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!)