TWO ILLUSTRATIONS FOR SWIFT

By mid-1961 Eagle was firmly in the grasp of Fleetway Publications and the original Hulton staffers - ‘a bag of gold in human effort and attitude’ - were falling like ninepins. Clifford Makins, whom Marcus had made general editor of all four papers, now only headed Eagle. He got on well with Hugh Cudlipp, but couldn’t stand the Fleetway managers and quit around early September to join the Observer. Most of the people who’d given birth to, and nursed Eagle, Girl, Swift and Robin, fled with him.

Val Holding replaced Makins and early in September 1961 commissioned Hampson to do a cover for Swift of Custer’s Last Stand. Frank delivered the version
here: not vintage Hampson, but on a par with a version Frank Humphries had drawn earlier in Eagle for Riders of the Range.

Six or seven weeks later (Frank had been ill in between) Holding asked him again for a Swift cover, this time of the Coronation of Elizabeth I. The Elizabeth artwork was delivered to Fleetway by Frank in person on 8th December. But Fleetway managers were so unpleasant at that meeting that he fell ill again, not recovering until late March 1962.