IN AND OUT OF THE EAGLE 21

Junior Boy’s Own is a record label launched in 1992, specialising in ‘acid house’ electronic dance music. It has released works by Underworld, Xpress2 and The Chemical Brothers. The above CD cover is for a compilation album, featuring music by all the above groups and P.L.C., The Ballistic Brothers, Sycamore and Dylan Rhymes among others. Of most interest to EAGLE Times readers is the cover of the album, which is clearly ‘heavily inspired’ by the Dan Dare strips The Man from Nowhere and Rogue Planet.  Released in 1997, the CD itself is red with an eagle like the one on its cover and there are pictures of a Crypt and a Phant inside the case. The back cover is also red. The cover reflects the name of the label and not the contents of the CD. As far as I am aware, this is the only album of theirs to adopt a comic themed cover. 

 

The artist was David Jukes, whose work has ranged from comics (including Roy of the Rovers and Disney Big Time), through newspapers (The Sunday Telegraph), magazines and books to CD and record covers for Sony Records, Arista Records and BMG Records as well as Junior Boy’s Own. He has produced a lot of cartoon art.  

The name Junior Boy’s Own has a complicated history. In 1987 a group of Chelsea supporters started a fanzine called Boy’s Own. They were also interested in acid house music and began to cover the scene in the magazine which quickly became the main chronicle for this music. Subsequently they began to organise their own acid house raves. In 1990 they formed Boy’s Own Recordings and in 1992 two of them, Terry Farley and Steven Hall formed Junior Recordings Ltd. which started to use the name Junior Boy’s Own.