Frank Bellamy Checklist Website and Blog: Original art on eBay: Antony Falloway Adventurer

Monday, 1 October 2012

Original art on eBay: Antony Falloway Adventurer

***UPDATES****December 2021- see below
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In 1989 (13 years after Frank Bellamy's death) an exhibition was held in London, called Unseen Frank Bellamy Basement Gallery Exhibition. Piece #35 was simply described as "Anthony [sic] Falloway" with its size beside it of 42 x 29 cm . Fortunately this is shown in part in the accompanying article by Alan Woolcombe who I wrote to, along with others who were involved in the exhibition, but found no further clues. I always suspected it was drawn around the late 1940s/early 1950s and because I could find no reference was leaning towards it being a newspaper strip as the style, although like Monty Carstairs, a strip drawn for Mickey Mouse Weekly (to see an example see my blog entry) is slightly different.

Imagine my excitement when Chris Power said "I suppose you've seen this" - words that are often answered by a 'yes' but in this case my eBay alerts have let me down and I couldn't believe my eyes.

On ebay seller susita66 has for sale (with a reserve) two strips mounted with signatures confirming this is a strip, but for which paper or magazine? We still don't know, but the title of the piece in Bellamy's writing is "Antony Falloway * Adventurer", the similarity to Monty Carstairs is very close. The fact that both strip appears to me to be on one board also makes me infer that it was never submitted and so might be a try-out. At this period Bellamy was working for Blamire's Studio in Kettering or in London for his first city-based assignments with Norfolk Studio. It's likely he was spreading his net a bit wider, as witnessed by how he quickly moved into freelance work and got an agent. So perhaps this is a submission to a daily newspaper, but we may never know. Thankfully it was included in the exhibition and therefore was not completely unknown.

I have written to the seller asking for further photos, and will update if I receive an answer but in the meantime here are the four photos she has used to accompany her auction on eBay.

UPDATE: £393 (11 bids) (October 2012)

Since writing the above and having a clue given to me by Mike Stacey and Hans Kiesl (thanks so much guys), I have the following to add

Daily Express 24 October 1955 (First episode)

"Antony Falloway" began in the Daily Express on 24 October 1955 (appearing, as can be seen, above "Jeff Hawke"). Notice, compared to Bellamy's version the misspelling (Anthony) and the sub-title which appears to have been removed "Adventurer" in the published version. Bellamy's story revolves around a biography of General Starva called "The Dictator had a wife". The published story is centred around a visit to East Germany for our adventurer.