Original Art: Garth on Heritage - The Beast of Ultor (H91)

H91 episode of  "Garth: The Beast of Ultor" Drawn by Frank Bellamy

Here's another of the Ethan Roberts Collection to be auctioned on Heritage this time from the Garth story "The Beast of Ultor".  Heritage Auctions decided not to hide this behind a sing-in verification despite the art's explicit drawing (very common in the early seventies on TV and newspaper strips!)
Heritage describe this piece:

Frank Bellamy Garth Daily Comic Strip Original Art dated 4-18-74 (Daily Mirror, 1974). Astra "suspends" two blood-thirsty assassins in this high contrast thriller, numbered H91. Frank Bellamy is one of the celebrated titans of British comic strip art. This ink over graphite on illustration board daily has an image area of 20" x 5.25", and the art is in Excellent condition, with pinholes in the corners. From the Ethan Roberts Estate Collection. 

The whole story ran originally in the national UK newspaper the Daily Mirror from 19 February 1974 - 5 June 1974 (H42-H131). It was reprinted in The Daily Mirror Book of Garth (London: IPC Limited, 1976) and the American stripzine, Menomonee Falls Gazette #202 (27 October 1975) - #218 (16 February 1976)  and re-published in colour in the Daily Mirror from Thursday 11 April 2013 to - Saturday 1 June 2013 coloured by Martin Baines

Want to read more? Here are the 6 strips from the series taken from Menomonee Falls Gazette #211

Jim Edgar & Frank Bellamy from
Menomonee Falls Gazette#211

WHERE?: Heritage Sunday Internet Comics Auction #121728
SELLER:Heritage
STARTING BID:$1
ENDING PRICE:$501.90 (inc Buyer's premium) = £387.92
No of bids: 5

END DATE: 9 July 2017

NEW GARTH STORY - The Beast of Ultor AND A MYSTERY

NEW GARTH STORY - The Beast of Ultor...and a mystery!

Thursday 11 April 2013 © Daily Mirror

"Garth is exploring a deep pothole in Derbyshire with a girl friend four hundred feet below ground. 'Garth the water's rising!' 'Must be a heavy rainstorm above ground Liz! Let's get out of here before we're trapped!'"

Jim Edgar knew how to start a story with tension, and Frank Bellamy certainly knew how to attract the male readership straight away! They discover a colony of strange eggs and that thrusts Garth into another exciting adventure!

The original story ran in the Daily Mirror from 19 February 1974 - 5 June 1974 (H42-H131), 90 episodes.The story was reprinted in The Daily Mirror Book of Garth London: IPC Limited, 1976 and also Menomonee Falls Gazette #202 (27 October 1975) - #218 (16 February 1976)- but that's not quite true....

Can you see what's missing from the page illustrated below from the 1976 reprint book?

Interestingly Martin spotted it and told me. The reprint book from 1976 does not contain all the story. And by my calculations, the Menomonee Falls Gazette will have contained all of them, so that means the story has never been reprinted in full...in the UK! 

Using the page numbers from the 1976 reprint, the missing episodes are H61, H62 (page 53), H65 (page 54), H77, H78, H79 (page70), H116 (page 77/78). Unfortunately I don't have access to the MFG volumes in question to see what I missed. But I do have a couple of these in the ones I cut out crudely in 1974!

Missing strips H78-H79

And Paul Holder has come to my rescue with the others which I present in no particular order. And yes, the ladies are comfortable in their skins, so to speak (and avoid web-blockers!). I'd love to hear explanations as to why you think these strips were left out - beyond the fact this would have added 8 pages to the book's length!

UPDATE (20/04/2013)

I have gone through the whole book now and found the answer is indeed in multiples of four! The following are 

Mask of Atacama has the following missing:
G170, G173, G230, G231, G237, G246

and

People of the abyss:
F243, F259, F264, F272, F273, F299

H77-79

H115-116

H65

H61-62

Now children, you can print out this page and insert them in your copy of the 1976 reprint! But get an adult to supervise the cutting out and remember Bill Gates' tip in Microsoft Word from many years ago...DON'T run with scissors!

Thanks go again to Martin for sending me this first episode and also unearthing a bit of Bellamy background we hadn't found before! And to Paul for his kindness. I love the Internet for building community!