Magazine for Mugs

Dan Dare was worrying about the spaceship Kingfisher en route to Venus, and Patrolman 49 was off to nab a gang of bank robbers. Seth and Shorty, out Texas way, were hard at work saving the cattle from a tribe of rustling redskins. A handsome young Jew named Saul of Tarsus was aiding & abetting the mob murder of another handsome youth named Stephen. All this was happening last week in the stories and cartoon strips of the spanking new London weekly Eagle, dazzlingly successful magazine brain child of a boyish, 35-year-old vicar of the Church of England.

The Iron Cage. Ever since he came down from Oxford's Brasenose College to become a curate in Liverpool eleven years ago, the Rev. Marcus Morris has been trying to bring religion closer to life in just such unorthodox fashion. At first some parishioners were not entirely pleased to find their curate turning up regularly at pubs and cocktail parties, but Morris kept on trying to break down what he calls "the iron cage between the clergy and the people." In the pubs there was also a certain coolness. "But as soon as I convinced them that I came in to get a drink and not to inspire anybody," says Morris, "they took to me quite naturally."

Two years ago, troubled by the crime-crammed, sexy comic books his eight-year-old daughter brought home, Vicar Morris asked himself why comic-book techniques could not be used "to spread decent, healthy Christian ideals and still be amusing and entertaining." With an artist friend he prepared dummies and peddled his plan from publisher to publisher until it was accepted by the huge and profitable Hulton Press, owners of the Picture Post (circ. 1,500,000). Its first issue a fortnight ago was a 750,000-copy sellout. For last week's issue newsdealers had placed cash-backed orders for 1,986,000 copies.

The Smart Guys. Editor Morris, who has had to resign his parish post in Birkdale, Lancashire to devote full time to the magazine, deftly manages to dispense his message without sacrificing any of the thrills & chills his readers expect for their thruppence. But beneath the candy coating the Christian pill can be detected in such touches as the special, advanced category of Eagle Club members called "Mugs."

"There are really only two kinds of people in the world," explains "The Editor." "One kind are the Mugs. The opposite of the Mugs are the Spivs--also called wide boys, smart guys, hooligans, louts or racketeers. The Mugs are the people who are some use in the world: the people who do something worthwhile for others instead of just grabbing for themselves all the time. Of course the Spivs snigger at that. They use the word Mug as an insult. 'Aren't they mugs?' they say about people who believe in living for something bigger than themselves."

Mug members of the Eagle Club get a special badge, must be recommended by another person ("say, a schoolteacher, club leader, and so on"). "I want to get across religious ideas indirectly," explained Editor Morris over his double whisky in the Two Brewers in London one evening last week. "I don't want to bore young readers with dull and dry preaching."

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