1981: GIRL ISSUE 1 (IPC)

From February 1981: the first issue of IPC's somewhat (in retrospect) familiar looking new weekly: GIRL.

I stumbled across this recently in a secondhand magazine store and although I initially dismissed it, I was tempted enough to look inside and was surprised to see it really was the prototype for the relaunch of the EAGLE a year later,

The tone is the typical prepubescent chumminess ("Your very best friend") but the style, features and - most importantly - the photo-stories that defined the EAGLE's first (and, for me, best) eighteen months (give or take) are all piloted here.

The original GIRL, subtitled "Sister paper to Eagle", was launched in November 1951 by Hilton Press and survived various corporate takeovers to end in the care of IPC. The conglomerate was streamlining its acquisitions and folded GIRL in October 1964.

This 1981 revival ran through to 1990.