Eaglecon 80 - part 10

It occurs to me that I've not covered anything to do with the very first Eagle comic convention - Eaglecon 80. A recent sale by ace ebay seller phil-comics (here) of one of the awards from Eaglecon 80 (see below) for £155 has inspired me to start looking images.

I looked at some initial images here

We had images about what was on display here

images of the original art that was on display here

the banquet dinner here

from the panels here

Frank Hampson here

Interviews being held here

Keith Watson here

More Keith here

All these images are from the late, great Eagle & Dan Dare historian Adrian Perkins.

And now we have

This photo is entitled 'at our first planning meeting' - the chap in the middle is artist Keith Page and I think it's Alan Vince on the left

Charles Evans-Gunther (left); Alan Whitehead (right). Both well-known Eagle fans back in the day.

Keith Watson & Frank Hampson

Greta Tomlinson - Dan Dare artist (and model for Professor Peabody)

Keith Page & Rod 'Spaceship Away' Barzilay

Keith Page again - showing artwork

Peter Hampson

Pip Warwick (left) showing one of his Mekon sculptures to ??

Chad Varah for Girl

Recently up for sale by ace ebay seller phil-comics (here) was this intriguing letter sent to (founder of the Samaritans and also comics writer) Chad Varah regarding a script proposal he's submitted.

You'll see from the text of the letter that the proposal (about 'Bridget of Ireland' - presumably Brigid, the patron saint of Ireland - wiki page here) has been rejected for being too violent! A new idea is called for, and quickly, as the strip is to run in Girl in December 1959 - February 1960 and it's already October (1959).

I don't have a list of Girl true life backpage stories so I'm unsure what they ended up running with or, indeed, if Chad wrote it. If you can help do let me know.

UPDATE:

here's a selection of the backpage strips that he did script

UPDATE (2):

Friend of the blog Steve Winders says...

Re. Bridget of Ireland: It did appear in Girl in 1960 as Bride of Ireland. Bride is another name for Bridget. Drawn by Gerald Haylock.

It is mentioned in Martin Crookall's blog on the Girl Comic Part 3 page with a Gerald Haylock tag. 

It is also mentioned in a Down the Tubes page about Chad Varah and the comics uk forum where Phillip Rushton posted some images of the strip. Nevertheless it looks like it did appear in Girl, after all.

UPDATED: Eagle & Barnardo Helpers' League

Eagle annual 4 (1955) contained a story written by Chad 'founder of the Samaritans' Varah and Norman 'father of Pat' Williams. 

The story was entitled 'The street-arabs' friend' and told the story of Dr Barnardo and how he came to set up the institution that we would come to know as Barnardo's.

So this follows in the 'tradition' of Eagle publishing true-life (back page) stories and it used two well established Eagle figures to present this story.

Until now I just thought that was the end of this strip, the one-off appearance in the annual, but it turns out I was wrong... 

In fact the whole strip was reprinted by Barnardo's in the form of a piece of promotional literature to promote the "Barnardo Helpers' League"

This must count as one of the most obscure pieces of Eagle spin-off publications out there, good luck hunting a copy down!

You can't see it on the scan below very well but there is a note which says "Printed by the Apprentices at the Press of Dr. Barnardo's, Goldings, Hertford, Leaflet No. 3/67" - so I'm guessing this is form 1967?? 

UPDATE:

I've now discovered that there was another edition of this pamphlet...the 'blue' edition...

You'll see that this leaflet has reference number 1/59 on it - so perhaps this leaflet was produced in 1959 and thus pre-dates the 'green' pamphlet (with its 3/67 reference - which I surmised was produced in 1967).

Eagle & Barnardo Helpers' League

Eagle annual 4 (1955) contained a story written by Chad 'founder of the Samaritans' Varah and Norman 'father of Pat' Williams. 

The story was entitled 'The street-arabs' friend' and told the story of Dr Barnardo and how he came to set up the instituition that we would come to know as Barnardo's. 

So this follows in the 'tradition' of Eagle publishing true-life (back page) stories and it used two well established Eagle figures to present this story.

Until now I just thought that was the end of this strip, the one-off appearance in the annual, but it turns out I was wrong... 

In fact the whole strip was reprinted by Barnardo's in the form of a piece of promotional literature to promote the "Barnardo Helpers' League"

This must count as one of the most obscure pieces of Eagle spin-off publications out there, good luck hunting a copy down!

You can't see it on the scan below very well but there is a note which says "Printed by the Apprentices at the Press of Dr. Barnardo's, Goldings, Hertford, Leaflet No. 3/67" - so I'm guessing this is form 1967?? 

original Eagle autographs

There's a (pricey!) but interesting item currently for sale on ebay (here) of a selection of autographs of original Eagle contributors...

I suspect that the Hampson autograph is quite early in his career as it doesn't look like his 'normal' autograph from when he was signing items in the late '70s and early '80s - the Dragon's Dream reprints or items from Eaglecon 80. The 'F' and the 'H' are curlier than normal, compare to the signature on this item for instance...

Talking of autographs - here are some signatures that one dedicated fan collected at Eaglecon 80 from...Macdonald hastings, Marcus Morris, Frank Hampson, (art editor) Arthur Roberts, Keith Watson, Charles Chilton, Frank Humphris, Derek Lord, Chad Varah and Richard Jennings

I've tipped the above signatures in my 'signed by lots of original Eagle people' book - here we can see Roy Cross, Derek Lord, Chad Varah, John Batchelor, Greta Tomlinson, John Ryan, Ray Bailey, Gerald Palmer, John M Burns and Paul Trevillion. 

On this page Charles Chilton, Jack Daniel, Peter Jackson, Martin Aitchison and Marcus Morris's 3 daughters (Ruth Williams, Sally Morris and Jan Hallwood)

Here...Joan Porter (Frank Hampson assistant), Don Harley, Ian Kennedy, Peter Hampson and Margaret Walker (Frank Hampson's sister)

Blasting off from a bakery

In 2000 the Eagle Society (more details here) organised a trip to the spiritual home of Eagle, Southport, part of the trip included going to the Bakery (so named as it was the site of a former bakery) where the very earliest issues of Eagle had been produced by Frank Hampson and his team.

Here's Peter Hampson standing outside the Bakery, as you can see it's a bit of a ramshackle, lean-to sort of building.

Here's Chad Varah (the gent wearing the hat), founder of the Samritans, and early Eagle writer at the Bakery.

Eagle related clippings inside...

A glimpse inside the Bakery