Edited by Ian Wheeler
Contact: eaglefliesagain@hotmail.com
Price: £1.75/$2.75 (email for details)
Eagle Flies Again is a hugely impressive magazine based around the various iterations of The Eagle comic and strips spun out of that classic series, focusing primarily on Dan Dare but covering a whole range of other topics from issue to issue. This particular issue has very many items of interest to even the non-Eagle reader, and as such is probably the best introductory issue to this magazine series.
It all kicks off with a great Alan Grant interview, three pages of goodness delving way beyond his Batman and 2000AD work into the detail of his Doomlord series (a classic alien walks the earth series, told initially through photostrips), followed by another three pager, this time with Dez Skinn, editor and creator of many excellent British title, Warrior and Dr Who Weekly amongst the best covered here. A short feature on Dan Dare and the upcoming Titan hardcover reprints later, and then we’re in to the meat of the issue…a detailed and thorough investigation into the whys and wherefores of Grant Morrison’s limited release Dan Dare series, Dare, originally serialised in the low-print run Revolver (finished off in Crisis) and collected a long time ago in a now out-of-print (and hugely expensive on EBAY) trade.
When I say thorough, I mean it – it even gives away the plot secrets and the ending, so if you intend to read the book you may just want to read the first half of the article and leave the rest until you’ve finished – otherwise this may be your only opportunity to pick up substantial details on a significant work in Morrison’s history.
Another large feature rounds off the magazine, this time on Don Lawrence and his major works Storm and Trigan Empire – the few pages reprinted here show directly how his work influenced numerous modern day comics artists, and the article gives a good grounding in what to look out for in sampling Lawrence’s books…oh for an easily affordable edition of them all…
A few other smaller features and strips round off the issue – one of them is an old Dez Skinn themed reprint which relies heavily on knowing the participants to enjoy the in-jokes (so anyone with a reasonable grounding in Warrior and Dez’s other works should get a lot out of it), the other is a Dan Dare pastiche, with attractive art and a decent script, but you want a lot more than one page each issue for this ongoing story…
Very good read, totally worth the money, email the editor Ian Wheeler at the address above for ordering details.
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