Bellamy's influence on others

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

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

The image above is taken from Western Gun Fighters: A Marvel Special 1980. This was originally given to Dez Skinn as a 21st birthday present (see http://dezskinn.com/fanzines/) and is used here with permission. Dez tells the story that Bellamy pointed out his own error in the way he has drawn one belt buckle correctly and one wrongly!


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

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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!