Frank Bellamy's "Dan Dare" - or "Who drew what?" PART ONE

The first Bellamy "Dan Dare" (+ Don Harley!)

A lot of children reading Dan Dare's adventures in Eagle, in the summer of 1959, will have been confused, angry, sad as, firstly, the print strike meant no Eagle for 6 weeks and secondly when it returned there was a new set of artists drawing their favourite character. Frank Hampson, the creator of the  'Pilot of the Future' had moved on to create an ambitious back cover story for Eagle "The Road of Courage" about Jesus Christ. 

Adjusted face - by Harley

INTRODUCTION

Bellamy's first panel and in particular Dan Dare, being attacked by an inhabitant of Terra Nova, was re-drawn by Don Harley - long-time artist on the strip - at the request of the editor. The face was considered too unlike the Hampson/Harley version. The start of an uncomfortable period for a man who was very competent at working alone. The second page (after Bellamy's above) shows Harley's strong presence, but the adjusted Bellamy face and Harley's look so different - why change Bellamy's?

Compare Harley's "Dan Dare" here from
Eagle Vol. 10:28 (29 August 1959)

 

"The mix of artistic styles between Frank Bellamy and assistants Don Harley and Keith Watson was an uneasy one. Bellamy had developed his own distinctive brand of illustration which would have been difficult to emulate. Conversely, Harley and Watson had developed styles designed to complement that of Frank Hampson, which would not have been easy to move away from. [Doyle & Vince, 2004]

Here's what David Jackson drew for me to illustrate his comment: 

Frank Bellamy's "Dan Dare" sans paste-over

[This] appears to be a paste-over of Dan's face and front of his hair - only - with the rest of the side of Dan's head, hair, ear area etc looking to be FB style and technique; note the yellow reflected light thrown up into the lower part of the neck and jaw area from Dan's spacesuit metal 'collar'.

Bellamy came in at episode #10 of the ambitious "Terra Nova" story in Eagle Vol. 10:28 (29 August 1959) which ran till  - 10:40 (21 November 1959). Eric Eden (an artist himself) wrote all three stories which Bellamy had a hand in drawing. 

The other two - to be covered separately in the next two articles - were "Trip to Trouble" (Eagle Vol. 10:41 - 10:45, 11:1 - 11:11 (28 November 1959 - 26 December 1959, 2 January 1960 - 12 March1960) and his last "Project Nimbus" (Eagle Vol. 11:12 - 11:28 (19 March 1960 - 9 July 1960)). Bellamy had agreed from the start to take on Hampson's creation for only a year and indeed he did. I shall not be showing all the episodes (for copyright reasons) so grab yourself a copy of the Hawk Books or Titan reprints and follow along - or dig out your original Eagles

WHO DREW WHAT?

My primary interest here is to identify which pages (and on occasion, which panels) Frank Bellamy drew as opposed to the other three involved - Don Harley, Gerald Palmer and Keith Watson,all three of whom had been working at various times with Hampson on "Dan Dare". 

Don Harley joined Hampson's team in October 1951 (Eagle launched in April 1950) and in my opinion, really helped to keep a steady look to the strip when Hampson was away ill at times. His work can be seen on "Thunderbirds" in TV21 for six weeks (where he filled in while Bellamy was busy creating the renowned episode of the Avengers TV series) as well as other Gerry Anderson strips.He carried the strip, with Bruce Cornwell, after Bellamy had moved on until Keith Watson took over.

Keith Watson - famously colour-blind - took over from Harley from Vol. 13:10 and single-handedly drew the strip until the penultimate volume (Vol18:1). He also drew "Captain Scarlet" in TV21 and other strips too

Gerald Palmer is the most interesting to this article as he could 'ghost' Bellamy's style very well as we shall see.

Bruce Cornwell joined Hampson's studio helping with technical drawings such as buildings, machinery and spaceships before this period and partnered with Harley post-this period and Steve Holland confirms he is unlikely to have worked on these three stories.

Each episode of the "Dan Dare" stories has two pages - the cover and the second page of Eagle - each in colour and I have listed, with a tick, those we believe are by Bellamy. My friend David Jackson, says "Frank Bellamy never signed any pages that any other artist made a contribution to.  As he himself said, he liked to see pure Alex Raymond or whoever"

TERRA NOVA

STORY Episodes	Date	Volume	Issue	FB art COVER	FB art INTERIOR	Notes
Terra Nova 1	29/08/1959	10	28	✔		Not signed
Terra Nova 2	05/09/1959	10	29	✔		Not signed
Terra Nova 3	12/09/1959	10	30		✔	Not signed
Terra Nova 4	19/09/1959	10	31	✔	First Panel	Not signed
Terra Nova 5	26/09/1959	10	32
Terra Nova 6	03/10/1959	10	33	✔	✔	FB signed x2
Terra Nova 7	10/10/1959	10	34
Terra Nova 8	17/10/1959	10	35	✔	1/2	Not signed
Terra Nova 9	24/10/1959	10	36	✔		FB signed
Terra Nova 10	31/10/1959	10	37		✔	FB signed
Terra Nova 11	07/11/1959	10	38	✔		FB signed
Terra Nova 12	14/11/1959	10	39		✔	FB signed
Terra Nova 13	21/11/1959	10	40	✔		FB signed

The first four episodes of "Terra Nova" are clearly delineated - Bellamy drawing one whole page and leaving the next to the rest of the team. One wonders why he didn't sign the pages that appear - to me - to be completely his. 

David Jackson felt there's a possibility Frame 2 page 2 of the first episode was by Bellamy - "the second frame shows possible FB - particularly note the shape of the thought bubble in contrast to others by the Dan Dare team on the same page". I agree that bubble is different but can't see the art being by FB.

He also mentions that Vol.10:30, second page, shows "various faces of Dan Dare himself [which] might also give some indication of what the original first FB DD frame might have looked like before it was pasted over by DH."  And "Vol.10:33 last frame".

And moving on, why did Bellamy then sign from the ninth episode, in which he was involved? Also why did he leave two issues completely to the others?  Was he too busy - which I find unlikely? It's more likely having received the script he saw an opportunity (Vol. 10: 33) to show what he could do - and both pages are signed.

Eagle Vol.10:33 (3 October 1959) p.1 (original art)

Eagle Vol.10:33 (3 October 1959) p.2

Volume 10:34 is fully by the 'Hampson Team' [David Slinn sent me a message to say he thinks the second page is pure Don Harley]  for want of a better way of expressing it. Then we get a lovely page 1 for Volume 10: 35 - but unsigned, but much more interesting is the second page, shown here

Eagle Vol.10:35 (17 October 1959) p.2

The top half is definitely Harley but the bottom half Bellamy! If you're in doubt compare it to the page appearing the following week (below), which he does sign. So did Harley and Watson complete the whole page to find half rejected by the lead artist? Or did Bellamy instruct them to leave the last panels to him? I wondered if it was because Bellamy wanted to 'design' the 'Nagrabs' - the ant-like creatures but, in fact, Harley had created them earlier in the story.Any thoughts?

Eagle Vol.10: 36 (24 October 1959)

 The next spot worth noting is the second page of Eagle Vol.10: 38 (7 November 1959). I've shown the panel which appears at the top of the Eagle page (see below) which at first glance might fool most comic fans as being Bellamy but this is a great example of Gerald Palmer's ghosting Bellamy's style. 

Eagle Vol.10:38 (7 November 1959) p.2 top panel

Look closely at the lines on Anastasia's front as well as the claw of the 'Nagrab'. Bellamy is more likely to show that spot on Anastasia using colour and if not, by stippling. If you have a copy look at Anastasia on the front cover by Bellamy.

When I asked David Jackson what he thought, he said 

"EAGLE v.10 No.38 p2 does not look like FB at all, any part, anywhere (it's a bit like someone making more of an effort in that direction in places).  Doc Garriock in his slide show of original pages noted the greater intensity of FB skies as an FB marker, compared to the non-FB non-authorised Gerry Palmer front cover page Gaz Tank not by FB".

Another interesting thought is who drew what when? For the next issue, the Hampson team drew the first page - notice the Palmer Anastasia panel at the bottom. Then we get that fantastic second page signed by Bellamy. Did both parties work separately or did Bellamy see the first page and go off and draw the second page (or vice-versa)?We are never likely to know.

Eagle Vol.10:39 (14 November 1959) p.1

Eagle Vol.10:39 (14 November 1959) p.2

SUMMARY

Of 26 pages in this story (from when Bellamy started on it)  Frank Bellamy drew 8 front covers by himself and four and a half internal second pages. So he didn't even draw half the output! We'll see if this changed when covering the other two stories. 

I have to confess that the criticism that Bellamy's artwork messed up "Dan Dare" is so unfair when one examines the 9 years previous to this. Even in this story one sees strong artwork from Keith Watson and separately Don Harley and the two are quite different. In fact Watson has a 'colour-rounded' look that emulates Hampson's best work. He'd only been with the Hampson studio team for a year and was self-taught like Bellamy and moved on in 1960 to draw "Captain Condor" in Lion before returning solo to work on "Dan Dare" in an epic run. 

David Slinn wrote to say, as an example of who drew what, Eagle Vol.10:36 (24 October 1959, page2) looking at panels 4 and 5 they look very like Keith Watson, while Don Harley has handled the remaining frames. I'm ducking out of mentioning, in too much detail, anyone other than Bellamy as I'm never sure between Watson and Harley. Thanks for the identification David. 

~Thanks to David Jackson, David Slinn, Paul Holder and Terry Doyle and Alan Vince. The final thoughts are mine.

PART TWO: TRIP TO TROUBLE - To follow