WELCOME

Welcome to the web home of THE EAGLE SOCIETY.

THE EAGLE SOCIETY is dedicated to the memory of EAGLE - Britain's National Picture Strip Weekly - the leading Boy's magazine of the 1950s and 1960s. We publish an A4, quarterly journal - the Eagle Times.

This weblog has been created to provide an additional, more immediate, forum for news and commentary about the society and EAGLE-related issues. Want to know more? See First Post and Eagle - How it began.

Wednesday, 14 December 2016

Eagle Times Vol 29 No 4

Winter 2016 Contents

  • 'Christmas with Dan Dare' - a look at how the Christmas festival was recognised, represented and (sometimes) ignored in 'Dan Dare - Pilot of the Future' strips in Eagle and Eagle Annual 
  • 'Martin Aitchison (1919-2016)' - An illustrated short obituary of the artist of 'Luck of the Legion' in Eagle, who became one of Ladybird Books most respected and prolific artists
  • 'PC 49 and the Case of the Tramp's Secret' - a festive PC49 story, based on a story created for radio by Alan Stranks
  • 'A Christmas Wordsearch' - a puzzle, based on Eagle's Christmas issue, 25th December, 1965
  • 'Chicko and Christmas' - Christmas appearances of Norman Thelwell's strip cartoon character, who would appear for twelve years in Eagle and Eagle Annual
  • 'He Tried to Stop You Reading Eagle' - an adjunct to the series, 'They Helped to Bring You Eagle', this first part of the story of Leonard Matthews, General Managing Editor of Fleetway, covers his early career editing Sun, Comet and Knockout for Amalgamated Press, and originating Top Spot
  • 'The Jetex Dan Dare Space Ship' - on the "Tailored" spaceship model, first marketed as the  Dan Dare Space Ship, which was designed for Wilmot, Mansour & Co. Ltd by Peter Cock in 1953/4, powered by a Jetex 5 oz thrust rocket motor  
  • 'Under the 1950s Christmas Tree' - some of the Eagle and Girl inspired items that might have been received by children as Christmas gifts in the 1950s
  • 'Howard Corn (1943-2016)' - an obituary of the originator and Editor in Chief of Eagle Times, who was also one of its major contributors
  • 'Eulogy for Howard' - the words spoken by Bob Corn at his brother Howard's funeral on 18th November 2016
  • 'In and Out of the Eagle' - some more in the series presenting collections of Eagle-related snippets
  • 'Alien Flora and Fauna in Dan Dare' - on the various plants and creatures that inhabited the worlds of Dan Dare in Eagle
  • 'Dan Dare: The Audio Adventures' - a review of the first set of Dan Dare Audio Adventures from Big Finish and B7 Media
  • 'Enlightening' - a review of the exhibition on comics which is at the Lightbox Gallery in Woking, Surrey, from October to the end of December, 2016, and the talk given by Frank Hampson's son, Peter, on 8th October
  • 'Eric MacKenzie (c.1949-2015) - on the man who started the Dan Dare Club, through a letter to Eagle published in 1964 and would later produce the 'Dan Dire' parody in Comic Media News International in the 1970s and from 2004, in Spaceship Away.
  • 'Remembering All Treens Must Die!' - a relook at 'Dan Dare' strip drawn by Keith Watson that ran in Eagle from June - October, 1964
  • 'Children's Annuals of the 1970s' - a look at some of the children's annuals published in the 1970s, after Eagle's demise, but still in Eagle Annual's times (the original series of Eagle Annual appeared up to 1975)  
  • 'The "New" Bakehouse' - a look  at the former bakehouse that was Eagle's and Dan Dare's first studio and which has recently been renovated 
  • 'Space Quiz' - An illustrated quiz with artwork by former Dan Dare artist and writer Eric L. Eden, which originally appeared in Supercar Annual 

Monday, 5 December 2016

Dan Dare - A Brief History

Courtesy of the Big Finish site and YouTube, this short video presents a history of Dan Dare through his various incarnations, leading to today's release of Dan Dare The Audio Adventures Volume 1



There is an article about the making of the series in Big Finish's e-magazine, Vortex, issue 94, which can be downloaded from their site by clicking the image below.