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.
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