Here's a fun, but practical item from Orion Books. I've had mine for a little while now, but just got around to reviewing it.
The Eagle Diary 2011 is hard-backed, red-bound and features a red ribbon bookmark and a black elastic closure strap.
This follow-on from the publisher's Eagle Annual: Best of the 1950s Comic, Eagle Annual of the Cutaways and Eagle Annual: Best of the 1960s Comic draws on the same wealth of material - The Dan Dare Corporation's archive copies of the original Eagle.
Measuring a respectable 8½ x 6 inches and ¾ inches thick and with 7 days per page the diary provides plenty of space for the diarist's own entries and features reproduced selections of artwork, advertisements, comic strips, etc. from the original Eagle. Other useful items of included information are: interplanetary dialing codes (though including one for the Sun might seem a little odd - perhaps it's a hot-line!), bank holiday dates, interplanetary flight schedules and a vintage wine chart covering wines from all the major planets, including (from Venus) Mekonta Special Brew.
An additional bonus: the edge of the pages serves for a flick book - whereby a rocket ship takes off (or descends if flipping in the reverse direction!)
As with the former Orion Books' offerings the diary has a "retro look" and there is a one-page introduction from Daniel Tatarsky. Somehow that "retro look" (which before gained criticism from some reviewers, including this one) seems more acceptable this time around.
This is a very attractive nostalgia (but usable) item, and would be an ideal Christmas (or other) present for any 'Dan Dare' fan or former Eagle reader - there should be plenty: a survey by Hulton Press in the 1950s indicated that at that time 60% of British boys read Eagle!
Priced at £12.99, Eagle Diary 2011 (ISBN 978-1-4091-1269-3) is at the time of posting available at reduced price from a number of outlets, including: Waterstones (at £9.09) Amazon.co.uk (at £8.57), Play.com (at £9.99) W H Smith (£8.05)
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