The changes that the new management imposed on Eagle were immense. After its initial few years, Eagle had settled down to a series of much loved strips with competent artists - PC49 and John Worsley, Storm Nelson and Richard Jennings, Riders of the Range and Frank Humphris, Luck of the Legion and Martin Aitchison, Jack o'Lantern and Robert Ayton, The Life of ... on the back page - this was quality stuff remembered today with fondness. Within a year they had all gone. Circulation had started to drop, and went into freefall. One editor resorted to the supernatural [see below], and the stories became shorter and more perfunctory. Reprints appeared, and stories bought in, often from American comics. And then came the merger with Lion ...
This strip concerned a football team which was made from the members of a circus - hence the title. This story was probably started in anticipation of the merger with Lion - some material had to be carried over to the new merged comic. The frame I have picked is by no means the worst! And the storyline was obviously aimed at a younger age range.
In the mid 60s the Eagle suddenly went supernatural - even those stories which were supposed to be 'straight' had bizarre things happening - which could just be explained away as natural phenomena. Blackbow was a good example of that - although it was one of the closest to the 'old' Eagle strips. It did keep Frank Humphris in work though, and he must qualify as one of the longest running Eagle artists. But the relationship between the editorial team and its contributors had gone ... it became just a job.
So - we have a living jelly .... which for some reason had made its way into a police strip!
Iron Man was carrried over from the very short lived comic Boys' World,which folded and merged with Eagle in 1964. Iron Man was a robot which appeared human. Initially the stories were routine enough, but towards the end even they picked up the supernatural. They were drawn by a Spanish artist.
When I came across this strip some years ago, I thought it must be the worst that Eagle ever ran. Having looked at the last volume, I changed my opinion. But it must rate as one of the mindless that Eagle ever ran. It came in relatively early during the '62 overhaul
This was worse than Mann of Battle! And as to the story line - it made no sense whatsoever.
Smokeman took over the front page in 1966, and was a 'superhero' type of story - but despite good artwork was also fairly ludicrous. Again, it involved the fantasy/UFO/supernatural syndrome, and bore no resemblance to the earlier type of strip which Eagle had run. True, time were changing in the sixties, and "flowerpower" was on its way - but these stories didn't solve the circulation problem.
The sad part of all this was that Marcus Morris had started Eagle for the very purpose of trying to escape this sort of comic strip - and when the 'professionals' got their hand on it, that's what it reverted to. And so it became the same as any other comic. And promptly wilted and died.
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