Eaglecon 80 - part 5

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

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

And now we have images from the panels that were held as part of the convention 

Alan Vince interviews Frank Hampson

Alan Vince talks to Charles Chilton (centre) and Frank Humphris (right)

Charles Chilton (centre) and Frank Humphris (right)

photo restored by Allan Harvey...

Frank Humphris (left) and Charles Chilton (right) 

Adrian Perkins (left) and Macdonald Hastings (right)

Marcus Morris (standing) at the opening session

Adrian Perkins (standing) at the opening session

panel discussion

Macdonald Hastings - part 2

Following on from my posting yesterday about Macdonald Hastings (here) here are the details of his other, more well-known book...even so there are some rare variants to look out for,

Here's the book - front cover...

...and back cover...

There are 2 editions published by Michael Joseph (so interestingly not published by Hulton Press)...the first edition (book 2 in the photo below) is just dated 1953 whereas the 2nd edition (book 3 in the photo below) says "second impression October 1953" and also says August 1953, which I assume relates to the first edition.

1955 saw a cheaper version (no photographs; rather than 60 photographs) published under the 'Children's book club edition' banner. This cheaper version is on the left in the photo below and you can see that it's a little smaller than the 'full fat' version [books 2&3] and there is no publisher mentioned on the dustjacket.

The book on the right of the above photo is a book that I only came across recently and, published in 1954, is a German edition of the 'Eagle Special Investigator' book.

The book uses the same photos as the version in English (although the photos are actually a little sharper in the German edition). So, I'm guessing there may have been OTHER foreign editions of this book, the question is am I right? Have you seen any other foreign editions of his Eagle books?

Macdonald Hastings - The search for the little yellow men

'The search for the little yellow men' was published in 1956 by Hulton Press as a look at Eagle's very own Special Investigator, Macdonald 'father of Max' Hastings, travels in the Kalahari desert. 

Eagle volume 5 #49 to Eagle volume 6 #19 had featured his exploits - so that's an amazing 24 weeks of coverage in Eagle. 

That wasn't quite his longest series (that would be the series that came immediately afterwards, all about his travels in the Middle East) but it's still a far cry from his more usual single episode 'challenge'.

So here's the usual 'novelisation' of the story - it's less than 150 pages.

Another view of the book...

But there are also other (even rarer) editions - this is the US edition from (October) 1956 - not as many photos as the UK edition. 

This tribal image is lurking beneath the dustjacket...

There was also this second US edition from (December) 1962 (no dustjacket) - where the young hunter has been promoted from the back of the book to the front!

Come back tomorrow for more Macdonald Hastings rarities...

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)