UPDATED: Ivory Castle Arrow covers

I've looked before at Ivory Castle Arrow (here) with their covers by John Ryan (issues 1-9) and John M Burns (issues 10-11). The search for issue 1 and 4 continues. 

Previously I've added images of the club badge but for this update I've added in some images supplied by friend of the blog Keith Chapman concerning his work on 'Arrow. Enjoy!

UPDATE (20/03/26) now withe cover to issue 4 - which is currently on sale here c/o ace ebayer ewan_b

Got issues...2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11

Need issues...1, 4

Ivory Castle Arrow, issue 1

cover not to hand - can you help? 

Ivory Castle Arrow, issue 2

Ivory Castle Arrow, issue 3

Ivory Castle Arrow, issue 4

cover by John Ryan, interior art by Don Harley, Philip Mendoza and others 

Ivory Castle Arrow, issue 5

Ivory Castle Arrow, issue 6

Ivory Castle Arrow, issue 7

Ivory Castle Arrow, issue 8

Interior art is by Philip Mendoza, Reg Parlett and an artist who's signed his work - How they found Maroobi - but I don't recognise the signature

Here's a close-up of that signature...

Any ideas? If so, just let me know, cheers!

UPDATE: I have now been told that the artist is Leslie Caswell - who was a mentor of sorts to Mike Noble when Noble was starting out in comic strips. Norman Boyd has a number of posts about Caswell on his Visual Rants blog, including this one which has comments from two of his children: 

Ivory Castle Arrow, issue 9

Ivory Castle Arrow, issue 10

Ivory Castle Arrow, issue 11

There was also a badge for the Ivory castle league - defend your ivory castles - it commands!

Friend of the blog Keith Chapman has shared these images of his work on issue 11. He also worked on other issues too.

Eagle annual #5 - pay copy

A real one off here. Yes it's a 'pay copy' of Eagle annual #5. That is, it's a copy of the annual marked up with who was paid (and how much they were paid) for each page of the annual. I've seen copies of comics that were 'pay copies' but this was the first time I'd seen an annual.

Anyway, for posterity, here are some images from the annual. Sometimes the writer/artist is credited and sometimes it's their agent.

All images are c/o Gray Newell [with thanks to Norman Boyd for reminding me]. 

John Ryan's Harris Tweed in sporting action here 

The Imperial War Museum, R. Taylor and Frank Bellamy all contributed here

Art by Desmond Walduck; script by Alan Stranks

Art by Harry Bishop; script by Charles Chilton

More John Ryan (script & artwork)

David Langdon art (and script presumably)

Art by John Worsley; script by Alan Stranks (again)

Dan Dare transfers (2)

I'm always happy to feature unusual bits of Eagle merchandise on the blog. 

There were...

Dan Dare roller skates here

Dan Dare hairbrush here

Dan Dare tie clip here

Eagle stationery here

Eagle club notebook here

With the compliments of the Eagle club here

Eagle / Girl table tennis medals here

Eagle club cycle pennant here

Dan Dare gyro jeep here

Dan Dare space shooting here

Dan Dare rocket ball here

Dan Dare beach ball here

Dan Dare bagatelle here

Eagle report to members (1951) here

Dan Dare field glasses here

Dan Dare interplanetary dominoes here

Dan Dare space-ship construction game here

Dan Dare draughts here

Dan Dare transfers (1) here

and now, thanks to this website we have some more transfer from Tuck's. This is early Eagle merchandise. Great to see appearances from Chicko and Harris Tweed on this merch.

The house of Hulton

I've looked before at Hulton House on Fleet Street (here) and somehow I also knew that there was an interesting book out there called 'The house of Hulton' but I didn't know anything much about it.

Anyway, I finally acquired a copy so I thought I'd share it here so you can all see what it look like...

So it's 28 pages (including covers) long, slightly smaller than A4 and is coloured black, white & red. It was published to celebrate the opening (on Fleet Street) of Hulton House (HH). Before HH was built the various titles produced by Hulton Press were produced in a number of smaller locations (in London). 

The booklet contains short articles on all the key titles for Hulton Press (Picture Post, Lilliput, The farmers weekly and the Eagle / Girl / Swift / Robin titles). I've scanned in the most comic related images from the booklet...

David Langson worked for Eagle

This is John 'Captain Pugwash' Ryan's story of the birth of Eagle - this has been seen before (albeit in black & white) in an old issue of Eagle Times so presenting it here in colour is a first!

 letterers hard at work

Eureka, the young world weekly (1998)

Eureka was an effort by ex-Eagle editor Derek Lord to launch a comic for young people in a similar vein to Eagle all those years before. There may have been more than one dummy produced (it was a project that had a long gestation period) but this is a copy of the dummy I have, A4 sized, full colour, 16 pages

page 2 has a tiny signature - WMS - which is for Bill Storie.

Here Derek Lord sets out his vision for Eureka

Show horse rustlers, by, it looks like the signature says, Nigel Park______ but the speech bubble (in frame 4) obliterates most of the surname. Very frustrating. The signature MUST be that of Nigel Parkinson but it's very unlike his usual cartoon-y style. This is the best art in the whole thing and is very much in the style of someone like Harry Lindfield or Mike Noble. 

Here's a close-up on that signature

John Ryan supplied this Captain Pugwash drawing

William Rudling drew Chloe

William Rudling also wrote & drew The Adventurers

I've since found this link to ace cartoonist Nigel Parkinson's blog for a strip that was intended for Eureka (but wasn't included in the dummy, above)

instead the dummy had this (below) version of Hadrian's Heroes in it instead...art by GM (this was Gordon Matthews) 

I prefer Nigel Parkinson's version!

Jeremy Briggs covered Eureka for Down the Tubes here and here - both the articles are well worth a read as they give a more detailed look at Eureka.

UPDATED: Ivory Castle Arrow covers

I've looked before at Ivory Castle Arrow (here) with their covers by John Ryan (issues 1-9) and John M Burns (issues 10-11). The search for issue 1 and 4 continues. 

Previously I've added images of the club badge but for this update I've added in some images supplied by friend of the blog Keith Chapman concerning his work on 'Arrow. Enjoy!

Ivory Castle Arrow, issue 1

cover not to hand - can you help? 

Ivory Castle Arrow, issue 2

Ivory Castle Arrow, issue 3

Ivory Castle Arrow, issue 4

cover not to hand - can you help? 

Ivory Castle Arrow, issue 5

Ivory Castle Arrow, issue 6

Ivory Castle Arrow, issue 7

Ivory Castle Arrow, issue 8

Interior art is by Philip Mendoza, Reg Parlett and an artist who's signed his work - How they found Maroobi - but I don't recognise the signature

Here's a close-up of that signature...

Any ideas? If so, just let me know, cheers!

UPDATE: I have now been told that the artist is Leslie Caswell - who was a mentor of sorts to Mike Noble when Noble was starting out in comic strips. Norman Boyd has a number of posts about Caswell on his Visual Rants blog, including this one which has comments from two of his children: 

Ivory Castle Arrow, issue 9

Ivory Castle Arrow, issue 10

Ivory Castle Arrow, issue 11

There was also a badge for the Ivory castle league - defend your ivory castles - it commands!

Friend of the blog Keith Chapman has shared these images of his work on issue 11. He also worked on other issues too.