IN AND OUT OF THE EAGLE 27

In his autobiography Comic Book Hero, Barrie Tomlinson, the former Group Editor of Fleetway’s Boys’ Sports and Adventure Comics, who launched the 1980s EAGLE, describes starkly the attitudes of senior management to their publications in an anecdote about his apointment as editor of Tiger, earlier in his career: “I was the eager, enthusiastic new editor of Tiger comic. I had worked out lots of new ideas for the title. I rushed into the office of the managing editor and listed my plans for Tiger. A few minutes later, I left the office somewhat deflated, having been told ‘It’s only a comic!’”

Inspired by the example of the original EAGLE that he had read as a boy, Barrie established a Tiger Sports Star of the Year Award and signed famous sports stars to write for the paper. He also began to sign the editor’s letter to establish a real link with readers, as Marcus Morris had done in EAGLE, a practice prevously unknown in Fleetway’s comics.

When EAGLE was relaunched in 1982, Barrie again signed up famous names to write for it, as the original had done These included the athlete Daley Thompson and the disc jockey Mike Read. He also followed the original in introducing reader participation features. A popular one was the Glamorous Teacher feature, which would no doubt be considered sexist today! There was also Superdad, where readers would write about their special dads and Big Mouth,a chance for readers to sound off about issues that concerned them.