Major Eazy is a British comic character, appearing in strips published by IPC Magazines. Eazy featured British comic war stories published in the weekly anthology Battle Picture Weekly from 10 January 1976 to 10 June 1978, written by Alan Hebden and drawn by Carlos Ezquerra. Set during World War II, the strips follow Eazy, an unconventional British Army officer with a laidback attitude.
Creation
After the successful launch of Battle Picture Weekly in 1975 under the guiding hand of creators Pat Mills and John Wagner, editor Dave Hunt was left to manage the typical churn of a British anthology comic. This involved identifying stories that were unpopular with the readership (typically via reader correspondence, where children writing in were encouraged to rank the comic's contents) and commissioning replacements. While "D-Day Dawson", "Rat Pack" and "The Bootneck Boy" swiftly proved popular, replacing the less successful stories initially proved difficult, with new stories struggling to stick.
A breakthrough came in January 1976. A veteran of World War II, Eric Hebden had been appointed Battle's technical advisor at launch, and contributed many war stories to past IPC titles. As a result he received contributor copies of the titles he worked with, which were devoured by his son Alan. In 1971, Alan Hebden began working for DC Thomson at his father's suggestion, later also contributing to Fleetway's War Picture Library. After Battle started he wrote scripts for "Rat Pack" before coming up with "Major Eazy".
Drawing the strip was Carlos Ezquerra, who had been headhunted for the comic and contributed to "Rat Pack" part-time while balancing work for DC Thomson. Hunt and assistant editor Steve MacManus were able to persuade him to switch full-time for "Major Eazy", and Ezquerra designed the character.
Many have suggested he based Eazy on actor James Coburn, particularly his breakout role as Britt in the 1960 Western The Magnificent Seven. However, in a 2018 interview Alan Hebden denied Coburn was the inspiration, telling Stephen Jewell "Other people might have said that but he never did, and I never did." Instead he has noted Clint Eastwood's Man with No Name as an influence on Eazy. Hunt felt that Eazy's attitude reflected Hebden, who he recalled "was very laid-back himself", a sentiment echoed by Battle assistant editor Steve MacManus.
Publishing history
The new story debuted in the 10 January 1976 edition of Battle Picture Weekly, announced on the front cover with the slogan "Like him - hate him! You can't ignore... Major Eazy!". The strip consisted of three-page stories which were largely self-contained - a format Hebden enjoyed, later stating it "was very good to do if I was planning on going on a long journey because I could write a dozen or more of them in just two weeks". While Hebden and Ezquerra had a good professional relationship the production of the strip was not completely without difficulty; in 2018, Hebden would recall having to rewrite an episode where Eazy had been originally planned to kill an SS officer in cold blood due to objections from Hunt.
The initial batch of episodes ran until the 27 March 1976, before the character returned for a second longer run from 15 May 1976. From 29 January 1977 the strip featured a crossover with Rat Pack and was renamed "Major Eazy versus Rat Pack" in reference to the antagonistic relationship between the characters; it was the first crossover between characters in Battle Picture Weekly - something which was rarely done in British anthologies at the time. Hunt would later admit the story was created as a solution to keep both popular characters in the comic while making room for new stories such as "Johnny Red". Following the end of the arc in April 1977, the character took another break while Ezquerra worked on designing Judge Dredd for 2000 AD before working on American Civil War story "El Mestizo" with Hebden for Battle before returning for one final batch of episodes from 19 November 1977 to 10 June 1978 before ending when Ezquerra left to work on "Strontium Dog" for Starlord.
In 2011 Titan Comics licensed the strip from then-current owners Egmont Publishing and issued the hardback collection Major Eazy: Heart of Iron (Volume 1). Despite the name, no further volumes followed. The rights to IPC's post-1970 library were purchased from Egmont by Rebellion Developments in 2016. In 2020 they issued a collected version of Major Eazy vs. Rat Pack under the Treasury of British Comics label, with the character's initial run being compiled as Major Eazy Volume One: The Italian Campaign following in 2021.