Eagle Eye continued
the tradition of SHIVER AND SHAKE suspense and adventure features by offering
readers a chance to follow the story and win some cash. It was a simple
detective yarn with no magic or the supernatural involved. I am not sure who
the illustrator was, although the style looks familiar. The two-page feature
appeared in SHIVER section but the last episode of the second tale was in
SHAKE.
Eagle Eye was the nick-name
of the main character – a London school boy Tommy Trotter. The young man had a
very sharp eye for spotting things that escaped other people’s attention and
his powers of observation were remarkable.
There were
two Eagle
Eye stories in SHIVER AND SHAKE weeklies, the first ran in issues 24 to
31 (August
18 – October 6, 1973) and the second – in issues 42 to 51 (December 22, 1973 – February 23,
1974). Let’s take a quick look at both.
In the
first story Tommy Trotter spotted something strange about a baker’s van,
followed it and discovered it was used in a robbery. In the process of trying
to get a better look at the criminals so that he could describe them to the
police, the lad is captured by the gang and taken to a spooky old house
where he is kept prisoner. The alert and observant boy doesn’t take long to
find a way to escape and shake off his persecutors. He leads the police back to the
old house and uses his extraordinary talents to help officers in recovering the
loot and arresting the gangsters.
In every
episode Tommy Trotter spotted an important clue and readers were encouraged to
keep their eyes peeled for them because the clues were their chance to win a
cash prize. This is the announcement that came after the last episode in issue
31:
The clues
were revealed and names of the lucky prize-winners printed ten weeks later in
issue 41 (December
15, 1973):
The second Eagle
Eye story started next week in issue 42. This time we see Tommy
travelling with his parents to a ski resort in Scotland. On the train he spots
a suspicious pair and soon finds out that they are Professor Simon Dale, an
atomic scientist from the Government research centre in Cambridge, who is held
prisoner by an enemy agent Igor (ah, those Russians!). Igor plans to take the
Professor to the West Coast where a foreign submarine will be waiting to ship
him abroad and then force him to reveal top-secret information. As the story develops over the weeks, the
youngster not only saves the Professor but also sinks the enemy submarine and
hands over the enemy agent and the submariners to the authorities.
Once again,
the last instalment comes with an announcement of the Eagle Eye reward. Fifty
1-pound prizes were up for grabs by the readers who were able to answer a few
(embarrassingly easy) questions:
Correct
answers and prize-winners’ names were printed in issue 61 (4th May, 1974):
It looks
like foreign spies and Igor’s accomplices did their best in trying to prevent
readers of SHIVER AND SHAKE from following the second Eagle Eye story because
weekly instalments of the feature were delayed on two occasions, necessitating
the inclusion of the following notices by the Editor in issues 46 and 50:
It looks
like the problems were post-related. The Editor urgently had to find something
to fill the empty space with. This might be an explanation of the origins of a
strange feature entitled ‘ED – That’s me, folks! It very much
looks like something that was drawn and included at very short notice. ‘ED
made only three appearances in SHIVER AND SHAKE weekly issues 46, 48 and 50.
Note how two of the issues coincide with the Eagle Eye delays; I think
this confirms the assumption that the strip was put together in a rush as an
emergency space-filler. It is also found in a few SHIVER AND SHAKE annuals and
holiday specials.
A nice
episode of Eagle Eye was included in Shiver
and Shake Annual 1975 where it was illustrated by the excellent Ron
Turner; you can see the first page in my earlier post about the 1975 ShSh Annual.
