Frank Bellamy Checklist Blog

Frank Bellamy competition poster

2012-01-19T22:19:00.000Z

Mike Higgs (who sent me the recent Old Bones picture) has done it again! You can imagine that I have all sorts of alerts out there on the Internet for Bellamy things. But this escaped my eagle eye, so thanks again Mike.

Special Auction Services sold a poster recently that -incredibly- we knew nothing about! The description reads:

Frank Bellamy - Southern Railway Poster Artwork, 'South for Sunshine' painted by Frank A Bellamy, for an RAAS competition, circa 1935, original artwork in poster paint on hardboard, Kettering home address to reverse, 42'' x 27''; as a competition entry, it is believed that this design was not used by the SR; Bellamy later became a legendary commercial illustrator, notably with Dan Dare for the Eagle comic in the 1950s [sic] and for Century 21 titles in the 1960s, G some minor stains and scuffingEstimate: 150-250

It went for a hammer price of £200

It's interesting in many ways. If it is 1935 it's one of the earliest existing Bellamy pieces that I have come across. I would love to know what RAAS stands for. Also the style is unusual, but because it is an early example of his work this is likely to be the case. This certainly shows confidence in a self taught 18 year old!

I have updated the checklist appropriately

The Wolfman of Ausensee starts today in the Daily Mirror

2011-12-31T13:28:00.000Z

Martin Baines, has now coloured several of Frank Bellamy's black and white Garth strips from the 1970s. I thought the colour in "The Bubble Man" particularly good and the 'other-wordly-ness' reminded me of seeing the original Star Trek in colour for the first time -vibrant colours contrasting with each other and adding depth to the set.

Martin has kindly sent me a copy of today's strip which is the fourth that Bellamy drew in the Daily Mirror (23 May 1972 - 6 September 1972 (numbers F122-F210). I know it's a particular fan favourite,so I have shown a few versions of the opening for your pleasure, and as usual click to enlarge!

Happy New Year! See you in 2012

Courtesy of Martin Baines - 31 December 2011 © Daily Mirror

My scan of the published version 31 December 2011 © Daily Mirror

Black and white reprint © Daily Mirror

Original art photo

ADCC reprint cover

Frank Bellamy - Tough Ghosts and Old Bones

2011-12-25T01:00:00.000Z

Tough Ghosts by William J. Elliott (Pub: Gerald G. Swan), 1941

Mike Higgs wrote to me recently and asked if by chance I had a cover of "Tough Ghosts" published by Gerald G. Swan, the publisher who hoarded books during the run up to the Second World War and had a field day publishing during and after the war. (Take a look at Bill Contento's list). Quite a few Swan books are available via the usual sources, but it's hard to find hardbacks with dust jackets intact.

I did have the cover and sent him a copy saying I was intending adding it to the blog when I could discover any other information on it. Nothing arose and I forgot all about it. Now Mike has given me the incentive to write something and I'll tell you why, in a moment.

William J. Elliott was born, according to classiccrimefiction.com, in 1886 and published many crime books. He was quite prolific at Swan's as a cursory search on the Net will show. That's it! That's all I can find. No wonder I didn't write anything. Even though Steve Holland mentions him, I suspect that's taken from a contents page and if I hadn't wanted to rush this for Christmas, I would have asked Steve beforehand!

I asked Mike about his interest in Swan publications. "When I received the cover, I saw that it was a paperback edition with a 1/- price tag. I have seen an early ad for a paper edition but it was priced at 2/- Add to this the fact that there is a hardback edition with dust jacket and it makes you wonder how many editions there were. All would have used the same cover artwork of course. With all these variations, it's no wonder that Swan checklist compilers can often be found in quiet corners banging their heads against brick walls."

Anyway, why the rush to publish this now?

Old Bones by Herman Petersen (Pub: Gerald G. Swan), 1950

Mike has kindly sent me the cover of a book that I didn't know existed which actually - unlike the above, to my knowledge, is signed clearly by Frank Bellamy. I quickly bought my own copy. Another interesting fact: many dust jackets were cut in different places. Mike's scan has half of Bellamy's signature cut off - so I have used my copy above.

He wrote to me "In fact, it was because I had chance to see Frank's work on that particular Swan novel that made me take a closer look at "Old Bones" because I suddenly saw a similarity in technique."

"Old Bones" we know a lot more about, as it's an American novel from 1943 - this copy was published 1950. As this excellent review of the actual book tells us:

Herman Petersen was a prolific contributor to the aviation, adventure, and detective pulps of the Twenties and Thirties; one of his stories appears in the famous “Ku Klux Klan Number” of Black Mask (June 1, 1923). Between 1940 and 1943, he published four crime novels advertised by the publisher of three of them, Duell, Sloan & Pearce, as “quietly sinister mysteries with a rural background.”

Luckily the dustjacket appears to have survived - I wonder if it is because the design is so startling in that 'death' green? It's a very strong design by Bellamy - especially when one considers at this time in his career, he had designed billboard posters and advertising for films, but had not started on a regular weekly comic strip. He had produced a weekly cartoon for the local paper illustrating local football matches. Follow the above link to Mystery*File to see the Dell cover version of this book. I prefer the Bellamy!

If you want to know if Mike is thinking of doing a Complete Cloak - you heard it here first. He is! He asked me to emphasise that he hopes it will be in 2012, but bear with him. And whilst writing he answered a few questions about his involvement in the Hawk Book reprints (an article for another day) and mentioned "If Hawk Books had continued, we may well have featured more Bellamy material. I know that one thing I wanted to do was reprint those"Heros" strips in a landscape format."

And finally if you want to see some of Mike's work, which I too loved in the Power Comics of the sixties, take a look at Lew Stringer's affectionate tribute to Christmas comics

Happy Christmas readers!

Original Art: Garth on eBay - The Beast of Ultor

2011-12-20T19:55:00.003Z

H93 "Beast of Ultor"

The latest piece of art by Frank Bellamy to be made available for sale on eBay is of Cayutis and his sister Cyrene who starred in the story "Beast of Ultor". I never thought I'd be doing this, but I see that this sold for £137 in May 2011!

The seller writes:

Original daily strip of GARTH by FRANK BELLAMY (pen and ink), dated 22-March-1974. It is the "The Beast of Ultor" strip H93, story that appeared in the Daily Mirror newspaper. It was also reprinted in "The Daily Mirror Book of Garth 1976" compendium (Fleetway Publications). Artwork is drawn much larger than the printed size. Size 21 x 7 inches (53 x 17,5 cm). Signed with his distinctive signature and drawn on heavyweight "CS10 Line Board". The blacks are very dense.

Page 66 of the landscape book to be exact!

Detail from H93 "Beast of Ultor"

I'll update in a few days with the price if sold

First Update: Unsold but relisted at a better starting price.

Second update: sold at £116.14 with 19 bids (December 2011)

The reprint collection you've all been waiting for....

2011-12-07T17:49:00.001Z

Eagle and Swift 20 June 1964 Vol 15: 25

Geoff West, of the Book Palace and IllustrationArt Gallery, let me know that he has finally signed the paperwork that allows him to go ahead with a reprint collection of Heros the Spartan. On his team he has Peter Richardson

Now, if you've been lucky enough to see their reprint of Embleton's Wulf the Britain, you'll know that they are both committed to quality reprints. By my rough calculations, if you tried to buy every Bellamy copy of Heros (that's 95 episodes plus the Eagle Annual 1966) in the original Eagle comics you'd be paying (at roughly £3.50 each) £332.50 (plus the annual) and that's if you could find them - they are increasingly rare to find. So a reprint is well worth looking at particularly with the commentaries and introductory articles

The Bellamy stories appeared in:

EAGLE Vol. 13:43 - 13:52, 14:1 - 14:9 (27 Oct 1962 - 29 Dec 1962, 05 Jan 1963 - 02 Mar 1963) Heros the Spartan: The Island of Darkness by Tom Tully
EAGLE Vol. 14:10 - 14:43 (09 Mar 1963 - 26 Oct 1963) Heros the Spartan: The Eagle of the Fifth by Tom Tully
EAGLE Vol. 15:23 - 15:42 (06 Jun 1964 - 17 Oct 1964) Heros the Spartan: Axe of Argath by Tom Tully
EAGLE Vol. 16:9 - 16:30 (27 Feb 1965 - 24 Jul 1965) Heros the Spartan: The Slave Army by Tom Tully
EAGLE ANNUAL 1966pp.89-96 "Heros the Spartan" [No title]

And because I can't publish a blog entry without pictures I scanned the episode from Axe of Argath story and you can see that I show the folds in the comic, the patchy blacks etc. This is the stuff that Geoff and friends have to contend with, but they did it with Wulf, I'm sure they can do it with Heros. I know that various famous comic artists quote Heros as an influence on them including Dave Gibbons, John Byrne and Barry Windsor-Smith and I'm sure I have missed a whole raft full. If you detect some excitement on my part there's a good reason. The biggest query I get to the website and blog is "where can I get reprints of Heros?" and i have had that in several languages - thank Google Translate!

I will keep you informed but start saving those pennies, cents, euros, etc

Eagle and Swift 20 June 1964 Vol 15: 25

Frank Bellamy and Captain Cook

2011-12-05T15:13:00.000Z

For a long time I suspected that Bellamy had done some odds and ends in Look and Learn beyond the recently reprinted "Frank Bellamy's Story of World War One" -(with intro by yours truly).

Steve Holland's writing for the Look and Learn blog gives me a good excuse to show you Bellamy's Captain Cook illustration.

It comes from LOOK AND LEARN 422 (14 February 1970) and is titled "The man and the moment: James Cook" I'm glad we have some authority on this one, as I would be hard pressed to say it was Bellamy - except by the faces of the 'gentlemen' in the rear. Cook's pose is odd, in my opinion, the colouring looks as if Bellamy used a different medium from his normal inks.

ADDITION:

Geoff West let me know - and I should have thought of this - that the original art is still for sale on his site

Farewell to Nancy Bellamy (1922-2011)

2011-11-30T19:00:00.000Z

Nancy celebrates Frank's 'Blue Plaque' at 68 Bath Road, Kettering

STOP PRESS

Tony Smith has let me know:

You may wish to add that Nancy's funeral takes place at the Edgar Newman Chapel at Kettering Crematorium on Monday, 12 December, 2011 at 11.30am.

Unfortunately, I have some sad news to report. On Thursday 24 November 2011, Nancy Bellamy passed away after a short stay in hospital.

Nancy was born on the 25 August 1922 at Cockfield, Barnard Castle, County Durham and married Frank Bellamy on 6 March 1942 when Frank was 24 years old and Nancy 19.

Nancy was always generous in talking to people about her famous husband. Many of Frank's boyhood facts came from Nancy, who always loved hearing and telling a good story.
In an interview on local radio (with Howard Corn of the Eagle Society), Arnold Peters asked Nancy about her wedding day, which took place in County Durham, and got the following response:

The journey to get to Kettering was such a nightmare. On one station, I think it was Sheffield station, because we had to change trains twice, one train was delayed for five hours and we had to sit in a waiting room that had no fire no tea, nothing for five hours, then when the train did come in the only seat we could get was in a guard’s van with a draught blowing up through the floorboards. We were absolutely perished. Then when we did get to Kettering, it had been arranged that a car would meet us at the station. But with it being so late they had given up and gone, which I don’t blame them. And when we did get to the station we had to walk all the way to his home, which was quite a good walk carrying suitcases and when we got to his home we were locked out and that was the last straw. I sat on the suitcase and I cried and said I wish I hadn’t bothered to get marred. Anyway, Frank being such an avid cinema fan thought he’d charge the back door like they do in films, it always works in films, but it didn’t in reality. He charged the back door with his shoulder, but nothing happened, the door didn’t budge at all. Anyway the next door neighbour had heard us outside, and she came out and asked if we were in trouble. And we said we were locked out so she said come around to my house, she said I’ve got a little bit of fire, she made the fire up, and it was lovely to feel a bit of warmth again, and to have a nice hot cup of tea. So that was certainly a white wedding, being a war time one, it was certainly white, but not the way we wanted it.

Both Nancy and Frank were fans of flamenco and, when she was younger, Nancy enjoyed going out to restaurants and clubs and travelling in Spain. One of her favourite songs was 'Spanish Eyes' by EngelbertHumperdinck.

Nancy leaves behind a son, daughter-in-law and two grandchildren. I'm sure you would all wish to join me in sending condolences to the family.

(Thanks to Paul Holder for the news. Read an interview with Nancy on Paul's site)

Frank Bellamy and Gerry Cottle's Circus

2011-11-21T20:27:00.000Z

Tony Smith commented recently to me by email as a result of my comment in the King Kong post:

Interesting to read your latest blog in which you mention three posters Bellamy produced for Gerry Cottle's Circus in 1976. Please find attached one of the three posters he was commissioned to do shortly before his death.I am the proud owner of original copies of two of these posters - both rare (and valuable) because they advertised the circus when it appeared in Frank's home town of Kettering. One shows the strongman Khalil Oghaby and the other features the blindfolded and hooded Cimarro Brothers performing their "Walk of Death" on the highwire. I would love to know what the third one was and wonder if any of your readers can oblige?Best wishesTony

Well this one was easy for me as I was exciited when I tripped over a variant poster of Khalil Oghaby from the one I owned. I had seen the Khalil "crushed beneath the weight of a huge American limousine" poster but not the "He lifts an elephant!" "Mighty strongman for Persia. First time ever!" version

The third poster was of the highwire act the Cimarro Brothers.

KHALIL OGHABY

The Internet is wonderful. here's a video from the 1960s. The caption reads:

Mr.Khalil Oghab or pahlavan khalil was some of the most popular pahlavan in tehran iran. This is a brief caption from the incredible Mr. Khalil Oghab who was born in city of Shiraz in Iran 1924. He performed in Amjadieh Soccer Stadium inTehran Iran in front of over 50,000 people in 1960s. He holds numerous titles and records including "The Strongest Man" in Europe for decades. He lives in good health and owns and operates the only Circus in Iran .

and indeed has a Facebook page!

The Cimarro Brothers are are harder thing to find. They appeared apparently on Seaside Special in the same year I got my poster - 1976 and there is a comment on someone's blog how they enjoyed seeing the Brothers - who were Italian

Bellamy met with Gerry Cottle and produced to our knowledge three posters for the 1976 season. I have collected pictures from auction sites and thought you might like to see them. Please excuse the poor quality of some of them but it's interesting how far circuses travel.

Wood Green

Birmingham

Plumstead Common

Edgware

Birmingham

Edgware

Cambridge

Salisbury

United Arab Emitrates

Oman

Original art by Frank Bellamy of Robin Hood

2011-11-12T17:05:00.001Z

UPDATED 04 Dec 2011- Unsold

The latest Winter catalogue from Malcolm Phillips, Directorof Comic Book Auctions Ltd is online and of interest to Bellamy fans will be the Robin Hood original.

Lot #113 is:

Robin Hood original artwork (1956) drawn and signed by Frank Bellamy for Swift 36 1956Robin fights Guy of GisborneIndian ink and wash. Framed and glazed, 18 x 14 insEstimate: £850-950

(I'll add the sale price after the auction)

It's actually episode 17 (as Bellamy has written on the art) of the second series (which continued straight on from Robin Hood and his Merry Men) called Robin Hood and Maid Marian and by my calculations that means it comes from Vol 4. No. 25 (dated 22 June 1957). Unfortunately I don't have a set of these in the original, so if anyone wants to correct me, please do

Here for your pleasure are the two pages of episode 17 scanned by me from the BookPalace reprint of "Frank Bellamy's Robin Hood- the complete adventures"
where, incidentally there is a saving on all three of the beautifully produced FB books

The Bubble Man starts in the Daily Mirror today

2011-11-09T12:00:00.000Z


Wednesday 9 November 2011 © Daily Mirror

An unusual strip to reprint this time in the Daily Mirror, is The Bubble Man, which ran originally from 16 August 1975 - 28 November 1975 (numbers J192-J281). It has been reprinted twice to my knowledge in Garth: The Bubble Man by the fan publisher All Devon Comic Collectors Club Daily Strips: Collectors Club Editions No.28. And more recently by Spaceship Away (Issues #19, October 2009, to #23 March 2011 where they were coloured by the excellent John Ridgway.

As Martin Baines said to me when kindly forwarding the first strip, "I think it makes a interesting exercise to compare John's colouring to mine..." It will indeed and I'd love to know what Frank himself would have thought of it all!

Incidentally, I try and keep this blog about Bellamy - other artists do slip in occasionally and thanks to Martin's mention of John Ridgway, I'd like to recommend his new strip in ...Strip Magazine. It's called Age of Heroes, written by James Hudnall and beautifully drawn and coloured by John Ridway. Don't believe me? Follow the link and see a copy. Phew I think I got away with that, just!

True Brit reprinted digitally

2011-11-07T07:00:00.000Z

True Brit was published in 2004 (that long ago!) and soon went out of print (see below for link for the old edition). The book had up to date profiles, interviews and lots of pictures of British comic artists and their works. It was edited by TwoMorrows regular George Khoury and my old mate Paul Holder (who designed the whole book) wrote pages 34-43 on Frank Bellamy and included some rare photos of the man. (I'm too modest to mention my contribution on Mike Noble).


True Brit © TwoMorrows 2011

True Brit © TwoMorrows 2004

Anyway, TwoMorrows, who have been making loads of their regular magazines available in the digital format, have now asked Paul to enhance the old version and add colour and some new pictures for the digital publication. Just look as his new cover above. You can see it was a labour of love!. The article of "The History of British Comic Art" by David Roach is worth the price of admission alone.

When I say some colour has been added I mean Paul has enhanced the previous black and white pictures, added several pieces that weren't in the original book - just look at the Don Lawrence, Frank Hampson, the Dalek artwork - many from the original art! Add to that Grimly Feendish, Little Plum, Steel Claw, double page spreads by Bellamy, Gerry Haylock, John Burns, and Ron Embleton. Oh and just in case you think I'm stuck in the past, there's all these people in there:

Leo Baxendale
Frank Bellamy
Brian Bolland
Mark Buckingham
John M. Burns
Alan Davis
Ron Embleton

Hunt Emerson
Dave Gibbons
Frank Hampson
Bryan Hitch
Syd Jordan
Don Lawrence
David Lloyd

Dave McKean
Mike Noble
Kevin O'Neill
Frank Quitely
Ken Reid
Bryan Talbot
Barry Windsor-Smith

How much teasing do you need? Run, don't walk, over to TwoMorrows and order yourself an e-copy and why not browse their other superb books and magazines whilst there - I'm not getting any commission, but love what they do.Oh, if you don't believe my hyperbole, download the free PDF sampler with a handy clickable link at the end to point you to the fuller 284 pages - all for $6.95...and I could add a joke about no delivery charges, but that would be cheap!

True Brit. p.52 © TwoMorrows 2011

True Brit, p.53 © TwoMorrows 2011

P.S. At the time of the 2004 publication there were other books called True Brit published - and looking at these links you'll see it's a popular title. Our title was up against Britney Spears and John Cleese's Superman as well as Commando and the fact that the draft pre-publication cover was seen all over the Net meant, I feel, customers were confused. The 2004 cover above was the final published version - don't believe everything you read online!

So just to confuse things further, here's the unpublished cover from 2004 with a link to the old edition

True Brit: Celebrating The Comic Book Artists Of The UK

Frank Bellamy and lions!

2011-11-05T12:23:00.001Z

I was recently casually browsing through some comics and thought I remembered the scene of a man fighting a lion that I found in a TV21 comic - number 61 to be precise. Where would Bellamy have illustrated a man being attacked by a lion? Of course, in Fraser of Africa in Eagle

Eagle 26 November 1960

I tracked it down and thought you might like any excuse to see some Bellamy in his colourful glory. You will know that Bellamy loved Africa and had a whole hive of merchandise and collectables (they didn't use such silly labels back then!) In the Eagle of 26 November 1960 a report on Bellamy showed the artist amidst his paraphernalia. Nancy, his wife, didn't share his enthusiasm for stuffed animals but is still proud to show off her husband's work in her house today. She has some beautiful originals of Maasai warriors on display

Here's the Fraser of Africa strip - whole and below the scan of my copy of the comic so you can see more detail

Eagle 4 March 1961, page 12

Detail of the above

Interesting to see what appears to me to be a rushed job on the final panel. The cross hatching/shading is not up to his usual standard. Maybe someone else did a 'correction' on it for some reason. I've seen that happen even in his Thunderbirds work. Here's the TV21 shot which started me on this search for lions.

TV21 #61 pp 10-11

Detail from above

Original Art: Garth on eBay - Freak out to fear H180

2011-10-23T16:52:00.001+01:00

Another Garth for sale on eBay, ending 26 Oct, 2011, 21:57:03 BST

This is from the story Freak out to fear which appeared in the Daily Mirror from 6 June 1974 - 27 September 1974 (H132-H227). This story has only been reprinted in 2 obscure places: the All Devon Comic Collectors Club Daily Strips No.17 and in the American reprint title Menomonee Falls Gazette from number 218 (16 February 1976). If you can help me identify which exact issues this story was in I'd be grateful for an email

UPDATED 27 Oct 2011- £85 (3 bids)

My own scan of H180 - click to enlarge

Frank Bellamy and King Kong

2011-10-20T19:22:00.001+01:00

King Kong 1933

I love the simple story of King Kong, whether told by Merian C. Cooper, John Guillermin or Peter Jackson. I remember my teenage eyes moistening after seeing Jessica Lange looking at Kong dying and I also remember some of the people I went with laughing at me! But I didn't care. I'm still touched by the story - stop motion, monkey suit or CGI, don't care. It's a simple old story wrapped in a monster theme which goes back to Beauty and the Beast if not further

DC Comics used to use loads of ape covers as the DC editors believed that sales increased whenever their was a giant ape on the cover of a comic. Twomorrows published Comics Gone Ape! in 2007 and featured comments by several DC creators such as Infantino, and Cardy who used the ape motif many times in their cover careers.

So what does this have to do with Bellamy? Well, by now you'll have learned my style is to not get straight to the point.

King Kong 1976

The excellent MagForum site, about magazines and magazine publishing, is written by Tony Quinn, founder of Magforum.com. he tells us:

19 magazine was published by IPC, monthly, from 1968 - May 2004
Young women’s glossy aimed at 16- to 19-year-olds. The established magazines in this sector all steadily lost sales after 1980. 19 was the last survivor of the three big IPC titles: Honey merged with 19 in 1986 after circulation almost halved in five years; a similar fate befell Look Now in 1988. These mergers helped 19, but its sales were still down by about a fifth in 1990 over the decade. When it finally closed, IPC said: 'Over the last few years, the face of the teenage market has changed. The boundaries between the teen market sub-sectors have become blurred and sales patterns suggest that readership at the older, young women’s end appears to have migrated to the fashion and celebrity markets.' Final editor was Helen Bazuaye. The publisher launched Teen Now, a spin-off from its celebrity weekly Now in spring that year and in March Emap had closed The Face and J-17 (Just 17) Taken from: MagForum.com and used with permission

King Kong 2005

When I flicked through every issue from the start, trying to find an illustration I knew to exist, I was stunned by how it changed over the 6 years I browsed. The end of the 1960s was a liberating time - especially regarding sex and sexuality. 19 appeared to me to be mostly about fashion, and short articles of interest to the 19 year olds it was named for. However as time went on and I turned more pages I found articles on sex and attarcting a mate more numerous. It was a real journey through the transition in time - the editor must have been very 'with it'. I liked the short story illustrators - among many others - Jill Watkins, Margaret Power, Julian Allen, Mick Brownfield, and Alan Cracknell. The latter two were also prolific in the Radio Times of the period (for whom Bellamy also illustrated). Chris Achilleos's early work appeared here - Achilleos was obviously hugely influenced by Bellamy when creating his classic Doctior Who covers for Target Books (have a look at this page to see what I mean)

The contents page of the February 1975 issue of 19 contained the black and white image from the main double page spread Bellamy drew. Keith Jones, was the Assistant Art Editor for IPC magazines at that time who paid Bellamy £86.40p for the colour spread commissioning it in May 1974. Bellamy's King Kong appears on the celluloid which is melting, and twisted strands of wire is shown in the background of the montage. A hand carefully pulls the 'i' from Kong's name. I've read the article and can't see what this represents so would love to generates some comments below

Cropped contents page

For a larger image follow the link

A larger scan can be seen by following the Note on the Magazines part of the Frank Bellamy Checklist

Another coincidental link to Bellamy (and if anyone can find these it's me - just ask my family!) is that 19 magazine carried an article in March 1976 on Gerry Cottle's Circus for whom Bellamy drew three posters

Links:
If you want to read about King Kong in print, go to M. J. Simpson's site.
To read about the history of the films - (I didn't realise Linda Hamilton did one!) see KiKn (Kong is King.net)

A visual view of the FB Blog

2011-10-15T15:50:00.000+01:00

In the interest of sharing, just a quick note about something new in the bloggersphere - at least to me!

You can see a month's worth of Frank bellamy Checklist blog by clicking on this URL
http://frankbellamy.blogspot.com/view/flipcard
and if you have a blog, substitute your web address instead of mine and there you go! Blogger have even introduced "seven new ways to experience your favorite blogs"

Using Blogger.com's Flipcard feature

Next: King Kong!

The last great invention

2011-10-01T00:01:00.001+01:00

Last Great Invention - panel

In the 1960s publishing saw more and more magazines that were partworks published in numerous countries as co-editions to bring down costs. The format of a weekly partwork caught the public's imagination -but not often their mathematical skills - total costs of a partwork could far exceed any total price for the equivalent book, but it did allow families to buy weekly rather than lay out a lot of money up front! This was in the days before 'easy credit'. I remember my Mother loved 'The British Empire' with its glossy appearance and colour throughout. I preferred 'World of Wildlife' as it contained animals in their natural surroundings. You have to remember back then - no Internet and colour had only just come to UK TV and we had three terrestrial (what other sort were there?) channels! So colour glossy magazines - great!

Cover of Sunday Times
23 August 1970

Bellamy contributed to this in two places that I know of and the following relates to the more famous one: The Sunday Times (Colour) Magazine (23rd August 1970). "Last of the Great Inventions" was, as it says in the magazine "Drawn by Frank Bellamy and written by Tony Osman".

The Sunday Times was forging ahead in Britain in displaying innovative colour in a giveaway weekly newspaper magazine. It all started in 1962 when the owner Roy Thomson wanted a way to sell colour advertising at a time that newspapers could only print black and white (it was 20 years later that Eddie Shah shook up the newspaper industry with a colour paper) Its first editor Mark Boxer was joined a year later, by Michael Rand as Art Director.

"It was 12 months before it was voted a huge success – by the readers and advertisers (due to editors Mark Boxer, Godfrey Smith and its design guru Michael Rand). It was Smith’s idea to produce another innovation, the part-work series which could be collated, at the end, in a special binder: A Thousand Makers of the 20th Century remains a landmark" (Evans, H, 2008. I wish we could have done this in my day. Sunday Times [London, England] 6 July 2008: 9.)

Many artists and photographers praise Michael Rand as being an inspiration in allowing them to push the boundaries and Rand knew Bellamy's work well (confirmed in an email from Robert Lacey - yes I contact all sorts of important people!), but he is not credited in the series itself instead it appears Arnold Schwartzmann was the Consultant art Director on the project. .

Binder cover

First part

Eureka!: The Sunday Times Magazine "A history of inventions in 10 parts" was published weekly between 21 June 1970 and 23 August 1970. The pages were not numbered but a note appears in each 'supplement' saying "To prepare for the Eureka binder cut out pages down centrefold" Bellamy produced only the last installment.

Last episode includes a competition

The commission was to show the President of America being woken to be told that the ballistic Missile Early warning System had detected missiles approaching and the President's reaction and conversation with the USSR (This was Nixon and Brezhnev)

Bellamy draws Nixon again!

I personally found the whole piece awfully confusing. The script is not written by someone who knows comic strips and I suspect that (unlike earlier Sunday Times work) Osman was glad to be getting to the end of this piece. Mind you any quick search shows that Osman - who was elected to the committee of the Association of British Science Writers, has written many factual articles and books.

Anyone want to buy me an A3 scanner?

As an aside, to this already wordy blog post, my copy of the bound Eureka series also contains the Bruce Chatwin partwork "One million years of art". having read the excellent biography by Nicholas Shakespeare, I was not surprised to see no comic art in the partwork, let alone any Bellamy, after all Chatwin was an ex-Sotheby's man so 'art' means 'fine art', not illustration or comics!

Century 21 Volume 5 is called "Menace from space"

2011-09-30T12:00:00.045+01:00

Cover by Lee Sullivan

I happen to know that Lee Sullivan, the cover artist of the latest Century 21 reprint volume, loves Mike Noble's work (I learned this at the exhibition that is still running) and this view of Thunderbird 3 appears to me to be inspired by Mike's drawing of TB3 from a provisional cover earlier in this series. Obviously Lee's version matches the 'cameo' look that the others have

Non-published - Mike Noble

John Freeman, on Downthetubes.net, shares some exciting news on his site:

Publisher Marcus Hearn also tells us: "We've just uncovered an amazing batch of original Frank Bellamy artboards, so if and when we do another volume we'll be including them."

Let's hope we see that too - Marcus we'd love a Bellamy only volume - and would die to see a landscape - no gutter version.

Anyway back to the point of this entry.

Marcus heads up Signum Books and this is Chris Bentley 's fifth outing in this series. The theme this time - can you guess - is space! Therefore we have the following Bellamy illustrated stories:

Thunderbirds - The Eye of Jupiter Script: Scott Goodall Art: Frank Bellamy (Originally published in TV Century 21 issues 147 - 154 , November-December 2067)
Thunderbirds - The Space Mirror Script: Scott Goodall Art: Frank Bellamy (Originally published in TV Century 21 issues 137 - 140, September 2067)
Thunderbirds - The Barracuda Awaits Script: Scott Goodall Art: Frank Bellamy (Originally published in TV Century 21 issues 179-183, June-July 2068)

You can buy via the usual channels (including the Amazon widget I use) - the ISBN is 978-0956653420 - but Signum are offering Gerry Anderson signed copies - follow this link: http://www.signumbooks.com/buybooks.htm

And just so we always have some of the great man's work on these blog entries here's a scene I like from "The Space Mirror", a very short story at 4 double page spreads!

TV21 #139

Ghost Town starts in the Daily Mirror

2011-09-24T12:17:00.001+01:00

DEDICATED TO GEOFF PROVINS

"who recently passed away.

He was a huge friend of Garth as well as Dan Dare

and it would have meant something to him."

- at the request of Martin Baines

Geoff's name appears on the list of people who have been generous enough to contribute to the formation of the checklist of Bellamy's work. He was a member of the Eagle Society and my heartfelt condolences go out to friends and family.

Yesterday saw the end of "The Beautiful People" so today we have......

Saturday 24 September 2011 © Daily Mirror

Click on this to see the superb work Martin is doing - in my opinion - on the colouring. This story was Frank Bellamy's favourite of all his Garths and it was re-run on the announcement of his death in July 1976 - therefore this is the third reprinting in the Daily Mirror - but you won't hear me complaining!

Martin sent me the above and also added this message to accompany the piece below:

Also I have included the first colouring I did for Garth which was in the style of colouring that Scorer used. This was before the decision of style of colouring was made. This colouring was inspired by Fraser Of Africa...

Thanks again to Martin for his forethought and generosity.

Next: Sunday Times feature - watch this space

Original art for sale - Thunderbirds, Look-in and Garth

2011-08-13T17:11:00.001+01:00

The title of today's blog post is a bit like the chant from the Wizard of Oz! "Thunderbirds, Look-in, and Garth, oh my!" And it certainly is a magical day for Frank Bellamy fans.

The latest Comic Book Auctions Limited catalogue is out and bidding closes on Tuesday 6 September at 8pm UK time.

I have copied the details below as it turns out this blog is one way some buyers keep a track of sales! Or so I was told by a gentleman recently! I'll update this entry with the sale prices as soon as they are known UPDATED 10 Sept 2011 - see below

TV21 #133

Lot # 187 is described as

Thunderbirds original double page artwork drawn and signed by Frank Bellamy for TV Century 21 No 133 Aug 5 1967. Bright Pelikan inks on board. 19 x 27 inches £2,000-2,500

UPDATED 10 Sept 2011 Winning bid incl. 10% Buyer's Premium: £3,025

TV21 #206

Lot # 188 is described as

Thunderbirds original artwork (1968) by Frank Bellamy from TV 21 No 206 Dec 28 1968. Bright Pelikan inks on board. 18 x 15 inches
£800-1,000

UPDATED 10 Sept 2011 Winning bid incl. 10% Buyer's Premium: £550

Lot # 221 is described as

Southerner original double page artwork painted and signed by Frank Bellamy for Look-in #23 June 12 1971 with original magazine.
On the night of Friday October 3 1970 the 42,000 ton Liberian oil tanker, Pacific Glory was transformed into a blazing inferno after a collision with another tanker off the Isle of Wight. Southern Television's film news were the first TV units to reach the scene as Southerner, the world's first outside broadcast vessel sped to the area. The newsmen and technicians later carried off six major news film awards. The true story of the Pacific Glory Disaster was dramatised and painted by Frank Bellamy for the centre pages of Look-in eight months later
Pelikan inks on board, some fading to the blues. 24 x 18 inches (Removable laser colour copy text boxes added to complete the story) £550-650

UPDATED 10 Sept 2011 Winning bid : U/S (Unsold?)

Lot # 223 is described as

Garth original artwork (1971) by Frank Bellamy for The Daily Mirror 14 July 1971. Entitled Sundance, this was Bellamy's third board
Indian ink on board. 21 x 7 inches
£180-220

UPDATED 10 Sept 2011 Winning bid incl. 10% Buyer's Premium: £203

Now what do I think of all this? Well funnily enough I am excited by this episode of Garth (don't forget it's being reprinted in the Daily Mirror right now!). This is the 15th episode of the story 'Sundance' (Jim Allard preceded Bellamy's fondly remembered run). It's only Bellamy's 3rd episode of the story. What's interesting, and you can't really see it here, is that Bellamy did not use zip-a-tone, or letraset/letratone but it does appear here on the fallen soldier's trousers. And worse there is white-out / Tippex! FB was proud of never having used the stuff, so who did it? The answer: John Allard, who was kept on to do various things on the strip.

Below is a photo I took when I had access to the owner's original artwork. Hopefully you can see this interesting fact. It certainly doesn't mar the original delicate linework of Bellamy.

E164 - Note the zip-a-tone - click to enlarge

I suspect the estimate on this particular board is low.

And secondly the very rare Look-In piece. The description mentions faded blues, but I think even with that fact this should fetch a good price as it's the only piece that Bellamy did for his former editor on TV21 (Alan Fennell) in this comic. Having the work on Garth as well as many other individual commissions, Bellamy didn't have time, even if he wanted to go back to weekly comic strips! Having the "Removable laser colour copy text boxes" makes this a very interesting piece. One wonders why the text was not on the original board, but if you look at the scan below you'll see that it's not hand lettering but type

Look-in 12 June 1971

That leaves just the Thunderbirds to comment on.....They look brilliant and the colours vibrant.

One curiosity - I notice that the colour in the comic shows a pink sky in places - but a natural blue in the original. Anyone know anything about this? I have discovered other adjustments (certainly not improvements!) to Bellamy's artwork in the Thunderbirds strips. I expect he wouldn't have seen the published art - David, his son, was born 8 December 1944 so was a bit old for TV21 at that time (that's rich from the guy who still owns a complete set!) and I have no knowledge that he received a gratis copy

Here are the two compared:

Anyway, I still owe money on my house so I'll leave you all to bid!

Comicartfans - Original art: Garth - Beast of Ultor

2011-08-08T20:02:00.000+01:00

WARNING! Following this link could serious put a dent in your free time!

If you've never heard of Comicartfans site, you haven't been reading the detail of my blog. It's grown enormously since its first appearance. Various people share their pictures and some trade on there. That's swap and sell in other words.

'Zaalxx' has put up for offer a beautiful example of Frank Bellamy's Garth. It's an episode from the Beast of Ultor

H93 The Beast of Ultor

To see the original at Comicartfans click here and if you want to make 'Zaalxx' an offer you'll need to register with the site first but can then use the form provided.

If you want to see some of the beautiful Bellamy art that Jeff, Paul, Chris, Terry, John, Stephen and many others have shared, click here. But don't say I didn't warn you that you'd find this a 'sticky' site!

Bellamy's influence on others

2011-08-04T12:53:00.001+01:00

UPDATED - see the bottom of this post

Recently Bill Storie sent me a scan of an old J. T. Edson paperback making the comment that "not Bellamy art of course but...does the pose look familiar? Not the first time I've seen other artists swipe Frank's poses - maybe we should start a new section (just kidding!! We'd need an entire separate website for that!!)."

JT Edson cover

I did a bit of trawling and found the following examples in Bellamy's work to illustrate this point so just for a bit of fun have some Bellamy pictures pointing at you!

Ghost World

Eureka

Eureka reprinted and sepia-ed!

and then there's Thunderbirds where he repeated this motif so many times

and just in case you thought I couldn't find any cowboys - Edson's stock in trade!....

Comicon'78

Marvel Western Gunfighters

There you go. I could have added Heros, Montgomery and so on but I think the point's made. However before I leave this alone I saw this advertised recently....

Art by Tim Keable

I'd love to know if Tim is a fan of Bellamy. Just in case Tim thinks I'm implying it's a swipe, here's a review of this anthology I think that's enough meandering! Back to work.

Of course if you find any more, let me know

UPDATED: 09 August 2011

Out of the blue, I received this from Tim Keable - which at first I thought might be a lawsuit ....read on:

I noticed you used a recent comic cover of mine in your latest article. Well, in answer to your query I have to confess to being an absolute Bellamy buff.

The cover art was indeed a swipe.

When we started doing the West comics with colour covers, Andy Cheverton (the writer) and I decided that each cover would have a different design.
With this in mind we've done one in the style of Saul Bass and we have one coming up with a kind of '50's horror comic type look.

When it came to Stray Bullets I really wanted to do an illustration in homage to Frank Bellamy. I decided to stick as closely as I could to the techniques I know he used.

I've still got some CS10 lineboard left so I cut a piece at around A2 size.

Using black india ink for the lines I then coloured it with FW acrylic ink applying it in layers the way Frank did. Highlights and corrections were done using an ink rubber and scalpel. No process white was used!

I was generally pleased with the result and it made me realise even more just what a craftsman he was. Those inks on that surface are a real nightmare!

May I just take a moment here to commend you on your site. Truly a labour of love.

I had to leave the last bit in as I, like all bloggers, need the encouragement!

I wrote back to Tim to thank him and he replied:

CS10 isn't made any more but I've seen people selling it on ebay for £75.00 a sheet!
There is a company called Paper People who manufacture something which they claim is as close as they could get to the original.The interesting thing about Frank and also others like Mike Noble is that they developed these techniques out of necessity due to the printing processes involved.
I could bang on for hours about such things!
One question before I go.
Are you going to do any more articles about Frank's Sunday Times Magazine work?

Yes, Tim, keep your eyes peeled on the blog and many thanks for your comments!

Beautiful People starts in Daily Mirror

2011-08-03T12:00:00.000+01:00

The bad news: Spanish Lady has ended

Did anyone notice that the word 'blackamoor' was blanked out in one balloon? Strange, from the paper that brings us all sorts of "interesting" stories each day!

The good news: Once again that fantastic Martin Baines has shared the fact that the next story in the Daily Mirror to be reprinted and coloured is "The Beautiful People". This story ran from 29 November 1975 - 16 March 1976 (numbers J282-K64) and has only ever been reprinted in a very rare fan publication.

I'd love to get some feedback on what you think of the art in this story as I can see that maybe (and please don't burn me at the stake) that Bellamy -after 4 continuous years - might have been a bit tired. Let me know.

And for 1970s glam rockers - do you think the lead in this story looks like a certain Mud lead singer?

Click on the image to enlarge to full size

Frank Bellamy and all things African

2011-08-01T12:00:00.001+01:00

Click to enlarge

In the list of 'Unpublished' works - which I confess is a mixed bags of things I've seen, but have not necessarily got scans of, there are several animals of Africa, scenes from Africa and also Masai warriors (my best description). I know that Bellamy exhibited in various top shows in London with pictures listed with African names and unfortunately I haven't been able to match names to pieces. For example, he listed 'Oluwaru' which a quick search on the Net tells me is Masai for 'wild animal'. I have seen lions with Kilimanjaro in the background, but this sounds grander.

Anyway, Adrian Fear has contacted me to share a " drawing [which] actually belongs to my brother. He bought the drawing at a flea market about 10 years ago. The pictures dimensions are 530mm by 610mm. It is a pencil and pastels drawing on black paper/card then mounted."

I know that Nancy Bellamy proudly displays one such piece, of a head in profile, and others, on her walls in her home in Kettering, but this is a new one to me. I'm very grateful to Adrian for not only making contact but also sharing this photo.

The piece is the same as those I have seen and shows another side to Bellamy, who most people know as the comic artist and who Sir William Russell Flint respected for his African work. Praise like that does inspire!

Bellamy and Doctor Who

2011-07-28T20:30:00.000+01:00

I recently had an email that asked whether I knew anyone who could loan the Cartoon Museum some Bellamy art for a forthcoming exhibition. Good news, if you haven't heard already, the exhibition is now on.

Cover art by Paul Grist and James Offredi

I was privileged to be invited to the Private Preview and attended with a friend who contributed one of the pieces of art. I met the fantastically friendly Lee Sullivan (see his work here) who was so interesting to listen to when critiquing Bellamy's artwork and a fellow Mike Noble fan. And by now you will have seen his original art of all the doctors in one lineup (if not click on the link!) Thanks Lee.

I also bumped into another really nice guy. Mike Tucker told me he works on the special effects on Doctor Who. Far too modest - see his wiki entry and his website. We discussed various pieces of the artwork hanging on the walls and we both couldn't believe that some of the artists for even recent pieces were unknown. I casually asked him if he enjoyed his job. He answered quick as a flash "I get to build models and blow them up, yes, I enjoy my job!" Good to meet you Mike

Now before I forget who this blog is about, and before one of you says, Frank Bellamy didn't do any comic artwork of Doctor Who ........you are incorrect.

In the Radio Times dated 10 April 1971 - 16 April 1971 he illustrated, in a special feature, the Doctor Who story "Colony in Space" with 2 full colour pages and two half page black and whites.

Scanned from Time View: Complete "Doctor Who" Illustrations of Frank Bellamy

However the two pieces at the exhibition by Frank Bellamy are not from this story and are illustrations which accompanied other Doctor Who stories. But who's (sorry!) complaining when the exhibition brief is stretched a little? It's always amazing to see Bellamy originals - and these two are in particularly good condition. I won't tell you what they are but would encourage you to attend not just for Bellamy, but for the great artwork by Lee Sullivan, John Ridgway (fantastic linework from 'Voyager' the graphic novel), Gerry Haylock (cover of TV Action), John Canning (TV Comic) and the fanatical fan of Frank Bellamy, Dave Gibbons (of Watchmen fame). This is a only a small list of what's at the Museum as well as there standing exhibition which includes Reid, Baxendale, Riddell, and many other UK comic/cartoon artists

Thanks for the invitation Anita

Norman

P.S. There are lots of reviews on the Net, but this one has some pieces from the exhibition and a review here

Bellamy and the British comic conventions

2011-07-08T19:52:00.000+01:00

It's really hard work classifying the work that Frank Bellamy created. I have followed the original layout by David Jackson, myself and many more in placing work in one of these categories:

Comics are straight forward, or you'd think so. What about Look and Learn - was it a comic or a children's magazine? This category includes reprints (as do the others) so that should someone want to check the list (thus the name 'checklist') they will find any comic - whether reprint or original. But what about comic strips in annuals?

Annuals section contains those uniquely bound hardbacks the UK have been producing for decades. Bellamy produced some comic strips but otherwise illustrations to support a story.

Magazines is where Bellamy did many single or multiple illustrations - some he loved and was proud of (Everybody's) and some he found a burden to do (Home Notes). But what is a magazine? One definition states the origin comes via French for the Arabic for a storehouse (and thus the military use). But I'm thinking of the OED definition:

magazine, n.

A periodical publication containing articles by various writers; esp. one with stories, articles on general subjects, etc., and illustrated with pictures, or a similar publication prepared for a special-interest readership.The use of the word (rather than periodical) typically indicates that the intended audience is not specifically academic.

Third edition, March 2000; online version June 2011. <http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/112144>; accessed 25 June 2011. An entry for this word was first included in New English Dictionary, 1904.

If we accept a periodical (i.e. regular appearance) do we include annual/semi-annual comic convention brochures? Libraries, the experts in classification, debate the point. When is a standing order different from a journal subscription?. We'll come back to this in a minute.

Newspapers - that should easy but even here, is the Sunday Times Colour Supplement a magazine or newspaper? I go for the former

Aren't annuals books? Not for purposes of this classification, otherwise yes, books are books including reprints

Advertising This category is a tough one. I could list every instance of one advert (Walls Wonderman), and I just might, if any more come forward; Should I list an instance where a fan uses a Bellamy comic convention logo and adjusts the year - yes, I think so.

Media This is for any TV or Radio appearance of Bellamy, his Thunderbird 6 film poster is under 'advertising'

Unpublished a mix of all sorts. I am aware that some of these have been 'published' - for example in fan magazines, and the Internet if nowhere else but felt this category allows me the nearest to miscellaneous! I have seen all these but some remain 'hidden' at the owner's request

Unseen Bellamy solely an excuse to highlight a major exhibition that features large in Bellamy lore. It also allows me to list items, some of which have never been published, and helps us to identify pieces - for example by Jeff Haythorpe and Tim Barnes who were at the event

Articles and books about Bellamy the final category that shows some obsessive tendencies. It includes some large articles on Bellamy but also some peripheral mentions of his art. I could add loads to this and when I have free time I do! Hopefully the descriptions help people select what they need and avoid any really peripheral mentions!

I wanted to clear up one massive mess I have helped perpetuate. But thanks to Dez Skinn's sterling efforts, I have now re-classified some of the comic convention programme covers, adverts etc. I have used Dez's web pages (http://dezskinn.com/fanzines-3/) and wonder now, shouldn't I be adding a category of published webpages (but, oh dear, what about Twitter feeds, Facebooks notations?), no, that way lies madness! But let me know what you think.

Enjoy my cut down version of Dez's webpage (used with permission of the kind guy) with the emphasis obviously on Bellamy. Read the full story from the eyewitness accounts Dez shares

Skinn states:
"Frank Bellamy came along with stacks of his old Eagle artwork and gave an amazingly in-depth talk on the trials and tribulations of working on Dan Dare and Garth as well as his enjoyment on Fraser of Africa and Heros the Spartan."

"Frank Bellamy was so chuffed to be the guest of honour at Comicon 71 that he produced five new colour visuals for us to auction off. [The photo below left] shows a bearded young Dez holding one of them" - this is mentioned here in the checklist and to our knowledge never been published. Click on the NOTE to see the photo. And yes, I have asked Dez but he can't remember the other pieces (however, Dez's note accompanying 1978 states we do know one more)

"Below is one of the stunning pieces of art Frank Bellamy created especially for the event. It was unexpected and too late for a place in the convention booklet, although all of them did finally make it into print in later years."

The emboldening is mine and explains one of those mini-mysteries, how the artwork states '71' yet didn't appear anywhere with this.See 1981 below

The famous Doctor Who artist Andrew Skilleter, wrote a review of the 1971 convention and focussed on Bellamy. To read it, click here for the Checklist entry and click on the NOTE. Nancy Bellamy accompanied Frank - I wonder how she enjoyed it? I know she has mentioned it in the past as being impressive.

Skilleter gives an insight into Bellamy's working practice when he reports on a Q&A session in which Bellamy says "how he would read through the script, marking frames 'Large', 'Medium' or 'Small', ignoring the scriptwriter's notes as to 'long shots', 'close-ups', etc. and then starting work on the layout pencils, trying for as much dramatic effect as possible."

The piece below was designed by Bellamy for the 1973 convention which never took place. Fortunately the '3' could easily be changed to a '5' - see below

Skinn: "Something of a recovery began with Comicon 75. Rob [Barrow] used (yet another) Bellamy visual for its promotion, a superb piece of design actually created for the aborted Comicon 73" Click this link (and follow the NOTE) to see the actual programme cover - thanks to Richard Sheaf.

Bellamy died in July 1976 and unfortunately this meant the publicity for the 76 con would not in fact appear. Skinn says: "Unfortunately, the artwork promised in the progress report by Frank Bellamy and Jim Steranko was noticeable by its absence". The flyer included the piece produced for Comicon'73, and the promise of material by Bellamy.

The actual booklet (with a wraparound cover by Trevor Goring) only mentions Bellamy on one page. Click here to see the magazine one line tribute: "In memory Frank Bellamy 1917-1976"

In 1976 Gifford also ran the Comics101 event to celebrate the 101st birthday of British comics (based on Ally Sloper's Half Holiday (1884)). Bellamy managed to provide Gifford not only with his final comic strip - for his newly launched "Ally Sloper" but also this piece for his Comics101 convention booklet

Skinn mentions that the cover for the 1978 Comicon brochure by Bellamy is "Another Frank Bellamy visual (one of those he had produced for the 1971 convention auction) finally surfacing as the cover of Rob Barrow and Colin Campbell’s Comicon ‘78 booklet". So that accounts for another piece from the 5 he produced in 1971 mentioned above

And finally one that Dez hasn't mentioned ...yet!

The very kind Ewan Browlow provided this scan of the 1981 Comicon wraparound cover - seen in 1971 above!

Frank Bellamy and Alan Vince

2011-07-02T20:25:00.000+01:00

The most recent Eagle Times (Vol 24 No 2 Summer 2011) has a feature by the always interesting Alan Vince. He profiles some of Bellamy's illustrations in the Radio Times, Sunday Times Colour Magazine supplement, called 'Eureka' and the Daily Mirror. Nice collection of artwork.

The tiger (shown from the article - below) was first shown to the public (to my knowledge) by the reporter Tony Smith on the Northamptonshire Evening Telegraph Thursday 8 May 1980, p.16

Tony kindly sent it to me from his scrapbook of cuttings - thus the sellotape - and I'm grateful to him. I have reproduced it below - please excuse the crudeness of the picture!

The interesting thing about the article by Alan Vince is that he reports on a visit to the Hulton House - the home of the Eagle comic, a lady mentioned to him that the Esso for Extra advert was by Bellamy. Alan says here that he had never heard this before or since - and neither have I. However I think I can help clear this up.

In last year's Raymond Sheppard: Master illustrator exhibition catalogue written by Paul Liss (and in which I had a hand) he writes, with the help of Sheppard's daughter, Christine:

Knowing Sheppard's work very well, I know that the following is by him too. But you can see where the confused story by the Eagle lady came about as both tigers are striking a similar pose, but this is definitely by Raymond Sheppard, not Bellamy. But I do like all three versions!

Spanish Lady starts in Daily Mirror

2011-06-08T13:00:00.067+01:00

Three exciting things this time round (well, at least for me!) including a confession from your Blog writer!

But first...yesterday, "The Wreckers" concluded in the Daily Mirror, in this superbly drawn ending and innuendo-ridden last word from Garth.

Martin Baines, the colourist, on the Daily Mirror's reprinted Garth strips has kindly shared the latest installment - the first - in this magnificent story called the "Spanish Lady". This story has only been reprinted in a series by John Dakin in 1979 in a 900 limited edition black and white reprint, so this may be the first time many people have seen some of this art - especially those under 30 years of age - I'm now feeling very old!

I've shrunk the version Martin sent me for purposes of internet loading, but I think it still shows how his original colouring misses out in letterpress printing, however I still love it and find he does brilliantly understate his work by not overcolouring Bellamy.

That's the first exciting thing - thanks again Martin. I owe you a pint or two!

Now, the second excitement is that coincidentally a sale on eBay comes from this very story. I'll let the seller describe the piece of original art:

From the story 'The Spanish Lady' from 1976 which was the last complete story that he produced before his untimely death later that year. Code K122. With a great action scene showing far more detail than the much smaller printed version. There is a little discolouring of the white board where it as been framed in the past.

Artwork panels measure 135mm x 520mm. Signed with his distinctive signature and drawn on heavyweight CS10 board. The blacks are very dense, having been inked over many times - sometimes as many as eight - to give the density of black that he required.

I've copied the strip below from the John Dakin reprint - go to eBay for the actual scans - it looks to be in very good condition. I'll add an price update after the sale

UPDATE: Sold for £181.00 with 5 bids (June 2011)
And thirdly and lastly for now, my confession!

When I came back to the job of creating this listing circa 2001 - ask me about it if you don't know - I had copies of the 2 Titan Garth paperback reprints. In the introductions written by Nick Landau, there is a handy checklist of all the Garth strips to appear. Here the problem begins...

I believed them!

In writing today's blog entry, I checked the sequence of the strips for the Spanish Lady as I was surprised by the dates I had on the website (- which I've now corrected). I remember that Ghost Town, Bellamy's favourite Garth strip, was reprinted shortly after his death on 5 July 1976, so how could Landau's dates for the Spanish Lady be right? Landau has the dates and number sequence as K65 (17/03/1976) to K160 (07/08/1976) which would make the story continue for another month before Ghost Town started. I checked a few photocopies I have of the paper and found there was something definitely wrong.

The wonderful Garth: the index by Dave Westaway and friends Geoff Wren and Ann Holmes was far more meticulous and confirmed my fear, correctly listing the dates and numbers as 17/03/1976 - 07/07/1976 - K65-K160 for Spanish Lady. So we have 96 episodes in total for this story.

This was all a terrible revelation to me and proof that I was right to (but inconsistent in) checking everything on the list before launching the website. I'm very unlikely to win the (non-existent) "Steve Holland Bibliographer Lifetime Achievement Award"but confession is good for the soul!

And if I ever get a spare day to re-vamp the website I'll also get rid of the confusing date arrangements to indicate 8 June instead of the confusing 08/06 which my American friends would see as being the 6th of August.

Original Art: Garth on eBay - The Beautiful People

2011-05-24T22:14:00.001+01:00

Another eBay sale for you to have a look at. This is a really lovely example of Bellamy's work. Click on the seller's name below for the eBay description

To quote phUKone, the seller:

From the story 'The Beautiful People' from 1976. Code K23.

Artwork is absolutely pristine and is drawn much larger than the printed size. Artwork panels measure 135mm x 520mm. Signed with his distinctive signature and drawn on heavyweight CS10 board. The blacks are very dense, having been inked over many times - sometimes as many as eight - to give the density of black that he required. Hopefully the photos give some idea but obviously can't compare to the original.

UPDATE: Sold for £110.00 (May 2011) with 1 bids

Happy Birthday Frank - More life studies

2011-05-21T17:32:00.000+01:00

Life study (Thanks to Paul Vyse)

If you click on this previous post's link, you'll see a few life studies. I have been fortunate to receive a few photos by kind people of their copies of life studies, so thought I'd add to the blog for all to see. And especially as today would have been Frank's 94th birthday and I have a suspicion he enjoyed this part of his work! My thoughts are with Nancy his widow (who will be 89 herself this August) as I'm sure she'll remember today. She's been unwell recently, and a few fans have been visiting and reporting back We wish you well Nancy.

Life study (Thanks to Paul Vyse)

The two studies were sent to me by Paul Vyse who also owns a Radio Times piece - very beautiful - coming up in a later blog entry. If you're following the reprints of Garth in the Daily Mirror you'll be seeing how Bellamy used his experience of life studies! I must say again that I am enjoying following the newly coloured adventures day by day. The reproduction of Martin Baines' colouring, has certainly got better! Although John Ridgway's colouring is printed on superior paper in Spaceship Away, I also enjoy having newsprint in my hands

The following studies were sent to me after I contacted Peter Labrow (Author of The Well), as he mentioned on Twitter that he owned a couple of pieces. Peter has an interesting Kindle production on Amazon UK or Amazon US and can be contacted via his website

Interestingly the first one below (the model holding a chair back), has a name on the reverse "The model's name is on the back of this one - Angela Mansi - as is the date 22/2/65" which is useful as this confirms that Bellamy was participating in life classes at the Studio Club in Piccadilly at that time.

Thanks to Peter Labrow

Many thanks again top Paul and Peter

Original Art on Comic Book Auctions: Thunderbirds x2

2011-05-15T15:55:00.003+01:00

Comic Book Auctions Ltd has launched it Summer 2011 catalogue with bidding closing on Tuesday 7 June 2011 at 8 PM UK Time.

The piece that will be of particular interest to Bellamy fans is Thunderbirds original artwork (1968) from TV Century 21 No 137 - Lot number 216

Lot #216 Original art

Printed version

Thunderbirds original double page artwork drawn and signed by Frank Bellamy for TV Century 21 No 137 Sept 21 1967

The survey ship 'Palmerston' ploughs through icy seas that inexplicably start heating to boiling point. The Thunderbirds space station alerts to their S.O.S. and John Tracy launches Thunderbirds 2 and Gordon takes Thunderbirds 4 to the water. Then suddenly, 'Virgil The Sun - that light! It's - aaagh!'
The green and blue has faded from this piece, the red remains strong. Pelikan inks on board. 18 x 25 ins
£1,000-1,500

Yes, the piece is faded - don't blame the seller, we all have things displayed in our houses, that we like and the sun just keeps on shining - and therefore fading the inks. Those people who are smart (I have faded art so guess which I am!) get a laser copy and mount that and then store the piece away. When I first saw an original that had been stored properly I was absolutely shocked how vibrant the colour gradations were that Bellamy did.

UPDATE: Winning bid incl. 10% Buyer's Premium: £1,815(June 2011)

There's also Lot # 217

Thunderbirds original artwork by Frank Bellamy from TV Century 21 No 168 1968
The Hood targets the final destruction of Tracy Island but brainwashed Brains is found alive - now he has to be electronically debriefed in the lab - but will he be rescued from the borders of insanity?
The green and blue has faded from this piece. Pelikan inks on board. 16 x 13 ins
£600-800

TV21 #168 Original art

TV21 #168 published version

UPDATE: Winning bid incl. 10% Buyer's Premium: ££968(June 2011)

But the thing that regularly hits me about FB is that he didn't do things easily. He knew the header would be added to his artwork and left space for it, but that didn't mean leaving the space blank. Some examples are more shocking than others, but look at the one above - enlarged below -


The header is not left blank!

Here's another example from Thunderbirds

The printed header TV21 #164


The original art header

The recent Chris Bentley reprints showed this very clearly wherever the original art was shown without the lettering stuck on. (see Amazon link for details) Next time you look at Thunderbirds take a look behind the header, you'll be surprised what artwork you missed!

Original Art: Garth on eBay - The Beast of Ultor

2011-05-09T19:26:00.001+01:00

H93 from The Beast of Ultor

UPDATE: Sold for £137.45 (May 2011) with 5 bids

To quote phUKone, the seller:

This is from his tenth story 'The Beast of Ultor' from 1974. Code H93.

Artwork is absolutely pristine and is drawn much larger than the printed size. Artwork panels measure 135mm x 520mm. Signed with his distinctive signature and drawn on heavyweight CS10 board. The blacks are very dense, having been inked over many times - sometimes as many as eight - to give the density of black that he required.

As usual I'll update this page at the end of the auction

Frank Bellamy and the Army

2011-05-03T14:43:00.002+01:00

Horse Artillery c.1940

The recently BookPalace reprint Frank Bellamy's the Story of World War One
showed Bellamy's later prowess at drawing military subjects. In all the oft-repeated biographies on Frank Bellamy, they mention his service in the Army. We know that during the time he spent in the Royal Artillery, he continued to hone his craft and quite a few very early pieces still exist in the hands of collectors. Most of these from his war service show aspects of military life and one wonders why they were not taken for the National Archives with 'secrecy' orders applied to them. But the one above is not of a contemporary subject so escapes that restriction thankfully.

David Bellamy, Frank’s son, mentions (in Time View: Complete "Doctor Who" Illustrations of Frank Bellamy) that Bellamy was always frustrated that he could not be posted to Africa, which he had longed to see since childhood (instead he met his wife Nancy, a local girl!) In 1939 that Bellamy was called up as a Gunner an soon became Lance Bombardier Bellamy, (the Royal Artillery equivalent of Lance Corporal, the lowest Non-Commissioned Officer grade i.e. one above a Gunner (Private)). Over the course of the 6 years he was in the Army, he went from Corporal to Sergeant. His posting to Deerbolt Camp (now a Young Offenders Institution) was recorded in the famous Dez Skinn/Dave Gibbons interview, where he spent six months painting the walls and ceiling of an “aircraft recognition room with every aircraft in use - RAF, USAF and Luftwaffe […] from every angle imaginable.”

“Rudiments of aircraft recognition” by Eric Wilton published in 1944, contains “sixty common types of aircraft […] selected as the minimum number capable of giving the novice a really solid groundwork [and] is broken down into small categories for easy study according to systems of classification: first the aircraft are considered in relation to the work they have to do; and in the second classification they are arranged in groups based on those details of outward appearance that are conspicuous to a ground observer and give a clue to identity”.

Unfortunately all attempts to track down any photos have to date been unsuccessful. I communicated with Frank T. Smith, the author of an article on Deerbolt, back a few years ago, but as with so many contacts, this one dried up. I made contact as result of reading the article in After The Battle #113 (still available for purchase from their website)

David Britton (one of the guys who set up the touring Eagle Exhibitions - to which I contributed in a vague way, just the once) emailed me a copy of a picture he bought "at an auction of Eagle memorabilia in Gloucester (1995?). On the back was (and it still has a Post-it note with the name Gilliam Hall (former wife of Christopher Hall) and printed name-plate of Frank with his address & telephone number in Morden Surrey. It was lot 185"

I queried with him why it had Nancy's signature on it. "Yes that is Nancy's signature. I showed it to her when she was our guest at the Eagle Dinner at Launde Abbey (1998) and I asked if she could confirm it was Frank's work. She did and kindly signed the mount as additional proof."

Now one of difficulties I have found, despite having had a Dad in the forces, is learning military vocabulary, let alone identifying pictures of such subjects. Luckily David provided this "It is meant to be the Horse Artillery (my father was a member before WWII, as he was able to ride a horse) in WW I drawing a carriage containing an officer through battle-scarred countryside. It is signed Gnr (I assume "Gunner")FRANK A BELLAMY." Absolutely right David and many thanks for sharing this

I have amended the entry in the Unpublished works by Bellamy listing (from 'Lance Bombardier' to 'Horse Artillery sketch' and added a scan under the note

Pawley's Peepholes - discovered

2011-04-22T17:01:00.000+01:00

For at least 8 years I have been searching for a copy of what I thought was the "BBC MUSIC: PAWLEY'S PEEPHOLE BBC Publications for Schools & Colleges 1970". After my friend Penny told me Pawley's Peepholes was a short story by Wyndham I read the short story - she even lent the book to me. I blogged about it right at the start of this blog but received no feedback. Time marched on (for the irony - see this short story!) and I followed all sorts of booksellers' websites, hoping to find a copy - if it even existed! No joy!

Until one day recently I asked an eBayer if he had a copy and he replied:

Hi Norman I've found it on the web, I definitely haven't got it. No-one seems to have a copy except The National Arts Education Archive, they may let you photocopy it, not sure but have a try, Scott,

What a strange answer I thought, as I watch all sorts of places for anything to do with Bellamy, but wondered how he had found it and I hadn't and secondly who on earth were the NAEA??

Off I went and found them very quickly, and sent a note with trembling fingers on my keyboard and received, very quickly, a reply back:

Hello Norman
Yes, this is the booklet. If you would like me to photocopy it I will do so. It is a 28 page booklet Then you could make a donation to the Archive in lieu of copying and postage.
I look forward to hearing from you.

At this point you can imagine my sheer panic and joy. I was so close but I'd been this close before to other Bellamy pieces and not managed to get closure to the transaction.

But shortly after I received in the post 28 pages of photocopies (from which I have done scans). Being a good boy I asked how I should credit both Scott and the National Arts Education Archive (NAEA) - long may Google index this wonderful institution! - and I was told it would much appreciated if I said it came courtesy of
The Paul Mann Music Education collection, the National Arts Education Archive @YSP, Bretton Hall, Wakefield. The catalogue entry there reads:

Title	Music session one; Pawley's peepholes
Author	Lord, David
Institution	BBC Radio
Date Created	N.D.
Notes	Musical drama in three sequences based on a story by John Wyndham. Produced by Jenyth Worsley
Archive Number	BHPMBK00117

Well, I can fill in the date. It's definitely 1970 - it's actually on the cover, but I knew he received the commission in late 1969 from BBC Publications.

This is a booklet used by schools in the days the BBC broadcast radio programmes (or 'wireless' as my teacher called it back then!) where we would all join in with copies of the book for the whole class. But this is actually a performance piece which was broadcast on Radio 4 from 28 April to 23 June. The music shows the parts for chorus, recorders, bongos, cymbal & tambourine, all other percussion and the piano! A collaborative education this!

Anyway, to the art itself. There are 8 drawings (and one unpublished for some reason) and
the cover is classic Bellamy showing the launch station for the time machine. It is so reminiscent of the Atlantic Tunnel from Thunderbirds. One would think he was influenced by Mike Noble who loved drawing 'hardware', but of course Bellamy was in the Royal Artillery (more on this in another post) so was confident in drawing machinery too.

The people appear to have strange hair until you read the first-person story which says:

I don't know whether her hair would be her own, art and science together can do so much for a girl, but the way she was wearing it, it was like a great golden chrysanthemum a good foot and a half across, and with a red flower set in it a little left of centre. It looked sort of top-heavy.

I am so pleased to have pinned down one more commission by Bellamy - to see all the pictures follow the link to the website and click on the corresponding note. I don't know why, but originally I had this under the 'Advertising' section, but I have now placed it under 'Books'

Thanks once more to Scott and the wonderful National Arts Education Archive for their help in tracking this down.

Original Art: Garth on eBay - Orb of Trimandias

2011-04-19T11:41:00.001+01:00

F55 from The Orb of Trimandias

UPDATE: Sold for £151.66 (April 2011) with 12 bids

To quote Tweedacedmy, the seller:

Another great example of Frank Bellamy's work on Garth, showing his love of historical settings. Our hero is transported back to the the intrigue of the Venitian court under the infamous Borgia regime. Along the way he will meet Leonardo Da Vinci and his muse and lover the beautiful goddess Astra. Here some unwise slave traders try to capture our hero and his comrade.

Those two giants Abdul! What a price they would fetch on the Algiers slave-mart!'

This is a task for Kemal!

(Exit Kemal).

A wonderful action packed example with great swashbuckle factor.

This is strip number F55 from March 1972.

The scan above is mine - check out the original on eBay

Garth and the Wreckers

2011-04-13T20:12:00.000+01:00

Have you been following the Angels of Hell Gap that ran from Monday 21 February 2011 to Tuesday 12 April 2011? Well, get ready for the next story (in a different running order from the original printing.......

The story of the Wreckers ran originally in the Daily Mirror from 26 October 1973 to 18 February 1974 (G255-H41). If you are very quick and get the Daily Mirror today you get the start of the new coloured reprint in the paper - coloured by our good friend Martin Baines. Martin kindly shared the picture in this post and I mentioned to him - not wanting to appear too sycophantic - that I was actually thrilled to go to a newspaper shop every Monday to Saturday (not Sunday) to pick up my latest fix of Garth by Jim Edgar and Frank Bellamy (and Martin, of course!). It's been a very long time since I had a regular subscription to any paper or comic for that matter, and I'm enjoying the buzz of following this strip (and of course Andy Capp, and my personal favourite, The Perishers

Many thanks to Martin and the Mirror for the beautiful coloured picture, I've selected one panel from the original black and white story below for your pleasure. And just in case you missed Steve, and Lew's articles click the links!

Frank Bellamy and Lilliput

2011-03-16T21:18:00.000Z

I was browsing my collection of Bellamy magazines and realised I have never shared anything about Lilliput magazine. I recently supplied some information to Paul Liss, a fine art dealer, (see the catalogue of Raymond Sheppard's work) and thought it worth showing some of Sheppard's contemporary, Bellamy's work from that very popular magazine. One day I might emulate the late great historian Alan Bullock and do a parallel lives of the two of them.

Stefan Lorant created Lilliput in July 1937. “The Pocket Magazine for Everyone” certainly was pocket-sized (it grew in size later in 1954, presumably as all rationing ended in England and consumerism really took off) One of the lovely things about sitting page turning in the British Library is that you really get a flavour for a period. I am in love with the 1950s. The plethora of illustrations in these magazines is amazing. Line work with wash, cartoons, caricatures and so on. All the names are there too: Eric Fraser's bold lines; Robin Jacques delicate pointillism , Neville Dear adventurous illustrations and so on. The most famous was Ronald Searle, whose St. Trinians cartoons appeared from October 1941 until he (unsuccessfully) killed off the characters in 1951. July 1960 was the last issue of Lilliput which - like many children's comics of my youth, contained so called 'good news' - the merger with Men Only (more of which in a later article).

Bellamy's work in Lilliput, began in 1954 at the time he had a regular strip in Mickey Mouse Weekly, 'Monty Carstairs' and also he was doing regular illustrations for Boy's Own Paper. The following year he was illustrating for Everybody's (another prestigious magazine that Sheppard also illustrated for) and Outspan, the South African equivalent of Everybody's. All this from a self-taught artist from Kettering, Northamptonshire

Gerald Durrell (January 7, 1925 – January 30, 1995) was first published a year before this article appeared in Lilliput - 'Overloaded ark' appeared in 1953 and of course his Bafut Beagles (his "party of native specimen hunters" from Cameroon) were equally famous at the time . It would be fantastic to know how Bellamy was chosen to illustrate this story called "Que-Fong-Goo" - the native name for the skink illustrated. Illustrators were very important to Durrell's work (see Wikipedia) he was no mean artist himself - but Bellamy obviously didn't make enough of an impression on Durrell for him to request him at a later date. But that's all supposition on my part!

The six illustrations accompanying this article are all by Bellamy and show his love of all things native. Remember references for these things had to be worked at - no Internet back then - and photos of Bellamy at home show his collection of Africana

Bellamy's stippling (that mass of dot s that provide perspective in the illustration above) and line work here are very mature. I'm sure he knew this was a prestigious commission and as we can see he went on to do six more commissions for Lilliput. I suspect by the end of 1956 his regular work in Swift (and then Eagle later in 1957) plus these odd commissions were enough work to keep his small family comfortable

All illustrations are copyright of their owner, which I'm guessing is IPC (who acquired much of Odhams, who acquired Hulton. Please contact me (feedbackATfrankbellamyDOTcom) if anyone can enlighten me

Original Art: Garth on eBay - Spanish Lady

2011-03-02T19:32:00.001Z

UPDATE: Sold for £135 (March 2011) with 10 bids

K77 of the Spanish Lady story

This time we have an auction on eBay for K77 in the The Spanish Lady strip. This isn't one of my favourite periods of Bellamy on Garth, but still worth looking at as it's drawn in the last year of his life and of course is an original. On the endlessly interesting ComicArtFans site, Steven Taylor has a picture of K79 (2 strips later than this one for auction). The original story ran from 17 March 1976 - 7 August 1976 (K65-K160)

Original Art on Comic Book Auctions: Thunderbirds

2011-02-26T14:12:00.001Z

UPDATE: Winning bid incl. 10% Buyer's Premium: £2,420

Comic Book Auctions Ltd has launched it Spring 2011 catalogue with bidding closing on Tuesday 15 March 2011 at 8 PM UK Time.

The piece that will be of particular interest to Bellamy fans is Thunderbirds original artwork (1968) from TV Century 21 No 166 - Lot number 178.

Thunderbirds original artwork (1968) by Frank Bellamy for TV Century 21 No. 166
Unaware that Brains is still alive and held captive by The Hood, Jeff Tracy stands helpless as a successful attack is launched on Tracy Island International Rescue HQ where Thunderbirds 2 and 3 are destroyed. Now Thunderbirds 4 must counter-attack …
Pelikan inks on board. With loose laser copied ‘Thunderbirds’ header for attachment if desired. 18 x 14 ins £1,500-2,000

This story is one of my most fondly remembered. Imagine my shock as a kid seeing Brains dead - and what's more it went on for 8 episodes and therefore the suspense was great especially having to wait a week between episodes (TV21 162 - 169 (24 February 1968 - 13 April 1968 - or 2068 as it futuristically said on the comic!) I wondered how the Hood managed to do sky lettering in that smoke, but hey, it was the future - the 21st century!

This original art looks especially 'new' with the colours very bright. But more interestingly I wonder why someone (presumably at TV21) has crossed out Bellamy's neat writing saying this is episode 5 and putting instead p.10. It would have been page 10 and weekly epsiode number 5 as he had written on it.

Below are the two pages of the episode for your reading pleasure (notice how the original and this scan compare) and many thanks to 'Wayne' for reminding me the auction was now on!

Garth reappears in the Daily Mirror

2011-02-18T20:51:00.002Z

UPDATE: The Angels of Hell's Gap reprinted in colour!

Above is the scan I did of the newly reprinted first episode of "The Angels of Hell's Gap" from the Daily Mirror dated today - Monday 21 February 2011. It's been coloured by Martin Baines - which of course was impossible back in 1975, as we only got coloured newsprint in 1986 in the UK. The original story ran from 15 January 1975 to 2 May (Episodes J12-J101).

Also notice the classic reprints of The Perishers by Collins and Dodd. When cutting and collecting the daily Garths from the Daily Mirror in the 70s, I regularly read the Perishers and it's interesting to see how it hasn't dated

Well done Daily Mirror - we're now looking forward to you announcing a complete reprint of Bellamy's Garth strips in hardback - Norman dreaming again!

There's an announcement on the Daily Mirror's website that they are publishing Garth again. He will re-appear in the Monday 21st February 2011 edition apparently. Former Mirror cartoon editor Ken Layson says:

Garth was the brainchild of cartoonist Steve Dowling, who based him loosely on Superman. But the hero really shot to prominence under the ground-breaking artwork of the late Frank Bellamy, who had sketched Dan Dare before turning to Garth in the early 70s.

Ken says: “When Bellamy took over, the character of Garth took off. His artwork was dynamic with strong shadows and beautifully sculpted figures.”

Frank, who died in 1976, also put the strip into the comic strip. Ken explains: “There was quite a bit of nudity in the 70s Garth. Frank’s wife was the model for most of those half-naked ladies.”

In 2008 they produced new adventures of Garth for the first time since 1997 (Martin Asbury was both writer and artist in 1997 having taken over from Bellamy) - read more about that on John Freeman's site

However they go on to say: Now the hero’s old adventures are set to enthral both nostalgic fans and a new generation of readers. Start queueing at your local newsagents as this reads like reprints to me!

Link: http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2011/02/18/comic-hero-garth-returns-to-the-daily-mirror-115875-22930756/

Original Art: Thunderbirds on eBay

2011-02-15T20:23:00.001Z

Just a quick reminder that 'tweedacademy' is selling a top notch piece on eBay. That guy must have a collection of Bellamy originals! He has set this double page spread of Thunderbirds at £3,500, which is a large sum of money but this looks to be in very good condition. The Buy It Now option expires on 6 March, 2011 so if you have the money go for it now.

From TV21 number 125, this is part one of the 11th story to appear. The Hood does his usual stuff and exposes Tracey Island. Read all about the story at Shaqui and friends' site. If you enlarge this scan of the whole comic you'll see the original art actually exposes the beautiful colour Bellamy produced that despite much care could not be reproduced well at the time. Shame this hasn't been scanned and reproduced in the Century21 reprints by Reynolds & Hearn


TV21 125

Frank Bellamy and the Wright Brothers

2011-02-11T16:07:00.002Z

I've just had a holiday and started reading Moondust: In Search of the Men Who Fell to Earth by Andrew Smith in which he tracks down as many of the 12 astronauts who have walked on the Moon as he can as well as the Command Module pilots. People of my generation will love this book. But the thing that struck me was how from 1903 (the first flight man made with an aeroplane) to 1972 (the last manned Moon landing) was just one generation. Who was more brave, the former or the latter? No idea, but this blog is focussing on the Wright Brothers and reading around the web, I find myself in awe of the two brothers as well as the Apollo astronauts - especially as I type on a computer X more times as powerful as the computational power they had!

The Washington Times in 2003 had a great article on the centenary of the Wright Brothers' accomplishment called "The Wright stuff … and the wrong" in which it shows the Smithsonian didn't even acknowledge the event previously. However, that humble pie, which the Smithsonian ate must have tasted good as their online presence is really good now and shows many exhibits including a large jpg of the original successful flying machine. The Aeronautical Engineering Collection of the The Franklin Institute in Philadelphia were designated by Wilbur Wright as the benefactors of their archives including their notes on scraps of wallpaper!

In relation to Bellamy's work on this subject, we can also view the original telegram sent by Orville Wright to his father, Bishop Milton Wright, at this site,and if this has picqued your interest, here's a list of links on the history of early flight

Up to 1972, Bellamy had produced many black and white, and colour illustrations and comic strips for the Radio Times under the Editor Geoffrey Cannon (who was in place between 1969-1979). More importantly, David Driver (previously mentioned on this blog) was the person who commissioned Bellamy during this most interesting period of Bellamy's non-comics period. Driver was Art Editor for the Radio Times 1969-1978 before becoming Deputy and Features Editor.

Tim Barnes, who owns the black and white original of page 55 (Radio Times 22 January to 28 January 1972) has kindly supplied pictures of the art with and without the overlay. Often even this can give valuable clues to how these things are dealt with in magazine publishing. The overlay in this case shows "reduce to 28½ ems wide (as to trace)" and in pencil we can see 'cut away metal' which s where the text will wrap around the illustrations.

Bellamy must have been supplied with photographic reference for this but I suspect, as usual he made of it what he wanted and laid down his design skills. Incidentally when you enlarge this pictures (the best way is to click on NOTE on the Radio Times page on my website) you'll notice that the article actually has a third page but no Frank Bellamy artwork therefore I have not scanned it. And interestingly the Radio Times date on this page is wrong. The Radio Times is usually dated from Saturday to Friday (in 1972, Saturday fell on 22 January, not 20 January!)

EXTRA - Read all about it!
Having made contact with David Driver (mentioned above) he wrote about this blog entry :

My word, I had forgotten this particular sequence, but I certainly designed these pages,
and again in conversation with Frank, he had expressed an interest in this subject.
As I got to know Frank as a friend, I encouraged him to let me know what he fancied drawing,
so that when the subjects emerged, I was able to marry him with a story. That is how
Movie Crazy Years emerged as a cover, feature and ongoing programme page vignettes.
When he took on Garth, that somewhat curtailed the regular commissions for Radio Times,
which I deeply regretted.

Thanks David for those memories

and

Thanks to Bill Storie for reminding me I could have 'bookended' this with Bellamy's work on the Moon landing - Now done via this link!

Original Art: Garth on eBay - Sundance

2011-01-31T15:05:00.001Z

I noticed our old friend 'tweedacademy' has another unique Bellamy for sale on eBay. He is auctioning E173 of the Sundance strip.

UPDATE: Sold for £227 (February 2011) with 32 bids

As Nick Landau explains in the Titan reprint "The cloud of Balthus" Steve Dowling the creator of Garth took on a young assistant John Allard in 1943. "On Dowling's retirement in 1968, Allard took over Garth until a permanent replacement could be found." which of course happened in 1971 with the 13th strip in the Sundance story.

The strange thing was he stayed on making amendments to Bellamy's art, by changing ballon layouts or by adding something Bellamy never used to my knowledge, Letraset, or what the Americans call 'zip-a-tone' In reply to a letter received by the editors of the newspaper reprint title "Menomonee Falls Gazette" Bellamy said

You ask about the functions of Jim Edgar and John Allard. Well Jim Edgar is the scriptwriter. John Allard was on the strip for a number of years before I was called upon to draw it. He sometimes letters the balloons. However, I now do all the drawing, but the credits remain. Sounds confusing... it is!

Follow the link to read the full story on that.

I thought this might be the opportunity to share something I scanned crudely many moons ago. I really wish I had been more careful with my references, but all I can tell you it's definitely Boy's Own Paper and page 451 - and comes from around the early 1950s. I think it's author is Godsell (the excellent Fiction Mags Index site says "GODSELL, PHILIP H(enry) (1889-1969); Canadian writer; spent 20 years in Hudson’s Bay Company and wrote about his experiences" soi it's not unlikely to be the same guy

Wikipedia has an article on the Sun Dance (two words)and at the Native People of Canada site you can see a portion of this very photograph.

For those who think I'm going too far off track, here's a selection of the story reprinted in the afore-mentioned "Menomonee Falls Gazette" (with thanks to Pete the Pipster for the scan)

Click to enlarge

Garth © Mirror Newspaper Group PLC

Recent references to Bellamy

2011-01-16T18:38:00.000Z

This time's blog is about Bellamy's appearances in the media this Christmas - yes I know that's impossible but it's my way of highlighting that Bellamy, although no longer with us, is still being mentioned by lots of people in one way or another

MIKE TRIM: Designer of many Gerry Anderson vehicles

In 1964, young Mike Trim answered a newspaper advertisement seeking modelmakers for a film production crew and began an odyssey that would last for more than 40 years. Beginning in the final days of Stingray, Trim would work as a modelmaker and designer for Gerry and Sylvia Anderson's television series Thunderbirds, Captain Scarlet, Joe 90, The Secret Service, and UFO, as well as their feature films Thunderbirds are Go, Thunderbird 6, and Journey to the Far Side of the Sun (a.k.a. Doppleganger).

Starting out in the model shop, Mike eventually became Special Effects director Derek Meddings' assistant in designing the fabulous futuristic vehicles, buildings, and look of the Andersons' imaginitive series. Eventually, he would take on the bulk of design work for the series as Meddings became more involved in feature films.

Contributing a single (unused) vehicle design and model to Space: 1999, Trim then moved into freelance illustration, creating an iconic cover painting for one of the best selling albums of all time; Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of The War Of The Worlds, in 1978. Today, Mike is a freelance illustrator and conceptual designer for film and television. He lives in the south of England.

Taken from his website http://www.miketrimart.com/index.html

The website is well worth exploring. But let me point you to YouTube where "ACthelegend" has uploaded many of his films from last year's Fanderson convention. He says about Trim "he's a really nice guy" and gave me permission to link to his video. The video is worth watching (as are the others listed) but the reference to Frank Bellamy starts at 3 minutes 35 seconds. I've transcribed it below (so if I ever need it I can search for it on my PC).

INTERVIEWER:"You're a big fan of Frank Bellamy's artwork..."
MIKE: "Yes indeed"
INTERVIEWER: "What was it like reading the Thunderbird stories in TV21 and Captain Scarlet - especially with your designs in there?"MIKE: "Again that's quite weird, seeing someone else doing your designs. For me [one of my great regrets was that] Frank Bellamy did come into the studio with the original first spreads of Thunderbirds and I did meet Frank very briefly and I would have so loved to have sat down and had a chat with him. Having sat as a lad looking at his comic strips, it wasn't just the Dan Dare strip, which he also did [reference to earlier part of the interview on Hampson's creation] but he did strips before that which were absolutely brilliantly drawn, he just had this dynamic style that was superb, but I never got the opportunity but he carried that on through and the thing that struck me was none of the strips that he'd done before really ever called Frank to venture into the realms of science fiction"

JOHN COOPER: Fellow TV21 artist

The second piece was published by Terry Hooper in his interview with John Cooper (a fellow TV21 artist) on the interesting ComicBitsOnline

TERRY: I just realised there is a question I should have asked you earlier - has anyone influenced you great –art-wise- in comics and why?
JOHN: I always admired Frank Bellamy in comics. The man was a genius.

Unfortunately he says no more on the matter, but again shows Bellamy is far from forgotten.

EAGLE: THE SPACE AGE WEEKLY

Thirdly, many mailing lists and blogs mentioned the rather excellent programme over Christmas Eagle: The Space Age Weekly which was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on 23rd December 2010. I managed to capture the comment on Bellamy within the predominantly Hampson programme (fair enough!) where Tim Curry says:

"Frank Bellamy, who inherited Dan Dare after Frank Hampson left, drew the gripping 'Heros the Spartan' about a Roman warrior. With his attention to fine detail Bellamy was as great a perfectionist as Frank [Hamspon]"

The programme was written by Roger Dobson and is produced by Stephen Garner and featured among others David Britton who produced the wonderful Eagle Exhibitions for the Eagle Society a few years back, one of which, in Northampton, featured a talk on Frank Bellamy by Paul Holder. This review by Steve Winders sums up my opinion of the programme nicely

THE SECRET LIFE OF BOB MONKHOUSE
Lastly for now in this catchup on Bellamy's appearances I hope you all saw the wonderful bio/documentary on Bob Monkhouse, a well known Bellamy collector. BBC Four broadcast this 90 minute documentary "The Secret Life of Bob Monkhouse" on Monday 3 January 2011. A nice review can be found at Suite101: Television Review: The Secret Life of Bob Monkhouse The interesting thing for me was the fact that in one dolly shot through a corridor we see original art (which was not, to my recollection, mentioned at all) and clearly visible are three framed Garths by Bellamy from the first Sundance story. He also had to my knowldge a wealth of Thunderbirds and other Bellamy art.

Perhaps we'll see this hit the market one day - but better still wouldn't it be great to see his work hanging in a public area for all to enjoy.

Bellamy, Thunderbirds and the Royal Mail

2011-01-03T18:45:00.000Z

I received news today, when catching up with my email from the Christmas period, that Gerry Anderson's creations are about to star on British stamps from 11th January! What a new year's surprise.

Taken from the Royal Mail website

These photographs look really nice and Royal Mail have done some lovely items for the launch date of 11th January 2011. Click on the link to see presentation sets, first day covers and so on.

So where's the Bellamy connection?

Scificollector @ The Stamp Centre, who are based in the Strand, London, produce many Anderson, Doctor Who and other products and their signed First Day Covers have always appealed to me. As I'm sure a lot of you philatelists will know the Royal Mail produce special First Day Covers for the launch event of any new set of commemorative stamps. But The Stamp Centre have gone one better by inviting Gerry Anderson to sign their unique covers.

As they say on the website:

Gerry Anderson 2011 Limited Edition First Day Comic Strip Covers
On January 11th 2011, the Royal Mail are issuing a set of 6 stamps to celebrate the genius of Gerry Anderson M.B.E..
We are immensely proud to have been exclusively authorised by Gerry to produce a range of fan dedicated collectable First Day Covers to complement the 10 stamps.
There are six 'comic strip' covers each featuring one of the main six stamps and combine to create a comprehensive set, which is stylistically consistent and inspired by the works of, amongst others, Frank Bellamy. Each cover also features a special postmark, dated on the day of issue and each piece is individually marked with its unique edition number. All the covers will also be signed in person by Gerry Anderson, making for a truly wonderful collectable.
The set of six is available to pre-order now for £80 post-free UK or they can be pre-ordered individually by making your selection/s below for £15+£1 P&P each.
Also released by the Royal Mail is a Thunderbirds Miniature Sheet, featuring for the first time a lenticular moving image design showing the Thunderbirds countdown sequence. A separate cover adorned with this sheet is also available, as are 3 different 'behind the scenes' covers which carry the full set of the six main stamps.

For the Thunderbird cover they've used Frank Bellamy's drawing from TV21 (plus Embleton, Noble and others for the remaining covers). If you're visiting them, take a look attheir other Anderson set too

The Stamp Centre's covers

Original Art: Garth on eBay

2010-12-16T20:42:00.001Z

Taken from a scan of the strip - not the eBay picture - click to enlarge

Just a quick message to alert you to the fact that, on eBay, at the moment is...

An original artwork by the brilliant Frank Bellamy for the Daily Mirror daily strip 'Garth'. An episode from the story 'The Doomsmen' code no J126, showing Garth himself with Professor Lumiere. The story is basically about killer robots (the Doomsmen) and Garth's struggle to stop them (not dissimilar from The Cybernauts in 'The Avengers' TV series).

The seller goes on to say:

The original which measures approx 520mm x 34mm (image area), so is much larger than the size in the Daily Mirror. The board is clean and white.

I'll update this entry with the sale price when the auction is over

UPDATE: £82 (December 2010) with 2 bids

Don Harley talks about Bellamy

2010-12-09T21:58:00.000Z

Cover of Spaceship Away Part 22 by Ian Kennedy (Used with express permission)

In the latest Spaceship Away, (Part 22 Autumn 2010) Rod has secured an autobiographical "sketch" by - what I consider to be - Frank Hampson's key co-worker on Dan Dare, Don Harley. To view his work browse the excellent ComicArtFans.
Don retells his first meeting with Hampson and his first job on the story "The Red Moon Mystery" in October 1951 at the age of 24. His story about being on a deadline on New Year's Eve and staying up to work, shows how our comic artists worked all hours for our entertainment! There are many gorgeous (and relevant) illustrations accompanying the article as well as a new portrait of his 4 co-workers and himself and Dan Dare too.

The main interest for this blog is his overview of the arrival of Frank Bellamy in the Dan Dare stable. This period is often viewed by those who grew up on Dan Dare as sacrilege against the Hampson vision as Bellamy was asked to take over from Hampson (due to the takeover and new ownership of Hulton Press) and his version of DD was what you might call in modern terms a 're-boot'. His style was so different from Hampson it has suffered from comparisons ever since. And to make matters worse he wasn't left to do the work by himself, as he had done brilliantly for Eagle on the Happy Warrior, David the Shepherd King and Marco Polo strips.

"My own opinion is that Marcus [Morris, Eagle editor] picked Frank Bellamy because he was such a good artist and that Morris could not tell the difference between artists' styles of drawing. Frank Bellamy's style was loose and flowing with much black ink, while Frank Hampson's style was much lighter, more realistic with superfine linework and natural colour. The two styles were so different that it was impossible to merge them. Marcus was angry when he saw Frank Bellamy's first drawings of Dan Dare's face and asked me to re-draw them.(Vol. 10 No.28). We all loved Frank Bellamy's artwork but it was a rare artist who could copy it." (Harley, 2010, p.41)

The article goes on to tell of the working arrangements in the Dan Dare team in the Hulton office and Bellamy's involvement.

I'd love to know if anyone has the original art for the first episode so we can see how Don covered this 'mistake'. I've added this as an entry on the website which lists articles that contain reference to Bellamy in some way

This is a really splendid work by Rod and team and the colours are so vibrant in the whole glossy magazine. Click on Ian Kennedy's superb cover above to see the beautiful colours and trust me, this quality is not seen anywhere else in our field to my knowledge

Oh, and in case that's not enough to convince you to buy a copy (blast it! buy a subscription!) there's also the continuing never before reprinted re-coloured (by John Ridgway ) episodes of Frank Bellamy's Garth story "The Bubble Man". They look absolutely superb!

And just in case you think I've forgotten to show any Bellamy work, here's one of those superb covers form the Eagle

MANY THANKS to Rod Barzilay for his kind permission to use some of Don's text as well as the cover above . He deserves another link to the excellent Spaceship Away (http://spaceshipaway.org.uk/) so here's the printed version of the above cover

Bellamy on display this Christmas

2010-11-21T19:47:00.000Z

EAGLE Vol. 12:25(24 June 1961) Fraser of Africa will be on display along with lots of other art at:

Go and make someone happy for Christmas!

Original Frank Bellamy art: Garth strip

2010-11-15T19:02:00.001Z

Just a quick note, as this seems to be part of this blog's purpose, to let you know of a Garth strip that has sold recently

An episode from the story "The Spanish Lady" , K137, was sold for £142 after 5 bids. The seller added this paragraph:

"The seller of this item worked on the Northamptonshire Evening Telegraph, where Frank bellamy's long and distinguished career began, and was the last journalist to interview the artist". which I'm guessing means Tony Smith who indeed did talk to Frank many times and promote his work in the local paper on many occasions over the years.

I apologise for the quality of the strip - I found again my collection let me down as I don't have that particular strip!

Bellamy original artwork: Thunderbirds

2010-11-14T17:39:00.001Z

Comic Book Auctions Ltd has launched it latest catalogue with an end time of Tuesday 30 November at 8 PM UK Time. The piece that will be of interest to Bellamy fans particularly is Thunderbirds original artwork (1968) from TV Century 21 No 206 - Lot number 176.

Scott and Professor Davies have to travel back in time to get Thunderbird 4 and save the fractured dam's waters from drowning New York, but before they can activate the main controls the time-machine topples into the torrent …
Pelikan inks on board. 18 x 14 ins

It looks as if the artwork has been kept out of the sunlight which often fades these pieces. Notice some of the lettering in the middle panel is missing. It's fairly obvious from the comic version that an overlay was done that has now gone from the artwork. The missing word appeared as 'dismantled'

The estimate for this piece is £1,500-2,000 and I will update this entry when the auction results come through

UPDATE: Winning bid incl. 10% Buyer's Premium: £2,420 (December 2010)

For those who can't wait to see what did happen in the story I have reproduced the following page for TV21 207

By the way the auction also has a run of Boy's World and Eagle as well as TV21s that all contain Bellamy artwork - check out my website if you need to know which ones have Bellamy art in them.

Bellamy and bags of rubbish

2010-11-10T21:43:00.001Z

The famed comic artist Alan Davis has taken a lot of trouble in scanning a large range of images of Frank's work.

He helped Nancy Bellamy clear out Frank's studio after his early death and rescued many things from ending up in the rubbish for which Bellamy fans should be eternally grateful.

Some of this I have seen before and listed on the Frank Bellamy website, and it's great now to be able to see the pictures online but some is new even to me.

Take a long time over it and visit each link and slowly be amazed

MANY THANKS to Alan for sharing!

Bellamy and the Bank House Twins (by way of Burke and Hare)

2010-10-24T19:20:00.000+01:00

Cover with flyleaf

Recently my wife decided we were both holidaying in Edinburgh. At first I agreed and thought nothing of it, as any break from the usual 9-5 is a break and whose company would I like whilst on holiday? - hers, of course!

As the time crept nearer an amazing coincidence (or two) occurred that led to me anticipating the event even more.

Firstly I had been following the Forbidden Planet blog in which amongst other things they review graphic novels and things I find of interest. Very useful for a guy like me who no longer can be bothered to understand the complexities of pre-, post- and infinite crisis sales pitches! I finally took the plunge and ordered a copy of this gruesome graphic novel when I first read about on John Freeman's blog. It is now being sold direct by the creators themselves - see their details at the new Burke and Hare website. After a lovely correspondence by email, Martyn sent my signed copy and I had time, just before the holiday, to read it. It certainly reminded me that the 'auld reekie' was not as pleasant a place to frequent 150 years ago as it is now! I'd recommend the book and Edinburgh town too (and there is a comedic film version coming from the excellent Simon Pegg and friends!)

But what has this got to do with Bellamy, you ask? Bear with me while I tell the story

On the drive along the A1 to our cottage in Longniddry (14 miles east of Edinburgh) we passed what, to me looked like a giant slag heap in the distance. I assumed that there was an old mine in the area as this bump in the landscape was so out of character with the fairly flat edges of the Firth of Forth. However I soon remembered that the North Berwick Law was no slag heap! "North Berwick Law may be described as as a round or slightly oval plug of felstone which comes up vertically through the ash, [...] into a cone of which the top is 612 feet above the sea." (Howell Hyatt, 2009. The Geology of East Lothian, Including Parts of the Counties of Edinburgh and Berwick. BiblioBazaar)

North Berwick Law -Taken September 2010 by Norman Boyd

We both decided to climb it and once at the top I let my wife know there was a connection with Bellamy. He illustrated a 1955 children's book called "The Bank House Twins".

The story concerns the Currie children, whose father is Manager of the bank in North Berwick - thus the title of the book. The twins, Christine and Colin are annoyed when they learn a friend of the family's is coming to stay with the twins for the summer. They initially try to get rid of him, and this is where the North Berwick Law comes in.

Page 41

The twins hear that Donald does not like climbing and they therefore avoid the path (my wife and I took) and climb the rocks to the top. Donald appears to struggle, all the time not letting on he knows their game. The main thrust of the story revolves around some bank robbers - rather predictably, but the whole story reads so much like a simpler Enid Blyton, and is extremely dated now, but fun as a nostalgic piece.

A review of a later book by Fidler by Brian Alderson appears in the Times newspaper of Wednesday March the 11th 1980 of "the last book of a writer who made a small corner in "holiday adventure stories" and who died [in 1980] with more than 80 titles to her name. Kathleen Fidler's The Ghosts of Sandeel Bay has all the ingredients of triteness that the genre demands." Despite a rather disparaging review he goes on to describe how she was well loved in her adopted home in Scotland (she was born in Coalville, Leicestershire on August 10, 1899) and Blackie and Sons sponsored a "Kathleen Fidler Award" which appears to have run until at least 1996, Hodder Children's Books took over the sponsorship of the award and the name was changed to the Fidler award for a while. The interesting Wee Web Author and Illustrator's website has a longer biography and listing of her books

Bellamy produced 8 black and white line drawings and the colour cover (See the BOOKS page of the website for the others - click on NOTE at the side) . The drawings are interesting in that I doubt he had seen the North Berwick Law himself and perhaps didn't even have reference material sent to him for this commission, apparently choosing subjects he knew would be acceptable.

Finally I have used the lovely Lightbox scripts to display this particular set of images within the NOTE field and I'd love feedback. If it doesn't work for you let me know PLEASE. The images take a while to load up the first time but then look great. It took a weekend for me to see how to tweak it but I like the results

Other Bellamy sales

2010-09-27T20:14:00.000+01:00

I have updated my recent post to show the prices fetched for various original artwork by Frank Bellamy. I missed mentioning another unique piece by the same seller.

SOLD FOR £620 (with 18 bids)

"Probably done when starting his tenure on the Daily Mirror strip, perhaps to show the paper's art editor his treatment for the character? Interesting to see he has a cowboy theme going here, as Bellamy had a great love of westerns, a period of history Garth visited on occasion, notably on the 'Ghost Town' story"

... says the seller.There a quite a few of these character studies that Bellamy prepared for his strips - Thunderbirds, Heros, David the shepherd king, Dan Dare etc.

I wonder if Bellamy was told that he would join the Garth strip in a "cowboy story" - actually Garth is shown as a US cavalryman in Bellamy's first strip "Sundance" which ran in the Daily Mirror from 28 June1971 to 11 October 1971

The other far less impressive sale, but interesting nonetheless was for a poster that remains unidentified beyond being a reprint of the famous and often reprinted Radio Times cover of Jon Pertwee from January 1972. It sold for £18.43 and is sized 18 by 26 inches. The logo places it in time and I'm guessing was in a Doctor Who Magazine. The reproduction not very good as most of the subtle stippling that Bellamy did is lost here. Anyone know where this appeared?

More original art sales and Dez Skinn too

2010-09-14T21:07:00.006+01:00

UPDATES AUCTION PRICES BELOW IN RED

Just got back from holiday in Scotland and so am catching up with emails, RSS feeds, etc. etc. Of course I found a Bellamy connection with the place I stayed but more on that later. Some call it obsession...I call it serendipity!

So here are a few quick Bellamy items

Thanks to Lew Stringer I was alerted to Dez Skinn's latest story regarding the "the ones that got away". If you take a look at the covers shown (reproduced below), you'll see Dez's love of Bellamy.

On eBay recently we saw 2 bids on a Garth strip from the "The angels of hell's Gap" story (episode #J65) which sold for £67

But even more exciting is the current auction of three more Garths, one of which is especially rare. It's the title panel of "The Man-Hunt" story of Garth (episode #K239). Why so rare? None of the other title strips have appeared in auction or for sale to my knowledge since I started watching the Internet in 1993.

SOLD FOR £410 (with 26 bids)

This seller is also selling an episode from "The Wreckers" story (#G267) and also an episode from "The Orb of Trimandias" (#F86)

SOLD FOR £99.88 (with 10 bids)

SOLD FOR £129 (with 17 bids)

The same seller is auctioning off a beautiful Thunderbirds page from TV21 #54. This, for those who don't know, is the third page in black and white that Bellamy produced. Unbelievably for 14 weeks he drew a full colour double page spread plus a black and white ink wash. And this is from the 3rd week.

NOT SOLD FOR £1000 BEST OFFER

I'll be updating this page with the final prices fetched. While waiting take a look at the piece sold by Comic Book Auctions site and the price realised on my updated post

Frank Bellamy writes letters

2010-09-01T14:20:00.001+01:00

"Comic Media Vol 2 no 2 whole number 9" it says in the indices. This particular issue of Nick Landau's fanzine carried an extensive interview with Peter O'Donnell (Modesty Blaise's creator) and an advert drawn by someone called Dave Gibbons (end irony) but is more of interest to Bellamy completists because Frank Bellamy wrote a letter that was published.

This wasn't the only letter we know about.

Bellamy also wrote to Dez Skinn's Fantasy Advertiser and Mike Tiefenbacher and Jerome Sinkovec Menomonee Falls Gazette

Fantasy Advertiser Vol. 3:43 May 1972, (no page numbers) had the usual Battlefield! letter column and the first letter taking pride of place is by Bellamy (incidentally that Dave Gibbons artwork also appears here too!)

and lastly (until more are discovered) the one from Menomonee Falls Gazette

This brilliant newspaper/magazine was published reprinting strips from all over the world in black and white. Garth started on September 4 1972 with the opening episode of Sundance which was not illustrated by Bellamy. This seems odd but if the guys hadn't reprinted this the Bellamy episode wouldn't help them understand the story. Bellamy actually started in September 18 number 40

Tiefenbacher and Sinkovec wrote a letter asking for explanation of Allard's role in the strip's creation Bellamy's reply is interesting. Follow the links above (and as usual click on the NOTE links) to see the full copies on the website

Dez Skinn, Dave Gibbons and Frank Bellamy

2010-08-30T22:37:00.000+01:00

Used with permission of Dez Skinn

You may not know but Dez Skinn has started a website in which he recounts the early days of UK fanzines and his early publishing ventures. He is one of few people who interviewed Frank Bellamy, taking as he explains, his backup, Dave Gibbons:

Dave Gibbons and I did the interview, going up to Frank and his wife Nancy’s semi-detached three bedroom house in Kettering, Northamptonshire one Saturday morning. There were two of us so Dave could cover any “tricky” art questions which may come up.

Frank was, as ever, a genial and self-effacing host, seemingly oblivious to his standing as one of the all-time greats of British comics. As we spoke, his enthusiasm was apparent, undiminished by time, he was still able to be excited over the smallest of things. One example he scurried away to proudly show us was a letter from America. An editor at DC Comics had written, asking if Frank would consider working for them. While most historians and fans would consider this a retrograde step in his career, Frank was thrilled at the thought.

Both Archie Goodwin and Marv Wolfman corresponded with Bellamy back in the early 70s and as the Daily Mirror reported Bellamy won the Foreign Comics Award of the American' Academy of Comic Books Arts, of which Goodwin was President in June 1972.

"FRANK BELLAMY, who draws the Daily Mirror's Garth strip, has been given the He was the only Briton to be nominated (he lives at Malden,[sic] Surrey ), and came ahead of all other, as seen from America, foreigners.
The award covers his work over the years, including the Dan Dare strip for the boys' magazine Eagle. It also-gave a nod to one cartoon he drew in the Eagle series, Heros the Spartan. The Academy displayed it at an exhibition in New York. It shows a massive battle scene with a cast of 200" Daily Mirror (16 June 1972), p.11 "The Victor" by Anthony Delano

Dez tells the story of how he auctioned some original Bellamy pieces at the 1971 comic convention (one of which is shown in an old photo), how Bellamy drew an original as a birthday present for Dez and how Bellamy dealt with lettering problems and the restrictions in drawing Garth

Head over there and read some fascinating original material about Bellamy from Dez

Original Frank Bellamy art for sale: Thunderbirds

2010-08-20T09:08:00.001+01:00

UPDATED AUCTION PRICE:
Winning bid incl. 10% Buyer's Premium: £3,726. This must be the most expensive Bellamy piece to date!

TV21 was going to finish in its first incarnation at number 242, but in issue 220 Bellamy was still producing lovely artwork. This story ran from TV 21 and TV TORNADO issues 218-226 (22/03/69 - 17/05/69). And as we have seen from the Reynolds and Hearn reprints, (the publisher's website seems to be down now!) the artwork delivered was extremely vibrant compared to the printed versions of the 60s even if in photogravure.

Front Cover TV21 220

Bellamy's 2 single pages (rather than the earlier double page spreads) are still full of action and great perspective.

Page 10 TV21 220

The second page of this story is now on the Comic Book Auctions site for previewing purposes. The auction will be opening soon - sign up for an email reminder

The scan on their site looks like this

http://www.compalcomics.com/catalogue/lot158A.htm

Lot # 158:
Thunderbirds original artwork (1969) drawn and signed by Frank Bellamy for TV 21 No. 220
Thunderbird 2 lands near Project City and the giant Mole is deployed to bore through the concrete walls with Virgil and Brains at the controls.
But the walls are live - they’re being electrocuted...
Pelikan inks on board 18 x 14 ins
£700-800

Glad to see Malcolm has realised Bellamy drew all his comic work (to my knowledge) in coloured ink!

And finally here's the published version to compare (well, as best you can online!)

Page 11 TV21 220

As usual I will update this page when the piece is sold and price fetched announced

Happy Bidding - and tell Malcolm I sent you...he may send me a free catalogue, as I certainly can't afford to bid!

Frank Bellamy's book illustrations: Not too narrow ... not too deep

2010-07-30T09:06:00.003+01:00

SECOND UPDATE:
Is it better to start a new blog entry or just update?
Anyway, after Terry Doyle, the original owner of the original artworks, contacted me, he sent a message to Chris Power, a long time Bellamy fan who owns several pieces.
Chris kindly forwarded this message with 2 clearer scans which I have uploaded to the website (get used to clicking on the sidebar NOTES)

Hello Norman, I read your entry on 'Not Too Narrow, Not too Deep' with great interest. I'm in the happy position of owning both the original and also a preliminary of the cover, which I acquired from Terry Doyle some years back. The originals are absolutely gorgeous, very rich and vivid in their use of colour and fascinating as they gives us a glimpse of an unpublished preparatory work almost the equal of the finished piece. I think the final cover is the stronger, maybe because the 'face' is looking down from the right? It's certainly more 'worked' than the unused picture. Was this Bellamy's own decision? Or had someone from the publishers Corgi asked for a further option? The unused version is certainly worked up to a level where you could imagine it being used.
Discuss.
I must say your blog is an excellent resource for those of us bewitched by Bellamy's work.
Long may it continue.

UPDATE:

See the comment below and my answer to Terry for a prelimiary version of this finished cover!

Also I have added another version of the cover which I previously forgot - not by Bellamy - when first writing the article

1965 version by Frank Bellamy

I have just finished reading an interesting paperback from the 1960s as a result of learning a while ago that Bellamy did an illustration for it. The book in question is "Not too narrow...not too deep", the first novel by Richard Sale (born 1911 died 1993).

It was in the same year in that James M. Cain wrote one of my favourite films "Double Indemnity", Richard Sale wrote "Not too narrow...not too deep". This book of only 158 pages takes us from the steamy jungle prison camp with 10 (or is that 11?) inmates as they escape and buy a small boat to take to Trinidad, then to Cuba and into the United States. The daily drudge of scorching heat, water rationing and the endless swell of the ocean, is only interrupted storms at night and the loss of some of the escapees and by the musings of our narrator (a doctor) as he observes the interactions between all the occupants of the boat. The real story is who is this eleventh man? Who is Jean Cambreau? And how does he know the future of this group?

By the way, some reviews have been lazy in copying false information. I very much doubt that a prison break covering the distance from 'New Guinea' to Trinidad would work. The reviewers obviously are mixing up the the largest island in the Indonesian archipelago -New Guinea with French Guiana, which on the northern Atlantic coast of South America.

1950 version (artist unknown)

I enjoyed the book and was surprised how subtle the story's handling of this strange 11th man and how up to date the writing style is. I could only see one line that made the book look dated (a reference to how the quantity of aeroplanes was likely to increase!) The atmosphere of unending heat, the availability of water - but none to drink - and their encounters on the mainland were very naturalistic. For those curious about the title, below is the relevant passage but don';t think the whole book is like this, it's not.:

"Listen to me," he said. "There is a town in Jehoraz not far from the old glory of Judea where an old Jew lived. He was very old and he knew that soon he would die, so he had his grave dug before he died to make certain that it would be just as he wanted it. When the grave-digger had finished, the Jew went to the grave and looked down into it and he shook his head and said: This grave will not do at all. The grave-digger was surprised. He'd worked hard and he considered it a good job, well done. So he said: What is wrong with this grave? Then the old Jew replied: I cannot lie in a grave like this. It is much too narrow and much too deep. When the day of resurrection comes, how shall I be able to scale the sides of it and come forth? With the bottom so deep. I will not be able to climb out. With the sides so narrow, I will not be able to get a foothold. So the grave-digger made the grave shallower and widened the sides, and the old Jew was satisfied and returned home to die."

The book was adapted into a well remembered but renamed classic "Strange Cargo" starring Clark Gable, Joan Crawford and Peter Lorre amongst others. The fact there is no woman in the book (except for in a couple of pages before they set off on their journey) means we have the sexual tension (as best Hollywood can do in 1940) and romance. The best site for more information on the film is here . Roughly translating the non-English titles of the film versions from around the world: Spanish and Italian "Devil's Island"; French "The cursed/damned cargo"; Swedish "Flight/Escape"; and finally the German "The fantastic rescue" (which oddly is most appropriate in my opinion - read the book and you'll see why I say that.)

1936 version (artist unknown)

Sale (and his wife, Mary Loos) did adapt various stories to screenplays but not this one. Famously he directed the sequel to "Gentlemen prefer blondes", "Gentlemen Marry Brunettes", written by his wife's aunt, Anita Loos (1955).

Sale wrote lots of pulp stories in Argosy but also a series of 51 stories in Detective Fiction Weekly called Daffy Dill . To read one click on the link

Pilgrim Books 1984 (Artist unknown)

Anyway back to Frank Bellamy. The latter part of the 1960s appears to be a time in which Bellamy concentrated on Thunderbirds (after he left the Eagle comic) for TV21. He also produced drawings for the TV 'Avengers' and an advert or three and not much else. This cover (no internal illustrations) illustrated by Bellamy has a brooding portrait watching over the boat at sea and is in my opinion a perfect rendition of Richard Sale's intent - the 11th mystery man, watching over the group. Is he a supernatural being, a devil, hypnotist or Jesus himself?

Corgi 1971 (Illustration by Michael Codd)

Bellamy and the Postman always rings twice

2010-06-30T13:50:00.000+01:00

http://www.frankbellamy.co.uk/unseen.htmChandler, Hammett.and James M. Cain. 'Who?' you ask. The third name is not often quoted as being among the founders of the hard-boiled detective novel of the American early 20th century. These authors of noir classics inspired a decade of MGM and Warner Bros. lone detective stories. Femme fatales, heroes who are no good but who take the consequences of their actions when the time comes and so on. Cain's other works made into films include Mildred Pierce (starring Joan Crawford) and my favourite, directed by Billy Wilder 'Double Indemnity' starring Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck.

But I want to concentrate on "The Postman Always Rings Twice" the 1934 novel which was thought to be inspired by the Ruth Snyder case in America. Frank Chambers (John Garfield, in the original film) is a drifter who stops at a rural diner for a meal, and ends up working there. The diner is operated by a beautiful young woman, Cora Smith (Lana Turner), and her much older husband, Nick (Cecil Kellaway). It soons transpires that the appearance of the young brutal drifter inspires Cora to chase her dream of being free of her disappointing life and together they plot her husband's murder.

The steamy opening to the film begins with the line "It was on a side road outside of Los Angeles. I was hitchhiking from San Francisco down to San Diego, I guess. A half hour earlier I thumbed a ride..." We see a man with itchy feet enter a gas station. He tears down the "Man wanted" notice, enters the diner and sits - being served a hamburger by the friendly owner. Nick, the owner has to leave him to watch the burger, as he goes out to serve a customer that has just arrived at the pumps. Suddenly in the quiet cafe, a noise is heard and the camera follows a lipstick rolling across the floor. The camera, acting as the narrator's eyes pans along the path the lipstick took and hesitates on Lana Turner's feet, and travels partway up her legs. We then see her full figure in a two piece with 40s shoulder pads and hot pants. The lighting is pure film noir shadow, but not obscuring the beautiful 'sweater girl' as she was known.

Steve Holland very kindly sent me scans of a postcard used to advertise a 1980s exhibition of Bellamy's work - more on that later. Bellamy has chosen to compose an illustration showing Cora, a self-possessed woman looking at the guy peeping through the cafe door. The other elements are a circular barstool and a glass display stand with sloping front used in cafes to display their wares. Bellamy's use of shadow here must have come from his work on cinema hoardings and cut-outs that we know he produced while at Blamire's Studio in Kettering in his early life before heading to London and his later comic strip work. The work also shows his earlier signature - more cursive than the later one - and puts the piece firmly in the pre-1950s. But after that we have no idea of where the piece is now. It was shown (the reverse of the postcard is below) at the exhibition "Unseen Bellamy" at the Basement Gallery, Brixton, London between the 15th of July and 3rd of September 1989, 13 years after Bellamy’s death. Several of the pieces that were sold have been tracked down and the corresponding catalogue (see the website for details) which was published illustrates this very piece. But I'm grateful to Steve for this version as it's much clearer and in monochrome colour. The rear adds a bit of information I didn't know - there was a private pre exhibition viewing. I would have loved to have been there. I would guess among the invited would be the late Bob Monkhouse who collected many of Bellamy's works.

I have added the larger scans to the website just follow the 'note' link on the Unseen Bellamy page to view Catalogue entry number 3 "The Postman always rings twice" by Frank bellamy....and needless tro say if you bought the original at the event I'd love to hear about your experience.

Frank Bellamy recent sales

2010-06-01T21:58:00.000+01:00

I was amazed to see a couple of recent sales on eBay and thought it might be a good opportunity to mention them here.

Firstly this ice cream lolly wrapper sold for £26.99 with 6 bids. I wrote about this series of wrappers here. Mick, who sold this, had a question about the wrappers he was selling (the others were not by Bellamy):
Q: Hi, is it possible to get each title in both of the two packet front designs (with and without 5d)? Did Frank Bellamy do the art work for all the series of Walls wrappers? Thank you 25-May-10
A: hi I haven't seen any RED version wrapper that has the price on the front.There is Another version of the red one ,that features a smaller image of the front design on the back .Bellamy only did the artwork for the From the worlds of the Daleks series. All the BEST mick

An unusual and truly rare item. Who would have known it would be worth so much?

Secondly, a copy of the Radio Times, with a cover featuring Jon Pertwee (as Doctor Who) and the Daleks sold, after three bids for £123.25. I personally still have the cover that I cut from my family's Radio Times - again, that seemed the best thing to do to keep a copy!

And finally...

An original Garth strip sold for £150.80. This was from the Bride of Jenghiz Khan story. As I don't actually own a copy of this strip I have taken the scans provided by the seller. The episode number is H282, and I checked the Menomonee Falls Gazette partial index (by Roger Clark) and see that the newspaper reprint finished before they got round to reprinting this particular episode, so it was no use looking to see if I had a copy! I checked, but I don't have a copy of the Dakin reprint from 1979 Garth: Bride of Jenghiz Khan (Daily Strips No. 1).which reprints the whole story (H228-J11) - nor do I have Garth: Bride of Jenghiz Khan reprinted by the All Devon Comic Collectors Club. So, sorry, but here's the best I can do.

NEXT BLOG ENTRY....

I have been asked at work to demonstrate a blog entry being created and wondered is there anything I could show you from my collection, that you've not yet seen? Let me know by emailing me (with a single request, please!) at

You'll need to type this address in your preferred email client.I've been getting some spam and this is my crude attempt to stop that!

Jon Haward and colleagues win Bronze award

2010-05-18T19:53:00.000+01:00

I have just heard that the excellent series Classical Comics, which publishes bright new versions of the classics in graphic novel format (and in Original Text, Plain Text and Quick Text Versions, as well as in American English) has garnered another award. The Independent Publisher Book Awards (the cutely named IPPY Awards) have been announced and The Tempest has won a Bronze Medal.

Congratulations to Jon Haward ( a great Bellamy fan - see previous blog entry) and his co-creators John McDonald, Gary Erskine, and Nigel Dobbyn

Now in order to add some Bellamy art I have to think....did he illustrate Shakespeare? I can't think of anywhere he did that. Did he illustrate any classics (yes, the Pit and the Pendulum) but how about this disaster illustration - very contemporary reference to volcanic explosions?

Thunderbirds from TV21 # 83

Fans of Frank: Edoardo di Muro

2010-05-16T17:37:00.000+01:00

Eagle 4 March 1961

Now I'll confess straight away that I had never heard of Edoardo, but an email I was sent set me off on a course researching his work and I thought I'd add a quick link for you to see what this is about.

In March this year, Eduardo's book "Noir et Blanc en couleurs" (literally 'black and white in colours') was published by édition roymodus. Even if your French isn't up to scratch, this video will show you that Eduardo has obviously been influenced by Bellamy's African colours and in particular by Fraser of Africa (from the Eagle in the UK and Il giorno dei ragazzi in Italy, his birthplace). This entry on the publisher's website shows a beautiful reproduction of a page in Italian - my translation of the webpage appears below - so don't blame anyone else!

In 1961, Edoardo di Muro was 16 years old when he read the magazine "Il giorno dei ragazzi". On the last page, a strip by Frank Bellamy tells the adventures of "the intrepid Frazer".

More than a comic, it's an immersion in Africa that will impress the adolescent (di Muro) forever, but also the artist in his aesthetic quest

Edoardo di Muro:
"Outside the town, towards the river between wasteland and scrub, hyenas like scruffy stray dogs roamed around! The round backs of hippos were like large polished stones upon which I jumped without fear of them opening their large mouths... Your beautiful drawings with their stippled shadows have sown the seeds for my career and at the same time formed the backdrop of my life. Thank you big brother Frank!"

You can read more about Edoardo's background here and you might like to follow Google's crude translation here il giorno dei ragazzi was produced as a beautiful comic supplement for children and featured many strips from the Eagle as well as home grown comics The only full reprint of Fraser to date is the Hawk Books reprint which appears on eBay, Abebooks and Amazon from time to time

Which reminds me, I'd love to hear what you think about the Amazon gadget on the left. I have so many email requests for reprints, I thought this was a neat way of adding a link. It;s unlikely I'll make anything but hey, it all helps!

Fans of Frank Bellamy: Steve McGarry

2010-05-04T09:00:00.003+01:00

A while ago I read this blog entry on Steve McGarry (whom I must confess I didn't know - you'll see why in a moment) and noticed that he mentions his favourite artist is Frank Bellamy. Once again on your behalf I asked if he would be interested in adding to my series "Fans of Frank Bellamy" and the nice guy replied in the affirmative with the following story. Without sounding too sycophantic I also steer towards Steve's tastes in artists!

And before you go searching for the paucity of information on Trevillion, who Steve mentions a few times, he was the guy who did a brilliant job on the Munsters in TV21, for whom Bellamy did Thunderbirds of course.

Long before I knew who Frank Bellamy was, I was a huge Frank Bellamy fan.

Growing up in Manchester in the late 1950s and early 1960s, television was small, monochrome and limited to two basic channels that offered little programming designed to capture a youngster’s attention. So in those pre-videogame days, it was comics that fired our imaginations. We would graduate from The Beano and The Dandy, Topper or Beezer, to the adventure comics ... the girls to their Bunty or Princess and tales of ballerinas and gymkhanas, we boys to the likes of The Victor or The Hotspur. Each week, we would race to the newsagents on the day of publication, ready to devour the adventures of Alf Tupper or Gorgeous Gus and pocket the bonus swag – from football league ladders to cardboard gliders or contraptions that made noises - that was invariably included. Comics were printed in one or two colours on cheap, coarse paper, with one notable exception. In all its full colour, glossy glory, The Eagle was the undisputed king of comics. In addition, every Christmas there would be a football book and The Eagle Annual waiting for me under the tree.

By the early 1960s, I had moved on to the new Marvel comics that had begun to appear on a carousel rack at Fitton's newsagents. I can remember buying the first few issues of Spiderman, The Fantastic Four, Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos, Thor and sundry others that could have funded a retirement had they been carefully preserved, instead of consigned to a binbag destined for the corporation tip. But my two younger brothers were still loyal to the homegrown imprints, and The Eagle landed with great regularity at McGarry Towers. Having gown up with The Eagle, I'm sure I must have been familiar with the art of Frank Bellamy, but it was his work on Heros the Spartan that really grabbed me. I thought it was the greatest comic art I had ever seen ... and nearly 50 years later, my opinion hasn't changed.

Even so, I can't swear that the artist's name had registered with me, although I must have seen his signature. By the mid-1960s, my attention was fixed firmly on football, girls and pop music, and my appetite for comics had waned ... but I recall admiring the way Frank breathed life into the Anderson puppets in the TV21 comics my younger brothers avidly collected. And while I recognised his style instantly by then, I'm not sure at that point I could yet attach a name to that stunning artwork.

By my late teens, I was learning the ropes in an art studio and beginning to harbour thoughts of pursuing a career in illustration (on the off-chance that one of the many incarnations of my rock bands didn’t take off.) I was particularly interested in sports and music illustration. My inspiration came from the Daily Mirror that arrived on our mat each weekday morning and the assortment of Sunday papers we would take at the weekend.

The Munsters drawn by Trevillion

By the early 1970s, Paul Trevillion was making a name for himself as the country's premier sports illustrator, and I was captivated by his bold depictions of footballers in the Sunday tabloids. It was around that same time that Frank Bellamy debuted on the Garth strip in The Daily Mirror, and the strip was instantly transformed. Dull, rudimentary line was suddenly replaced by the most vivid and exciting artwork ever to grace a newspaper comics page. I became a Frank Bellamy fanatic. I read the strip avidly for a couple of years, and finally could contain myself no more. Plucking up courage, I wrote to Frank, effusively praising his work and asking if he had any tips to pass on to an aspiring artist. He replied with a very gracious note, warning me that the business was tough but wishing me well. I saved that letter for years ... I even saved the envelope ... and was genuinely upset to discover I had mislaid it when we moved out to the U.S. many years later.

I sold my first illustrations, to the girls' comic Romeo in 1974 ( I was 21) and by 1977 I had taken the plunge and gone freelance. I did the occasional piece for comics, did some ad agency illustration work, and picked up a lot of work in the music business. I designed quite a few record sleeves, including album covers for the likes of Jilted John and Slaughter & The Dogs that showcased my illustration talents.

By then, of course, Frank was gone, having died of a heart attack in1976.

I was employing a linework approach heavily influenced by comic books, and although I was enjoying some success, I felt that I hadn't yet found my style. In those pre-Google days, most artists kept scrapbooks of reference material. Besides photos of interiors, cars, places and anything else I felt might prove useful down the line, I'd also clipped out illustrations from sundry publications, particularly sports and entertainment material. Leafing through one of those albums, probably in late 1980 or early 1981, I came across a Doctor Who cover illustration that Frank Bellamy had done for The Radio Times in 1972. I'm not sure why it hadn't registered with me up until that point, but it suddenly dawned on me that the stipple style he had employed to render Jon Pertwee was a natural fit for me. What if I employed that approach to render portraits of musicians for record sleeves? Better still, what if I tackled the kind of sports subjects that Trevillion covered with a similar stipple style?

In my spare moments, I began to experiment with the approach, using a rapidograph pen for the stipple and dip pen and brush for the hair. I was already a confirmed fan of CS10 line board, which was Frank’s preferred board of choice. The china clay surface accepts ink beautifully and mistakes can be scratched out with a razor blade without any feathering, so the art always looks pristine. Almost immediately, it felt perfect, and I was excited with the results I was getting over a period of a couple of weeks, I created a portfolio piece, a mock poster for Humphrey Bogart's "The Maltese Falcon" as I felt the "noir" subject matter was ideally suited to that style. The finished piece convinced me that I was now ready to try pitching. But who to approach?

The Daily Mirror used a lot of sports illustrations, but they already had Paul Trevillion and a great illustrator called Charles Dupont to call upon. (Which reminds me, I always suspected that Charles DuPont and another Mirror illustrator, Bob Williams, were one and the same. I’d love to know if that hunch was right!) I was a big admirer of Arthur Ranson, who was doing incredible things with biography strips of Abba and The Beatles for Look-In magazine, and I had seen his stuff in such papers as The Sunday Times. I was hesitant to approach any publication that was already working with such outstanding artists, figuring I probably wouldn't get the time of day. Then it struck me that The Daily Star, which had only launched a couple of years earlier, might be in the market for illustrations ... and it was the only national newspaper whose editorial offices were based in Manchester, not a mile away from my studio. The FA Cup Final was approaching and I knew that a lot of papers liked to do special pullouts, usually featuring illustrations. I stuck a photocopy of my ”Maltese Falcon" illustration and a brief note in the post and crossed my fingers.

A few days later I got a call from the paper's art editor, Mike Burnham, who invited me for a lunchtime drink and a chat. One liquid lunch later, I was being introduced to the Daily Star's sports editor, Arthur Lamb. He loved the "Maltese Falcon" sample and loved the idea of doing an FA Cup special. We agreed a very generous fee and shook hands on the deal. On Saturday, May 14, 1981, to commemorate my beloved Manchester City taking on Spurs in the FA Cup Final, I made my national newspaper debut with a giant centre-spread illustration featuring all 24 players and two managers ... all rendered in my new Bellamy-inspired stipple style.

I can honestly say, I've never looked back. Soon, I was illustrating a Steve Davis snooker series for The Daily Star. Then they gave me my own weekly sports illustration spot, as well as commissioning front page illustrations for general elections and such. In 1986, they launched my daily series The Diary of Rock & Pop. By then, I also had my own series each week in the soccer magazine "Match Weekly" and my clients included Look-In and The Daily Mirror. The syndication arm of Express Newspapers began to sell my soccer features worldwide.

United Media, the giant New York syndicate who gave us Peanuts and Garfield, spotted my work and I was invited to sign my first US syndication contract in 1989, the same year that my "Badlands" cartoon launched in The Sun. I moved my young family to California that summer.

At one point in the early 1990s, "Badlands" was appearing daily in The Sun, my "Pop Culture" strip was appearing daily in the Today newspaper and syndicated to 600 newspapers worldwide through NEA, I had a weekly series in the News of The World and a weekly series in "Shoot!' magazine, The Sun was running my daily soccer strip and I was supplying a monthly to SIForKids magazine [Sports Illustrated for kids]. I've slowed down a little since then ... but I still make the majority of my income from drawing pop stars and footballers!

We've now lived in sunny California for 20 years and my work is still syndicated all over the world. I'm a two-term former President of the National Cartoonists Society and am the first artist to win Illustrator of the Year awards from both the NCS and the Australian Cartoonists Association. And I can honestly say that I owe all of my professional success to the inspiration that Frank Bellamy's genius provided.

As I write, I find myself occasionally glancing at the framed piece of art that hangs directly above my drawing board. It's a Frank Bellamy "Garth" strip (H105 from The Beast of Ultor series) that I bought from Frank's widow, Nancy, a few years after his death. It's one of my most- treasured possessions.

Many, many thanks to Steve for this extensive romp through his contact with Bellamy and his own story. Take a look at Steve's site www.stevemcgarry.com My parents never bought a paper but a friend of the family kindly cut out the Garth strips for me, and we certainly didn't see the later Sun, Today, or News of the World - thus i missed Steve's excellent work until now. Steve, I hope you like the accompanying illustrations.

Now if any of you have an easy was for me to get to John Byrne or Al Williamson, I'd love to add them to my 'Fans of Frank' series

FOOTNOTE::
From Steve:
"Incidentally, Trevillion is currently appearing on The Guardian site each week with his long-running "You are the Ref" series, that now runs in The Observer:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2010/apr/30/you-are-the-ref-laws"

Thanks Steve

Frank Bellamy - first past the post!

2010-04-02T17:59:00.000+01:00

Martin Baines asked me to do a piece on the Bellamy Sunday Times work and a rare opportunity presented itself to make this even more interesting

After his long run on Thunderbirds, Frank Bellamy saw the writing on the wall for TV21 as he knew it - Alan Fennell the editor, was moving on and Bellamy decided to spread his wings and seek employment elsewhere. In March 1969 Bellamy was commissioned to produce a strip about an imaginary young artist called Blenkinsop. We are very fortunate that David Driver of the Radio Times (have you see the photo never before published in this issue of Eagle Times?) and the Sunday Times (Colour) Magazine wanted to send assignments his way.

After completing 6 assignments for the colour Sunday supplement to the prestigious Times, he was asked to create a double page spread for an article on horse racing. This was to be his final work for the Sunday Times magazine, but interestingly due to the generosity of Tim Barnes we are able to compare a rough (that presumably was rejected) with the published version.

Over the Summer of 1989 the Unseen Frank Bellamy Basement Gallery Exhibition took place and several people, (including our old friend Jeff Haythorpe) have written to tell us what they saw at the Gallery. Today we are looking at "Devious ways to win" or as it became when published "Inside Racing". Tim has sent me other scans/photos and I'd like to write about them in the future, so watch this space.

Complete double page spread

The main pieces scanned at high resolution (click on the accompanying note) are on the website accompanying the Sunday Times (Colour) Magazine entry for 25 April 1971 but I have copied a few pieces here to comment on.

It looks as if this commission may have given Bellamy some trouble. Firstly notice that the header strip looks like a Bellamy trick which would allow the Art Editor to add the title "Inside Racing" easily, but he or she has chosen to not use that opportunity and has laid the title and text at the bottom of the art.

'Header or title strip'

But even more interestingly is the rejected idea for this piece. Compare the Bellamy logo title for example - it is so much more dynamic - perhaps too much for the magazine!

Rejected strip sold at Basement Gallery exhibition

One can also see that Bellamy's layouts had to changed and he had started laying some colour in the piece...

Single panel

Perhaps Bellamy mis-counted how many text boxes were needed? We can only guess, but what a fantastic opportunity to see an unfinished and rejected piece. Thank you Tim for sharing this - more pieces to follow.

I'd love to know more about the Magazine itself and the reason that Bellamy's commissions dried up in 1971. Obviously he was then drawing a national daily strip, Garth, but we know of other commissions he received during this time. Was there a change of editor who didn't approve of the prestigious Sunday Times having a comic strip? Bellamy always quoted the fact he had produced the first strip to appear in the Sunday Times, and was justifiably proud of this fact.

Far from quiet on the Western Front!

2010-02-28T12:46:00.009Z

"Far from quiet on the Western Front"... or ... "Stormin' Norman goes to war" - both titles suggested by my family as titles for this blog entry.

This week for me has been a rollercoaster ride. It started with a hospital visit to review some test results with my best friend (all clear, thank God), picking up one of my children from her one and a half year visit to the Far East (M25 rush hour, two major roadworks, and raining on the way to Heathrow!) but ended on such a high note!

Yesterday morning at Geoff West's BookPalace, a bunch of us unpacked some of the boxes from China containing three exciting titles. If you had told the teenage Norman that he would be signing books to which he would contribute a couple of pages (1518 words to be exact), he might have quietly thought you were mad and then dismissed the comment!

When (not, if!) you buy a copy of the excellent "Story of World War One" illustrated throughout by Frank Bellamy, you will have the choice of a signed hardback or an equally excellent paperback. Both have lovely covers but the hardback limited edition has, firstly a limited edition print inserted in the book and also Steve Holland's and my signatures. When you have a copy in your hand I can guarantee the signature is mine as I signed 175 copies of the book yesterday morning.

Open it and gaze at the Bellamy illustrations but take a moment to congratulate Stuart Williams for the design. I did wonder how one would reproduce a three page article including a double page spread in such a book. I was prepared for the blank fourth page. However Stuart has taken the cameos of the major players in the First World War (which were drawn by Bellamy and incorporated in the illustrations he did) and placed them on those empty fourth pages. The text has been completely reset and pictures cleaned up (by Steve Holland).

This resource would be brilliant in schools and gives a great general introduction for those studying World War One in Key Stage Three (Years 7 - 9) - the prime target of the original Look and Learn from which this comes.

Steve Holland, being more geared up for this sort of occasion, brought his camera along to the event and we had on hand a photographer, (well my wife!). Steve kindly sent me this picture - I insisted we hide behind the books - from left to right - Geoff West, Norman Boyd and "the famous" Steve Holland, (as I named him yesterday) after he called me "Bellamy expert"

You will have already seen the books Steve is holding (on the right) I'm proudly displaying the above title and finally Geoff is holding a very thick leather bound and very limited Complete Swift Stories volume in which you get all the adventures that Bellamy illustrated in that young people's comic. I've yet to sit down and read through the whole lot and check the contents (a natural bibliographer!) but they haven't forgotten the Swift Annual story which often gets overlooked! I very much doubt these will ever be reprinted again, so my advice is get over to Book Palace and order a copy - you will not be disappointed and you need to support such work so that the future projects can be produced.

I ought to also say the pictures I have scanned are not indicative of the quality of the above books, they are lot better but I thought it would be good to show some detail other than the spreads I have used in the past

Heros the Spartan art for sale

2010-02-14T17:25:00.006Z

UPDATE
I have added the price below that was realised for this piece. I'm beginning to wonder whether I might, through all my blog and web activity, be the cause for the large sums that Bellamy art now fetches! Rightfully so too.

Just a quick post to let you know that another poiece of rare Eagle artwork is up for auction. It's at Comic Book Postal Auctions Spring 2010 auction - Lot #160 . Before you click the link make sure you have a couple of thousand pounds to bid. See my last mention and the winning prices!

The piece's description is:
Heros The Spartan original colour artwork drawn and signed by Frank Bellamy. From The Eagle centre page spread Vol 16: No 20 (1965) Heros is saved from The Living Dead by Zathran, ex-commander of the Black Guard … Some of the blue colour faded, reds still strong. Poster paint on board. 19 x 28 ins Estimate: £1,000-1,400

Auction ended March, 2010 at £2,421

Edited on 22 March 2010

It is the 12th episode of the story "The Slave Army" and Eagle issue dated 15 May 1965. The story tells of Heros accompanying a caravan to the Libyan gold mines. Remember this is 1965 storytelling and the Internet was not to hand. Libya has no gold mines, but does have the very modern resource of oil in abundance (their neighbour to the south, Chad, has gold). Bellamy’s depiction of desert light and Berber buildings in this his last Heros comic story are wonderful, and his detailed Arab faces, and weaponry are amazing. Several classic Bellamy devices appear in this particular episode

I'll update the page once the final price is released

Frank Bellamy and Patricia McCormick bullfighter

2010-02-12T19:49:00.016Z

Taken from Men Only March 1955

In his interview with Dez Skinn and Dave Gibbons Bellamy mentions he illustrated stories in Men Only, which produces a laugh, as the interviewers think of the risqué 'top-shelf' magazine which Paul Raymond bought from Leonard Matthews in 1971. But as Bellamy explained, they're thinking of the 1970s magazine, not the one he drew for in the 1950s!

Recently I was looking through Picture Post magazines from the 1950s, looking for information and art on my other passion, Raymond Sheppard, (another blog one day, but in the interim have a look at Liss Fine Art!) and came across some photos of a bullfighter (27 September 1952).
Nothing unusual there, but it was a woman bullfighter that was being highlighted. Her name was Patricia McCormick. I remembered one of the Men Only illustrations was of Ms McCormick.

The accompanying caption in Picture Post reads:
"Perhaps 22 year old American girl Pat McCormick was teethed on Papa Hemingway; perhaps she just resented male monopoly of a dangerous trade. Whatever the reason she abandoned brush and palette for cape and sword - the art of painting for the art of killing. Now, in Mexico, in bright sanded ring instead of college campus, she practices technique and dreams of the bulls to die. The reward? Dust in honey-blonde hair, blood on the blade, a black bull dead at her feet - and the crowd's roar."

Cover of Men Only March 1955

In the March 1955 issue of Men Only, McCormick wrote the article "Alone she fights the bull……." which included some of her drawings but also Bellamy's. On pages 85 and 89 we see the two black and white illustrations of McCormick as Matadora fighting a bull and McCormick being thrown by the bull. Both, you will notice are signed 'Bellamy' in a cursive style - whereas his later signature became more flat and linear, matching, in my opinion his more graphical style .

The article by Patricia McCormick has not only Bellamy's accompanying drawings but also photographs of McCormick. None of Bellamy's drawings are based on the photos, but one wonders if he had reference material beyond shots of bullfighters. Here he shows a woman, is it based on Pat McCormick photos? To be honest it doesn't matter as the original publication fitted inside a pocket and was printed on cheap paper.

Follow this link to the website (and click on the 'note' link on the right), where I have provided scans (thanks to Michael Gage) of another article on McCormick in the first issue of True Woman's Adventures, an American magazine as well as provided larger scans of the above images

Serendipity plays a large underrated part in research for this sort of information - note Michael's scans and the Picture Post, but to finish this article I suddenly thought to Google McCormick's name and lo and behold she has a website, where you can see some of her own art as well as a video of her glory days! It works best in Internet Explorer, something I wouldn't usually highlight as I'm a Firefox fan). This lady really did buck the male stereotypes thrust on her in the earlier less enlightened age! Unfortunately the contact link doesn't work but if anyone out there knows Pat I'd love to let her know of this blog entry

And finally I ought to return to Frank Bellamy and say he did a great job too!

Frank Bellamy's reprinted stories - UPDATE

2010-01-30T19:47:00.008Z

In my post of the 14 August 2009 I was looking forward to Titan's reprint book. I felt that with some misleading information on the Net I ought to write a little bit for anybody that relies on this blog for news of Bellamy's reprinted material.

Rather than perpetuate any more errors, I wrote to the authority in these matters John Freeman.

"I think the confusion may have arisen because the original plan was to run Courage and Bellamy's David in the same volume. I argued Jesus and Mark would complement each other better and offer the possibility of a second volume with another well known strip, David, alongside Eagle's story of Paul. There's no planned publication date for this second volume. As you may already know from reading my blog an animated film based on the imagery of Road of Courage is in development."

John then kindly provided the following blurb, as it's called in the trade

The Road of Courage Written by Marcus Morris; drawn by Frank Hampson Ran in Eagle from volume 11, issue 12 to volume 12, issue 14 [19/03/60 – 08/04/61] (56 episodes)

The Road of Courage starts with Herod ordering a census. Joseph appears in episode 3, Mary in episode 4 and Jesus is born in episode 5. It features every major incident in the biblical life of Jesus: the flight from Egypt, Jesus’ early life, the battles against the occupying Romans, Jesus’ fights against the Pharisees, Palm Sunday, throwing the money lenders out of the temple, the Last Supper, Judas betraying Jesus, the confrontation in the garden of Gethsemane, the trial of Jesus, setting Barabbas free, Jesus carrying the cross and rising from the dead.
The Road of Courage has only been published in a collection once before (in 1981, by Dragon’s Dream) as The Road of Courage – The Story of Jesus of Nazareth. It was also published in Dutch and French. This collection is long out of print and commands a considerable premium on ebay etc. when copies are for sale.

Mark, The Youngest Disciple Subtitled “The story of John Mark writer of the 2nd gospel” Ran in Eagle from volume 5, issue 46 to volume 6, issue 26 [12/11/54 – 01/07/55] = 34 episodes [there were 53 issues in volume 5] Written by Chad Varah, who died in 2007 (follow the link for Steve Holland's excellent article) and drawn by Giorgio Bellavitis (who died very recently)

The timeframe over which Mark, The Youngest Disciple is told is different from every other normal back page Eagle “True Life” story. Normally, they covered a lifetime but in the case of Mark, the tale spans just over seven weeks, from Maundy Thursday (the Thursday before Easter) until Whit Monday (seven weeks after Easter). Even then, most of the action takes place on just a few days.
The story is based around Mark rushing around Jerusalem getting into scrapes as he follows Jesus through this momentous time in Jesus’s life, opening with the Last Supper before moving quickly to Judas’ betrayal of Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane. It features the trial of Jesus, setting Barabbas free, Jesus carrying the cross, his rising from the dead, the founding of the Christian church and the first baptisms, ending with Peter agreeing to let Mark work with him as a missionary.
Throughout, Jesus is featured but his face is never seen

Shepherd Lad of Bethlehem Written by Chad Varah, drawn by Norman Williams Ran in Eagle from volume 2, issue 37 to volume 2, issue 38 [21/12/51-28/12/51] – 2 episodes

A seasonal tale set in Bethlehem and never before re-published.

Thanks for the information John. I have the first reprint of Road to Courage (by Dragon's Dream) and it's great to see pure Hampson, so it's well worth buying for that alone

So what does this mean to us Bellamy fans? Wait patiently and pray sales on Titans reprints encourage the reprinting of the next volume and then we might see David reprinted

Meanwhile Geoff West of Book Palace has reminded me that the shipment of his two reprints are due in the third week of February and this gives me an excuse to outline what they are about.

The Story of World War One (Hard cover Signed Limited Edition)

Artist: Frank Bellamy
Author: Michael Butterworth, Frank Bellamy, edited by Steve Holland (and that Norman Boyd too!)
Publisher: Book Palace Books
Publication Date: February 2010 First Edition.
Pages: 112 pages
Size: 9" x 12" (220mm x 297mm)
Format: Hard Cover
Illustrations: Part Colour
ISBN: 9781907081033
Territory: World
Synopsis: For the first time ever, Michael Butterworth's epic series of articles recounting the history of the First World War collected from the pages of Look and Learn, where it was fully illustrated each week by the incomparable Frank Bellamy. From the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand through the desperate battles fought at Gallipoli, Verdun, the Somme and Passchendaele. The story is told in a series of beautifully illustrated episodes that are suitable for children. This book is a testament to the the greatness of this famous British strip and the artists who drew it. 110 works of original art beautifully reproduced.

LIMITED TO 200 Copies with a unique numbered print of a double page spread of original art.

The Story of World War One (Signed Limited Edition)

Artist: Frank Bellamy
Author: Michael Butterworth, Frank Bellamy, edited by Steve Holland
Publisher: Book Palace Books
Publication Date: February 2010 First Edition.
Pages: 112 pages
Size: 9" x 12" (220mm x 297mm)
Format: Soft Cover
Illustrations: Part Colour
ISBN: 9781907081002
Territory: World

LIMITED TO 1250 numbered copies

Frank Bellamy's Complete Swift Stories Deluxe Edition (Limited Edition)

Due February 2010.
This book brings together every strip and illustration produced by Frank Bellamy for the classic British children's comic Swift, Frank Bellamy's Swift contains the complete adventures “Robin Hood”, “King Arthur and His Knights” and “Swiss Family Robinson”, plus his contributions to other strips (“The Fleet Family”, “Paul English”) and the Swift Annual.
As a bonus, the book is issued with a Limited edition Robin Hood print.
380 pages. Hard Cover Part Colour 9" x 12" (220mm x 297mm)
(ISBN-13: 9781907081026)

Deluxe Slipcased Limited Edition of 200 copies. With bonus Limited edition Robin Hood print.

Myths debunked

2010-01-10T13:21:00.009Z

I was reminded of the above piece as I watched, for the first time, the film "The Battle of Britain" over the last week.

Over the years there have been many artists who have imitated Bellamy and some of his techniques and I'm sure he would be very flattered. But those who know his work don't generally argue over the provenance of original art ...much. (Have a look at my notes on the Swift cover). The reason for this is that with his regular commissions in comics taking most of his time (and therefore easily accounted for) and also his clear style it's rare something comes up to argue over, and Nancy his widow, is still with us too to corroborate some works.

There are two pieces I'd like to bring to your attention.

The first is above. This comes from the excellent Look and Learn website (search for B000067-00.jpg) but also from an enquirer to my website asking where this piece by Bellamy was published. I had to inform him that this wasn't by Bellamy. I have also seen a piece from the strip "Montgomery of Alamein" from the Eagle called "the Battle of Britain" and sold as a print, but this seems to have now disappeared so maybe this was another mistake that someone buried before the lawyers moved in!

On enquiry Steve Holland said he knew this was Neville Dear (I totally agree) and that this link gives the right attribution, which it does

The second piece which was forwarded to me by, I think Shaqui, is the following game

Taken from Look-in Annual 1971

The central Masai is 'borrowed' from TV21 issue 59, p12 (the Thunderbird strip "Mission to Africa")

The elephants come from the same story (issue #60, p.10)- here's the original

The rhino comes from - again the same story - #63, page 11 - here's the original again for you to compare

Where do the gorilla and lion come from? I can't find them so I'm guessing either copied from photos of the time, or 'borrowed' from elsewhere. If you can trace a Bellamy antecedent, let me know.

Now why was this hotch-potch of images used, when Bellamy could have been approached to create something in 1971? Especially as, at that time, Alan Fennell, his old friend, was the Editor of the Look-in comic (before Colin Shelbourne took over from his position of Art Editor)?

Well, at that time Bellamy did contribute one piece, - more of which at a later date. But I suspect he was trying at this point to break away from comics (despite creating Garth for the Daily Mirror every day) and therefore was reluctant to 'go backwards'

But why did the creator of the game above rip-off another publisher's material? Another mystery that may never be solved

Original art sold

2009-12-31T14:18:00.007Z

Just a quick note about a recent sale of a Garth strip by Frank Bellamy, number J70. This sold on eBay last month for $250 - which in Pounds Sterling today equates to £154, a nice sum for a well loved story.

This is an episode from The Angels of Hell Gap, which ran in the Daily Mirror from 15 January 1975 to 02 May 1975 (Numbers J12-J101). You just might be able to see the date pencilled in (presumably by the editor) of '26-3-1975'

The thing we all loved reading at that time was the opening episode, as Bellamy always did the equivalent of a comic's splash panel.

Here's the first episode of The Angels of Hell Gap