HELP - Eagle Comics 1959

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booksandcomics
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HELP - Eagle Comics 1959

Post by booksandcomics »

Hi all, I'm sifting through some Eagle comics and gotten up to the year 1959. I can't seem to match certain numbers up, I have the following at the moment;

Vol 10 #1 - 3rd Jan
Vol 10 #2 - 10th Jan

some gaps then

Vol 10 #14 - 4th Apr

some gaps then

Vol 10 #26 - Undated
Vol 10 #27

then it goes to
Vol 10 #28 - 29th Aug and continues weekly until the end of the year.


For the other years I have been sorting there have been 52 issues per year (excluding 1950). I have read online that there was some trouble with the editor in 1959, finances etc, but, did the Eagle briefly go fortnightly? Assuming I have the list right, were there only 45 issues of Eagle in 1959?

Any help you can give would be great, once again Google seems to have failed me thus I thought I would consult the comic genious' of the UK! :D

Lew Stringer
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Re: HELP - Eagle Comics 1959

Post by Lew Stringer »

Yes, only 45 issues in 1959. Seven issues were missed due to the printer's strike that summer which affected a lot of publications.
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Re: HELP - Eagle Comics 1959

Post by booksandcomics »

Thanks Lew! Much appreciated, this printers strike, was is a nationwide thing?

Cheers, Adam

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Re: HELP - Eagle Comics 1959

Post by Lew Stringer »

booksandcomics wrote:Thanks Lew! Much appreciated, this printers strike, was is a nationwide thing?

Cheers, Adam
Yes, and at the end if it they'd achieved the 40 hour week. There's more info on Google.
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Re: HELP - Eagle Comics 1959

Post by NP »

We had another strike in 1970 which led to comics printed with black bars where the date was. It wasn't seven weeks though. The 1959 strike didn't seem to impact on sales but the 1970 one certainly did.

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Re: HELP - Eagle Comics 1959

Post by Lew Stringer »

NP wrote:We had another strike in 1970 which led to comics printed with black bars where the date was. It wasn't seven weeks though. The 1959 strike didn't seem to impact on sales but the 1970 one certainly did.
Yes, the 1970 strike was quite damaging to the comics. There were a few weeks skipped in the summer, resulting in some comics carrying two dates, then in October 1970 some comics vanished completely from the shelves until the following January. Lion, Smash, Valiant, Buster, and some girls comics - missing for months. I still remember the excitement of them returning.

Curiously, the comics printed by Southernprint (eg: Scorcher, Whizzer and Chips) and Carlisle Web Offset (Cor!!, Tiger) were still published. Were those printers not in the same union?
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Re: HELP - Eagle Comics 1959

Post by Phoenix »

Lew Stringer wrote:Yes, only 45 issues in 1959. Seven issues were missed due to the printer's strike that summer which affected a lot of publications.
NP wrote:We had another strike in 1970 which led to comics printed with black bars where the date was. It wasn't seven weeks though. The 1959 strike didn't seem to impact on sales but the 1970 one certainly did.
Whatever these printers' strikes were about they certainly didn't impact on Thomsons' output, fortunately.

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Re: HELP - Eagle Comics 1959

Post by Lew Stringer »

Phoenix wrote:
Lew Stringer wrote:Yes, only 45 issues in 1959. Seven issues were missed due to the printer's strike that summer which affected a lot of publications.
NP wrote:We had another strike in 1970 which led to comics printed with black bars where the date was. It wasn't seven weeks though. The 1959 strike didn't seem to impact on sales but the 1970 one certainly did.
Whatever these printers' strikes were about they certainly didn't impact on Thomsons' output, fortunately.
Thomsons were non-union though weren't they? And until recent years they printed their own publications so I suppose strikes never affected them.
The blog of British comics: http://lewstringer.blogspot.com
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Re: HELP - Eagle Comics 1959

Post by Phoenix »

Lew Stringer wrote: Thomsons were non-union though weren't they? And until recent years they printed their own publications so I suppose strikes never affected them.
Yes, they were non-union, but there were two strikes, the first in the aftermath of the General Strike in 1926, which collapsed after ten days. That was quite damaging to the company at the time because it cost them seven weekly issues of Adventure, seven of The Rover, and eleven of The Wizard, but it also led to the demise of The Vanguard. Another consequence was the loss of a number of artists. The other strike was in March 1947. This cost them two issues of The Hotspur, three of both Adventure and The Rover, and four of The Wizard.

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Re: HELP - Eagle Comics 1959

Post by Lew Stringer »

Thanks Phoenix.

Industrial action has affected comics a few times over the years. I presume that was the reason why there was a delay of a week or two between the last issue of the old TV21 and that start of the combined TV21 and Joe 90 weekly. Here's the cover image of the first combined issue, with one of those black bars Nigel mentioned obscuring the original date:

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_448y6kVhntg/R ... /cover.jpg

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