THE BAD NEWS
The following comment appears in several places around the Net:
"Bellamy and Alan Willow produced covers for the series [TV21], which alternated between Star Trek and other titles until such painted illustrations were dropped as of issue 42 to allow an increase from two to three pages of Star Trek material per issue."
This originates (I believe) from a misreading of the wonderful The Gerry Anderson Complete Comic History which says: "Alan Willow is probably not a name most Gerry Anderson fans would recall... he is best known for the text illustrations in several early Doctor Who Target novelisations. But a few years before this, he painted most of the covers for TV21 & Joe 90 from late 1969, until the Star Trek strip replaced these on the front page in the summer of 1970."
To see the new series of TV21’s covers go to Comic Magazine’s sales site -and SCROLL DOWN. You’ll see no Bellamy covers at all, as he only drew for the first series. All those covers by Bellamy (five in total) were of Captain Scarlet strips.
At the time of Star Trek's first appearance in UK comics (Joe90 #1 dated 18th January 1969), Frank Bellamy, was still about to give another 9 months on his version of Thunderbirds in the original series of TV21 (and later 4 issues of the combined TV21 & Joe 90 – the new series). In TV21 #209, dated 18/01/1969 his cover for Joe 90 #1 appeared in an advert.
This picture is a poorly joined scan of my copy which has travelled a long way since I bought it!
He never drew Star Trek in comics!
THE GOOD NEWS
Bellamy won the 1971 Academy of Comic Book Arts Awards (for material published in 1971; awarded in 1972) for "Best Foreign Artist". Due to a technicality it was his Radio Times work on Star Trek that was judged rather than any of his past comics work as he was, at the time, not working in comics as such, but had just started Garth in the Daily Mirror. Barry Windsor Smith recommended him as a worthy candidate but due to the fact he wasn’t doing comics works they had to find a comic strip to display. Marv Wolfman showed some original Heros artwork and Bellamy won the award based on his Star Trek in the Radio Times. He also did two other Star Trek works; single panel illustrations to accompany the TV listings in the Radio Times
Hopefully this clarifies this misunderstanding. Any comments?
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