Eagle Annual: The Best of the 1950s Comic [Hardcover]

I'm not surprised that this book has produced such wildly polarised opinions (see earlier reviews). This is because it approaches a popular subject, and one much published upon over the last thirty years, from a new and original angle, but unfortunately makes one or two easily avoidable bloopers in doing so.

This book is an Eagle scrapbook, nothing more, nothing less, and as such offers a novel perspective on this much-anthologised subject. Earlier Eagle-based publications have concentrated on the picture-strip stories, and on the premier features such as the centre-page cutaway schematics. Readers lamenting the relegation of the strips to single-page tasters in this book should check out the wonderful Hawk reprints of the complete adventures of Dan Dare from 1950 to around 1964, especially in the first editions which were produced full-size using the original published pages, unedited, and also the beautifully-offered strips in Hawk's one-off editions of Fraser of Africa, Harris Tweed, Riders Of The Range and PC49. The strips and the best features from the weekly also grace Marcus Morris's original The Best Of Eagle from 1977, and Denis Gifford produced The Best Of Eagle Annual in 1989 which offers a similar mixture taken from Eagle Annuals, 1951-59. All of these are generally available in used condition on Amazon or elsewhere.

What the present volume does offer, for the first time, is a flavour of all the other bits and pieces that made Eagle what it was, especially in the early years: the educational titbits, the news and sporting items, the puzzles and quizzes, the competitions, and, yes, those adverts. As a hardcore Eagle reader from around 1955 to around 1962 - aged 6 to 13 - these more humble items of course went right over my head when compared to the highly-coloured derring-do of Dare, Luck and Jeff Arnold. But today they present a fascinating social document of young-boy culture from that decade which now seems a world away, and for that very reason are most welcome.

Perhaps Mr Tatarsky's mistake is to include any pages from the great strips at all, especially as these are so freely available elsewhere. Maybe he should have offered us "The Rest Of Eagle"? However not including them would make this a severely specialist publication, and, after all, sales figures do matter. Hence readers should accept what is here for what it is, enjoy it in that spirit, and look to the other books listed above for the more monumental Eagle achievements.

There are other issues. Although the careworn cover simulation has a certain charm, the hideous mock foxing effect on the pages inside is a big mistake, and considerably cheapens the presentation rather than giving it atmosphere. It is to be hoped that this technique will not be used in the forthcoming 1960s companion volume. The title "Eagle Annual" is misleading as this is a compendium from the periodical itself, not from the annuals. And certainly the reprographic process used to reproduce the pages has resulted in some blurry images, surely avoidable in these days of high-tech scanners and printers.

However, putting all this aside, there is plenty in this relatively inexpensive volume to fascinate all men of a certain age who hanker after the nostalgia of the 'fifties, when the appearance of Eagle brightened up every Tuesday in austerity Britain. It will be interesting to see what the 1960s volume looks like when it appears, as Eagle changed greatly with the departures of Frank Hampson and Marcus Morris, and sadly not for the better.

I saw this book and thought that it was the very book that I had been looking for; but what a disappointment! Two big problems in my view. First, there is far far too much of editorial, 'club news' and cutaway drawings. Second there are no complete stories of Dan Dare, Luck of the Legion;et al even just one full story of each would be welcome. After all we know what the comic looked like; I wanted to reread a story and relive the threat of the Mekon. Any annual has to have complete stories not just a series of 'tasters'. I can't waste more words on it.

If, as I do, you have fond memories of the 50's then this book is a MUST. In so many ways the Eagle comic represented this era better than any other British comic. The book is beautifully presented and contains so much nostalgic reading and excellent reproduction of pages from the original comic including the first ever issue in April 1950. Yes, some strips are not included but this is a small critism. Buy it, you won't be disappointed.