Rare Eagle Dummy Online

By John Freeman on July 28, 2008

In Spring 2008, Cirencester-based Dominic Book Auctions offered ten volumes (1950-60) of Eagle and Girl of unknown provenance, which were bought by London’s Cartoon Museum in Little Russell Street.

Unknown to the Museum (or the auctioneer) the lot also contained a copy of the second Eagle dummy, prepared by the art team to show Hulton Press the Eagle idea wasn’t just a ‘one-off’. In July 2008, the museum provided The Lost Characters of Frank Hampson web site with scans of the dummy and as previously reported, the latest issue of Eagle Times carries full print feature on this rarity.

Now, thanks to lifelong Eagle fan David Britton and with the permission of, the Cartoon Museum. the pages have been presented online via www.2000ad.nu/spacefleet/dummy2, the cover featuriung a very different version of the now famous Eagle logo but the pages displaying all the hallmarks of the then ground-breaking comic.

• The Dan Dare and Rob Conway and The Great Adventurer pages are also reproduced on The Lost Characters of Frank Hampson site.

• View the dummy pages

John Freeman

The founder of downthetubes, which he established in 1998. John works as a comics and magazine editor, writer, and on promotional work for the Lakes International Comic Art Festival. He is currently editor of Star Trek Explorer, published by Titan – his third tour of duty on the title originally titled Star Trek Magazine.

Working in British comics publishing since the 1980s, his credits include editor of titles such as Doctor Who Magazine, Babylon 5 Magazine, and more. He also edited the comics anthology STRIP Magazine and edited several audio comics for ROK Comics. He has also edited several comic collections, including volumes of “Charley’s War” and “Dan Dare”.

He’s the writer of “Pilgrim: Secrets and Lies” for B7 Comics; “Crucible”, a creator-owned project with 2000AD artist Smuzz; and “Death Duty” and “Skow Dogs” with Dave Hailwood.