Shown here are two of the dummies that EAGLE‘s founders, Frank Hampson and Marcus Morris, put together to sell the idea to a sceptical publishing world.
Both images shown space hero Dan Dare prominently (albeit in purple, so the strip doesn’t quite yet have that ‘RAF in Space’ vibe) and have strips that would make it into the first issue of Eagle (“The Great Adventurer” and “Rob Conway” – as “Secret City” was renamed).
Who can say what became of “Ernie” and “Joe of Strawberry Farm”, apart from the fact that they were never seen again.
As the launch date got closer, so further issues had to be mocked up to show what the magazine would look like. The image here shows what a transformation has taken place since the initial dummy magazines were put together.
This is much closer to what the eventual second issue would look like, but there were still a number of alterations to be made. Space Fleet are all still decked out in gorgeous purple rather than RAF green, the Eagle bird has yet to make it onto the front cover, the famous Eagle font has yet to be designed by Ruari McLean and the Dan Dare logo is not quite ready.
• 60th anniversary of Eagle – Part Two
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Richard Sheaf is a longtime contributor to downthetubes and has written for numerous magazines about British comics.
Categories: British Comics, Comics, Creating Comics, downthetubes Comics News
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simply amazing…
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I know April 14th 1950 is usually considered the launch date for Eagle but did it have a cover date of a week ahead like other comics? If so, when was the actual launch date? Anyone know?