This blog is turning into an advertising space for sellers! But don't worry I'm working on an article which is to do with Bellamy and a cover that might be attributed to him ...or not. Watch this space!
TV21 #178
Anyway, Comic Book Auctions Limited has an original piece by Frank Bellamy for sale (lot # 118) which comes from TV21 #178. The description reads:
Thunderbirds original artwork (1968) by Frank Bellamy from TV 21 No 178
Scott has a daring plan to rescue Virgil and the marathon runners from the tunnel of fire …Bright Pelikan inks on board. 18 x 15 ins£800-1000
It looks to be well preserved with the blues still vibrant. The story (The 2068 Olympics) ran in TV21 issues 173 - 178 (11 May 2068 - 15 June 2068) and for those who want to read the story, here are the two pages from that issue for your enjoyment.
TV21#178 p.10
TV21#178 p.11
If you want to read the whole story you can buy it in the recent collection or even in e-format... details here
Here's a treat for anyone who never saw the original Garth strips in situ in Daily Mirror. Please excuse the poor scan, but I think you get the idea of what the strip page looked like - remember this is back in the days of black and white newspapers. That's why the Sunday colour supplements were so special!
Frank Bellamy was born this day 1917 - yes, during the First World War. He shared this birthday with Plato (427 BC) and Raymond Burr (Perry Mason, Ironside and many other films and TV series)
Daily Mirror 21 May 1974, page 24
You can see that Bellamy appeared between the great Bill Tidy (with whom he appeared on Quick on the Draw, the Bob Monkhouse art programme) and the long running strip, the Larks. This particular Garth comes from the Beast of Ultor story
The strips appeared on a page - usually - with horoscopes and the letters page -as seen here.
The ebay seller "nickio_jupiter" has a fantastic example of Frank Bellamy original artwork for sale - TV21 Thunderbirds episode from issue 127, the "Tracy Island Exposed" story. The story ran from TV21 #125 - 129 (10 June 2067 - 8 July 2067) and this is the third episode with a lovely picture of Lady Penelope and her Rolls Royce FAB1. I should this will sell at a very high price because as the seller states:
Frank Bellamy : Original Comic Artwork - Century T.V. 21 Edition No. 127 pages 10 -11 (1960s) Artwork Size approximately: 63.7cm (w) x 41.4cm (h)
Art Board Size approximately: 70.7cm(w) x 50.7cm (h) Condition: Used
- This artwork was used for the print production of Century T.V. 21
pages 10 and 11 comic/magazine in the late 1960s. There are some minor
surface marks. The Art board has some edge wear from when it was
originally stored, however, this does not effect the artwork. Please see
additional images.
This is original comic production
hand rendered artwork by Frank Bellamy for Century T.V. 21 magazine
Edition No. 127 pages 10 -11 from the late 1960s and features signature
of Frank Bellamy within the artwork composition (Please see additional
detail images). The artwork was rendered/produced on CS10 art board.
This item was acquired in the late 1990s from a gallery in central
London and has protectively stored flat away from light and dust, and
has never been displayed.
Notice the logo, which is likely to have been on acetate and added week
by week by the photographer is not present - I've written about this subject before
In AUGUST 2014 Egmont plan on publishing reprints of some Frank Bellamy Thunderbird strips. Those who have the Thunderbirds the Comic Collection hardback might find these are duplications, but we'll have to wait and see.
The above is borrowed and re-purposed from Bear Alley where Steve Holland keeps us up to date with forthcoming publications.
I've grabbed the covers from Amazon as Egmont don't appear to have any information on their site!
Each volume appears to have 48 pages and cost £6.99 each - so look as if they will be similar to the Ravette volumes of the 1990s.
Cover from Thunderbirds #13 (4 April 1992)
Originally published in
TV CENTURY 21 141 - 146 "The Earthquake Maker"
TV CENTURY 21 147 - 154 "Visitor from space"
TV CENTURY 21 155 - 161 "The Antarctic menace"
Cover from Thunderbirds #5 (14 Dec 1991)
Originally published in:
TV CENTURY 21 162 - 169 "Brains is Dead"
TV CENTURY 21 173 - 178 "The Olympic Plot"
TV CENTURY 21 170 - 172 "Space Cannon"
TV CENTURY 21 184 - 187 "Devil's Crag"
Cover from Thunderbirds #8 (25 Jan 1992)
Originally published in:
TV CENTURY 21 188 - 191 "Eiffel Tower demolition"
TV CENTURY 21 192 - 196 "Nuclear threat"
TV CENTURY 21 197 - 202 "Hawaiian lobster menace"
TV CENTURY 21 203 - 208 "The Time machine"
Cover from Thunderbirds #11 (7 Mar 1992)
Originally published in:
TV CENTURY 21 209 - 217 "Zoo Ship"
TV CENTURY 21 227 - 234 "Chain reaction"
TV CENTURY 21 235 - 238 "Jungle adventure" - This will only be the second time "Jungle Adventure" has been reprinted - the first being Thunderbirds comic in numbers 38-41, 1993. This last story did not appear in the Thunderbirds collection mentioned in October 2013
Cover from Thunderbirds #22 (8 Aug 1992)
TV CENTURY 21 218 - 226 "City of doom"
and the last two were illustrated by John Cooper - not Bellamy.
All the above is 'guessed' from the story names mentioned on the covers and as experience tells me that could all change! I'll keep you up to date as I learn anything.
Be prepared for a lot of dates, links and assumptions and also a long read! Get a cup of tea and settle down for the story of Frank Bellamy and Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey
TV21 #86
In the interview (reprinted in full most recently in the Book Palace's excellent Frank Bellamy's Heros the Spartan) that was conducted by Dez Skinn and Dave Gibbons on 12 May 1973 the interviewers asked:
STILL [talking about] DESIGN, THERE WERE SOME VERY BELLAMY-LOOKING SPACE HELMETS IN STANLEY KUBRICK'S "2001" QUITE A FEW YEARS LATER [than Dan Dare which Bellamy drew from August 1959 to July 1960] FB: Oh, yes. I was amazed to see the advertising promotions for "2001" on the underground, with the angular sort of visors I'd used back in '59. DO YOU THINK IT WAS PURE COINCIDENCE? FB: Could be. (Laughter) I SAY THIS BECAUSE YOU MENTIONED ONCE THAT THEY GOT ALL THE COMICS AND S-F MAGAZINES TOGETHER, TO SEE IF THERE WERE ANY IDEAS SUITABLE FOR "2001" FB: Yes. I understand they went into it so deeply that they wouldn't turn their noses up at any small article, strip, picture or anything to do with science fiction. They really went to town on it.
Reading this it's reasonable to assume that Kubrick's production team used Dan Dare's helmets as inspiration for 2001: A Space Odyssey. However I always had a few problems with this.
Firstly the Dan Dare helmets (designed by Frank Hampson, Dare's creator, and team) were more a vertical rectangle with a 'u'-shaped front (see below) and Bellamy's revamp - asked for by management when Hamspon vacated the strip he created - had a spherical shape with a prominent oxygen tube at the front (and his Spacefleet logo).
Hampson's helmet Eagle Vol3:13
Bellamy's design Eagle Vol11:21
Secondly the timing of the creation of 2001: A Space Odyssey doesn't help the argument.It was February 1965 that MGM agreed to "fund the production of Journey beyond the stars" as the film was originally called.(Krämer, Peter (2010) 2001: A Space Odyssey (BFI Film Classics) London: BFI Publishing, p.31). The site that lists interviews by Kubrick list the famous one reprinted many times by Bernstein in New Yorker dated April 1965.
I did send an enquiry (back in 2011) to the Stanley Kubrick Archive held at the University of the Arts London. An archivist kindly responded :
There isn't any
mention about Frank Bellamy and Dan Dare in the Kubrick Archive catalogue. There
is a file for product development in 2001: A Space Odyssey entitled 'Helmets'
containing correspondence and photographs of designs of the helmets for use with
the space suits in the film. The photographs of helmets are from Hamilton
Standard, a division of United Aircraft Corporation, with their sketches, and
some photocopies of images from NASA of astronauts in space suits. There is also
a plan from Hamilton Standard of 'Proposed MGM Suit'.
This is the only
entry for Helmets in the catalogue therefore I believe they were the final
designs for the film. However you never know! They might have thought of
Bellamy's designs but were not put into the paperwork generated in the
film.
Too true! You can see the full catalogue entry here:
Correspondence and telegrams between Roger
Caras and Stanley Kubrick and others discussing the obtaining and
designing of the helmets for use with the space suits in the film. It
includes several photographs of helmets from Hamilton Standard,
division of United Aircraft Corporation, also a
quotation from Hamilton Standard for the provision of simulated
pressure garments, with an attached sketch of the same, photocopies of
images from NASA of astronauts in space suits, also a plan from
Hamilton Standard of 'Proposed MGM Suit', space suit for use in the
film.
Date
11 Sep 1965- 26 Nov 1965
Caras, mentioned in this record was vice president of Stanley Kubrick's production company, Hawk Films, but in another piece on the web Allan Grimmell Seibert is mentioned as designing Nasa's astronaut helmets - and he worked for Hamilton Standard. So lots of people involved and inspiring one another but where does that leave us?
I received an email from a friend who is a fan of Gerry Anderson and she mentioned that Andrew Probert saw some TV21s that David Power had and the former commented that the helmets Bellamy drew in a particular story looked very much like 2001 helmets. David also emailed me about this and set off this train of thought.
Still with me?
In TV21 #84 (published date August 27 2066) we see the Thunderbirds strip with Alan and Brains in their International Rescue helmets on the Moon. The helmets are spherical with an attachment at the front- similar to the Dan Dare helmets designed by Bellamy
TV21 #84
TV21 #84
In the later issue #86 we see clearly that Bellamy shows helmets in the same manner - spherical - see the image at the top of this article. In TV21 #88 we see the rounded helmets too
TV21 #88
However, it was David that gave me the bigger clue. Later in the same Thunderbirds story - a fan favourite - where there is excessive activity from the Sun affecting the Earth, Brains and Alan save the day but are blown from the Sun by the resultant explosion and 'fall' to Venus in Thunderbird 3. They sink into a sulphur lake and decide the only way out is to don their "anti-chemical suits" and leave through an airlock.
TV21 #92 dated Oct 22 2066
TV21 #92 dated Oct 22 2066
Admittedly these are 'anti-chemical suits' and not spacesuits, but the look of the helmets is so unusual and close to 2001 and so different from other helmets Bellamy did, it makes me wonder. The publication date of this episode was 22 October 2066 - and we know that Bellamy (and other artists) would have had approximately a 6 week lead time, it's not unreasonable therefore to think this was created around mid-September 1966. So who inspired who or is this just serendipity?
I was very fortunate to discover a documentary online - a really interesting 23 minutes - and it tells us a lot about the helmet design - in passing.
The documentary - below- (at 5'56") shows both Harry Lange and Fred Ordway discussing the scientific basis for the coming film.
Harry Lange and Fred Ordway discussing the 2001 helmet
The whole of this 1966 documentary, produced by the Thomas Craven Film Corporation for Look magazine in the USA can be found on Youtube (embedded below)
Gary Lockwood being dressed during filming in (some time) in 1965/6 - note helmet exists already
There are many interesting characters in the 2001 creation story.
Harry Lange's obituary ("Harry Lange." Times [London, England] 2 July 2008: 52. The Times Digital Archive. Web. 27 Apr. 2014.) states:
"In a plot worthy of a James Bond novel Harry Lange escaped across the border from communist East Germany into the West under cover of night and wound up working at NASA on ambitious futuristic space projects with a former Nazi rocket scientist"
He then moved from a
job at NASA to work on production design for Kubrick and went on to
design some of Star Wars, and Dark Crystal. Kubrick called 2001 a
"non-verbal experience"and it seems clear he wanted specialist
designers to show - rather than just make audible - the likely scenario of future space travel and Lange is sure to have had a hand in the choice of design.
Fred Ordway: Which brings me to another important aspect of my work on 2001: A Space Odyssey: coordinating the physical construction of approved designs. This meant a considerable amount of travel inside and outside of metropolitan London. Thus, we had our space helmets built, from our designs, at the MV Aviation Co., Ltd [sic]of Maidenhead; our spacesuits at the Air Sea Rescue Division, Victoria Rubber Works of the Frankenstein Group, Ltd. of Manchester; and our space pod interiors -- instrumentation, controls, displays, etc. -- at Hawker Siddley Dynamics at Stevanage not far from our Borehamwood location.
- Taken from: 2001: A Space Odyssey in Retrospect
by Frederick I. Ordway III on the Stanley Kubrick Site [underlining mine. NOTE MV Aviation was actually ML Aviation]
Ordway records that he started work in England on 11 August 1965 and we know that Lange and Ordway had been working on designs in New York before heading to England.
He also says: My final principal activity involved attending to, escorting, and briefing an unending array of visitors. These included reporters, scientists, engineers, dignitaries, friends, just about anyone interested in our progress. We were particularly pleased when, on the 25th of September 1965, the director of NASA's Office of Manned Space Flight, George Mueller, and astronaut Deke Slayton arrived at the studios.
- Taken from: 2001: A Space Odyssey in Retrospect
by Frederick I. Ordway III on the Stanley Kubrick Site [underlining mine].
Reading an article reproduced from the Maidenhead Advertiser we have several potential names involved in the eventual design and build at MLA, as it was known, so once again no certain names!
So where does this leave us? Did Bellamy 're-purpose' the 2001 design or were the 2001 team inspired by the artist of many space adventures? It seems obvious from a cursory reading that the publicity machine for the film geared up a notch in 1966 but was happening in late 1965 and therefore it's not unlikely that the helmet design might have appeared in a magazine in late 1965- early 1966, but which magazine? I don't know. Bellamy subscribed to many himself presumably for reference material but none of them included contemporary features - to my knowledge. So there you have it. Over to you to add to this fascinating trip down 'Nostalgia Lane'.
Lee Sullivan recently on Facebook, showed us his studio shelves which included these shots, among others:
Footnote:
Would you believe in my hunt for information I found a webpage on the restoration of the original helmet used in 2001. Unfortunately the site - despite its specialist theme - had no mention of Dan Dare, Bellamy, Thunderbirds or TV21.
Keir Dullea is reunited with his red helmet after 30 years
From:http://www.2001spacesuit.com/Events.html
) that was conducted by Dez Skinn and Dave Gibbons on 12 May 1973 the interviewers asked:
