Eagle Artists - Martin Aitchison

Martin Aitchison (1919 - ) was born in Birmingham. After early education at Ellesmere College in Shropshire, he attended Birmingham School of Art and the Slade School of Art. During World War II he enrolled with Vickers Aircraft at Weybridge, Surrey, as a technical illustrator and afterwards he became a free-lance commercial artist. His first published work was for Hulton Press' Lilliput. This was followed by work for Girl, when he was called upon to fill in for artist Ray Bailey on two pages of 'Kitty Hawk', and to draw 'Flick - and the Vanishing New Girl' for Girl Annual No 1. He became one of Eagle's major non-'Dan Dare' artists. For nine years (1952 - 1961) he produced weekly strip artwork for 'Luck of the Legion', which was scripted by Geoffrey Bond. He also drew for Swift and Swift Annual. When 'Luck' was dropped, Martin drew a further three strips for Eagle, plus one for Eagle Annual, before leaving in 1963 to work for Ladybird Books, becoming one of their principal artists and producing artwork for around 70 titles, until 1990. He is now retired although, from 1998, teamed again with writer Geoffrey Bond, he drew 'Justin Tyme - Ye Hapless Highwayman', which ran for over 5 years in Eagle Times.

The picture shows Martin as an honoured guest of the Eagle Society at Sparsholt, in 1996.

Eagle strips:

• Luck of the Legion (Vol 3 No 5 – Vol 12 No 37)
• Danger Unlimited (Vol 12 No 33 – Vol 13 No 9)
• The Lost World (Vol 13 No 10 – Vol 13 No 29)
  
• Hornblower R. N. (Vol 13 No 28 – Vol 14 No 9)
  

Eagle Annual strips:

• Luck of the Legion Eagle Annual No 3 – No 10 [1961]
  
• Warrrior with Tin Legs Eagle Annual No 11 [1962]

Eagle Times strip:

• Justin Tyme - Ye Hapless Highwayman Eagle Times Vol 11 No 4 (Winter 1998) - Vol 17 No 1 (Spring 2004)

Links:

• Martin Aitchison’s own site
• Wikipedia's biography of Martin Aitchison
• Martin Aitchison Artwork on Nicholas Hill's site
• Martin Aitchison information on Nicholas Hill's other site
  
• Lambiek's artist information on Martin Aitchison

ET Refs:

• Aitchison, Martin. My Story – part 1. Eagle Times Vol 16 No 2 p p 4 – 9.
• Aitchison, Martin. My Story – part 2. Eagle Times Vol 16 No 3 pp 14 – 18.
• Rudling, Bill. Martin Aitchison in conversation. Eagle Times Vol 4 No 3 pp 9 - 12
• Rudling, Bill. Martin Aitchison in conversation. Eagle Times Vol 6 No 4 pp 4 - 5.