{"id":32713,"date":"2025-04-27T08:00:05","date_gmt":"2025-04-27T08:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/?p=32713"},"modified":"2025-04-25T17:25:11","modified_gmt":"2025-04-25T17:25:11","slug":"the-eagle-book-of-cutaways-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/2025\/04\/27\/the-eagle-book-of-cutaways-2\/","title":{"rendered":"The Eagle Book of Cutaways"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\" \"\"
\nBy L Ashwell Wood<\/strong>, edited by Denis Gifford (Webb & Bower)
\nISBN: 978-0-86350-285-9 (HB)<\/p>\n

It seems inconceivable today, but one of the most popular features in the most popular comic of the 1950\u2019s wasn\u2019t a comic strip at all. When Eagle<\/strong> launched on April 14th<\/sup> 1950, it was a black & white, tabloid-sized periodical, combining strip and prose on good paper with a fuller-than-full-colour front, back and inner cover. The same high quality photo-gravure was used on the centre sheet: four more glorious colour pages for drab, grey, austere post-war Britain. Across the very centre of those was a painted spread depicting \u2018The New Gas Turbine-Electric Locomotive – The 18000\u2019<\/em>. That was a magnificent train with the engine and operating system exposed, pertinent points numbered and an explanatory block of text explaining every detail. Boys (and, I\u2019m sure, girls) and their dads were transfixed and continued to be so for the next 999 issues. Each week a new technological marvel of the Space Age or emergent Modern World would be painted in mindboggling detail and breezy efficient clarity to captivate and fascinate the readers.<\/p>\n

Most were crafted by the most marvellous L Ashwell Wood (of whom precious little is known; for what there is you should go to Steve Holland\u2019s wonderful and informative Bear Alley<\/strong> website) and – although not a new concept – they have become part of the shared psyche of British comic fandom. Ever since, the fascinating allure of cutaway drawings has bewitched readers, from TV21<\/strong> to 2000AD<\/strong> and every comic in between. Something similar affects many women in regard to cut-out paper dolls. I don\u2019t think Eagle had any of those though…
\n\"\"
\nThis grand book reproduces 46 of the very best centre spreads, from that aforementioned wonder of the rails through other trains and boats and planes and even to that marvel of a future Age, Dan Dare\u2019s spaceship Anastasia<\/em> (originally revealed on February 7th<\/sup> 1958).<\/p>\n

Unavailable digitally, the technically enthralling tome commands some pretty stiff prices – and even though I\u2019m prepared to say that it\u2019s worth it, the best solution would be for some enterprising history or popular culture publisher to get the thing back into print immediately – if not sooner. Isn\u2019t that what anniversary celebrations are all about?<\/p>\n

In 2008 Orion published The Eagle Annual of the Cutaways<\/strong> – a new hardback version by Daniel Tatarsky (ISBN: 978-1 40910-014 0) which is okay, but just not quite as spiffy and rewarding to my jaded aged eyes, but will do until you can get hold of the landscape compendium…
\n\"\"
\nIllustrations \u00a9 1988 Fleetway Publications\/Syndication International. All Rights Reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By L Ashwell Wood, edited by Denis Gifford (Webb & Bower) ISBN: 978-0-86350-285-9 (HB) It seems inconceivable today, but one of the most popular features in the most popular comic of the 1950\u2019s wasn\u2019t a comic strip at all. When Eagle launched on April 14th 1950, it was a black & white, tabloid-sized periodical, combining … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “The Eagle Book of Cutaways”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[109,42,119,170,127,107],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32713","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-how-to-books","category-best-of-british","category-comicsacademic","category-non-fiction","category-nostalgia","category-science-fiction"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4AFj-8vD","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32713","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32713"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32713\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32718,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32713\/revisions\/32718"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32713"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32713"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32713"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}