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Thanks to the ‘Eagle-eyed’ David Gould for this item. In Volume 4 no.28 (October 16^th 1953), a poem promoting the joys of Eagle, beginning with the phrase ‘Grand was the day when Eagle came…’ appeared in the Eagle Extra section. Written by a staff member, this poem reappeared in April 1958, sent in by a dishonest reader, who made a few minor updates, replacing Tommy Walls with Storm Nelson and PC 49 with Mark Question. The plagiarist failed to notice that the first letter of each line should read, downwards, ‘GOOD OLD EAGLE’. His change to the final line made it read ‘GOOD OLD EAGLH’! Remarkably this wasn’t the last time that the poem appeared. Another reader sent in his own modified version in December 1967! This time the reader replaced Harris Tweed with The Iron Man, Storm Nelson with Mike Lane and Mark Question with Grant C.I.D. This reader realised that the letters down should read ‘GOOD OLD EAGLE’, for he pointed it out at the end of the letter, leading me to suspect that he adapted it from the 1953 original and not the 1958 copy. The two chancers in Eagle won prizes of five and ten shillings, but their sins have found them out in the end. Above is the original version from 1953.

David, who worked as a letterer on Eagle in the 1960s, reports that the weekly itself was not averse to a little dishonesty in its later years, telling me that several jokes were published with staff members’ or fictitious names. Shades of Blue Peter’s notorious invention of a competition winner here! 

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There was another comic character called Dan Dare, created almost a decade before our own. This 'Dan' was an American 'private eye' who made his debut in a publication called Whiz Comics, produced by Fawcett in February 1940. Created by Bill Parker, Dan's adventures were produced by several artists and writers and appeared in thirteen issues of the monthly comic, although the strip was always a back up story. Detective Dan's first appearance was overshadowed by the first appearance of Captain Marvel, a popular superhero whose greatest battles were in court because D.C. Comics sued Fawcett for breach of copyright, claiming that the Captain was too similar to their own Superman. Fawcett resisted and once established, Captain Marvel's adventures began to outsell Superman's. The ongoing case was finally settled out of court in 1953, when Fawcett also ceased publication of their superhero titles as a result of falling sales. 

The name Captain Marvel was later used by Marvel Comics for a character of their own, who first appeared in 1967, but in 1972 D.C. revived Fawcett's original character! However they were forced to use the name Shazam! for their comic because Marvel had established their rights to the name, suggesting that our Dan Dare is safe from a legal challenge. Often referred to as 'Shazam', which is actually the name of the wizard who gave him his powers, the D.C. owned superhero starred in the film Shazam! in 2019 and a sequel Shazam! Fury of the Gods in 2023. A Captain Marvel film featuring Marvel's version, now a female superhero also appeared in 2019. Confused? I am! 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO JOHN M.BURNS

Congratulations to John M. Burns on his eighty fifth birthday. John is one of a small group of artists who contributed to both the original EAGLE and the 1980s version. Over a sixty year career he has produced a massive amount of impressive comic strip work. For EAGLE in the 1960s he illustrated episodes of Roving Reporter, Bids for Freedom and the final six episodes of Wrath of the Gods, which joined EAGLE when it absorbed Boys' World in October 1964. He had illustrated this famous colour strip for Boys' World since July 1963, when he took over from Ron Embleton and he produced seventy two episodes in total. For the 1980s EAGLE he illustrated The Fists of Danny Pike, Dolebusters and a Dan Dare adventure. His other work includes Wulf the Briton for Express Weekly in 1961, which he also took over from Ron Embleton, several strips for EAGLE's companion paper Robin, Kelpie the Boy Wizard for Wham!,many strips for the TV based comics TV21, Lady Penelope, Countdown, TV Action and Look -In, The Seekers for The Daily Sketch, Jane and Girl Chat for The Daily Mirror, George and Lynne for The Sun, Julia for the German newspaper Bild, Nicolai Dante, Sinister Dexter The Order and Judge Dredd for 2000 A.D. and The Bendatti Vendetta for the Judge Dredd Megazine. John has also illustrated comic strip versions of several classic novels.

  

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The Dan Dare strip has inspired many parodies and other humorous strips. Danny Dare in Wham! comic was an early example. There were two Dan Dires; one by fan Eric Mackenzie and the other a political satire in Private Eye magazine. Another political satire was Dan Blair in the Times by Peter Brookes and our own Ray Aspden produced Mekki and Our Albert for Spaceship Away. However the strip which most impressively reflected Frank Hampson’s splendid visuals was Ham Dare, a strip which ran in Oink! comic in 1986. Oink! was an attempt to create an anarchic children’s comic in the style of the adult Viz. As its name suggests, Oink! adopted a pig theme in keeping with its often vulgar humour and several popular fictional characters were reimagined as pigs.  Written by Lew Stringer and illustrated in lavish colour by Malcolm Douglas (using the pseudonym J.T. Dogg), Ham Dare stayed remarkably faithful to Hampson’s designs, contrasting strongly with the ‘serious’ attempts to bring Dan Dare back. The story, which also featured ‘Pigby’, ‘Sir Hogbert’ and the ‘Weakon’ avoided the vulgarity that was often prevalent in some of Oink’s other stories. The Ham Dare serial ran from issues 15 to 19 of the then fortnightly comic, but Ham also featured in the 1989 Oink! Annual and the 1989 Summer Special. Sadly, Malcolm Douglas died in 2009 at the early age of 54, but Lew Stringer, who is also a prolific comic artist, is still going strong. 

 

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There is still a publication that bears the name EAGLE produced currently in Britain, although the title is actually in Latin. Aquila is a monthly educational magazine for 8-14 year olds which contains a mix of factual articles, challenging puzzles and fun activities, designed to stimulate and enhance children's skills and knowledge. It is produced by a small independent publisher called New Leaf Publishing, based in Eastbourne and is available internationally by subscription, with many schools as well as individuals subscribing. It carries no advertising and prides itself on its substantial text content, which contrasts strongly with most magazines published for children today. Despite its aims and educational content, Aquila bears little resemblance to our EAGLE or indeed to the famous educational magazine Look and Learn. Nevertheless it is a commendable publication and most importantly it is actually read by children. It has been running for thirty years and has a readership of 35,000. 
  

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After Dan Dare, EAGLE's longest running character was Chicko, the three picture comedy strip by Norman Thelwell, which appeared weekly on the Editor's Page. This strip about a young boy contained no dialogue, although it often contained writing in the form of signs, book titles or notices. The strip appeared in the first six issues of EAGLE, from April 1950, before taking a break of three months, during which time Thelwell moved from the Wirral to Codsall to take up a teaching post at Wolverhampton College of Art. Chicko returned to EAGLE in August (issue 20) and then continued weekly until 1962 when EAGLE was radically overhauled. Chicko's last appearances were in the 1962 EAGLE Holiday Extra and the EAGLE Annual for 1963. Thelwell's EAGLE connection began when he produced some cartoons for Marcus Morris' Parish magazine Anvil and he subsequently drew a half page strip called Pop Milligan, about a canal bargee. This strip was included in the dummy edition of EAGLE which Morris submitted to publishers in 1949. However it did not appear in the published weekly.

Thelwell also produced cartoons for Punch, illustrating more than 1,600 over a twenty five year period. He contributed political cartoons for the News Chronicle and later the Sunday Dispatch. He became famous for his Punch cartoons about the changing countryside and little girls on horseback and subsequently created Penelope and her horse Kipper for the Sunday Express in 1962. Many of his cartoons were collected in books and he became one of the best known of EAGLE's contributors. He died in 2004.

 

 

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Martin Mere was the title of one of several strips that Frank Hampson produced for EAGLE after The Road of Courage ended, but were never developed. In fact it was Joan Porter who was still working as Frank's assistant who devised the title, characters and basic synopsis of this story. Only one episode was illustrated but it was arguably the most intriguing of all the proposed strips. Produced in colour and set in the swamplands of Mercia during Saxon times, the hero was Martin Mere, who was Guardian of the swamplands. Martin Mere is also the name of a wetland area in Lancashire, which was once the largest body of freshwater in England. As late as 1579 it extended from Burscough in the east to Churchtown in the west where Frank’s first studio would be located. Today Martin Mere is significantly smaller than it was in Saxon times.

 It houses a popular Wetland Centre managed by the Wetland and Wildfowl Trust. Joan located the strip in the Saxon Kingdom of Mercia,whose power base was in the Midlands, leading some fans to assume the marshes in the strip were also in the Midlands, but for several centuries Mercia extended as far north as the River Ribble, meaning that Martin Mere was actually only just located in Mercia, close to its border with Northumbria, so it is clear that the mere that Martin protected was actually Martin Mere. A track called 'the Ridgeway' is mentioned in the strip, but it does not refer to the ancient road known by this name, which follows a ridge of chalk hills in southern England. Sadly only a poor black and white copy of the episode survived, but the comic artist Martin Baines, who was a member of our Society in his boyhood and is still a keen Dan Dare enthusiast, improved the resolution on the page using Photoshop and this is reproduced below. 

The single episode introduces the hero and the basic plot. Martin and his men meet a group of Moorish travellers on the marsh and accompany them to their Lord. The episode ends with one of  Martin's men being alarmed by what he finds in the travellers' cart. We will never know what he found. 

Had circumstances been different and Frank had been allowed to develop this strip, it is possible that some changes would have been made before publication - Dan Dare was originally a clergyman! The name of the hero might well have changed, as although there was already a saint called 'Martin', I have never heard of any Anglo Saxons taking the name before the Norman Conquest. Despite there being only one episode, it is possible to date the events of the story to around 700 A.D and certainly between abut 650 and 800 A.D. In 700, Mercia was a powerful kingdom and was Christian from around 650. The Moors in the story are apparently from Morocco as they are trading the 'riches of Barbary' which is in north west Africa. A Moorish army invaded Spain, in 711 A.D.