COMIC SCENE MAGAZINE PRODUCES A DAN DARE ANNIVERSARY EDITION

ComicScene Magazine has produced a special edition to celebrate Dan and Eagle's seventieth anniversary. Full details can be found here in their press release: 

On 14th April 1950, following the end of World War Two and with the UK still in the grip of rationing, a splash of colour came into everyone's lives with the launch of Eagle comic and the character Dan Dare, Pilot of the Future. 900,000 people bought the first issue. Now in the grip of another national crisis, we can enjoy the exploits of Dan Dare once again. Exactly 70 years later on 14th April 2020 ComicScene Magazine will launch worldwide in print and digital a special anniversary issue with articles on Eagle and three picture strips in the original style of 50's Dan Dare in a special 'Spaceship Away' supplement.

Editor of ComicScene Tony Foster said "We wanted to celebrate 70 years of UK comic history with a milestone edition of ComicScene. It could be argued without Eagle and Dan Dare and the work of editor Marcus Morris and creator Frank Hampson, we wouldn't have seen Doctor Who, Star Wars and comics like 2000AD, Judge Dredd and even US comic classics like Watchmen and the original format of Dark Knight. Eagle influenced a generation of comic books and stories like never before. This Collectors Item of ComicScene tries to capture that, as well as exploring what comic creators are up to today." 

The magazine will be available as a 110 digital issue and 80 page print issue by post on 14th April, distributed exactly 70 years after the launch of the original Eagle.  It can be ordered at 

www.getmycomics.com/comicscene  

Tony explained, "The magazine is sold in newsagents across the UK, Ireland, USA, Canada and Australia.  Unfortunately the Virus from Venus means this issue will come to newsstands a little later this year but Dan Dare won't be beaten and the wonders of digital and mail order will win the day!"

The magazine features articles on the 1950's Dan Dare, Dan Dare in 2000AD, Dare by Grant Morrison and Rian Hughes, the 1980's relaunched Eagle, the Dan Dare audio adventures, a free pull out Eagle and Dan Dare supplement and new Euro and Indie comics. There are also picture strips including Judge Dredd co- creator John Wagner on Rok of the Reds, Gentleman Jack meets Dick Turpin style adventures in Flintlock, golden age comic Captain Cosmic and the crazy Whackoman! 

The magazine can be ordered now in print and digital from £5.99 at www.getmycomics.com/comicscene with enhanced school and library packs with extra comics at https://comicscene.org/comicscene-online-store/

IN AND OUT OF THE EAGLE 17

Sadly the well known character actor William Simons, who played P.C. Alf Ventress in the long running TV series Heartbeat died last week. As a boy William had two unusual links with the 1950s EAGLE. He was the subject of the article Schoolboy in the African Bush in Eagle Vol.2 No.39 (dated 4^th January 1952) when as an eleven year old he featured in the film Where No Vultures Fly. The article describes his experiences of filming on location for four months in Kenya. His other link with EAGLE was that he played Alfie Cutforth in the B.B.C. TV adaptation of Anthony Buckeridge's Rex Milligan stories, which had been specially created for EAGLE. 

Where No Vultures Fly was the second most successful film at the box office in Britain in 1952 and led to a sequel West of Zanzibar, released in 1954 in which William also featured. Both films starred Anthony Steel as a Game Warden who sets up a Wildlife Reserve in Kenya and both feature villainous ivory poachers. 

"The magazine for mugs"

In the online archives of Time magazine is a review from 1 May, 1950, of a new British story paper "the spanking new London weekly Eagle, dazzlingly successful magazine brain child of a boyish, 35-year-old vicar of the Church of England" (Marcus Morris), and published by "Hulton Press, owners of Picture Post (circulation 1,500,000)".

This contemporary report from "across the pond" indicates the nature of the publicity machine of Hulton Press, and the impact the arrival of Eagle had. According to the Time report, 750,000 copies of the first issue sold out, and there were "1,986,000 cash-backed orders from newsdealers for the second issue".

According to Marcus Morris' account, and his official biography, it was a print run of 900,000 that sold out in the first week. But, acccording to his biography, things went horribly wrong for the second issue, when the printing press broke down and only 300,000 were printed. There must have been a lot of disappointed readers that week, and disgruntled newsagents! By the third week, and following announcements in the British national press that "There is a national shortage of EAGLE - but more copies are coming soon!", production was "back to normal" - and was soon in excess of 1 million copies per week.

Eagle - How it began

The Eagle magazine was the brainchild of the Revd. Marcus Morris, the Southport Lancashire vicar who became its first Editor. Having engaged a young Southport-trained artist, Frank Hampson, and then others, in enlivening his parish magazine, The Anvil, and turning it from local church magazine to a nationally distributed periodical, he sought Hampson’s assistance in creating a Christian-based comic strip. The idea, fuelled by both men’s enthusiasm and Hampson’s artistic creativity, and not a little influenced by another man of the cloth (the Revd. Chad Varah), eventually resulted in not a comic strip but a complete magazine for boys. The Eagle, comprised a mix of comic strips, factual features and text stories. Rather than a Christian padre, as originally intended by Morris, the Eagle featured on its front cover the stirring science-fiction adventures in full colour of Dan Dare: Pilot of the Future. Inside it featured a variety of black-and-white, and colour, strips plus illustrated text stories and factual articles. The first “dummies” that sold the Eagle idea to its publishers, Hulton Press, were almost entirely the work of Frank Hampson, but soon a large team of writers and artists was needed to keep up with a weekly publication schedule.

There have been several fairly detailed accounts of the birth of Eagle, including (in order of publication):

• Best of Eagle, compiled by Denis Gifford and edited by Marcus Morris, Michael Joseph and Ebury Press (1977). This contains in an Introduction, Marcus’ own account – which can be read online, courtesy of Nicholas Hill’s Eagle and Dan Dare site.

• The Man Who Drew Tomorrow by Alastair Crompton, Who Dares Publishing (1985) is a Frank Hampson biography and the story of the Dan Dare studio, published the year of Hampson’s death.
  

• Before I Die Again by The Revd. Chad Varah, Constable (1993), is the autobiography of 'Eagle’s third man'.

• The Frank Hampson Interview by Alan Vince, Astral Publications (1994) records and updates an interview made by Alan with Frank Hampson in 1974. The interview has since been republished (further updated) in Dan Dare: The Voyage to Venus, part 2, Titan Books (2004).

• Living with Eagles, by Sally Morris and Jan Hallwood, Lutterworth Press (1998), is a biography of Marcus Morris by two of his daughters.

• Dan Dare: The Voyage to Venus, part 1, Titan Books (2004) contains an introductory article, ‘The Genesis of Dan Dare’ by Nick Jones.

First Post

As this is a new blog, for those not in the know (apologies to those who are!), a few words about the EAGLE, Eagle Society and Eagle Times may be in order.

EAGLE was a British boys' magazine, created and originally edited by the Revd. Marcus Morris. It was published weekly from 1950 until 1969, initially by Hulton Press. EAGLE is probably best known for the picture strip that for most of its history appeared on the front cover and inside front page: Dan Dare - Pilot of the Future. Dan Dare was created by artist Frank Hampson. However, EAGLE also contained many other strips, stories, articles and features that warrant its description as a magazine, rather than a comic.

The Eagle Society is a worldwide, though relatively small, collection of individuals, many of whom were readers of the original EAGLE, or have been attracted to its content more recently, for one reason or another. For those who grew up with it, there are many reasons for remembering EAGLE: strips such as PC49, Luck of the Legion, Jeff Arnold, Jack o'Lantern, or Storm Nelson; text stories such as The Three J's or Rex Milligan; the Cutaway Drawings; the factual articles, Nature, Sport, Historical or Religious strips.

EAGLE Times (rather than the blog eagle-times - which is free to all) is the Eagle Society's quarterly journal. Membership of the Eagle Society is by subscription to Eagle Times (Or Eagle Times comes free with your subscription - if you want to think of it that way!)