Swift (9/3/1961)
Boys World (10/10/1964)
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First Issue: | 14th April 1950 | |||||
| Last Issue: | 26th April 1969 | ||||||
| Copyright: | Hulton/Longacre/Odhams/IPC | ||||||
| Genre: | Boys Action and Adventure | ||||||
| Incorporated Titles: | Merry-Go-Round (14/4/1950) Swift (9/3/1961) Boys World (10/10/1964) |
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| Incorporated By: | Lion (3/5/1969) | ||||||
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| Covers | Characters And Stories | First Issue | Memory Lane | Annuals | ||
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14th April 1950 was arguably the start of the silver age of comics, and in particular, with the birth of the Eagle. The Eagle and its characters have been well documented in books and more recently on the Internet. What I would like to do is take you back to a time before the Eagle comic had hit the streets. To a time when its founder, The Reverend Marcus Morris, was appointed as a vicar of St James's, Birkdale, Lancashire. Marcus was born in 1915 and educated at Cheltenham and Brasenose College, Oxford, graduating in 1937. He was ordained at Liverpool Cathedral in 1939 after two years studying theology at Wyecliffe Hall and, in 1940, moved to Great Yarmouth. After taking a number of positions he accepted the post of Vicar at St. James? in Birkdale - a suburb of Southport. With the position came the parish magazine which Marcus renamed The Anvil in 1946, and which gave him an outlet for his journalistic urges. He had long felt that parish magazines, which were the main written method of presenting himself to his followers, were dreary and ineffective. His appointment gave him his first chance to do something about it and he gradually converted the four-page leaflet into The Anvil magazine. Marcus based The Anvil on a publication called Lilliput, the pocket magazine created by the founder of The Picture Post Stefan Lorant. For his own magazine, Marcus managed to get some useful contributions from C.S. Lewis, C.E.M. Joad and Harold Macmillan. |
 Frank Hampson (left - and searching for a match to light his pipe) and the founder of the Eagle, Marcus Morris. |
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Unfortunately, Marcus got into serious debt. The spirit was willing but the sales were weak. There was no money to promote the magazine, and though it spread from being a parish magazine to become a town magazine, and finally a national magazine, it still lost money. His patient and loyal parishioners gave generous amount of practical and financial support. They contibuted funds and ran bazaars to raise money, but he sank deeper into debt.... but not into despair. Anvil attracted attention and was described by one critic as a 'Christian magazine alongside the best secular publications'. And apart from the eminent contributors he had a special windfall. He had discovered at the local art school (Southport School of Arts and Crafts) a young artist, Frank Hampson, who became chief illustrator and cartoonist and designed the covers for Anvil
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 Before starting on Eagle he had the idea of an exemplary character, Lex Christian (latin for the Christian law), whose exploits were to be told exclusively in strip cartoon form. Frank Hampson was most enthusiastic about this project and Marcus thought that he might sell the idea to a Sunday newspaper. He soon had the interest of the editor of the Sunday Empire News, Terence Horsley, but not for long. Terence was tragically killed in a gliding accident. This proved to be a turning point for Marcus who often recalled a late-night visit to Frank Hampson's house when Marcus said that "We should pack up the idea of doing a single strip for any paper, and should be bold and resolute and concentrate our energies on producing an entirely new, original children's paper of our own". Frank agreed immediately. This decision increased the hopes and determination for Marcus to succeed. It also increased his debts. He found it absolutely essential to ensure some regular salary for Hampson and paid him £10 a week - later increased to £14. There was a growing sense of urgency and it became clear that an addition to the team was imperative. Harold Johns was another gifted artist from the same art studio as Hampson and he too went on the payroll. Apart from the regular staff, there were contributors to be taken into account. In the Anvil/Eagle period, these included a vicar who was editing the Blackburn Diocesan Magazine for the Bishop of Blackburn. His name was Chad Varah who later found the Samaritans. There was also a designer for a local toy firm, Walkden Fisher, who did the first 'exploded' drawings for Eagle's centre spread. Spencer Croft, who appeared as the scientist 'Professor Brittain', and another promising young art student from Liverpool called Norman Thelwell, who later drew the Chicko strip. Eagle, like its star attraction Dan Dare, was not born overnight. Both Frank and Marcus were hard at it from the beginning of 1949 to April 1950. The title Eagle did not emerge for a considerable time. Back in 1949, Lex Christian began life as a tough fighting parson in the slums of the East End of London. He then became airbourne, a flying padre, the Parson of the Fighting Seventh. Frank reused a name he had toyed with for a female detective, Dorothy Dare. Dorothy was also the name of his wife. Dan Dare was on his way! Throughout this time, Marcus tramped along Fleet Street with the Eagle Dummy tucked under his arm. He became a regular on the Sunday midnight train from Liverpool Lime Street to London Euston. This was on top of a day that could include three religious services, a couple of baptisms and even a wedding, as well as the general affairs of the parish. All this time he was trying to sell the Eagle, while back at Birkdale the work pressed on. Days and nights of trial and error, chopping and changing in the search for perfection. |
At one stage, Marcus had been in touch with Hulton Press (publishers of Picture Post and Lilliput at the time) and a young man from that firm suggested that he should go see John Myers, then Publicity Manager for J. Arthur Rank. Myers passed him on to Montague Haydon, director of the children's publications at Amalgamated Press. Haydon's reaction was perhaps predictable. Marcus had a feeling that Haydon thought he was an imposter, even a mild kind of lunatic. Amalgamated Press did not want Eagle. Sir Neville Pearson of Newnes was next. Marcus rang him from his London office, which in those days was a red telephone box. Pearson asked him round and saw him with one of his chief executives. They were very courteous and expressed considerable interest, but in the end they said that Eagle was 'Not an economic proposition'. Marcus had a brief and fruitless meeting with Boardman's, U.S. publishers of books and comics and then, maybe in a fit of desperation, he secured the interest of Mike Wardell, editor of the Sporting Record. Mike wore a black eye patch and was a great Fleet Street character, but in the end, he couldn't help Marcus. |
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He started to climb higher and saw John Walter, General Manager of The Times and Lord Camrose, proprietor of the Daily Telegraph. Beautiful manners again, but two more blanks. Then one autumn day in 1949 Marcus recieved a telegram, 'Definitely interested do not approach any other publisher'. It was from Hulton Press and they decided to take on the Eagle. Hulton Press brought Marcus and his family to London, along with Frank Hampson, Harold Johns, Eric Eden, Bruce Cornwell and John Porter. Also crucial in the development of the Eagle was the eminent typographer, Ruari McLean, who became a close friend of Marcus' and worked intensively on the comics design and layout. The title Eagle was suggested by Frank Hampson's wife, Dorothy, while the Eagle symbol was the top of a large brass inkwell that Marcus had brought at the White Elephant stall at the vicarage garden party. Marcus used to brief the artists who had been invited to work on this new project. They nearly always failed to do what he had really wanted, and when they refused to be told how to draw their strips by a young parson who had only ever edited a parish magazine before, they found themselves dropped. In those early days Marcus was a stickler for detail. Not just the artwork but the writing and typography as well. Every sentenced was examined, he didn't want more words then was necessary. He wanted the artwork to tell a lot of the story. If there was a missing hyphen or fullstop Marcus ensured that it got sorted out. He had stamina beyond belief. As Marcus later recollected, "Where Eagle was concerned, the quality of the paper, printing, artwork and writing set a new standard. There were bright colours, well-drawn pictures and exciting stories. Technically, the Eagle strips marked an advance on the standards of that time. Standards that had stood still for years. When most strips were not true strips but merely pictures with captions underneath. We tried to tell the stories mainly through the dramatic sequence of pictures, with the help of balloons." Eagle was to win the support of parents, schoolmasters, educationalists and clergy. More importantly, it was liked by the children. Chad Varah became one of the first, and best, scriptwriters for Eagle and a tower of strength in other activities associated with the paper. He wrote, "Even before I started the Samaritans I had a busy life and had to do most of my writings between 10pm and 3am. Then there was the carol services, hugely successful and reflecting the spirit, and the circulation, of Eagle itself. The readers wanted to see you in the flesh, so we did these marathon tours of catherals and had packed houses and writers cramp through signing autographs." It was in November 1949 that Hulton Press accepted Eagle and Morris moved into their premises in Shoe Lane EC4. They must have had some faith in him as an editor, but initially, not as a clergyman. After one of his early visits they rushed to check his credentials in Crockford's Clerical Directory. He had always been told that it was Tom Hopkinson, editor of Picture Post, who was called down by management, shown the Eagle Dummy and asked for his opinion. Apparently he replied, "You should publish and take on whoever brought it here." Morris's first office in Shoe Lane was not very grand, in fact it was a kind of anteroom to the office of the chairman, Edward (later Sir Edward) Hulton. Morris said of this situation, "He did his best to take no notice of me on his way in and out. He could hardly have been unaware of my existence, but I had the feeling that he might be uncertain of my identity and none too sure of what I was doing there. In the end, I suppose, someone told him." |
| Right up to the publication of the first issue on the 14th April 1950, the situation was chaotic. Mainly because the original launch date for Eagle was the summer of 1950, but Hulton's decided to bring the date forward to the spring because they had heard a rumour that a rival company were also going to bring out a new comic. This revised date meant that Frank had to recruit artists in a hurry. These artists, who all worked in an old bakery in Southport, were Harold Johns - an old school and college friend, Eric Eden - who worked on backgrounds along with Joan Porter, and finally Bruce Cornwell who worked on technical scenes and more backgrounds. The two miracles that occurred in the first issue of Eagle were getting the material to the printer in the first place and then actually getting it printed in the second place. The printing of the Eagle is a story in itself, a supreme example of craftsmanship and engineering skill overcoming apparently insuperable difficulties. Eric Bemrose, the printer, faced the problem of printing 1,000,000 copies of Eagle for its first issue. He designed, built and worked a new ten-unit photogravure rotary machine. With flair and improvision he created the plant in twelve weeks from start to finish and trained a team to work it. On publication day there were long queues outside the newsagents. Eagle was a success and a sell-out, almost one million copies. Marcus had tried to start a paper which would be the natural choice of the child, but at the same time, would have the enthusiastic approval of the parent and the teacher. In this, he succeeded. |
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Peter Inns has built this website at a fantastic rate and I really don't think there's much more he can add. Very, very informative...and fun. |
 Andrew Paul's site contains a lot of Dan Dare info and also delves into the history of the second series of Eagle |
