EAGLE SOCIETY GATHERING - DUNDEE - 9th - 11th APRIL 2019

This year's annual gathering was held at the Doubletree by Hilton Hotel in Dundee. Twenty six members attended the successful event which was organised by Eric Summers, ably assisted by Jeremy Briggs. Guests included Chris Murray, Professor of Comics at the University of Dundee, Calum Laird, the former editor of Commando magazine and Ian Kennedy, the celebrated Dan Dare artist on the new EAGLE. Members visited Captain Scott's Antarctic Survey Ship Discovery and other landmarks in the city, such as the new Victoria and Albert Museum, the McManus Gallery and the various statues of comic characters around the city. We are grateful for the generosity of the publishers D.C. Thomson and Co. who provided items for the Welcome Packs. A full report by Reg Hoare will appear in the next EAGLE TIMES. The picture above shows Jeremy Briggs interviewing Calum Laird and the picture below shows Ian Kennedy with interviewer Phillip Vaughan.

EAGLE TIMES: Spring 2019

The first edition of EAGLE TIMES for 2019 is out now. Featuring articles on T.E. Lawrence, Marco Polo, Cutaway Drawings from the 1990s EAGLE, Look-In Magazine and the Battle of the Little Bighorn, it is a varied and interesting issue.
CONTENTS
Was Dan Dare Instrumental in Russia's Contribution to the Space Race? by Chris Stock
Lawrence of Arabia - The Backpager That Never Was by Andrew Coffey
A Look at Look-In by Jim Duckett
The Travels of Marco Polo (Part One) by Steve Winders
New Eagle's Cutaways - The Centrespreads by Jeremy Briggs
Drawing the Centrespreads - An interview with artist Peter Sarson by Jeremy Briggs
Dan Dare - Acting His Age - a short piece about actors mooted to play Dan on TV
Charles Chilton and the Indian Wars (Part Four) by David Britton
The Case of the Counterfeit Constable - A new Archie Willoughby adventure by Steve Winders

HAFORN: THE ICELANDIC EAGLE

BY BJORN AGEN-CHRISTENSON
From 1954 -59 the most popular comic in my country of Iceland was 'Haforn', our own version of Britain's 'Eagle'. Many of the popular strips from 'Eagle' were featured in 'Haforn' in translation. The front and second pages starred Lars Larsson, better known to British readers as Dan Dare and the comic also included 'Hjaris Tvede - Extra Special Agent', 'Sturm Nielsson Sea Adventurer' and briefly the ice cream promotional strip, 'Tomi Walls'. However ice cream is not as popular in my country as in Britain and this strip was soon replaced with one about a boy who loves Grimsson's Smoked Mackerel.


There were also several home grown Icelandic strips in the comic, notably 'Sven Bloodaxe: Viking Marauder', who occupied the colour centre pages. These stirring tales of looting and pillaging made Sven one of the most popular strips in the paper. Many original Icelandic features replaced the British ones, including articles on skinning seals, removing frostbitten toes and whaling for beginners. Stories of famous Icelanders replaced the lives of the saints and famous Britons on the back page.
Haforn was edited by a Lutheran Minister, Marcus Marcusson and proved so successful that the publishers released Icelandic versions of several of Eagle's companion papers. My sister Bjork took 'Gella' and my little brother Bjarki read 'Lundi', which means 'Puffin' as there are no robins in Iceland.

Like 'Eagle' in Britain, Haforn also spawned many other products. These included 'Lars Larsson' jigsaw puzzles, pyjamas and snow shoes and 'Sven Bloodaxe' knives, swords, clubs, spears, hammers and axes. There were also 'Sven Bloodaxe' novels by Gunnar Gunlaugsson: 'Bloodaxe Learns to Pillage', 'Bloodaxe Pillages Again', Bloodaxe Buries the Hatchet' and Bloodaxe Takes a Hand'. The comic closed in 1959, only because they had run out of famous Icelanders for the back page.