Original Art: Garth on Heritage - The Man-Hunt (K240)

K240 episode of  "Garth: The Man-Hunt" Drawn by Frank Bellamy

Heriatge Auctions have another Garth strip by Frank Bellamy for auction and I suspect, as in many of Bellamy's women, the main figure might be based on his wife Nancy. This strip comes from the Garth story "The Man-Hunt", which was the last story illustrated by Bellamy before his death in 1976. The opening strip (K239) was published on 7 October 1976 and K254 (25 October 1976) was his last signed strip after which Martin Asbury took over this story (ending it 15 January 1977) and the Garth series until its demise in March 1997.


Heritage describe the piece:

Frank Bellamy Garth Daily Comic Strip #K240 Original Art dated 8-10-76 (Daily Mirror of London, 1976). This is one of the last few Garth episodes Frank Bellamy illustrated, as he died suddenly in July of 1976. As a result, this installment appeared in print posthumously. In this episode, the science-fiction/superman feature takes a turn into the provocative concept of "synthesisation of organic matter" -- an ahead-of-its time idea, typical of classic SF. The title hero, Garth, receives a summons to meet with the scientist responsible, and is astonished to learn that she is organic, not synthetic. Bellamy lays down some finely detailed inking over graphite on illustration board with an image area of 20.5" x 5.25", it is in Excellent condition.

This auction is on Sunday August 19 2018

The Man-Hunt story has been reprinted just twice in the following places:

• Mirror Classic Cartoon Collection, Mike Higgs, London: Hawk 1998
• Daily Mirror Tuesday 4 November 2014 to Wednesday 12 November 2014 (K254). This was the coloured version (with printed credits for Martin Baines and Bellamy (but not Jim Edgar the author!). The story drawn by Martin Asbury continued until 22 December 2014

Here's the first page from Mike Higgs' Mirror Classic Cartoon book with an introduction

The Man-Hunt drawn by Frank Bellamy

AUCTION SUMMARY
WHERE?: Heritage
STARTING BID:$1
ENDING PRICE: $432 (includes Buyer's Premium) = £334.34
NO. OF BIDS: 10

END DATE: Sunday 19 August 2018

Frank Bellamy's MANHUNT reprinted

Tuesday 4 November 2014 © Daily Mirror

Martin Baines is a great guy as I'm sure I've been telling you since 2011, when the Daily Mirror newspaper first reprinted Frank Bellamy's run of 'Garth' stories and asked Martin to colour them. I've been waiting to see whether the only two stories drawn by Bellamy not yet reprinted in colour in the Daily Mirror  - 'Freak Out to Fear' and 'Manhunt' - would appear, and here's the first of the two...The Manhunt.

K239 Original art

I wonder why they've chosen to colour over the ladies' cleavage in this story (compare the colour to the black and white strips above) and not the previous stories, which have shown plenty of cleavage. Fans of Bellamy will want to see unadulterated artwork - some don't even like them being coloured - but why reprint a story and change the artwork? The reason I think, is that it shows how much society has changed since the Seventies - forty years ago!

The Daily Mirror has done this before when they reprinted a group of Bellamy's 'Garth' in annual form in 1975. This, I think was understandable, as in the 1970s only children bought annuals that had comic strips in them - the old argument, "comics are only children's ephemera". However, very strangely the Daily Mirror, at that time, issued a second annual (1976) , but left it uncensored in terms of naked ladies - see my previous thinking on this!
The story was previously reprinted in Mirror Classic Cartoon Collection, edited by Mike Higgs, London: Hawk 1998

Here's an example of Martin Asbury's art - having taken over from Bellamy due to his death in 1976, in which we see an example of what's on show. It will be interesting to see where this goes and whether a story on drugs ('Freak Out to Fear') appears which I for one think it should. This is a really great story that is very similar in tone to the Garth story 'The Chiller Connection' that was run in the Mirror recently last year. Come on Daily Mirror let us have the last story to be reprinted by Frank Bellamy....PLEASE!.

K268-K269 Art: Martin Asbury

Anyway getting off my soap box and back to Bellamy's art, he drew 15 episodes for the story before his early death. Martin Asbury took over, doing a great job of emulating Bellamy's style for a while, before signing his own artwork and starting to lose some of the restrictions of following another artist.

Bellamy's last signed strip is K254 (25 October 1976), however the credit above the strip as printed in the paper is Martin Asbury. Bill Storie asked Martin about this and wrote (in the Gopherville Argus #1 June 1992 in his John Allard interview),

"Martin has since confirmed to me that Frank left no pencils or unfinished artwork and Martin took over 'from scratch', although he admits to drawing the first few strips in the Bellamy style"

It will be interesting to follow this story and see how fans react!


Once again MANY thanks for Martin's generosity in sharing this work with us

Original Art: Garth on eBay - Bubble Man & Manhunt

J197 The Bubble Man

'Tweedacademy' is selling a copy of one of the Bubble Man strips as well as one from the last Garth story Bellamy illustrated Manhunt 

Again they look beautifully preserved as the piece that has just finished on eBay, fetching a nice £168 does too.

The seller says of the Manhunt strip:

This is from 'The Bubble Man' (J197) published in The Daily Mirror newspaper in 1975 and being re-run currently in said paper. Here we have a vibrant action piece with Garth about to be kidnapped by the eponymous Bubble Man's henchbugs. 'Space Bugs!' cries our hero. I'd be a tad more salty if I were in his position! Bellamy again makes a virtue of the outlandishness of the creatures and their scale shows that even Garth would be hard pressed to take on two at a time, even with crow bar (they don't fight fair anyway). He'll get the better of them before the story is done I'll wager :)

Good example of Bellamy techniques in one panel!

UPDATE: £181 with 17 bids (March 2012) 

Tweedacademy obviously read too many Stan's Soapbox columns in the sixties Marvel Comics - where hyperbole was always under done! But looking at the close up of the last panel, it does show those famous 'Bellamy swirls', and his lovely lettering in the balloon - where usually Jim Allard lettered the other speech balloons.

K247 Manhunt

The second piece is from Manhunt. This is the last story that Bellamy illustrated and  the seller says:

I believe this is one of the last strips Bellamy did (strip number K247) before his untimely death, from the story 'Manhunt' published in The Daily Mirror newspaper in 1976. This particular work is, in essence, a complete panel with all the narrative complete in the transition from the aircraft in cloudscape through to the amazing work on the eyes as our protagonist (plus, of course, charming companion) dissolve to another dimension in mid flight. Remarkable stuff. A true 'Bellamy' effect and very poignant in retrospect as we know what was to come.

This is indeed a beautiful example of Bellamy's Garth work. Tweedacademy is right in saying it was "one of the last" but in fact Bellamy's last signed strip is K254 (25 Oct 1976), however the credit above the strip as printed in the paper is Martin Asbury who stepped wonderfully into Bellamy's shoes. The crude copy below is taken from the Mirror's online database, but it shows the credit above the strip.
UPDATE: £315 with 39 bids (March 2012) - a phenomenal amount for a Garth!
 

Bellamy's last Garth strip # K254

And lastly a clearer idea of how the art changed from Bellamy to Asbury can be seen in this only reprint of Manhunt, taken from Mike Higgs' compilation Mirror Classic Cartoon Collection, London: Hawk 1998. Visit Martin's site to see his work since Garth as well as the opportunity to buy original art including, yes you guessed it, Garth strips

The last 2 Garth strips by Frank Bellamy & the first 3 by Martin Asbury