Martin Henry Hugh Aitchison (21 November 1919 – 22 October 2016) was an illustrator for the ''Eagle'' comic from 1952 to 1963, and then one of the main

illustrator An illustrator is an artist who specializes in enhancing writing or elucidating concepts by providing a visual representation that corresponds to the content of the associated text or idea. The illustration may be intended to clarify complicat ...

s for

Ladybird Books Ladybird Books is a London-based publishing company, trading as a stand-alone imprint within the Penguin Group of companies. The Ladybird imprint publishes mass-market children's books. It is an imprint of Penguin Random House, a subsidiary of ...

from 1963 to 1990. Aitchison was born in

Kings Norton Kings Norton, alternatively King's Norton, is an area of Birmingham, England. Historically in Worcestershire, it was also a Birmingham City Council ward within the Government of Birmingham, England. The district lies 6.5 miles south-sout ...

, Worcestershire (now part of

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the We ...

). He was educated at

Ellesmere College (''Striving for one's country'') , established = 1879 , song = ''Jerusalem'' , type = Public schoolIndependent schoolBoarding schoolDay School , religious_affiliation = Church of England , president = , head_label ...

Shropshire Shropshire (; alternatively Salop; abbreviated in print only as Shrops; demonym Salopian ) is a landlocked historic county in the West Midlands region of England. It is bordered by Wales to the west and the English counties of Cheshire to ...

, leaving aged 15 to attend the

Birmingham School of Art The Birmingham School of Art was a municipal art school based in the centre of Birmingham, England. Although the organisation was absorbed by Birmingham Polytechnic in 1971 and is now part of Birmingham City University's Faculty of Arts, Design a ...

and then

Slade School of Art The UCL Slade School of Fine Art (informally The Slade) is the art school of University College London (UCL) and is based in London, England. It has been ranked as the UK's top art and design educational institution. The school is organised as ...

. He married fellow art student

Dorothy Self Dorothy may refer to: * Dorothy (given name), a list of people with that name. Arts and entertainment Characters * Dorothy Gale, protagonist of ''The Wonderful Wizard of Oz'' by L. Frank Baum * Ace (''Doctor Who'') or Dorothy, a character pla ...

. He exhibited at the

Royal Academy The Royal Academy of Arts (RA) is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly in London. Founded in 1768, it has a unique position as an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects. Its purp ...

in 1939. He was deaf, excluding him from active service in the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

, but he worked for

Vickers Aircraft Vickers was a British engineering company that existed from 1828 until 1999. It was formed in Sheffield as a steel foundry by Edward Vickers and his father-in-law, and soon became famous for casting church bells. The company went public in 18 ...

as a technical illustrator. He produced drawings for the

bouncing bomb A bouncing bomb is a bomb designed to bounce to a target across water in a calculated manner to avoid obstacles such as torpedo nets, and to allow both the bomb's speed on arrival at the target and the timing of its detonation to be pre-dete ...

Barnes Wallis Sir Barnes Neville Wallis (26 September 1887 – 30 October 1979) was an English engineer and inventor. He is best known for inventing the bouncing bomb used by the Royal Air Force in Operation Chastise (the "Dambusters" raid) to attac ...

for the Dam Busters air raid. He became a freelance commercial artist after the war, producing drawings for a range of magazines. His earliest work was for

Hulton Press Sir Edward George Warris Hulton (29 November 1906 – 8 October 1988) was a British magazine publisher and writer. Early life Hulton was born to Sir Edward Hulton, 1st Baronet, a newspaper publisher and racehorse owner originally from Manchest ...

' ''

Lilliput Lilliput may refer to: Geography * Lilliput (townland), a townland in County Westmeath, Ireland * Lilliput, Dorset, a district in the town of Poole in Dorset, United Kingdom * Lilliput Glacier, the smallest named glacier in the Sierra Nevada of C ...

'' magazine. He drew for ''

Girl A girl is a young female human, usually a child or an adolescent. When a girl becomes an adult, she is accurately described as a '' woman''. However, the term ''girl'' is also used for other meanings, including ''young woman'',Dictionar ...

'', filling in for

Ray Bailey Raymond Frederick Bailey (25 November 1935 – 15 February 2012) was a member of the Tasmanian Legislative Council. He was first elected to the now abolished Division of Cornwall on 26 May 1990. He was re-elected in the 1996 Cornwall ...

on "Kitty Hawke and her All-Girl Air Crew", and illustrating "Flick and the Vanishing New Girl" in the first ''Girl'' annual. He began to work for the ''Eagle'' in 1952, drawing the

French Foreign Legion The French Foreign Legion (french: Légion étrangère) is a corps of the French Army which comprises several specialties: infantry, cavalry, engineers, airborne troops. It was created in 1831 to allow foreign nationals into the French Army ...

strip " Luck of the Legion", written by

Geoffrey Bond Geoffrey, Geoffroy, Geoff, etc., may refer to: People * Geoffrey (name), including a list of people with the name * Geoffroy (surname), including a list of people with the name * Geoffrey of Monmouth (c. 1095–c. 1155), clergyman and one of the ...

, for nearly ten years, including spin-off strips in ''ABC Film Review'' in 1952. He also drew spy series "Danger Unlimited" and adaptations of

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle (22 May 1859 – 7 July 1930) was a British writer and physician. He created the character Sherlock Holmes in 1887 for ''A Study in Scarlet'', the first of four novels and fifty-six short stories about Hol ...

's ''

The Lost World The lost world is a subgenre of the fantasy or science fiction genres that involves the discovery of an unknown Earth civilization. It began as a subgenre of the late-Victorian adventure romance and remains popular into the 21st century. The g ...

'' and

C. S. Forester Cecil Louis Troughton Smith (27 August 1899 – 2 April 1966), known by his pen name Cecil Scott "C. S." Forester, was an English novelist known for writing tales of naval warfare, such as the 12-book Horatio Hornblower series depicting a Royal ...

Horatio Hornblower Horatio Hornblower is a fictional officer in the British Royal Navy during the Napoleonic Wars, the protagonist of a series of novels and stories by C. S. Forester. He later became the subject of films, radio and television programmes, a ...

stories for the ''Eagle'', and "Arty and Crafty", written by Geoffrey Bond, for ''Eagle'''s junior companion paper ''

Swift Swift or SWIFT most commonly refers to: * SWIFT, an international organization facilitating transactions between banks ** SWIFT code * Swift (programming language) * Swift (bird), a family of birds It may also refer to: Organizations * SWIFT ...

''. His work for comics displayed his talents in an exuberant and creative medium, working mainly from imagination. He joined Ladybird Books in 1963, and joined

Harry Wingfield John Henry "Harry" Wingfield (4 December 1910 – 5 March 2002) was an English illustrator, best known for his drawings that illustrated the Ladybird Books Key Words Reading Scheme (also known as '' Peter and Jane'') in the 1960s through to the ...

in illustrating many titles in its new

Key Words Reading Scheme The Key Words Reading Scheme is a series of 36 English language early readers children's books, published by the British publishing company, Ladybird Books. The series are also often referred to as Peter and Jane, the names of the main characte ...

books, also known as Peter and Jane, which were used to teach so many British children to read. The consistency, naturalistic style and attention to detail of the artist made him a favourite with the prolific British publisher and over a period of a quarter of a century, he illustrated at least 100 different titles. Martin Aitchison was not the only artist to make the switch from ''The Eagle'' to Ladybird;

Frank Hampson Frank Hampson (21 December 1918 – 8 July 1985) was a British illustrator. He is best known as the creator and artist of Dan Dare and other characters in the boys' comic, the ''Eagle'', to which he contributed from 1950 to 1961. Biograp ...

and also followed the same path. He left Ladybird in 1987, and retired - apart from drawing a new comic strip, "Justin Tyme - ye Hapless Highwayman", written by Geoffrey Bond, and later his son Jim, for the fanzine ''Eagle Times'' from 1998 to 2004. He died on 22 October 2016 at the age of 96.Martin Aitchison
/ref>

Comics bibliography

Kitty Hawke and her All-Girl Air Crew Kitty or Kittie may refer to: Animals * Cat, a small, domesticated carnivorous mammal ** Kitten, a young cat Film * Kitty Films, an anime production company in Japan * ''Kitty'' (1929 film), based on the Deeping novel; the first British talkin ...

", ''

'' *"Flick and the Vanishing New Girl, ''Girl Annual'' No 1 *" Luck of the Legion" written by

, ''

Eagle Eagle is the common name for many large birds of prey of the family Accipitridae. Eagles belong to several groups of genera, some of which are closely related. Most of the 68 species of eagle are from Eurasia and Africa. Outside this area, j ...

'' Vol 3 No 5 – Vol 12 No 37, ''Eagle Annual'' No 3-10 (1952-1961) *"Danger Unlimited", ''Eagle'' Vol 12 No 33 – Vol 13 No 9 *"The Lost World", ''Eagle'' Vol 13 No 10 – Vol 13 No 29 *"Hornblower R. N.", ''Eagle Vol 13 No 28 – Vol 14 No 9 *"Warrior with Tin Legs", ''Eagle Annual'' No 11 (1962) *"Justin Tyme - Ye Hapless Highwayman", ''Eagle Times'' Vol 11 No 4 (Winter 1998) - Vol 17 No 1 (Spring 2004)

References

Biography
Eagle Times, 8 January 2008

Eagle Times, 31 December 2009

External links

Official website

Martin Aitchison remembered
{{DEFAULTSORT:Aitchison, Martin 1919 births 2016 deaths British comics artists British illustrators Deaf artists People educated at Ellesmere College English deaf people Alumni of the Birmingham School of Art