On 21 May 1917, Frank Alfred Bellamy was born to Horace George Bellamy (born in 1885) in Rothwell, Northamptonshire and Grace Winifred Ashley (born 1887) in Kettering. Frank had one sister Eva born in 1912 (so 5 years his senior).
The image above comes from Ally Sloper, a new comic he contributed to in the year he died, 1976. It was published two months after his untimely death.
Gone but never forgotten. Happy Birthday Frank!
4 comments:
I've still got my four original issues of Ally Sloper bought back in the '70s and I remember this 'pin-up' well. I've been acquiring back issues of TV Century 21 recently, and although Frank Bellamy could certainly draw, I find that I prefer Mike Noble's more action-orientated artwork to that of Bellamy, Hampson, Embleton, and others. I don't think Thunderbirds was Frank's best work, though perhaps I'm in a minority there. He did do pretty skies though, and I did enjoy his Garth work.
I've said loads of times, but happy to repeat, that as a kid I had access to his latter Eagle work on "Heros the Spartan" but hated the murky colours - now I know the printing didn't help, but they were still murky IMHO. I got TV21 from #1 and LOVED Mike's artwork all the way through his career (and interviewed him for "True Brit", a great privilege! I think on reflection my love of Mike's work was because of consistency and those primary colours kids love. "Thunderbirds", to me then, was odd as there were green shadows across faces, and the work was brilliant in places and 'scratchy' in others. It's the same with "Garth" - some superb; some 'rushed'. BUT it was his Radio Times work that converted me to the genius of his work. Once I managed to understand he was a "designer", so to speak, I appreciated what he had done, including "Heros". Oh, and the original art is so much better than anything published!
Thanks for writing Kid, and to answer one of your blog questions, the reason I don't reply to blogs much is because of the hassle around identities. If I'm logged on here as a blog writer, I may NOT want to be seen in that identity when commenting, but can't be bothered to logout, and re-login. Sorry to be too lazy to add that to your blog, but I do read it (via Feedly)
I don't mind people who don't comment much as a rule, not commenting much on my blog, NB. However, I'm slightly baffled when I see semi-regular commenters on my blog leaving numerous and lengthy comments on someone else's post, but only a short (or no) comment on an earlier one of mine on the same topic. However, I may have worked it out. I think people prefer to comment on a blog with lots of regular comments, because then they feel part of a much bigger 'whole' - whereas when they comment on mine, there's fewer commenters to interact with. That's one theory anyway.
Good theory! And then of course those damn bots that pollute the stream of comments!
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