IN AND OUT OF THE EAGLE 54

Although there were EAGLE Annuals every year, several character annuals and several novels about EAGLE characters, 1954 brought a unique book. This was a 'Riders of the Range' strip book, Jeff Arnold and the Bozeman Trail which today would be called a graphic novel. Written by the strip's creator and regular writer Charles Chilton and illustrated by Pat Williams, the book featured the war with the Sioux and Cheyenne in the 1870s and the Battle of the Little Bighorn. It was published by Juvenile Publications, who also published the early Riders of the Range Annuals. Just three and a half years later, the same events would be covered in the weekly EAGLE in the 'Riders' serial 'The War with the Sioux', but there were significant differences between the two stories. The later version was much longer than the strip book and featured many more historical characters and exciting action. The biggest difference was Jeff Arnold's involvement in the battle itself. In The Bozeman Trail , Jeff was not with Colonel Custer's group who were massacred, but with Major Reno's group, who were forced to take up a defensive position away from the fight with Custer and survived. In 'The War with the Sioux', he was with Custer to the end and escaped the massacre by being knocked unconscious and saved from death by Running Bear, a Sioux warrior who he had beaten in single combat some months earlier and spared his life. While these events were more exciting for readers, the Bozeman version is more credible. Both versions contain historical inaccuracies, but both are more accurate than Hollywood film versions of the events. The weekly serial was illustrated by Frank Humphris, who researched and captured accurate likenesses of General Crook, Major Reno, Custer, Sitting Bull and others. In a previous post on this blog, Steve Winders wrote about the different studies that Humphris illustrated in different media of the battle, after he visited the battlefield and saw an original painting of it by Humphris, in the Trading Post next to the site. David Britton also examined the weekly strip in his detailed series for EAGLE Times. 

Despite the differences, Charles Chilton wrote both versions of the story. Pat Williams' artwork is much more stylised than Humphris' and some of his backgrounds are sketchy. While he produced accurate likenesses of General Crook and Custer and a reasonable likeness of Sitting Bull, other historical characters were not accurately portrayed. His work is nevertheless appealing. He captured movement well in many frames and he created vivid images which captured the epic scale of the events in his large frames. The book is entirely in colour and contains several full page and double page images. Juvenile Publications also produced another strip book, illustrated by Williams the same year. This was not EAGLE related, but an adaptation of the 'Biggles' novel, Biggles and the Cruise of the Condor. 

Below is a frame by Williams from The Bozeman Trail, showing the Sioux and Cheyenne attack on Custer's Seventh Cavalry. It is taken from the original artwork.

(The owner of this artwork is willing to sell it for an offer in the region of £400. He also has the original of the wrap around front cover which he is willing to sell for around £600. If you are interested then message me on Facebook or in the comments section here and I will put you in touch with him.) 

 

THE THIRD CHRISTMAS EAGLE by John Culshaw

Having spent the first Christmas issue of EAGLE on Venus and the second on Mars, Dan and Digby were on Mercury for the third, dated 24th December 1952. As in 1951, there was just a single reference to Christmas in the strip. Dan and Digby are prisoners of the Treens and Digby comments on the fact that it is Christmas back on Earth in a single frame on page two. Dan Dare's creator Frank Hampson was suffering from a breakdown caused by overwork, so this story was illustrated by his team, led by Harold Johns and written by Chad Varah. The issue itself acknowledges Christmas in the title box, which has a decorative Christmas trim across the top and down the left hand side. There is a circular picture of stars behind the eagle image and the title letters are in yellow, instead of the usual white and have snow on them. This layout is exactly the same as the previous year's Christmas issue. 

The start of a new 'PC 49' adventure on page three provided the opportunity to reference Christmas strongly, with the episode devoted to the Boys' Club Christmas party and including a seven verse poem about the party extending down the middle of the page. Written by Alan Stranks and illustrated by John Worsley, the strip would run in EAGLE until 1957, although the radio series would end in May of 1953. Page four and a quarter of page five are occupied by the latest episode of the text serial 'The Adventure Club' by the prolific veteran writer J. Jefferson Farjeon, which does not relate to Christmas. However, there is a small 'EAGLE Window' advertising box in the bottom right hand corner of page seven which highlights the 'EAGLE Window' stand at the Schoolboy's Exhibition, being held in the Horticultural Hall in Westminster. Each week for several years, EAGLE included an 'EAGLE Window', which highlighted a different EAGLE related product. This one is number 77 and there were many more to go, indicating the vast amount of merchandising that the weekly spawned. The 'EAGLE  Window' stand at the exhibition featured many of the toys, clothes and other merchandise that were available. The rest of page five is occupied by a Christmas puzzle corner, an advertisement for a book about stamps, a request for donations to the N.S.P.C.C. and a short information piece sponsored by the tyre manufacturer, Dunlop. This is actually the seventeenth issue of the 'Dunlop Dispatch' and includes very short articles about Barrage Balloons and Paddle Wheels (from Paddle Steamers). It is not Christmas related. 

The next page is the 'Sports Page' and under the headline 'This was my Thrill of the Year', several of EAGLE's sports contributors have written about their most memorable sporting moments during 1952. These include E. Macdonald Bailey's recollection of Jamaica's success in the 4 x 400 metres relay at the Helsinki Olympics and Geoff Paish's celebration of Colin Gregory's fine performance in Tennis' Davis Cup  in the final set against Yugoslavia to give Great Britain victory. Gregory was actually replacing Paish, who was injured. Kenneth Wheeler, who was EAGLE's Sports editor recalled a fine performance by Arsenal's reserve defence to beat 'star studded' Blackpool and Jack Crayston witnessed the 1952 F.A. Cup Final from among a 'cross section' of Newcastle and Arsenal fans, a situation that would sadly be unthinkable today. Newcastle won, but Crayston's praises were heaped on Arsenal, who played much of the game with ten men. Although it was created by northerners, EAGLE was necessarily based in London, which is presumably why so many Arsenal supporters were employed on the Sports Page! The page also managed to include a small advertisement for the first EAGLE Sports Annual. 

Page eight is the first of the four colour centre pages and is occupied by 'Riders of the Range'. Now illustrated by its most celebrated artist, Frank Humphris, the heroes, Jeff , Luke and Jim Forsythe are in the early stages of 'Jeff Arnold and the Lost Bonanza', about an ornate Mexican saddle that Jeff buys which leads him and his friends into a series of perilous adventures. There was no Christmas reference in this episode. Written by Charles Chilton, at this time, 'Riders of the Range' was still on the radio, but it would finish there before next Christmas. However, Jeff's adventures in EAGLE would run for another nine years, produced by Chilton and Humphris. 

The top half of the centrespread is a 'cutaway' drawing by L. Ashwell Wood of the stage and backstage area of a theatre during a Christmas Pantomime. Like all Ashwell Wood's cutaways, it is highly detailed and obviously provides another Christmas element to the issue. Below the cutaway is 'Luck of the Legion', featuring in only his second serial adventure 'Death by the Dawn'. Written by Geoffrey Bond and illustrated by Martin Aitchison, the story is set in Syria and in this episode, Luck and his men narrowly escape death, when a bridge ahead of them is blown up by rebels or freedom fighters, depending on your point of view. As an ongoing serial, there is no mention of Christmas in this episode. 

Page eleven is split into two informative strips. The first is 'Their Names Made Words' and this is about William Banting, a nineteenth century undertaker who ate so much that he became unhealthily overweight, so he gave up beer, milk and all fatty foods, eating only meat, fish and dry toast. Christmas is quite cleverly contrived into this strip which begins by showing how many people ate huge Christmas meals in Victorian times and then leading in to Banting's dieting. Banting gave his name to dieting and the strip says "Women still say they are banting when they diet to get slim".  But this strip was produced in 1952 and while the word survived till then, it is no longer used today. The lower half of the page features a strip called 'Strange Animal Adventures' and references G.K. Chesterton's poem 'The Donkey' about the donkey that carried Mary to Bethlehem and then after the birth of Jesus, to safety in Egypt. As in Chesterton's poem, the strip ends with the same donkey being the one that carried Jesus into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, thirty three years later. When I first read Chesterton's poem, I looked up the life span of donkeys to find out if this was credible and it is. Donkeys can live for over forty years. Apart from the star of Bethlehem behind the eagle on the cover and a brief reference in the 'Banting' strip to Christmas meals celebrating the birthday of Christ, this is the first significant reference to Christmas being about Jesus' birth in this issue, but it is not the last. The Editor's Letter from the Rev. Marcus Morris, on the next page promotes a strong Christian message: We should give and receive presents, but we do it in remembrance of Christ. After referencing the other Christmas elements in the issue, the Editor goes on to introduce the new back page biography, which begins in this issue. This is the life of St. Vincent De Paul, the sixteenth century French priest and champion of the poor and Morris uses his example to promote his 'muscular Christianity' ideal. He says "there is nothing namby-pamby about being a Christian.... it's a man's job." He goes on to quote St. Paul, so this editorial is unequivocal in its message. 

The rest of the page is split into several sections as usual. There is a Christmas crossword competition with prizes of Ingersoll 'Dan Dare' pocket watches, a 'Readers' Letters' section, with one from Roy Dinning of Glasgow, suggesting that EAGLE Club badges should be polished daily. There is more news of the Schoolboy's Exhibition in Westminster, where there was an EAGLE stand in addition to the 'EAGLE Window' one mentioned earlier. This was the largest stand in the exhibition and was built in the form of Dan Dare's spaceship! EAGLE was not just a boy's weekly. It was a major part of juvenile culture in the 1950s. Also on the page is a short report on an EAGLE Club visit to Chessington Zoo, some photographs of prize winners from a previous competition, an advertisement for Marcus Morris' record about the forthcoming Coronation and the three picture humorous strip, 'Chicko' by Norman Thelwell. This had a Christmas theme. Chicko notices a sign in a shop window, saying 'We wish You a Merry Christmas' and he writes underneath 'Thank You! The Same To You!'

Page twelve and a quarter of page thirteen contains a complete text story 'Ron's Christmas' which is about a boy who finds a bag of stolen jewellery. Knowing that his widowed mother cannot afford to buy him and his siblings the presents they would like for Christmas, he toys with the idea of trying to sell them before his conscience leads him to take them to the Police. Worried that he will be punished for his delay, he is finally rewarded by the Jeweller who gives him enough money to buy presents for the whole family. The writer was Guy Daniel, an Anglican clergyman, who later scripted 'The Road of Courage' (the story of Jesus) and the life of Sir Walter Raleigh, for the back page. While these strips would be attributed to Marcus Morris, the scripting was by Daniel. No less than three Anglican vicars contributed to this Christmas issue, with Morris as editor and Chad Varah as scriptwriter of 'Dan Dare'. A corner of page twelve contains an advertisement for a small 'Ever Ready' hand held vacuum cleaner, while the rest of page thirteen includes a self examination Christmas quiz about unselfish behaviour, with three possible answers to each question, only one of which is correct. The rest of the page contains adverts for a club run by Cadbury's chocolate manufacturers, Newmark watches and 'Golden Arrow' stamp albums.

The last three pages are all strips, with 'Harris Tweed Extra Special Agent' occupying page fourteen. This humorous strip has a Christmas theme, with Tweed accidentally thwarting a robber's plan to use an anaesthetic gas to put everyone to sleep so that he can steal their jewels at a Christmas party. Tweed's whole page stories must have been a challenge for cartoonist John Ryan, for they each contained five rows of detailed strip artwork and they were consistently funny. Page fifteen featured 'Tommy Walls', the strip sponsored by Wall's Ice Cream. Since May, the strip had become a serial story instead of weekly self contained stories and it had also become extremely popular with readers. Illustrated by Richard Jennings and often written by him as well, this episode makes a brief reference to Christmas in the final frame of the strip, when Tommy, swimming in the Thames in an attempt to stop an evil megalomaniac from destroying the Houses of Parliament, thinks "What a way to spend Christmas Eve," and imagines himself succeeding and celebrating Christmas with a Wall's ice cream. With the introduction of serial stories, the 'Tommy Walls' strip moved into Dick Barton Special Agent territory, with fast paced action, which made it more difficult to honour its contract to include Wall's ice cream in every episode. Nevertheless, it did and the unlikely plots involving evil geniuses and secret service commandos proved a major success. Wall's must have been delighted. 

The final page marks the start of 'Man of Courage' about St. Vincent De Paul. Written by 'R.B. Saxe' whose real name was Francis John Dickson, it was illustrated by Norman Williams. Like most back page biographies, the strip begins with incidents from the subject's boyhood. These were usually fictional and in the case of Vincent, it gave Dickson the opportunity to include Christmas. The story begins on Christmas Eve and Vincent and his family go to the "Christmas Eve Service at Church" (presumably Midnight Mass) and they look at the crib before returning home. Vincent was an ideal subject for EAGLE, because he led an eventful life, which involved being captured and enslaved in North Africa, before escaping and later volunteering to take another man's place as a rower on a prison galley. He created an order of nuns to serve the poor that still functions to this day and he inspired a lay person's group which also provides for the needy and again is still active all over the world. Dickson wrote three back page biographies for EAGLE and although all three led genuinely action packed lives, he embellished them all with fictional villains and events in the finest traditions of Hollywood. 

This issue focuses quite successfully on the religious and charitable aspects of Christmas and avoids a strong emphasis on merchandise, despite the fact that EAGLE initiated so much. However, the issues leading up to Christmas were full of advertisements for EAGLE related products and other potential presents for boys, with special four page advertising supplements from late November to mid December. 

With the arrival of Frank Humphris and 'Luck of the Legion' and the change of 'Tommy Walls' to a serial story, EAGLE was continuing to improve. Despite the temporary absence of Frank Hampson from the 'Dan Dare' strip, the publication as a whole was far better than it had been at its launch two and a half years earlier and it would continue to improve for several years. 

IN AND OUT OF THE EAGLE 50

There were two 'Dan Dare' Annuals during the run of the original EAGLE, another in 1973 (for 1974), two more for the 2000 A.D. version of Dan and another two during the run of the 1980s EAGLE. However the EAGLE strip which had most annuals was 'Riders of the Range', which had an annual every year from 1951 until 1961, making eleven in total. The first five were published by Juvenile Productions, under licence from EAGLE and the last six were published by Hulton and later Longacre Press, who also published EAGLE. Confusingly, these last six annuals were numbered from one to six. All the annuals were credited to Charles Chilton, who created 'Riders of the Range' originally for B.B.C. radio, but also wrote all the 'Riders' strips in EAGLE. The annuals included adventure strips and text stories featuring the main characters as well as illustrated articles about aspects of the American West, including weapons, Native American traditions and practices and articles about the real people and events that made the West. They also included practical activities, such as how to make a Native American war bonnet and bow and there were Western related puzzles and games. 

The books were predominantly black and white, but each of the Juvenile Productions annuals included several colour plates, while the later Hulton and Longacre ones each contained a single colour plate. The strip's longest running artist, Frank Humphris produced a few illustrations for text articles, but he  was usually too busy working on the weekly strip to contribute to the annuals and a host of artists were used over the years. These included Harry Bishop, Roland Davies, Frank R. Grey, Michael Godfrey, James Holdaway, Richard Jennings, C.G. Kingshott, James E. Mc Connell, Bill Mevin, Pat Nevin, Angus Scott, Desmond Walduck, Pat Williams and Roy Williams. The annuals proved extremely popular, despite the radio series ending in 1953 and the final annual in 1961 (dated 1962) was published just a few months before the EAGLE strip ended in March 1962. 

EAGLE TIMES VOL. 36 NO.3 AUTUMN 2023

The Autumn edition of EAGLE Times is out now. It features a wide range of articles including a look at 'Riders of the Range' and 'Blackbow the Cheyenne' artist Frank Humphris' sketchbook, by Richard Sheaf and a piece by Brett Gooden about the early cutaway drawings of Leslie Ashwell Wood. Also in this issue are articles by Steve Winders about the 'Mark Question' strip, 'The Great Charlemagne' and the EAGLE novel, Luck of the Legion's Desert Adventure, an article by Peter Barr about the sports strip artist Mazure, a selection of readers'letters from the 1950s EAGLE by David Britton, a complete new Archie Willoughby story and two of my 'In and Out of the EAGLE' pages. My recent post from the blog about 'Eagles Dare' beer (see below) is also included, along with our editor's review of the beer which he bought on a recent visit to Southport. Copies can be ordered from Bob Corn at the address on the right.  
 

FRANK HUMPHRIS AND THE BATTLE OF THE LITTLE BIGHORN

A Report by Steve Winders

The above picture is a print taken from a painting of Custer's Last Stand at the Battle of the Little Bighorn by Riders of the Range artist Frank Humphris. The original painting hangs in the office of the Custer Battlefield Trading Post opposite the entrance to the battle site in Montana, where prints of the painting can be bought. I visited the Post in 2018 and was shown the original, but was unable to photograph it successfully, due to poor light in the room. Painted in 1976, a century after the battle, it may possibly be the same one included in Frank's Ladybird book Battle of the Little Bighorn (see below), also published in 1976 and  certainly developed from the same template. However there are several minor differences, such as the length of  the mounted chief's headdress on the left, the position of the 'Stars and Stripes' and the faces of some of the characters. 

Frank also illustrated a large frame of Custer’s last stand for the Riders of the Range adventure The War with the Sioux in 1957 - 58, but this featured many differences (see below). Members of the Seventh Cavalry were shown with yellow neckerchiefs, white hats and light blue trousers with a yellow seam stripe, as depicted in almost every film that featured the cavalry, but which Frank subsequently discovered were not authentic. He also showed Custer with his famous long hair, but later discovered that he had it cut shortly before the campaign! Consequently his painting and his Ladybird illustrations show him with short hair. Frank coloured the EAGLE strip with inks, which explains the bolder colours.  

The War with the Sioux was reprinted in a heavily edited version in Wham! Annual for 1972, but to fit the reconstructed page, Frank's scene of the final battle was replaced by one drawn by Frank Hampson for the front page of Swift from 1961. (See below.)

Frank wrote and illustrated the Ladybird book, which was stocked for many years at the Custer Battlefield Museum, about five miles away from the battle site, where many artefacts from the battle are on display and the book was a best seller in their shop. 

In 1954, three and a half years before The War with the Sioux appeared in EAGLE, Juvenile Publications produced a full colour Riders of the Range strip album called Jeff Arnold in the Bozeman Trail, written by the strip's creator and regular writer, Charles Chilton, which told a quite different story of Jeff Arnold and Luke's involvement in the events and the battle. This book was illustrated by Pat Williams. 

For readers interested in Riders of the Range and the strip's coverage of events in the wars with Native Americans, EAGLE Times is currently running a long series by David Britton which compares the stories with the historical events.

LONGBOW

 A REVIEW OF TWO NEW REPRINT BOOKS FROM BEAR ALLEY by John Culshaw

Steve Holland has published two volumes of reprint strips from Swift weekly through his Bear Alley Books. They feature one of EAGLE's most popular characters from the 1960s. So who's Longbow?? You'll know him better as Blackbow, for to avoid any hint of confusion over ownership of the character who appeared in two different comics now owned by two different companies, he's been renamed for this collection. Blackbow's adventures in Swift  are owned by Look and Learn, but his stories in EAGLE aren't and Steve Holland's got permission for the Swift strips. This isn't the first time that Blackbow's changed his name. Way back in 1953 he was created as Strongbow the Mohawk for Comet weekly, but as the highly informative introduction tells us, this makes the origin story of a boy who falls from a wagon heading west in the 1840s and is raised by the Mohawks, historically and geographically nonsense, because the Mohawks were originally from New York State and long before the 1840s they'd moved to Canada, having backed the British in the War of Independence. When publishers the Mirror Group got their hands on EAGLE and Swift in 1961, they sent in their hatchet men to save money. Comet's old Strongbow strip was picked up for Swift, but became Blackbow the Cheyenne to make it historically credible. The strip was completely redrawn for Swift, but many of the old Strongbow stories were reused at first, before brand new adventures took over. The original stories were by Mike Butterworth and he probably wrote the new ones too. 

The strips from Swift were all in black and white and each instalment was a self contained adventure, most of which ran for three pages. Each volume contains thirty seven Longbow stories and ten half page information features about the Cheyenne and other Native American peoples, also from Swift. They also include biographies of all the twelve artists whose work is featured in the strips. These include Don Lawrence and Jesus Blasco, as well as EAGLE favourites Gerald Haylock, Martin Salvador and Frank Humphris, who would take over the strip when it moved into EAGLE and became a colour serial. The Swift stories were quite different from the later EAGLE adventures in other ways. For a start they were straightforward western stories whereas EAGLE brought in supernatural elements like man eating plants. EAGLE's version also distinguished more clearly between Blackbow and his European American alter ego, Doctor Jim Barnaby, where the character only assumed his Blackbow identity when he was wearing Cheyenne dress. In Swift he speaks as Blackbow in his Jim Barnaby clothes immediately prior to changing. A minor difference, but the EAGLE approach works better. The second volume has an introduction by Steve Winders, which outlines Blackbow's time in EAGLE. 

You'll find some entertaining stories and some impressive black and white art in these books and old EAGLE readers who disliked the supernatural and fantasy elements of the sixties weekly, may well prefer these stories to the later ones. The books are softback and run to 137 and 140 pages, with colour covers by Don Lawrence. These are two good books which deserve to be widely read. You can currently buy both for £29.68 including postage and packing as a special introductory offer, but they're also available separately. Full details from    www.bearalleybooks.blogspot.com    

IN AND OUT OF THE EAGLE 5

WITH JIM DUCKETT 

When EAGLE began, radio was still king and two of its most popular strips originated as BBC radio series. PC 49 began in 1947 and 112 half hour adventures of the London policeman, played by Brian Reece, were made before the programme ended in 1953. PC 49’s adventures began in the first issue of EAGLE and ran until 1957. The radio adventures of Riders of the Range, featuring Paul Carpenter as Jeff Arnold, began in 1949 and six serials were broadcast between 1949 and 1953, with the EAGLE version beginning in December 1950 and running till March 1962. Unlike strip versions of later television series in other comics, which were invariably notably inferior to their originals, the EAGLE versions of both these radio series compared most favourably, probably because they were written by their creators and illustrated by excellent artists in John Worsley and Frank Humphris, who made the strips their own. Their success is evidenced by the fact that both outlasted their radio counterparts by several years.

Of the characters who were specially created for EAGLE, Dan Dare featured in a hugely successful series of radio serials on Radio Luxembourg between 1951 and 1955, where he was played by Noel Johnson, who had originated the popular Dick Barton character in 1947, for BBC radio. The BBC produced their own four part Dan Dare serial in 1990 to mark EAGLE'S fortieth anniversary, which featured Mick Brown as Dan and Donald Gee as Digby. In 1954, EAGLE began its own promotional programme on Radio Luxembourg, called Spread Your Wings and this featured a six part Luck of the Legion serial, narrated by Norman Shelley as an old legionnaire. Sergeant Luck also appeared on the commercial Springbok Radio in South Africa in 1979 in his own series, written by his creator Geoffrey Bond, twenty years after the strip ended in EAGLE.