Turn away anyone not born between 1943 and 1959.
I say that only because you, dear reader, will never have experienced the joy and excitement of receiving the weekly copy of the Eagle.
It was a new type of British comic, which was produced to a high standard, had some excellent stories with the most wonderful illustrations.
And each week presented us with a cutaway diagram in full colour of everything from an ocean-going liner to a London bus.
It was so successful that within a short period of its launch on April 16th, 1950, it was followed by its three companions, Girl, Swift and Robin, all of which maintained the same quality, and mix of stories, fine illustrations and informative articles.
And this week on this day it celebrates its 70th anniversary, which is bittersweet, given that I too have passed that into that momentous point in time.
To be accurate I got there a few months earlier and I would not discover my copy of Eagle until 1958, but once discovered I was a fan, continuing to read the comic each week, until some time in 1963, when I reached that age when I put away childish things, embraced the idea of dates, music and fashion.
But I never quite lost my love of the Eagle and would find myself wishing I had kept my back copies, and wishing I could acquire some, which I finally began to do, buying them individually and then by volume, along with the Christmas Annuals, including those from before 1958.
Along the way I discovered Eagle Times, which is the quarterly journal of the Eagle Society.*
At which point I fully admit that this is a bit of a nostalgic trip, but given that nostalgia is never what it’s cracked up to be, I have to say my 70 year old love affair with Eagle, is less about trying to capture my youth and more about what an excellent comic it was and the light it throws on the 1950s.
This was a decade of optimism when despite the shadow of the H bomb, science and technology promised to bring forth a new world on the back of rising prosperity.
And it is all there in the Eagle, from the rocket ships, and adventures across Space to the shaving mask and teleporter.
But look closely and almost all of the Eagle’s future was just a projection of the present, which Thomas Hobbs had offered up three centuries earlier when he said “No man can have in his mind a conception of the future for the future is not yet. But of conceptions of the past, we make a future.”**
It starts with the technology.
Look at any science fiction film from the 1950s and while the rockets are there the mechanisms to control them are more often than not switches and dials.
And even when the writer makes that leap of imagination like the handheld communicator it is less a bold flight of fancy and more just a logical next step.
So happy birthday Eagle.
Pictures; from the Eagle 70 years 1950-1969, the Eagle Society, and Eagle February 11, 1952
*The Eagle Society, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/The%20Eagl
**Hobbs, Thomas, The Elements of Law, Natural and Politics, 1650
It was a new type of British comic, which was produced to a high standard, had some excellent stories with the most wonderful illustrations.
And each week presented us with a cutaway diagram in full colour of everything from an ocean-going liner to a London bus.
It was so successful that within a short period of its launch on April 16th, 1950, it was followed by its three companions, Girl, Swift and Robin, all of which maintained the same quality, and mix of stories, fine illustrations and informative articles.
And this week on this day it celebrates its 70th anniversary, which is bittersweet, given that I too have passed that into that momentous point in time.
To be accurate I got there a few months earlier and I would not discover my copy of Eagle until 1958, but once discovered I was a fan, continuing to read the comic each week, until some time in 1963, when I reached that age when I put away childish things, embraced the idea of dates, music and fashion.
Along the way I discovered Eagle Times, which is the quarterly journal of the Eagle Society.*
At which point I fully admit that this is a bit of a nostalgic trip, but given that nostalgia is never what it’s cracked up to be, I have to say my 70 year old love affair with Eagle, is less about trying to capture my youth and more about what an excellent comic it was and the light it throws on the 1950s.
This was a decade of optimism when despite the shadow of the H bomb, science and technology promised to bring forth a new world on the back of rising prosperity.
But look closely and almost all of the Eagle’s future was just a projection of the present, which Thomas Hobbs had offered up three centuries earlier when he said “No man can have in his mind a conception of the future for the future is not yet. But of conceptions of the past, we make a future.”**
It starts with the technology.
Look at any science fiction film from the 1950s and while the rockets are there the mechanisms to control them are more often than not switches and dials.
And even when the writer makes that leap of imagination like the handheld communicator it is less a bold flight of fancy and more just a logical next step.
So happy birthday Eagle.
Pictures; from the Eagle 70 years 1950-1969, the Eagle Society, and Eagle February 11, 1952
*The Eagle Society, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/The%20Eagl
**Hobbs, Thomas, The Elements of Law, Natural and Politics, 1650
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