EAGLE TIMES Vol.39 No.1 Spring 2026

The first EAGLE Times of 2026 is out now and available from Bob Corn at the address alongside. This is the best time to subscribe for the four issues this year. A subscription for the year is still only £30. This issue includes articles about 'Dan Dare', 'Riders of the Range', 'Heros the Spartan' and the 1961 serial 'The Last of the Saxon Kings' about King Harold Godwinson. The origins of the intriguing 'Skippy the Kangaroo' strip, which appeared in the early issues of EAGLE are explored by Steve Holland and 'The Adventure Club' text series by J, Jefferson Farjeon, which appeared in EAGLE in 1952 -53 is also examined. Finally, the issue also features the first of a four part Archie Willoughby story 'The Case of the Funny Money'.   
 

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. 35 No. 2

 

The Summer edition of EAGLE Times is out now. It features an impressive cover by Alan Langford of Captain Condor, Dan Dare's rival from Lion weekly, who appears inside in an article by John Freeman. Also in this issue are the latest episodes of David Britton's study of the Riders of the Range adventure Last of the Fighting Cheyenne and his ongoing story of the Canadian Pacific Railway. There are the final parts of Steve Winders' examination of EAGLE's back page strip about David Livingstone and his Archie Willoughby story The Case of the Coveted Coffin and the first part of a new series by Steve about the Luck of the Legion novels. Dan Dare model figures are explored in an article by Gerald Edwards and there is a new In and Out of the EAGLE by me. A subscription to EAGLE Times costs £ 30 including postage in the U.K. and it can be ordered from Bob Corn at the address on the right.     

IN AND OUT OF THE EAGLE 24

In his book Agent Zigzag, the story of Edward Chapman, a British double agent in the Second World War, Ben Macintyre dealt with one of the most important figures involved in counter espionage against the Germans, Captain Ronnie Reed. Writing about his skills with radio, Macintyre said: “He could build a wireless from scratch and with his schoolfriend Charlie Chilton (who went on to become a celebrated radio presenter and producer) he would broadcast to the world from his bedroom with a home made transmitter: Ronnie would sing a warbling rendition of Bing Crosby’s Dancing in the Dark while Charlie strummed the guitar. The outbreak of war found Reed working as a B.B.C. radio engineer by day and flying through the ether by night with the call-sign G2RX.”

After the War Charles Chilton became the creator of the popular radio series Riders of the Range which later became one of EAGLE's most popular strips. Another popular radio series he created was Journey Into Space. Charles mentioned Reed in his own autobiography Auntie’s Charlie. Indeed he included and acknowledged the exact quote from Agent Zigzag given above. However Charles also pointed out that their broadcasting activities caused problems for the neighbours. He wrote: “The trouble was that everyone in the district who had a radio could hear us too and their reception of the B.B.C. was ruined, so we received many complaints and were lucky the police never found out about what we were doing because it was totally illegal.” By the outbreak of war, Charles had become a B.B.C. producer and after his call up served in the R.A.F. as a radio operator, later working for Allied Forces Radio (South East Asia Command) in Ceylon.