R E McEune

R.E. McEUNE

by

Robert J. Kirkpatrick

R.E. McEune is something of an enigma. A prolific, if undistinguished, painter, he also illustrated several children’s books for the Halifax publisher Milner & Co., in the early 1900s. Yet he appears to have always been an amateur artist, and he spent his working life as a clerk in a colliery in the north-east of England.

Born on 12 September 1876 and christened Robert Ernest McEune, he was one of seven children of Robert McEune, born in 1827 and a grocer in Gateshead, and his wife Mary Anne, née Reay, born in 1838, whom he had married in Gateshead in 1866. At the time of the 1881 census, the family was living at 13 St. Cuthbert’s Terrace, Gateshead, with Robert senior’s grocery business, which was a partnership with his younger brother Michael Wight McEune, at 36 and 38 Bottle-bank, Gateshead. In November 1881, he filed for bankruptcy, having liabilities of £5,380 and assets of £4,300. (There was a certain irony in this, in that in 1870 he had been elected as a Guardian of the Gateshead Poor Law Union.) He was, however, able to carry on the business under his own name.

Ten years later, the family had moved to 40 Exeter Street, Gateshead, and Robert Ernest McEune had begun working as a clerk in a local colliery. He was still doing the same job ten years later, when the family was living at 36 St. Albans Terrace, Gateshead. One online source says that he studied at the Gateshead School of Art and at Kings College, Newcastle, although if he did this was presumably in his spare time.

His career as an illustrator began shortly after 1900, when he began illustrating a series of children’s books for Milner & Co., a publishing company established in Halifax by William Milner in the early 1800s, and notable for being one of the first publishers to focus on cheap books. Milner married Mary Sowerby, a widow, and after his death in 1850 the business was carried on by his two stepsons, who had been in partnership with him, and traded as Milner & Sowerby, and later as Milner & Co. It went into liquidation in 1910.

Unfortunately, none of the books McEune illustrated for Milner are dated. Furthermore, only one, an edition of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (which had colour plates), is listed in the major online library catalogues. (And, at the time of writing, only one other title is listed in online booksellers’ listings.)

The authors whose books he illustrated – which all had a colour frontispiece and several full-page black and white illustrations – were Mary Arkless, Jessie Phillips, May Clifford, Phyllis Ford and Amy Gordon. Presumably these were, for the most part, local authors – Mary Arkless, for example, was born in Whickham, Durham, in 1882, and for a while at least was an Elementary School Teacher. McEune also provided a black and white frontispiece for an edition of Tom Brown’s Schooldays. He was not, it must be said, a particularly talented illustrator, although his halftone plates were much better than his hasty black and white line drawings.

As a painter, in oils, watercolours and pastels, he was extremely prolific, with his widow bequeathing 200 of them to Newcastle’s Shipley Art Gallery on her death in 1970. He appears to have exhibited his first painting at the Laing Gallery in Newcastle in 1910, and presumably exhibited several times after this, although the only records so far unearthed are for the Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolours in 1913, and for the North East Coast Art Club in Whitley Bay, Northumberland, in 1938. He painted in a variety of genres – landscapes, portraits, nudes and still lifes.  He is also recorded as giving a lecture on “Humour in Art” at the South Shields YMCA in 1921. Many of his paintings have appeared in auctions over recent years, although none appear to have fetched anything other than low prices.

His mother died in 1909, and in the 1911 census he was recorded still living at 36 St. Albans Terrace, with his father, and working as a colliery clerk. It is not known what, if anything, McEune did during the First World war, although at some point after 1914 (his father having died that year) he moved to Newcastle, firstly to 83 Osborne Avenue and then to 5 Shortridge Terrace. He then returned to Gateshead, where, in 1922, he married Daisy Lillie Mary Jane Smith, born on 31 October 1893 and a former shorthand typist. They remained in Gateshead, being recorded in the 1939 Register at 20 Alverstone Avenue, with Robert working as a colliery sales clerk. They later moved to Low Fell, Co. Durham.

Either during the Second World Wear or shortly afterwards the couple moved to Penrith, Cumberland. McEune was noted as painting scenery for the local Wordsworth Street Methodist Drama Group in 1950.

He died at 40 Croft Avenue, Penrith, on 16 December 1952, leaving an estate valued at £4,642 (around £120,000 in today’s terms). His wife returned to Gateshead, where she died in June 1970, leaving an estate worth just over £13,000 (£170,000 in today’s terms).

PUBLICATIONS

Books illustrated by R.E. McEune
All published by Milner & Co., Halifax, between 1900 and 1910
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll (re-issue)
Tom Brown’s Schooldays by Thomas Hughes (re-issue)
The Old Boy King by Mary Arkless
The Village Tom-Boy by Mary Arkless
The Merry Twins by Mary Arkless
The Magic Ship by Mary Arkless
Jackie and the Swallows by Jessie Phillips
An Ill Wind by Jessie Phillips
Davie’s Voyage by May Clifford
Red-Caps and gre-Caps by May Clifford
The Parsonage Children by May Clifford
The Pickleburys by Phyllis Ford
Pranks of Two Schoolboys by Phyllis Ford
The Boys of Hazeldene by Phyllis Ford
Which is Which? By Amy Gordon
Piddling Jackey by Amy Gordon

Comic Cuts - 11 January 2019

It's Thursday evening as I write and I've been working from home today. I've been waiting for a guy to come round and fix the washing machine, which went inexplicably bugf*ck on Sunday, working fine one moment and flashing warning lights the next. Thankfully we were able to open the door and it seemed to have emptied properly before lighting up the utility room with a multi-coloured light show.

At work on Monday I managed to track down a guy who was both local and who knew the make and I phoned through the model number that evening. He came round on Tuesday but decided he'd bought the wrong part and would have to order up another. That would arrive Wednesday, so I arranged for him to come over Thursday morning. At midday I phoned him, only to be told he'd be here late afternoon ("after three"). It's now six o'clock and I still have no idea if he's going to turn up or not.

I emailed myself enough work to keep me going so I haven't wasted the day, but it is inconvenient at a time when I need to keep my nose to the grindstone. Also, it makes me look like a dick, because I've now had to ask twice if it's OK to work from home and there's a good chance that I may have to start the process all over again next week with someone else.

Or do I bite the bullet and just go out and buy a new washing machine? It's now six-thirty and he's not answering his mobile phone.

This is surely the last thing that can go wrong. We knew we would have to replace the TV, which we did in December, but on top of that I've had to buy two new external hard drives because one of the old ones froze solid while I was doing a back-up and now it looks (potentially) like a new washing machine.

I've also just bought new glasses – I've been struggling to read smaller print and suffering a bit eye strain for a few months and went to the opticians last weekend. They confirmed I need stronger glasses for reading and that the lenses in both eyes are starting to harden, the first stage of cataracts. I have Nuclear Sclerotic Cataracts, which is the most common form, and it usually begins at around the age of sixty. I shouldn't have much trouble from it for perhaps a decade, so it's not something to worry about... yet.

Still no sign of the washing machine repair guy. I think I'd better go and start dinner.

Commando 5191-5194

Get ready for Viking ghosts, a man from Mars, Napoleonic duels, and grudges against the Germans! All this and more in brand new Commando issues 5191–5194 — out today!

5191: Viking Phantom

Something weird this way comes from the mind of George Low! In an ancient Scottish Broch, Fleet Air Arm Warrant Officer Rex Leigh is shivering – but is it from the cold? Or is it from what is lurking outside in the murk? Out there in the dark, German infiltrators aren’t the only thing Rex should be frightened of! All this topped off with an eerie cover from Neil Roberts… what more could a spook want? 

Story: George Low
Art: Morhain & Defeo
Cover: Neil Roberts

5192: Soldier from Space

Writer Skentleberry can always be relied on for a wacky Commando yarn, but this stellar adventure will blow your mind! Voltan comes from the year 3000 AD and he’s looking for men to serve in his army – but not if Lieutenant Mike Johnson has anything to say about it! This paired with Jordi Penalva’s Flash Gordon-esque cover does more than sell this out-of-this-world issue which almost belongs in Commando’s brother comic, Starblazer!

Story: Skentleberry
Art: Cortes
Cover: Penalva
Originally Commando No. 577 (August 1971).

5193: Cold Steel

Graeme Neil Reid delivers again with his third-ever Commando cover! Here’s a Commando behind the scenes titbit: the brief for this cover was perhaps the most detailed brief in Commando history! And what a brilliant job Reid does in bringing Jim and David Turner’s Napoleonic war story to life!

Story: Jim and David Turner
Art: Muller & Klacik
Cover: Graeme Neil Reid

5194: Grant’s Grudge

A powerhouse of Commando contributors come together in ‘Grant’s Grudge’ with veteran writer Ian Clark teaming up with Gordon C Livingstone and Ian Kennedy! Follow Sergeant Doug Grant, who thinks the only good German is a dead one! Even when Grant’s treated by some kindly German doctors – the grudge remains. So what does he do? He punches them in the face and scarpers! Also a highlight in this Commando: a goose attack!

Story: Ian Clark
Art: Gordon C Livingstone
Cover: Ian Kennedy
Originally Commando No. 2751 (April 1994).

Rebellion Releases (2000AD)

Rebellion releases for 9-10 January 2019.

2000AD Prog 2113
Cover: Patrick Goddard / Jim Boswell (col)
JUDGE DREDD: BLOCKS BUDS by Kenneth Niemand (w) Jeff Anderson (a) Annie Parkhouse (l)
BRINK: HIGH SOCIETY by Dan Abnett (w) INJ Culbard (a) Simon Bowland (l)
SKIP TRACER: LOUDER THAN BOMBS by James Peaty (w) Paul Marshall Dylan Teague (c) (a) Ellie De Ville (l)
THARG'S 3RILLERS: THE SCORCHED ZONE by Eddie Robson (w) Nick Brokenshire (a) Gary Caldwell (c) Ellie De Ville (l)
FIENDS OF THE WESTERN FRONT by Ian Edginton (w) Tiernen Trevallion (a) Annie Parkhouse (l)

Turbo Jones by Barrie Tomlinson, Ian Kennedy, Vanyo and Keith Page
Rebellion ISBN 978-1781-08665-0, 10 January 2019, 146pp, £14.99 / $19.99. Available via Amazon.
In 2488 Earth history professor, Turbo Jones predicted that the planet would be destroyed in 2500 by a vast meteoroid storm. Ridiculed by the world’s leaders, Turbo spent the next twelve years constructing a huge spaceship and employing a group of volunteers to help him leave the Earth and find a new home in the stars…
    After months in space, Turbo and his senior staff including former mercenary Loner, the mysterious Kitten Magee and the last survivor of Xgangbe-4, Joe Alien, have found a potential new home.  Now they need to get down onto the planet and make sure that it is safe for the five hundred colonists and livestock aboard the Wildcat…

Illustrators #24 (Winter 2018)

Released in December, the latest issue of Illustrators is a French movie posters special covering the work of five artists as well as an overview of the history, illustrated throughout with some very high quality images from Heritage Auctions.

French movie posters are called affiches, the term meaning to 'put up' and attached to bills and news sheets that were struck to walls as a means of spreading news or (once colour lithography was invented) advertising. Film posters began appearing at the same time as film itself, the earliest recorded dating from 1895.

But it was in the 1920s that poster art began to find its feet, with talents like Boris Bilinsky, Jacques Bonneaud and Bernard Lancy taking them into new graphic territory with the likes of Bonneaud, Constantin Belinsky and Roger Soubie each producing over 2,000 posters.

This introductory feature gives way to five biographical pieces on five artists who, author Diego Cordoba says, "would become the most prolific and popular, and define the way French movie posters were done, all with their own personal graphic styles."

Russian-born Boris Grinsson worked in Germany until Hitler came to power. He fled to Paris where he created film posters until France was invaded and he had to go into hiding. In the post-War years, his posters included Hiroshima, mon amour (1959) and the Bond movie Bons braisers de Russie (From Russia With Love, 1963).

Some highlights of Clement Hurel's career included Voulez vous danser avec moi (Come Dance With Me, 1959), A bout de souffle (Breathless, 1960) and Le bal de vampires (The Fearless Vampire Killers, 1969). Like Grinsson (who produced over 2,000 posters), Hurel was a prolific, though precise, artist, producing over 1,500 posters.

Jean Mascii was born in Italy but raised in France from childhood. Les yeaux sans visage (Eyes Without a Face, 1960), Plein Soleil (1961), with its striking portrait of Alain Delon, and Alphaville (1965) all show his mastery of the human figure.

Rene Ferracci produced 3,000 posters between 1950 and 1980, all inspired by his innate sense of design and often focused on an object or a montage that gives an impression of the film. Michel Landi, the fifth poster artist covered here, was more a figurative artist, although he, too, had a keen eye for design.

If you're into movie posters and have seen plenty of British or American examples, this is your chance to catch up with posters from France. From portraits of Brigitte Bardot at her height to the graphically outrageous Landi poster for Duel (1972), this is a real treat for the eyes... with or without a face.

For more information on Illustrators and back issues, visit the Book Palace website, where you can also find details of their online editions, and news of upcoming issues. Issue 25 will feature Milo Manara, Greg Hildebrandt, Margaret Brundage, Art Frahm and pin-up art from Alex Raymond.

Eagle Times v.31 no.4 (Winter 2018)

The latest issue of Eagle Times arrived shortly before Christmas but became a casualty of family visits and walking to work off the extra eating. I've only just had a chance to sit down and read what is always an enjoyable magazine. Too young for this to be a trip down memory lane – usually – I have the utmost admiration for the editorial team who always managed to dig up some new facts and offer some fresh impressions of the weekly comic that inspired so many to become fans and, in many cases, professionals.

Take Lionel Jeans, for instance. In an interview by Jeremy Briggs published in this very issue, he cites the Eagle's cutaway drawings as one of his inspirations to take up technical illustration at college, which led to work in West Germany. Returning in 1981 and seeking freelance work led him to Practical Householder and then to its unlikely stablemate (both were published by IPC), the recently relaunched Eagle. Jeans provided only a handful of cutaway drawings for their 'Eagle Data File' feature, but it's nice to put a face to yet another name (he signed his work 'Jeans') and discover more about their background and career.

Briggs also provides an overview of the 'Data File' series and, along with Richard Sheaf, a checklist covering the weekly, the specials and annuals where they appeared.

Famously the home of D. C. Thomson, Dundee is the subject of Eric Summers' article 'Dundee Folk'. But, of course, it is an article about the city's Eagle connections. The connections, whilst slim, are entertaining, and any excuse to talk about Frank Bellamy's 'Happy Warrior' (Winston Churchill being MP for Dundee for a while) is an excuse worth taking.

Steve Winders' look at Chad Varah's and Norman Williams' back-page biography of 'Alfred the Great' reaches its conclusion, as does his 2-part short story featuring PC49. Will Grenham's long-running look at space fiction movies produced during the lifetime of the Eagle also comes to an end.

Meanwhile, Jim Duckett looks at crossover stories that have introduced Dan and other Eagle characters to other fictional folk. He's met Judge Dredd and other 2000AD characters, various Doctors and his own great-great-grandson. Mostly the article covers frivolous Christmas or charity crossovers, but does mention The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and Rupert Bear's encounter with Sherlock Holmes along the way.

David Britton wraps up the issue with two articles, one an episode of his series on 'Charles Chilton & The Indian Wars', whilst the other is a review of the current Frank Hampson centenary exhibition at The Atkinson, Southport, which runs until 16 March 2019 - visit their website for details.

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.

Paul Temple and the Erasers part 15

Comic Cuts - 5 January 2019

This is my first post of the year. I hope you're all feeling relaxed and chilled after the holiday break and looking forward to 2019. I don't make new year's resolutions, but it is my wish to keep BA going over the next few months while I'm in full-time work.

Taking a week and a half off after only three weeks of work was bliss, although the time sped by and the break was over all too soon. But I've slipped back into work mode very easily and I'm enjoying the experience greatly. I haven't worked in an office for any length of time since the early 1990s, but it turns out to be like riding a bike: you don't forget. There's an office dynamic you need to fit yourself into and I've hopefully managed to infiltrate unnoticed... I wonder if I can get away with not leaving?

My work schedule means I'm getting up at six in the morning and collapsing into bed around ten or ten-thirty in the evening, which doesn't allow me much time on the computer at home. My email browser (I use Thunderbird) started to fill up during December, most of which (but not all) I cleared  during the days between Christmas and New Year. Now it's starting to build up again. I have a couple of magazines to review, which I'll hopefully get to over this weekend, but there are other things that I had hoped to cover – most notably the death of Terry Bave in December – that I haven't had a chance to research or write.

That said, I have a piece from Robert Kirkpatrick that I'll be running next week and the regular Rebellion and Commando releases should be back to normal as of this week.

So... I had a great Christmas and partied through to the New Year and that's pretty much all the news I have. We watched a few films over the holiday, including Murder on the Orient Express, Death on the Tyne and The Darkest Hour, and we've started watching The Good Place, which everyone has been raving about... and, judging by the first couple of episodes, deservedly so. For our comedy entertainment we've watched the latest DVDs by Bill Bailey, Sarah Millican, Jon Richardson and Richard Herring. We're keeping an eye out for Joe Lycett's latest – the once comprehensive stand-up section at our local HMV has all but disappeared – and there are a few others that we'll pick up eventually from Go Faster Stripe, most notably Mark Thomas and Austentatious.

There were some fine programmes over Christmas: we like Gordon Buchanan's tale of grizzly bears and the snow wolf, and we've still got the Spy in the Snow penguin spy cam show to watch. The ABC Murders was an interesting interpretation of Agatha Christie's novel, with John Malkovich with a neatly trimmed beard rather than Kenneth Branough's outrageous and thoroughly distracting moustaches. I'm not sure that it was necessary to give Poirot a whole new origin story, but I'm not so wedded to the books that I dislike every attempt to move away from them.

I'm looking forward to watching Black Mirror: Bandersnatch, which strikes me as the most innovative bit of TV that has been broadcast in quite a while. The new year has brought with it new seasons of The Orville and Death in Paradise, so we'll be happily curled up on the sofa during what is likely to be a cold snap over the next week or two. Vera is back next week, but we're avoiding Scandi-noir for the moment in favour of something a bit warmer and a bit more cheerful.

And that's where I'll leave it for now. I hope you've all enjoyed the Paul Temple serial. I wish these were available in book form, but I still haven't quite figured out the copyright situation. I'll keep posting them until somebody tells me to stop!

Paul Temple and the Erasers part 14

Paul Temple and the Erasers part 13

Paul Temple and the Erasers part 12

Paul Temple and the Erasers part 11

Rebellion Releases (2000AD)

Rebellion releases for 2nd January 2019.

2000AD Prog 2112
Cover: Tiernan Trevallion
Welcome to the space-year 2019, Terrans, as we surge into another scrotnig twelve months of ghafflebette goodness courtesy of the Galaxy’s Greatest Comic!
    This Prog, alongside the continuing adventures for Skip Tracer, Brink and Fiends of the Western Front we have a complete Judge Dredd thriller from Rory McConville and Dan Cornwell, and the start of another of my 3rillers, the highly topical The Scorched Zone, by Eddie Robson and Nick Brokenshire.
    Given that members of your species were only recently offering dire warnings for the future of the planet thanks to climate change, this story should resonate with you all. I have to say, I’ve been predicting humanity’s fate within these pages for forty-two years now so these stark expectations don’t come entirely as a surprise...
    But let’s not start the new year on a gloomy note — there’s Thrill-power to channel, and a stunning line-up of strips awaiting you in 2019!
JUDGE DREDD: THE ETERNITY HOTEL by Rory McConville (w) Dan Cornwell (a) Jim Boswell (c) Annie Parkhouse (l)
BRINK: HIGH SOCIETY by Dan Abnett (w) INJ Culbard (a) Simon Bowland (l)
SKIP TRACER: LOUDER THAN BOMBS by James Peaty (w) Paul Marshall Dylan Teague (c) (a) Ellie De Ville (l)
THARG'S 3RILLERS: THE SCORCHED ZONE by Eddie Robson (w) Nick Brokenshire (a) Gary Caldwell (c) Ellie De Ville (l)
FIENDS OF THE WESTERN FRONT by Ian Edginton (w) Tiernen Trevallion (a) Annie Parkhouse (l)

Paul Temple and the Erasers part 10