reading old Eagle strips can lead you down many a rabbit hole seeking out the historical truths of the stories. It is one of the reasons why Eagle Times has survived so long and has featured such a range of subjects over the years. The Summer number was, incidentally, the magazine's 150th issue.

Of special note is a fantastic cover on the Summer issue by Graham Bleathman showing the Anastaia flying over London with Dan and Digby piloting. The artwork was bought by the Eagle Society and is the subject of a raffle open to members. Any income above the cost of the artwork will be donated to charity. The results will be drawn at next year's dinner, so now would be a good time to join.

The quarterly Eagle Times is the journal of the Eagle Society, with membership costing £30 in the UK, £50 (in sterling) overseas. You can send subscriptions to Bob Corn, Mayfield Lodge, Llanbadoc, Usk, Monmouthshire NP15 1SY; subs can also be submitted via PayPal to membership@eagle-society.org.uk. Back issues are available for newcomers to the magazine and they have even issued binders to keep those issues nice and neat.

Eagle Times v37 no3 (Autumn 2024)

David Britton begins a new series studying the true historical backgrounds of various Jeff Arnold stories, much as he did in his previous series, about the Indian Wars. There can be downsides—I wrote an introduction to a story earlier this year, and discovered that the date given in the first line of the first panel was wrong. Similarly, Britton points out that the setting of the very first episode of Jeff Arnold—"Texas 1870—the Pecos County"—did not exist... Pecos County was created in 1871.

If you're like me, you won't let the odd inconsistency or error spoil the telling of a good story, and Jeff Arnold's creator Charles Chilton could certainly spin a good yarn. But it's still fun to pick at the loose threads as David does here.

Steve Winders offers a similarly detailed account of 'Danger Unlimited', a 1961-62 strip that featured two former Royal Marine Commandos hired to take a dispatch bag from Jamaica to Buenos Aires. The story was by radio and TV scriptwriter Leonard Fincham and Steve reveals that the basic plot was also used by the author for an episode of The Avengers.

Steve is back again for a look at the back page biography of 'Lincoln of America', which spanned 26 episodes in 1955. It takes the story from his tough childhood to his first job as a ferryman, his involvement in the Black Hawk War (pointing out a highly inaccurate image of Lincoln in uniform) and his work as a lawyer. The story will conclude next issue.

A change of pace brings us to Marie Severin, nothing to do with Eagle but an active artist in the 1950s, including colouring work for E.C. and drawing 'Doctor Strange' and 'Spider-Woman' amongst many others.

And another change of pace takes us to the Royal Oak, a Royal Navy battleship that was attacked by a German U-Boat at Scapa Flow. (Earlier this year, I dug out my copy of Gunther Prien's I Sank the Royal Oak, written shortly before his death in 1941, the cover of which appears on page 26 of my book Beyond the Void.)

Steve Winders begins another P.C. 49 story while David Britton rounds out the issue with an obituary of Ron French, a stalwart of the Eagle Society and regular at many Eagle Dinners, who died in July, aged 87.

This issue introduces a queries column and a quiz amongst its shorter features.

The quarterly Eagle Times is the journal of the Eagle Society, with membership costing £30 in the UK, £50 (in sterling) overseas. You can send subscriptions to Bob Corn, Mayfield Lodge, Llanbadoc, Usk, Monmouthshire NP15 1SY; subs can also be submitted via PayPal to membership@eagle-society.org.uk. Back issues are available for newcomers to the magazine and they have even issued binders to keep those issues nice and neat.

Eagle Times v37 no2 (Summer 2024)

Eagle Times arrives with it's always-welcome thud on the doormat. Cheerfully written and colourfully produced, every issue has something that entertains or informs me. Not bad for a publication that has been running for 37 years!

This issue concentrates of the annual Eagle Dinner, which was held in Cardiff in April, with guests David Roach, Mike Collins and Faye Tanner of the Welsh Tourist Board. An address was given by Steve Winders entitled 'Keep Young and Beautiful', which is printed in full as the lead article here. A mixture of Eagle-related sports strips chatter and Winders' humorous memories of his own sporting misadventures. It makes for a light-hearted and entertaining opening gambit.

Winders also closes this issue with a trio of features: a look at the Dan Dare play performed in London' Half Moon Theatre in 1972; part two of a PC49 story, 'The Case of the Shivering Samaritan', that involves Archie Berkeley-Willoughby meeting Chad Varah, Eagle scriptwriter and founder of the Sarmaritans; he also pens a brief line or two of obituary notices for those that have recently passed on, including Roy Cross, Harry Linfield, Jon Howard and Alastair Crompton.

The Eagle Society's annual gathering is also celebrated by Reg Hoare, who covers the whole weekend in a well-illustrated piece that takes readers from the opening day's talks by Steve Winders, David Gould and Faye Tanner. The following day included visits to BBC Wales and a walk around Cardiff and Cardiff Castle. The evening dinner was followed by a talk by David Roach on British Comic Art.

The next morning saw another talk, this time by Mike Collins who discussed his career and his work storyboarding Doctor Who, and a look back through the Eagle Archives by Darren Evans, including footage from previous Eagle days and weekends. (I think I've only attended one, not a Society weekend, but a smaller, 'comic mart' style event in Margaretting. Blowed if I can remember when it was, but I was there with John Allen-Clark, so it might date back to the 1990s or even the 1980s.)

David Gould provides the magazine with a look at a few of his favourite things, ranging from his favourite Dan Dare yarn to his favourite non-fiction series in Eagle, while David Britton has a couple of features, one looking at the Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch railway, and a second exploring the artwork of Giorgio Bellavitis and Richard Jennings for Storm Nelson.

The quarterly Eagle Times is the journal of the Eagle Society, with membership costing £30 in the UK, £50 (in sterling) overseas. You can send subscriptions to Bob Corn, Mayfield Lodge, Llanbadoc, Usk, Monmouthshire NP15 1SY; subs can also be submitted via PayPal to membership@eagle-society.org.uk. Back issues are available for newcomers to the magazine and they have even issued binders to keep those issues nice and neat.

Eagle Times v37 no1 (Spring 2024)

Another year, another volume of Eagle Times, the remarkable magazine dedicated to the original Eagle.  Remarkable because the original lasted 19 years (1950-69) and ET is heading towards double that in 2025 but still has new things to say about the paper that inspired its launch back in 1988.

Truth be told, much of this issue is only related to Eagle glancingly, although there are enough features that tie directly to the classic comic for hardcore fans who want their Fifties fix. Things kick off with a look at the copyright battles of Captain Marvel and how this affected the British reprints by Len Miller – famously the origin of our own Marvelman, who became entangled with his own lengthy series of legal battles forty years later that dragged on for another 25 years.

David Britton covers another American comic named Eagle (having covered one last issue), this one featuring a character named Richard Eagle whose adventures Britton found difficult to follow. Hopefully he took solace in writing about Lily Renée, an artist I coincidentally discovered two days before Eagle Times dropped through my letterbox. She had a fascinating story: born in Vienna to a privileged Jewish family, who escaped the Nazis via the Kindertransport that brought her to England in 1939., working as a nursing assistant during the Blitz.

Her parents had escaped to America and Lily joined them in New York. She found work with an advertising agency and then in comics, at Fiction House, where she drew for Wings Comics, Rangers Comics, Planet Comics, Fight Comics and others, and later for St Johns Publications. Later she wrote children's books and plays and lived to 101, dying on 22 August 2022.

I learned of Lily while writing about Trina Robbins, who wrote a graphic novel biography of her exploits in 2011.

Lily is the second artist associated with American comics covered this issue, following part 2 of Adam Goodman's look at Milton Caniff. This episode covers the end of his time on 'Terry and the Pirates' and his creation of 'Steve Canyon'.

Other features that glance on Eagle include Eric Fernie's thoughts on thinking in comics and an obituary for Margaret Walker, Frank Hampson's youger sister, who attended various Eagle-related events.

Definitely centred on Eagle are articles by Jim Duckett on the 1960s strip 'Knights of the Road', Alan J. Palmer's discussing his favourite Dan Dare story, and a P.C.49 tale by Steve Winders.

The year is off to a good start.

The quarterly Eagle Times is the journal of the Eagle Society, with membership costing £30 in the UK, £45 (in sterling) overseas. You can send subscriptions to Bob Corn, Mayfield Lodge, Llanbadoc, Usk, Monmouthshire NP15 1SY; subs can also be submitted via PayPal to membership@eagle-society.org.uk. Back issues are available for newcomers to the magazine and they have even issued binders to keep those issues nice and neat.

Eagle Times v36 no4 (Winter 2023)

After 36 years, it's no surprise that Eagle Times must occasionally depart from its core interest of the classic Eagle comic that ran from 1950 to 1969. Non-Eagle subjects don't often make the cover (the last was Captain Condor 18 months ago), but this issue highlights Classics Illustrated, as does the lead article by Kevin O'Donnell.

O'Donnell mentions that he was a reader of the British editions back in the early 1960s, which gives the article some personal insight into how the comic was perceived: he was encouraged by teachers at his primary school to read one a day, seeking out the creepier and more fantastic stories (Frankenstein, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea) while girls might have preferred The Song of Hiawatha.

No mention that some of the Thorpe & Porter issues included a number of originals, most notably (and expensively) an adaptation of the James Bond movie Doctor No. A couple of the originals were drawn by Norman Light who appears in my new history of Badger Books, Beyond the Void.

David Britton also slips off topic twice this issue, taking a look at a character named Dan Dare who first appeared in Fawcett's Whiz Comics in 1940. Nothing like the pilot of the future so loved by British schoolboys, this Dan was a fearless "freelance detective".

Later in this issue, Britton tackles another American comic in the shape of Eagle Comics, published by Rural Home Publishing Company of St. Louis, Missouri, in 1945. It lasted only two issues, mixing war-themed strips with non-fiction strips and features. A second Eagle predecessor is promised for next issue.

Milton Caniff is one of the most famous American artists, responsible for 'Dickie Dare', 'Terry and the Pirates' and 'Steve Canyon' (the latter presumably to be covered next issue). There is an insightful transcript of a brief radio talk Caniff recorded for Australian broadcast in which he discusses the origins of the strip and his creative process.

Off the beaten path, although related to Girl Annual, is Harry Royle's brief biography of actress Shirley Cain (nee Roberts), who was the subject of a Kay Weston article in the 4th annual volume. Shirley was then studying at RADA and went on to have a successful career on stage and screen.

Back to the Eagle itself, we have Jim Duckett's opening article on 'Knights of the Road', memorably drawn by Gerald Haylock. Inspired by Hell Drivers starring Stanley Baker and Patrick McGoohan and featuring future Bond Sean Connery and future Doctor Who William Hartnell amongst its astonishing cast. A thriller about lorry driving might not feel very 'Eagle', but writer JHG Freeman (writing as Gordon Grinstead) managed to squeeze out plenty of excitement over a two-year run, the first year of which is covered here.

'Cricket with the Master' was a feature by Patsy Hendren which six Eagle readers with six professional cricketers. This episode concentrates on Hendren's astonishing career, which had ended in 1937 after thirty years professionally in the sport.

This issue is rounded out with one of Jim Duckett's 'In and Out of Eagle' features and a story featuring PC49 by Steve Winders, suitably Christmas themed.

The quarterly Eagle Times is the journal of the Eagle Society, with membership costing £30 in the UK, £45 (in sterling) overseas. You can send subscriptions to Bob Corn, Mayfield Lodge, Llanbadoc, Usk, Monmouthshire NP15 1SY; subs can also be submitted via PayPal to membership@eagle-society.org.uk. Back issues are available for newcomers to the magazine and they have even issued binders to keep those issues nice and neat.

Eagle Times v36 no3 (Autumn 2023)

It's not often I laugh out loud when I read a magazine, but that's what happened yesterday when I stumbled across a mention of myself. Not by full name, but described as "an anonymous author called 'Steve'". Which am I? Anonymous? Or called Steve?

I'm hardly anonymous on Bear Alley: it has my photo, it has my contact details, it has scans of many of my books with my name plastered all over the covers and the copyright notice is in my name.

An article on early cutaways by Leslie Ashwell Wood in the latest issue of Eagle Times has mined my article on Wood from 2007. It unfortunately misses the point that I made that everything you thought you knew about Ashwell Wood was wrong. The only known "fact" at that time was that he was born in 1913 – a falsehood repeated in the article – which isn't true. In fact, Wood was born (as I said on my blog at the time) in 1903.

The discovery by Brett Gooden of early artwork signed L.W. and L. Wood, in The Romance of the Nation (1934-35) and further contributions to The Popular Science Educator (1935-36) adds to the evidence that Ashwell was a later addition. However, this is not the first time early work has been discovered: as long ago as 2015, Jeremy Briggs looked at Wood's drawings for The World of Wonder, another Amalgamated Press title, from 1932-33. He, too, made the point that the work was signed L.W. and L. Wood.

He was born Leslie Wood in Kilburn, London, on 29 July 1903, the son of George Arthur Wood and his wife Grace (nee Green). George was a shop keeper, listed in the 1911 census as "oil and colourman", in the 1921 census as an assistant in an ironmongery shop, and shortly before the Second World War as a retired grocer. Grace died, aged 40, shortly after the 1911 census was taken. George survived until 1945, when he died aged 77. Leslie, living with his widowed father just before the war, described his occupation as "marine draughtsman".

Avoidable errors aside, it's nice to see more examples of Wood's early work.

Actually, this is a particularly good issue, with a fantastic opener from Richard Sheaf, who has managed to get hold of a rather battered sketchbook by 'Riders of the Range' artist Frank Humphries. The majority of the illustrations show Humphries' dedication to accuracy of guns, knives, saddles and clothing of cowboys and native Americans. It's an amazing insight into the artists' work and we're lucky that the book was rescued. One tiny error... figure 4 and figure 18 are the same. And one wish... Richard mentions the sale from which this sketchbook came also included a short, unpublished autobiography. Combined with the sketches, original artwork and his printed work, a definitive book on Humphries would be possible.

Steve Winders is, as usual, covering a broad range of topics. In this issue  we have the fifth of his looks at the novels featuring Geoffrey Bond's 'Luck of the Legion'; a look at the short-lived Alan Stranks and Harry Linfield collaboration 'Mark Question'; an adventure of P.C. 49; and the final part of his look at the back cover strip 'The Great Charlemagne'. All solidly researched and well-written.

Jim Duckett has a number of short pieces looking at various aspects of the Eagle comic, while Peter Barr offers a look at some of the comics' sporting strip features, although this episode is more concerned with artist Alfred Mazure.

The quarterly Eagle Times is the journal of the Eagle Society, with membership costing £30 in the UK, £45 (in sterling) overseas. You can send subscriptions to Bob Corn, Mayfield Lodge, Llanbadoc, Usk, Monmouthshire NP15 1SY; subs can also be submitted via PayPal to membership@eagle-society.org.uk. Back issues are available for newcomers to the magazine and they have even issued binders to keep those issues nice and neat.

Eagle Times v36 no2 (Summer 2023)

A very pleasant early arrival, Eagle Times has the usual mix of articles that relate to the older Eagle of  the 1950s and 1960s. The magazine may have been celebrating that famous comic for over a third of a century, yet it still manages to find something new to say four times a year. The only worry is that, should Steve Winders break his typing fingers, we might be seeing some slim issues until he recovers.

Winders opens the issue with two very different offerings. The first is a look at 'Cavendish Brown, M.D.', the comic strip that ran for two stories in 1958-59, written by Bill Wellings and drawn by Patrick Williams (son of Eagle's regular back cover artist Norman Williams). The first tale sets up a mystery by having the doctor find a sick man by the side of a road; attempts are made to prevent Brown from delivering the man to hospital... and the story is off to a running start. Unfortunately, the storyline has a number of flaws and, while not the worst thing to appear in Eagle, it hasn't received much love from Eagle fans, who rejected the strip after a second, very short yarn.

The Eagle Society's York Gathering in 2023 takes centre stage, with Winders' opening address and a report on the event by Reg Hoare. Although I have never managed to get to one of these annual dinners, I did attend (many years ago) one of the Eagle Days, so I know how much fun it can be to mix with fans and dealers all dedicated to one subject. It sounds like it was a most enjoyable 3-day event.

More from Winders... this time the second part of his coverage of 'The Baden-Powell Story', picking up from last issue with Robert now in the middle of the Boer War and involved in the defence of Mafeking. It is interesting to note that Geoffrey Bond, who wrote the comic strip biography, researched his subject deeply, contacting his subject's widow and gathering enough detail and information to later write two books on B-P. (Incidentally, the artwork was by previously mentioned Norman Williams.)

David Britton's epic study of 'Charles Chilton and the Indian Wars' reaches episode 19, picking up the story of 'Jeff Arnold and the Fugitive Indians' and exploring the story of Little Wolf and his band of Cheyenne, who offered his services to the army as a scout, later living in exile after drunkenly making inappropriate advances to an Indian girl and shooting her father. (The latter isn't the subject of the 'Riders of the Range' strip, by the way.)

Britton also pens an interesting look at rocket ships from Buck Rogers to Dan Dare. He mentions a cover by Ed Valigursky for the American SF magazine If (April 1955) perhaps being inspired by a Hampson-drawn Treen fighter, but I doubt this is the case as Valigursky was painting generically similar ships earlier for the same magazine.

Back to Steve Winders for the second episode of a P.C.49 story, set at the International Motor Show at Earl's Court and involving the Crown Jewels of the Netherlands being stolen and smuggled to Britain. A new article, 'The Great Charlemagne', continues Winders' look at the back cover biographies of Eagle, the latest from 1956 and drawn (again) by Norman Williams. The article points out that nothing was recorded of Charles' childhood, so Chad Varah had to invent some scenes to get the story started and Charlemagne's wars with the Saxons can begin.

The contents should be diverse enough for all tastes.

The quarterly Eagle Times is the journal of the Eagle Society, with membership costing £30 in the UK, £45 (in sterling) overseas. You can send subscriptions to Bob Corn, Wellcroft Cottage, Wellcroft, Ivinghoe, Leighton Buzzard, Bedfordshire LU7 9EF; subs can also be submitted via PayPal to membership@eagle-society.org.uk. Back issues are available for newcomers to the magazine and they have even issued binders to keep those issues nice and neat.

Eagle Times v36 no1 (Spring 2023)

It's always a shame to begin a new year of Eagle Times with a tribute, but editor Darren Evans draws a brief but useful picture of the life of Joan Porter (nee Humphries), who died last December. She was Frank Hampson's long-standing assistant, working with him from the earliest days in The Bakehouse and following him to Epsom, where she survived the closing down of Hampson's studio and accompanied him as he researched 'The Road of Courage'. She retrained as a teacher and worked as such and as a mental health nurse, and in later life contributed to both Eagle Times and Spaceship Away!, answering countless questions from Eagle fans.

The issue begins with a long and interesting quest 'In Search of Eagler Books', which takes as its jumping off point a series of reviews from Eagle readers published in 1952, ranging from the classic John Buchan novel The Thirty-Nine Steps to Glenn Balch's western Indian Paint, with non-fiction, schoolkids adventure, smuggling war-time adventure and science fiction. Eric Summers offers some entertaining insights into the books and their authors and along the way proves what a shame it is that we have today lost the mid-list, where many of these authors would have sat, cheerfully turning out a couple of novels a year, now long-forgotten.

More books are reviewed as Steve Winders reaches Luck of the Legion's Secret Mission, the next in his trawl through Geoffrey Bond's novels starring Luck, Trenet and Bimburg. The interesting thing here is that the book references real events as the legionnaire pals' mission is to recover the missing wooden hand of Captain Danjou.

David Britton continues to explore the realities of Indian history behind the work of Charles Chilton, shifting his focus to the story of the fugitive Dull Knife, while Peter Barr examines the life of sporting hero Freddie Mills. Steve Winders begins a series on the life of Lord Baden Powell, the subject of a biography by Luck of the Legion author Geoffrey Bond, and Steve also pens the opening chapter of a new PC49 yarn, this one set at the Earls Court Motor Show.

A few additional fillers mean the issue runs to the regular 48 pages, always interestingly filled and the magazine is definitely worth your support.

The quarterly Eagle Times is the journal of the Eagle Society, with membership costing £30 in the UK, £45 (in sterling) overseas. You can send subscriptions to Bob Corn, Wellcroft Cottage, Wellcroft, Ivinghoe, Leighton Buzzard, Bedfordshire LU7 9EF; subs can also be submitted via PayPal to membership@eagle-society.org.uk. Back issues are available for newcomers to the magazine and they have even issued binders to keep those issues nice and neat.

Eagle Times v35 no4 (Winter 2022)

Christmas was always a special time at the old Eagle comic, with snow and holly decorating the logo and, occasionally, the whole front cover. Eagle Times reflects this bit of enjoyable fun with a picture of Sir Hubert dressed as Santa, carry a Christmas pudding.

The latest issue includes a look back at how Eagle celebrated the season between 1963 and 1968 (author Andrew Newman covered previous years in earlier Xmas issues for 2020 and 2021). The religious aspect to Eagle had all but disappeared, Marcus Morris having stepped down as editor in 1959 and Clifford Makins, who tried to keep the tone of Eagle the same, leaving in 1961. Bob Bartholomew was editor by the time this article opens and was already struggling with a falling circulation. Newman also notes the decline in advertising over those years.

Most Christmas issues made mention of the celebrations, but often loosely in puzzles and features. 1965 and 1966 both had Christmas-related features, while 1967 and 1968 featured strips that incorporated Christmas parties. The final Xmas number appeared that year, with a cutaway celebration of 'Dick Whittington on Ice' drawn by Leslie Ashwell Wood, whose contributions had appeared since the very first issue.

Elsewhere in this issue, David Britton celebrates the long association of the late Queen Elizabeth with the Eagle, charting her appearances, especially around the time of her Coronation, while Peter Liffen describes his meeting with Frank Hampson, through his work at London's Science Museum, and how Dan Dare has been the focus of a number of exhibitions reflecting on how the future and future technology was depicted.

A number of features are continuations from earlier issues, including Steve Winders' look at the 'Luck of the Legion' novels written by Geoffrey Bond, this time concentrating on Carry On Sergeant Luck from 1956, which sounds like it might be a prequel to the Carry On Sergeant movie that appeared two years later. In fact, it is a novelisation, with more detail and additional scenes, of the very first story serialised in Eagle in 1952 (despite the note on the dust jacket that says "None of his adventures in book form have appeared in Eagle"). Winders is also behind the second and final part of 'The Case of the Perfect Alibi', a PC49 adventure that weaves a real event into the storyline: the 1957 Royal Variety Performance.

Two features by David Britton come to an end, as he concludes his look at the 'Last of the Fighting Cheyenne' storyline from 'Riders of the Range' and how Charles Chilton's tale matched with the true history of the Native American breakout at Fort Robinson in January 1879. The series will continue in future issues, as the story of the Cheyennes did not end there, continuing in 'The Fugitive Indians'.

The fourth and final episode of his history of the Canadian Pacific Railway in 'The Story of a Train That Went Somewhere (eventually)', which reveals how King George  VI visited Canada in 1939 and invented the 'royal walkabout'.

Britton also pops up again to reveal how a bust of Dan Dare has completed its travels and is now housed at Bourne Hall in Epsom. Finally, Jim Duckett's 47th episode of 'In and Out of the Eagle' looks at a trip taken by Rupert the Bear in a spacecraft that looks suspiciously like the Kingfisher.

The quarterly Eagle Times is the journal of the Eagle Society, with membership costing £30 in the UK, £45 (in sterling) overseas. You can send subscriptions to Bob Corn, Wellcroft Cottage, Wellcroft, Ivinghoe, Leighton Buzzard, Bedfordshire LU7 9EF; subs can also be submitted via PayPal to membership@eagle-society.org.uk. Back issues are available for newcomers to the magazine and they have even issued binders to keep those issues nice and neat.

Eagle Times v35 no3, Autumn 2022 [November 2022]

The sad truth that comics' fans face is that we're all getting older and what we loved as children is becoming ancient history. It also means that we lose friends and colleagues, which has been very noticeable with Eagle Times in recent years with the passing of names from the comic like Don Harley and Greta Tomlinson, but also of those fans who kept the comic alive like Keith Howard, Tony Cowley and, in August this year, Adrian Perkins.

A couple of tributes mark the passing of Adrian, who was key to setting up the first Eagle Convention back in 1980 and published the Astral Group Newsletter as well as writing The SF World of Dan Dare (1991), a comprehensive handbook, with David Ampleford.

Onto the meat of this issue, which leads with a feature on 'Dan Dare's Lesser Known Rivals', a whistle-stop tour of Fifties spacemen in the pages of Space Comics, Space Commander Kerry, Spaceman, Space Commando—I'm sensing a theme here—and other now obscure titles. It touches briefly on Ace Hart, Hal Starr, Swift Morgan and Captain Valiant, and leaves you wanting more. (At this point I should note that I love this kind of stuff and reprinted Norman Light's Captain Future a few years ago... which is still available.)

Despite my love for those old sci-fi heroes, the best article in this issue comes from David Britton who has a feature on how girls were treated as fans of Eagle. The paper, although dominated by male heroes, had a strong following amongst girls, who made up perhaps a fifth of the readership. Editor Marcus Morris was well aware of this and included articles suitable for his female audience. Trying to achieve some sort of balance and the reaction to it may have provided the impetus to create Girl. Certainly listening to the audience caused the editorial staff to look again at the content of the paper, which appeared at its launch to be a boys' idea of what a girls' paper should be.

Britton also pens the next episode of a railway story concerning the Canadian Pacific Railway, relevant to Eagle fans as it was visited by Macdonald Hastings.

The Eagle Society gathering at Greenwich in June takes up some of this issue, with Reg Hoare offering a comprehensive report on the event, and the text of Steve Winders' address.

Steve Winders has two other pieces this issue, part two of his look through Geoffrey Bond's foreign legion novels about Sergeant Luck, and a new story featuring P.C. 49, this one set at the Royal Variety Performance.

The quarterly Eagle Times is the journal of the Eagle Society, with membership costing £29 in the UK, £40 (in sterling) overseas. You can send subscriptions to Bob Corn, Wellcroft Cottage, Wellcroft, Ivinghoe, Leighton Buzzard, Bedfordshire LU7 9EF; subs can also be submitted via PayPal to membership@eagle-society.org.uk. Back issues are available for newcomers to the magazine and they have even issued binders to keep those issues nice and neat.

Eagle Times v35 no2 Summer 2022 [June 2022]

There will be  a real surprise for readers as they pull the latest issue of Eagle Times from its envelope; for the first time — at least I think it's the first time — the magazine features a newly painted cover, a remarkable sci-fi action scene by Alan Langford, a veteran of comics and illustrated books, including strips the  Eagle Holiday Special 1987 and an issue of Eagle Monthly back in 1991.

In a way it's a shame that, while I like the illustration itself, my inner Mr. Pernickety wonders why this honour falls to a non-Eagle character. Captain Condor was the cover star of Lion, the weekly launched as a rival to Eagle, the choice of a science fiction strip deliberately made because of the popularity of Dan Dare. And while I'm wearing my Mr. Pernichety bow-tie, it's worth noting that the article the cover illustrates is a reprint, albeit an interesting one, that has been on John Freeman's Down the Tubes website for over three years, the only difference being the choice of artwork (which, sensibly given the venue, added an example of Keith Watson's run on the strip).

To mangle a quote, I come not to bury Eagle Times but to praise it, but... again, if I was to wear my editorial hat, I would not have begun the issue with an article about the Canadian railway system that has little to do with Eagle bar a passing mention of an Ashwell Wood cutaway. Leaping over part two of a PC 49 text story, we are already on page 19 before getting to an article that is genuinely about the old Eagle, namely the latest part of David Britton's meticulous study of the Charles Chilton 'Riders of the Range' strip and its historical accuracy (or inaccuracy) in its retelling of The Indian Wars. In part he looks at how Jeff Arnold and Luke join the Cheyenne, who, under the leadership of Dull Knife, are making their way to Fort Robinson.

Steve Winders also compares strip to reality with the final part of his look at the back page biography of Doctor Livingstone, 'The Great Explorer'. Winders concludes that Livingstone was a far more complex character than the one known to most of us — especially as that knowledge is almost certainly confined to him being lost somewhere in darkest Africa where he was found by a guy called Stanley who presumed he was Dr Livingstone when they met.

Steve Winders again begins a new series looking at the six 'Luck of the Legion' novels written by Geoffrey Bond, charting how some were original, some adapted from previous strips and some later adapted into strips. I look forward to learning what Steve "decid-" (the article ends rather suddenly!).

Dan Dare miniatures, a Charles Chilton anecdote, a look at pen-names used by Eagle related authors, a brief and wistful celebration of the 40th anniversary of the new Eagle, and the usual Postbag bring the latest issue to a close. It's another excellent issue (as I said above, I'm here to praise the magazine), but this issue suffers a little from fewer articles about Eagle and more about Eagle-adjacent subjects.

The quarterly magazine is the journal of the Eagle Society, with membership costing £29 in the UK, £40 (in sterling) overseas. You can send subscriptions to Bob Corn, Wellcroft Cottage, Wellcroft, Ivinghoe, Leighton Buzzard, Bedfordshire LU7 9EF; subs can also be submitted via PayPal to membership@eagle-society.org.uk. Back issues are available for newcomers to the magazine and they have even issued binders to keep those issues nice and neat.