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The secret of the Eagle's success was not necessarily due to its innate moral underpinning but its outstanding artistry and production values. The Eagle, which typically saw eighty percent of its pages in full colour photogravure was an over night success. The comic introduced such characters as PC 49, Captain Pugwash, Skippy the Kangaroo and many more during its nineteen year run but it was Dan Dare that became synonymous with both the Eagle and British comics. With the aid of his trusty friend Digby, Dan Dare's encounters with the Mekon made him not only an icon of British comics but also an iconic figure in British pop culture.
Hulton Press agreed to produce the Eagle on the strength of the Eagle Dummy , but Ruari McLean the typographer knew that the front cover needed an even more professional touch. He set to work and, along with Frank Hampson and Marcus Morris, came up with the Classic Eagle cover of the red corner block in the top left and the flying Eagle emblem surrounded by Frank's excellent Dan Dare artwork. It was to remain this way for years.
Dan Dare created by Frank Hampson was the flagship of the comic. It's excellent artwork and storyline dominated the comic during the 1950's. This was unquestionably the comics golden age. The first Dan Dare story, simply called - Dan Dare Pilot Of The Future - but now referred to as The Venus Story , lasted for an incredible 77 weeks. Frank Hampson had no real idea of the direction of the story, he was literally making it up as he went along. This initial story was so deep that there were weeks when Dan Dare didn't even appear. The story had simply moved to another location following the exploits of other characters. Frank did build some great characters and most notible was his arch enemy Mekon - the leader of the Treens and Mekonta of Venus. Frank also created Dan's Lancastrian batman, Digby, who also supplied the comic relief as well as the no-nonesense, straight-forward approach of the story.
The back page, usually drawn by Norman Williams, was always taken up by either religious or historical stories like The Great Adventurer (who was Jesus' disciple Paul), Alfred The Great, Sir Walter Raleigh, Horatio Nelson, Baden Powell and Marco Polo. Riders Of The Range later called Jeff Arnold in Riders Of The Range written by Charles Chilton and drawn by Frank Humphris was set in the American wild west and had Jeff fighting cattle rustlers and red indians amongst other 'baddies'. Harris Tweed, Extra Special Agent was a bit of a nincompoop who thought he was a private investigater/secret agent. Due to his lack of planning (and intelligence) he would always start haphazardly and then, more by luck than judgement, end up by catching the crooks, and then intimate that it was all part of his plan. He was often aided, without recognition, by a young lad who was only ever refered to as The Boy . In the early days this strip was one page long but it eventually settled down to just half a page. Herge's adventures of Tintin took over from Skippy The Kangaroo and was in turn replaced by Luck Of The Legion who was Sergeant 'Tough' Luck of the French Foreign Legion who tried to maintain peace in the far east. Luck was ably assisted by his number two Corporal Trenet in the legions attempt to retain the security of the their outposts. The strip was very well drawn by Martin Aitchison and written by Geoffrey Bond. It lasted until Longacre took over from Hulton's in 1960. Storm Nelson - Sea Adventurer was a sailor, helicopter and submarine pilot of the Silver Fleet which operated in the South Pacific. Other members of his fleet included Spanner, Bash, Jonah, McCann and Happy. The Jack O' Lantern story (started 4/2/1955) was set in the early 19th century England (Napoleonic times) and was about a young lad called Jack Yorke and his canine pal Turnspit. The stories are ongoing and have Jack pitting his wits against French agents and English traitors as well as clearing the name of his cousin and capturing horse stealers amongst many topics. Because this was a period story, a lot of attention was made to background details like street scenes and furnishings. It was very well written by George Beardmore and very well drawn by Robert Ayton. Cavendish Brown M.S. , who replaced P.C. 49, was a medical surgeon AND a detective who had a servant named Beadle. The strip was drawn by Pat Williams and written by Bill Wellings and differed from P.C. 49 in that Cavendish Brown used lateral thinking which enabled him to avoid getting a thumping (but being a surgeon as well, I'm sure he would have coped!). This story was replaced in 1959 by They Showed The Way and was about real-life adventurers and inventors like Charles Lindbergh and James Simpson (anesthetics).
From the 11th September 1953 the Eagle Extra Supplement was presented. This was two additional pages with new stories in it, which included an adventure story called Marvel Of M.I.5. about a secret service chap called Kim Marvel which was written by David Cameron and drawn by Nevin. There was also the Eagle Extra-Funnies which consisted of humour strips called That Chap , Just Johnny by Valentine, Edison Brain - The Boy Inventor by Hickey and Pedro The Pirate by Martin.
The comic always contained sporting tips including football and 'How to tackle' where it once mentioned that 'two feet are always better then one!'. Other sports covered were Cricket, Rugby and even swimming - which including life saving techniques. There was also strong support for table tennis for boys and shows a very young Chester Barnes competing in the under-15's tournament. Chester went on to become world champion during the 1960's. The comic later had a section entitled Eagle Sports News which detailed the last weeks events along with upcoming events. The Eagle also produced a sports annual from 1952 that attempted to cover most sports included the less popular ones like speedway, fencing, rowing, ice-hockey, basketball and squash.
New stories were born, like Knights Of The Road drawn by Gerald Haylock, Vic Venture drawn by G. Bull, Fraser Of Africa drawn by Frank Bellamy and the humour strip Sir Percy Vere drawn by Roland Fiddy. By 1962, the Dan Dare strip had been relegated to the inside black and white pages. The colour page count of the comic had been reduced from 8 to 6 and one of those was usually an advert. Mind you, page count itself had increased from 16 to 20. The coloured centre pages now had a well drawn Frank Bellamy story in the shape of Montgomery Of Alamein which was still in keeping with the comics traditional idea of illustrated true stories. As was Only The Brave about couragous people who had won the George Medal for acts of outstanding gallantry. The whole of the back page was taken up with the exploded drawings which used to be on the centre pages. Other 'new format' stories were Home Of The Wanderers , about two footballers from first division Welport Wanderers, who had stumbled on a plan to destroy their club and they decided to set about stopping it. The Lost World by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle followed the story of Professor Challenger and his team into the unexplored heart of South America in search of a lost prehistoric country, which they duly found and had to fight off rampaging dinosaurs. Vengance Trail was a Western story about a young cowboy called Lex Tarron who was being hunted by a ruthless killer called Ingram and was constantly being twarted by Lex. Sergeant Bruce C.I.D. was a modern day crime saga with Dave Bruce and his working partner Constable Bill Prior. The story was two pages long and always concluded with the villians' collar being felt! There was the very popular Heros The Spartan (probably modelled on the film Spartacus from 1960) about a Roman Centurion who had won many battles fighting for Caesar and had become very popular. However, he had enemies from within the Roman high command, including the jealous Caesar himself, who was constantly using underhand methods of getting Heros killed.
By 1960, thanks to the Fleetway takeover, the popular Eagle Club had ceased to be and by 1962 most of the popular educational features that separated the Eagle from other comics had been reduced to just one. It featured The Man From Eagle who went around the country visiting establishments and giving the low-down on places like the Rolls Royce factory in Crewe, Metro-Goldwyn-Meyer film studios and London Airport control tower. This interesting series stopped by 1963, but with the incorporation of Swift from the 9th March 1963 more of these features returned including the very popular Sporting Talk and profiles of sporting heroes like the 23 year old motor-cycling champion Mike Hailwood and footballers Dennis Law and Ron Springett. There was also a page dedicated to museums around the country.
Stories that were appearing at this time were Mann Of Battle , drawn in black and white by Brian Lewis, it was set in WW2 and had Captain Pete Mann and his batman, Slogger Bates, fighting behind enemy lines. It was just one page long and was quite slow paced. The Beast In Loch Craggon was a new story for the first issue of the combined Eagle And Swift and was set in the Scottish Highlands. It followed the story of young fisherman's son Jamie Fergus and his encounter with a mysterious being from the sea, hence the title name. Eagle had always had humour relief since day one in the shape of Norman Thelwell's Chicko (1950) and Joh Ryan's Captain Pugwash (1950), Professor Puff And His Dog Wuff (1953) by David Langdon and later with Roland Fiddy's Sir Percy Vere (1960). In 1961 the great Reg Parlett gave Eagle Fidosaurus , set in caveman times, Fido was a rather large 'pet' dinosaur who was constantly getting himself and his owner into trouble. He occasionally appeared in colour. In 1963 another Reg Parlett creation came about in the shape of those blundering policemen from XYZ Cars whose call sign was 'U for useless'! Can You Catch A Crook? was a two page black and white strip which gave clues as to who the crook was and you had to spot them. Most were fairly obvious but some were pretty clever. Dan Dare was now a two page black and white strip being drawn by Keith Watson and the exploded drawings were on the full coloured back page.
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