John Marcus Harston Morris OBE (25 April 1915 – 16 March 1989) was an English Anglican priest who founded the Eagle weekly comic in 1950, launched the British edition of Cosmopolitan in 1972, and was deputy chairman of the National Magazine Company.
[1] After a chaplaincy in the RAF and postings in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk and Weeley, Essex, he became vicar of St James' Church, Birkdale, in 1945, where he published a magazine, The Anvil, which contained illustrations and design by Frank Hampson, articles by C. S. Lewis, Harold Macmillan, Dorothy L. Sayers and Chad Varah, and short stories for children by Geoffrey Trease, and circulated far beyond his parish,[2]: 20–21 although it did not sell well and put Morris in considerable debt.
[2]: 39–40 They devised a proposed strip for the Sunday Empire News called Lex Christian, about the adventures of a brave inner-city parson, but it fell through after the paper's editor died.
[1] However, he continued to write serials for the Eagle in the early 1960s, mostly on historical or religious subjects and often in collaboration with Guy Daniel, including "The Golden Man", a biography of Sir Walter Raleigh drawn by Robert Ayton,[5] and "The Road of Courage", a retelling of the life of Christ illustrated by Hampson and Joan Porter.
He was responsible for launching the British edition of Cosmopolitan, created the distributor Comag in association with Condé Nast, and increased the circulation of his magazines at a time when the market was declining.