Frank Bellamy Checklist Website and Blog: Battle Action

Monday, 27 September 2021

Frank Bellamy in Action comic

Eagle 21 April 1962

This is a quick blog article which shows one "Montgomery of Alamein" from Eagle Vol. 13 No. 16 - dated 21 April 1962 as reprinted in Action, an infamous comic published in the UK beginning 14 February 1976 (until 12 November 1977, with annuals continuing until Action Annual 1985!). It was Richard Sheaf and Paul Trimble who alerted me to this, for which I thank them. As Richard stated "you'll see that the images has been 'squashed' slightly for the Action cover. The tank wheels in both images are identical and the explosion is very much in the Bellamy style. In fact it was the explosion style tipped me off that this was Bellamy more than the tank wheels! Once I knew it was Bellamy that helped me narrow it down".

If you want to see all the (idetified so far) reprinted Bellamy artwork in Action and its later incarnation Battle Action, read my previous article

Friday, 8 February 2019

ORIGINAL ART: Montgomery of Alamein on CAF and Battle Action

UPDATED September 2021

Action 4 September 1976
showing a reprint from Eagle

Eagle 21 April 1962

Original Art from Eagle 19 May 1962
(Thanks for Terry for permission to use this)

In a previous article I mentioned I think my favourite Bellamy strip is "Montgomery of Alamein" which appeared in Eagle from Volume 13:10 - 13:27 (10 March 1962 -7 July 1962).If you would all like to donate to my "Buy Norman a lovely bit of Bellamy" fund, Terry Doyle is selling a piece I would love.
Terry has an extensive gallery on ComicArtFans and the reason for writing about this to 1) make sure you're aware of CAF (where you can also see all the Bellamys that people have uploaded) and also 2) that Terry is selling one of his prize collection for £7,000. This also gave me an excuse to write about something I recently discovered. This would make this piece the most expensive Bellamy artwork sold to date (to my knowledge!) and before you react like a modern social media troll, this is a prime example kept in great condition and unfaded. To contact Terry, login to CAF and click on this link to his sale.

Battle Picture Weekly had a long history of changes, being a UK comic that existed in the time when UK comics' sales on newsstands were declining and mergers were all the rage. You can read more about it on Wikipedia. Why do I mention it? I found that some of the war stories Bellamy illustrated were 'borrowed' for this comic.

10 February 1979

Eagle Volume 13:14 7 April 1962

Look at the grey coloured panel on the left and compare it to the bottom image on Battle Action! The image of Rommel above the headline "Kill Rommel!" is a famous photograph of the German. And before we leave the above Eagle image, the soldier and the clock-face in the Eagle comic are about to make an appearance!

Battle Action 5 May 1979

The next one shows the outline of the word WAR. Bellamy used this in the first episode of "Montgomery"as you can see below. The artist on Battle Action seems to have taken inspiration from Bellamy even if the font and images inside it are not the same.

Battle Action 28 October 1978

There are several other covers scattered through the run that appear to be taken from photographic reference but that's all I could find that directly related to Bellamy. If you think you know better, please share with us!

Lastly as we are on the subject of the comic that brought us "Charley's War" and "Johnny Red" amongst others, the annual from 1976 contained a few shots taken from Look and Learn - and yes! it's Bellamy again! The images are taken from Battle Picture Weekly Annual 1976.