In 1938 Eric was added to the stable of illustrators for Maclean’s Magazine, billed as “Canada’s National Magazine” and published weekly in Toronto. For two years this arrangement provided him with a steady stream of illustration work, from providing visual colour for articles and fictional stories, to the prestigious covers. This was a ‘golden age’ for illustration: during this period Maclean’s covers featured graphics, not photographs, almost exclusively.

The cover for November 15, 1938 (Figure 19) uses a contrasting red (hot and glamorous) woman in the foreground with a blue (cool and reserved) man in the background. Despite the fact that the couple is dressed in “evening wear”, Eric has drenched the surroundings with warm yellow sunlight. Eric experiments with red and blue, warm and cold, and introduces in this cover an element of extreme perspective, giving the woman added importance, perhaps intending this to be a counterpoint to the somewhat masculine cover feature, the “National Motor Show.”