20 December 2015
I recently had a conversation with Sydney about an obituary notice that he had recently written about his ex-colleague and mentor Eric Souster who passed away a couple of weeks ago. He told me of an extraordinary chance encounter that in hindsight was, to Sydney’s mind, a key turning point in his life and without which the whole universe of Jeff Hawke might never have come into existence .
It was the spring of 1952 and Sydney, a young jobbing artist , recently arrived in the big Smoke from his home in Scotland , was making his way along Fleet street to the Amalgamated Press building in the hope of picking up more commissions. His portfolio contained a miscellany of work and included some sketches he had made for a prospective sci-fi strip with a main character called Orion.He recalls that he had stopped briefly outside one of the Agencies’ windows and was admiring some artwork by Tony Wier, who later went on to produce the “ Matt Marriott” western strip.
Whether it was a gust of wind, a slip of the arm or indeed the hand of fate, something caused the bundle of artwork to spill from the portfolio and to scatter onto the pavement next to him. By an amazing chance, at that precise moment Eric Souster and Bill Bailey, directors of the Bailey-Souster agency were passing, and bent to help the young artist to pick up his scattered work. Souster, glancing at the pages, spotted the incipient talent immediately and there and then, Sydney was offered work. Over the following months at the agency , Souster began to take an interest in the “Orion” sci-fi strip. He could see that it had potential but needed some refinement and direction. Taking this on
board Sydney made some changes and Souster then approached the Daily Express with a view to daily syndication. It was suggested that the name of the strip should be changed and thus “Orion” became “Jeff Hawke”. Negotiations were successful and of course the rest is history .The first Jeff Hawke strip was published on 15th February 1954.
So by way of a chance meeting in the street, Eric Souster was to become a key facilitator in bringing Jeff Hawke from a sketched idea to a nationally published strip . He died on 6th December 2015. Skipper Prossitt
