Not surprisingly,
EAGLE always celebrated Christmas and particularly so in the 1950s when it was edited by the Rev. Marcus Morris. The very first Christmas
EAGLE set an impressive precedent, with the front page bordered with holly and the action in Dan Dare's long running Venus saga taking a short break as the characters aboard the
Ranger spaceship reflected on the fact that it was Christmas, which led into scenes back home on Earth. The strip, produced by Frank Hampson and his studio team, continued on page two where Sir Hubert Guest, Digby and Professor Peabody also reflected on Christmas back home, despite the fact that they were prisoners of the Mekon. The episode ended with Dan himself in the land of the friendly Therons, planning a rescue mission.
Inside the issue, PC 49 continued his adventures on page three and made no mention of the season as it would have clashed with the storyline, where 'Fortynine' is on the trail of a dangerous gang who have killed a fellow officer. PC 49 originated as a weekly radio series by Alan Stranks, who also wrote the EAGLE strip, which was then drawn by Strom Gould and would later be drawn by John Worsley, who took over in August 1951 and drew the strip until it ended in March 1957. On pages four and five, the text serial Thunder Reef , about smuggling on the Brittany coast, written by Adrian Seligman continued and again, not surprisingly, there was no mention of Christmas. The 'drop in' illustrations for this story were by John Worsley. Page six was divided into a half page Football Hints strip by Billy Wright, the England captain, which focussed on proper maintenance of kit and two short features on collecting. The first provided ideas for making scrap books and the other was for stamp collectors, with neither relating to Christmas.
The colour page seven marked the very first episode of Riders of the Range, from the popular radio serials by Charles Chilton. Although Christmas played no part in Jeff Arnold's first episode, his arrival in EAGLE was quite special. The strip would run for more than eleven years. The first episode was drawn by Jack Daniel, who would illustrate the first two adventures before Angus Scott took over for the next three until Frank Humphris became the regular artist from 1952 to the strip's end in 1962, later illustrating Blackbow the Cheyenne until EAGLE's merger with Lion in 1969. The cutaway drawing on the top half of the centre spread was of the underground railway operated by the Post Office to carry mail between Paddington and Whitechapel, with the text emphasising the Christmas mail. The cutaway was drawn by Leslie Ashwell-Wood, who was the most prolific of EAGLE's cutaway artists. On the bottom half of the centrespread was an imported French strip called Skippy the Kangaroo, which had no connection with the later Australian TV series. This Skippy, drawn in a basic cartoon style, was a continuing story and did not relate to Christmas. It was credited to Danay, Dubriscay and Genestre and described as an Andre Sarrut production, which seems like a lot of people to produce such a simple strip, but this team were then in the process of making a cartoon feature film in France based on a Hans Anderson story, with the hope of building up a cartoon film studio to rival Disney. Unfortunately problems beset the company and while the film was shown unofficially against the director Paul Grimault's wishes in 1952, disagreements between Sarrut and Grimault resulted in it not being released properly until 1980! Consequently it never had the opportunity to succeed. Possibly Skippy was to have been their next film project.
On the next page (ten) also in colour, two half page strips told the story of the Glastonbury thorn bush which reputedly flowers on Christmas Day and the origin of the Christmas tree, which was brought by Prince Albert from Germany, but was actually originated by an English missionary St. Winfred (also known as St. Boniface). Page eleven included the Editor's letter to readers and Marcus Morris used it to wish them a happy Christmas. He apologised that the issue was unable to provide more pages than the usual sixteen, writing that paper was still very scarce and continuing:
"..but we have done what we can to give it a Christmassy look and to include a number of features telling you about Christmas traditions and customs. Most important of all, you will find on the back page the reason why we keep Christmas at all - the story of the birth of Jesus Christ over nineteen hundred years ago in the stable at Bethlehem."
He was referring to The Great Adventurer, the long running serial on page sixteen about the life of St. Paul, where Christmas was cleverly included in the strip as Paul told his audience at Philippi the story of Jesus' birth. This strip was still being produced by Frank Hampson's team, with Jocelyn Thomas as principal artist. They would hand over briefly to Alfred Sindall early in 1951, before Norman Williams took over as the regular back page biographies artist in February 1951.
Meanwhile, back on page eleven still, Norman Thelwell's weekly three frame Chicko comedy strip featured Christmas and there was also a half page Competition Corner with a series of Christmas based puzzles and activities. Due to paper shortages EAGLE never wasted space and Readers' Letters also appeared on this page, although none related to Christmas. Page twelve was a one off Christmas text story Bagpipes for the Gallant, about a young Scots lad who gets the set of bagpipes he had always wanted after saving his sister's life and his family cottage by putting out a fire. It was written by E. Vincent, who was Ellen Vincent, the Assistant Editor of EAGLE. The 'drop in' pictures were by Will Nickless, who had illustrated the Worzel Gummidge books of Barbara Euphen Todd during the 1940s and would later produce illustrations for many children's books, including EAGLE and Swift Annuals. The top half of page thirteen was a Sporting Personalities strip about the showjumper Lt. Colonel Harry M. Llewellyn O.B.E. This was drawn by 'Ross' who we now know was really Ron Smith, who would go on to have a long career in comic strip illustration. His future work would include many strips for D.C. Thomson's comics and Judge Dredd in 2000 A.D. weekly thirty years later. 'Ross' had also illustrated the short strip about the origin of the Christmas tree in the same issue. The bottom half of page thirteen featured advertisements for Rolo, Subbuteo Table Soccer and Philidyne Cycle Dynamo Lighting Sets.
On page fourteen, John Ryan's Harris Tweed Extra Special Agent 'solves' (if that's the right word!) The Case of the Two Father Christmases in a complete whole page adventure and on page fifteen Tommy Walls, a full page strip sponsored by Walls Ice Cream also had a one off Christmas adventure about turkey thieves, illustrated by Richard Jennings and despite the cold weather, Tommy continued to encourage readers to eat ice cream. Although this was essentially an advertising strip, Tommy Walls was extremely popular with readers, especially after it changed from one off stories to continuing ones in May 1952. Tommy was actually granted a four page colour strip in the second EAGLE Annual, produced for Christmas 1952 - the only occasion that he didn't eat or refer to Walls Ice Cream. First drawn by Frank Hampson in Issue One, the strip was later drawn by Eric Parker (of Sexton Blake fame), John Worsley, Walter Pannett, Harold Johns and Richard Jennings. Jennings also wrote many scripts for Tommy Walls and he would continue working for EAGLE after Tommy Walls ended, drawing and eventually writing the Storm Nelson-Sea Adventurer strip. Later he would be well known for his Dalek strips in TV Century 21 and Dalek books.
In subsequent years the issues leading up to Christmas would feature a lot of adverts for EAGLE related merchandise, but despite its overnight success, EAGLE's publisher, Hulton Press and other companies were not yet ready to cash in, although Hulton did release an EAGLE Diary for 1951 and The EAGLE Book of Adventure Stories, but there was no EAGLE Annual until the following year. This might suggest that Hulton and Britain's toy companies were slow off the mark, but there were still shortages of many commodities as a result of the War and some rationing was still in progress. EAGLE's success had exceeded all expectations and annuals were significant publications in the 1950s and 60s, so additional staff had to be appointed to build on the initial success. In fact Dan Dare would be Britain's first heavily merchandised fictional character, with toys, clothes, filmstrip projectors, books, tooth powder, brushes, watches, cups, card games, Easter eggs and transfers being produced.
Although EAGLE's huge popularity ensured that commercialism seemed to dominate the publication, in later years, the religious significance of Christmas was always promoted in the Christmas issues throughout the editorships of Marcus Morris and his successor, Clifford Makins. Perhaps ironically, it was only in the 1960s when the declining popularity of Dan Dare and EAGLE meant that they were no were no longer being heavily merchandised, that the religious aspect was overlooked.
I am grateful to Lew Stringer for allowing me to use his scans of the front page of the Christmas EAGLE and the Chicko strip and to Richard Sheaf and Steve Winders for providing and clarifying some information.
