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Bellamy's art on "Dan Dare"
Eagle 7 Nov 1959 Vol.10 No38 |
****UPDATED: February 2023****See also Part Two
I recently saw a story drawn by Al Williamson, a great artist, on 'Groovy's' brilliant blog and remembered previously writing something on Williamson's 'borrowing' of others' work.Unfortunately none of my wonderful storage methods have enabled me to recover this work, so here goes again!
Referring to the first King Comics, (a short-lived comic book imprint of King Features Syndicate), "Flash Gordon" comic, the author (Mark Schultz, no mean artists himself) states:
"Produced
under an intimidating deadline, the leadoff story in particular not
only borrows from a Raymond but also features panels lifted cold from
instalments of Frank Hampson and Frank Bellamy's Dan Dare, a British
science fiction comic. Williamson has been open about his "swipes" of
the work of others, a not-uncommon practice in the comics field and one
attributable to the constant deadline pressure. He has always willingly
given credit to his sources." (p.20) - Al Williamson's Flash Gordon: A Lifelong Vision of the Heroic, (2009), Flesk Publications. ISBN-13: 978-1933865126
Indeed he did say such things, I'd previously noted in James Van Hise book
"The Art of Al Williamson", that he learned about drawing using photographs from assisting John Prentice (read more
here about that work) and after this kept a 'morgue file' as artists call their clippings before the Internet made it so much easier.
I should acknowledge that until today I was not aware of
Eric Mackenzie's interesting article in
Spaceship Away #3 - another strange coincidence whilst researching this topic. I did see the article on
BritishComicArt blog and it was then that I thought '
Crow', the blog author, 'borrowed' from my article (which I suspect was in an old Facebook profile and lost now!) but as you can read in the comments, it was a coincidence! I also remember long ago in the 1970s reading (was it in
Fantasy Advertiser Dez Skinn?) an article on the same subject, but that's long gone! However I think I have remembered something of this - see below.
So let's get started.
Firstly I quote
Frank Bellamy's letter to Mike Tiefenbacher and Jerome Sinkovec of
Menomonee Falls Gazette
Thank you for the complimentary remarks about my work. You are very
kind. It means a lot to me to find acceptance in the United States.
I was very interested to read about Al Williamson. As I am a great
admirer of his work it gives me great pleasure to know that he is
familiar with at
least some of my work. Taken from Bellamy's letter to Menomonee Falls Gazette
Published in no.81, July 2nd, 1973.
Oh he certainly was Frank! The page above contains the following panel which we will see was a definite favourite of Williamson's!
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| Bellamy foliage from Eagle 7 Nov 1959 Vol.10 No38 |
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Al Williamson's Flash Gordon #1, 1966 p.4
Note the shape of the foliage |
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| Williamson à la Bellamy |
UPDATE: I thought that was it until Bill Storie mentioned he'd see Bellamy's explosion appear in another Williamson work and he's sent it to me!
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Al Williamson Star Wars
|
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Al Williamson's Flash Gordon #5, 1967 p.28
Below an enlarged panel |
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| Hmm, that foliage looks familiar |
The most frequently spotted of
Williamson's 'recycled'
Bellamy pieces is the spaceship "Nimbus 2"
Bellamy created in the "Dan Dare" story "Project Nimbus".
Frank Hampson (
Don Harley,
Gerald Palmer, Keith Watson inter alia) created "Dan Dare" over a 10 year period before
Bellamy,
Harley and others took over.
Bellamy, unfairly I think, gets a lot of criticism by those who were reading "Dan Dare" at that time because he was asked to upgrade things. Fortunately he agreed from the start to do it for one year and that's what his contract stated.
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Bellamy's art on "Dan Dare"
Eagle 16 April 1960 Vol.11 No16 |
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| Al Williamson's Flash Gordon #1, 1966 p.1 |
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| ...and Bellamy's Nimbus 2! |
Williamson loved the craft so much he used another panel
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Bellamy's art on "Dan Dare"
Eagle 7 May 1960 Vol.11 No19 |
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| Enlarged panel by Bellamy |
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| Al Williamson's Flash Gordon #1, 1966 p.15 - see below for full page |
An interview mentioned in Gopherville Argus (a short-lived fanzine on Bellamy, put out by Bill Storie and Terry Doyle) quotes an interview with Williamson (original source unknown)
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| From Gopherville Argus #3 |
Off I went...tanks?...Tanks...Ah, TANKS! Take a look at the tank on the right in the first panel and then....
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| The well renowned Blazing Combat (1965) #2 |
take a look at the tank on the right above Monty's profile - to the right of the page!
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| Eagle 21 April 1962 |
While I was researching this article, I found something very interesting. Remember I said I thought there was an article in
Fantasy Advertiser,
Dez Skinn's fanzine of the 70s, well my memory says it included this page by Bellamy but you know what memory is like - especially after 40 years!
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Bellamy's art on "Dan Dare"
Eagle 9 April 1960 Vol.11 No15 |
Here's the panel in question I wish to highlight
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| Bellamy's unique hardware |
Well whilst re-reading
Flash Gordon comics I tripped over this page by the wonderful
Wally Wood
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The Phantom #18, 1966
"Flash Gordon and the Space Pirates" |
One moment what's that hardware there? It looks familiar! So
Wally Wood copied
Bellamy, or did
Williamson sketch for
Wood to ink his work. Personally I don't think this looks like a
Wood original despite the excellent
Grand Comics Database entry. The figure of Gordon does not look 'Wood-y' enough for my liking.
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| Wally Wood copies Bellamy |
And before we round off
Williamson's recycling of
Bellamy art, I should point you to
Bellamy's art above which shows the launch of the Nimbus 2. The first panel of that page looks very similar to this one:
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The Phantom #18, 1966
"Flash Gordon and the Space Pirates" |
The figure here certainly looks like Wally Wood's work but the spacecraft? I don't think it was his original idea!
UPDATE (17 May 2022): Lastly "HarryDobermann Esq" pointed out a later image I missed completely in the same Wood story! Look closely at the bottom right hand panel! Thunderbird One is go!
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The Phantom #18, 1966
"Flash Gordon and the Space Pirates" |
TV21 #77 has the following image which I'm guessing formed the basis for Woody's image. But who knows? TB1 launches with wings 'in', maybe that's why this copy doesn't look too true to the original.
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TV21 #77 cropped
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Bear with me as I round off this article with two more examples of
Williamson's use of the
Eagle comic, although I must emphasize this is not
Frank Bellamy artwork. the first is one of my favourite comic covers of all time by the UK's other
Frank...
Hampson.
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Frank Hampson's art for Eagle 28 March 1959 Vol.10 No13
"The Galactic Galleon" |
Take note of the rounded base of the craft.
Williamson used the bottom of this craft as positioned in the above image, below!
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| Frank Hampson and Don Harley's art for Eagle 12 March 1960 Vol.11 No11 |
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Al Williamson's Flash Gordon #1, 1966 p.15 -
see above for enlarged panel by Bellamy
and Hampson's gorgeous ship
Notice these three panes are all 'recycled'! |
The craft, "Tempus Frangit" is so iconic in later "Dan Dare" stories as drawn by Keith Watson, I thought it worth showing this recycling by Williamson too. Take a look at the following -
my post . Some of this is also mentioned
here
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Eagle Vol 14:41 12 Oct 1963
Keith Watson artwork |
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Creepy #112
Al Williamson art |
Thanks to
Eric Mackenzie's article in
Spaceship Away #3 I also see now I have a copy, that Willimason borrowed from Don Harley and Bruce Cornwell
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| Eagle Vol 11 #52 |
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One of a few adverts which Williamson
drew for various magazines for Union carbide |
If you can add anything, let me know! And I must emphasise that I love a lot of Williamson's work and am in no way criticising his practice. Even Bellamy used reference photographs...more on that another day.
READ THIS FAR AND WANT MORE? Part Two is here
