IN AND OUT OF THE EAGLE 13

Jack O’Lantern was originally another name for the strange phenomenon of light hovering over peat bogs, also known as a Will o’the Wisp. Carved out pumpkins with faces are often called Jack O’ Lanterns. This old name provided an excellent title for George Beardmore’s popular Eagle strip about a boy’s adventures in the early nineteenth century, but Jack Yorke is not the only Jack O’ Lantern in comics. Both Marvel and D.C. Comics in America have used the name several times. Beginning in 1977, D.C. used the name for three superheroes who each took the name following the death of their predecessor. These ‘Jacks’ did not operate alone, but as members of super hero teams. Conversely, from 1981 Marvel featured four villains who took this name, with each one again replacing an earlier version in turn and providing enemies for Spiderman and Captain America.

This brings us nicely to Willo The Wisp, the 1981 B.B.C. TV cartoon series made by Nicholas Spargo, who may be recalled by Eagle readers as the creator of The Legend of the Lincoln Imp, which featured on the centre pages below the cutaway drawing, back in 1951. Soon after his work for Eagle, Nicholas worked for Halas and Bachelor on Britain’s first ever cartoon feature film Animal Farm. He also ran his own animation company which principally produced cartoon advertisements and educational films, sponsored by companies, but his main claim to fame is Willo The Wisp, a series of five minute films for children, featuring the voice of Kenneth Williams. The character of Willo actually originated in an educational film he made for British Gas in 1975.  

IN AND OUT OF THE EAGLE 7

WITH JIM DUCKETT

You don’t tend to bump into people called Horatio every day, but no less than three Horatios featured in their own strips in Eagle. First was John Ryan’s Captain Horatio Pugwash, who appeared from the first issue until the nineteenth in 1950. The next was the real life Horatio Nelson, who was featured in the back page serial The Great Sailor in 1956-57 and finally there was C.S. Forester’s fictional naval hero, Horatio Hornblower, whose adventures were adapted for Eagle in 1962-63. Of course all these Horatios are linked by the sea and all captained ships at some time in their lives. Nelson was one of Britain’s greatest heroes of the Napoleonic wars and Eagle included no less than three fictional strips set during this period. Only the wild west and contemporary times were featured more. First was Jack O’Lantern, about a young boy in the later years of the conflict, which ran in Eagle from 1955-60. Then came the already mentioned Hornblower stories and finally in 1964, Johnny Frog, about another young boy, this time set around the time of the Battle of Trafalgar. Both Jack O’Lantern and Johnny Frog were written by George Beardmore. 

Pugwash, created by John Ryan appeared in semi-animated cartoons made by Ryan himself for the BBC and became a television and literary success. He is soon to appear in a live action feature film starring Nick Frost as the popular pirate.  

Staying with the sea, Eagle forged strong links with the aircraft carrier H.M.S. Eagle, including featuring her as a cutaway drawing. H.M.S. Eagle was launched in 1946 and was the fifteenth Royal Navy ship to bear the name. Commissioned in 1951 she saw war service during the Suez Crisis of 1956. After service all over the world, she had an extensive refit in 1959 and another in 1966, finally being withdrawn from service in 1972. She was subsequently moored in the River Tamar, where she was held in reserve until 1976, although she was stripped for essential parts needed by H.M.S. Ark Royal. She was finally scrapped in 1978. I was lucky enough to see the ship’s brass name plate on a visit to the Royal Naval Dockyard Museum at Devonport a few years ago and one of her anchors can be seen at the entrance to the Fleet Air Arm Museum at Yeovilton.

Eagle Artists - Robert Ayton

Robert Norton Ayton (1915-1985) was born in Bowes Park, in the London borough of Wood Green. He was the second of four brothers. In 1919 the Aytons moved to Wembley, where Robert attended Park Lane Primary School. As a boy, as well as showing an early interest and capability in art, he loved speed and designed and built model aeroplanes. His nephew Rupert (son of Robert’s younger brother William) later cherished a 12" example of one of Robert’s hand-carved propellers.

In 1928, following the sudden death of his father, the almost 13-year-old Robert was offered an apprenticeship with Adkin and Sons, a branch of the Imperial Tobacco Company. Robert's father and grandfather had both been loyal and successful servants to Adkin. Robert however declined the invitation, and from about 1930 he attended the Harrow School of Art. He may have taken additional courses with the Central School of Art and Design and/or Hammersmith School of Art.

After his formal art training, Robert worked for several advertising agencies, including (possibly) Dorland's, before becoming a freelance artist. In the late 1930s he had an account with Castrol and around this time also undertook substantial commissions from Rolls Royce. His various commissions included aeroplanes and fast cars, including Malcolm (later Sir Malcolm) Campbell’s Bluebird.

In 1939 Robert met Joan Elmes, who would later become his wife. They saw little of each other during the next few years because Robert was called to Army service in the Second World War, but they were married during leave, in 1942.

After the war, in 1945 Robert picked up his freelance artist’s career. He became friends with Norman Williams who, from 1950, would illustrate many of Eagle’s true life adventures. Through Norman Williams, in 1955 Robert was recruited by Marcus Morris to illustrate a new adventure strip set in the times of the Napoleonic Wars. The strip, written by George Beardmore was ‘Jack o’Lantern’. It quickly became one of the most popular strip stories in Eagle, as recorded by the Hulton readers poll at the time.

Soon after starting on ‘Jack o’Lantern’, Robert and Joan moved to Yeovil, Somerset, and over the next five years Robert would draw nearly 250 weekly full-colour episodes. His strips had an air of authenticity aided by painstaking research of his subject matter from uniforms and fashion to the settings for the stories. Joan recalled, when interviewed in 1997, that she and Robert tramped around the village of Bosham taking photographs when Robert was researching the location for the ‘Jack o’Lantern’ story ‘The Moonshiners’.

In 1957, when his friend Norman Williams died, Robert took the news hard but, called on the draw the final episode of ‘The Great Sailor’ (the story of Nelson), he did so, although his artwork was not credited. After he left in 1959 to take a break from weekly deadlines, ‘Jack o’Lantern’ continued, drawn by another artist (C. L. Doughty), but only for another 36 episodes.

After what was to be a two year break from comic strip work, he took on drawing half page illustrations for Girl, and other art work. Then Robert returned to Eagle in 1961 to draw ‘The Golden Man’, the story of Sir Walter Raleigh, in a strip scripted by Guy Daniel and Marcus Morris. It was his final work for Eagle.

Like quite a few former Eagle artists (including Frank Hampson, Frank Humphris and Martin Aitchison) Robert later worked for Ladybird Books, illustrating for them around 50 books on a variety of subjects, from fairy tales to technology. Often he would put himself into his drawings - for example as the Slave of the Lamp in ‘Aladdin’. He taught illustration part-time at the West of England College of Art. He also illustrated for Oxford University Press, drew television background illustrations for BBC Bristol, and from 1980 was a member of the artistic group known as the Bristol Savages. At that time he lived in a large farmhouse outside Backwell, Bristol.

In 1983 Robert and Joan moved to a smaller home, a glass-workers row house, at nearby Nailsea. It was there, two years later and aged 70, that Robert died in Joan's arms after suffering a massive heart attack. He and Joan never had children. As Joan put it, when interviewed for Eagle Times: “There are enough delinquents in the world without bringing more into it.”

Eagle Strips:

• Jack o’Lantern (Vol 6 No 4 - Vol 10 No 40)
• The Great Sailor - final episode, uncredited (Vol 8 No 11)
• The Golden Man (Vol 12 Nos 15 - 37)

Eagle Annual Strips:

• Jack o’Lantern Eagle Annual No 6 - No 11 [1962]

Links:

• Bibliography at Bear Alley

ET Refs:

• Howard Corn. Robert Ayton. Eagle Times Vol 10 No 3 pp 2 - 6 *

* Thanks to Rupert Ayton for corrections and additional information about his uncle Robert

Update (1 Apr 2014) - Thanks to Andoni for correcting info re Jack o'Lantern (which previously stated Robert Ayton's run on the strip ended with issue Vol 10 No 45). As Andoni has pointed out, C.L. Doughty took over from issue Vol 10 No 41. C.L. Doughty therefore drew 36, rather than the previously stated 31 episodes, and I've amended that info also.