Original Art: Thunderbirds on eBay

Just a quick reminder that 'tweedacademy' is selling a top notch piece on eBay. That guy must have a collection of Bellamy originals! He has set this double page spread of Thunderbirds at £3,500, which is a large sum of money but this looks to be in very good condition. The Buy It Now option expires on 6 March, 2011 so if you have the money go for it now.

From TV21 number 125, this is part one of the 11th story to appear. The Hood does his usual stuff and exposes Tracey Island. Read all about the story at Shaqui and friends' site. If you enlarge this scan of the whole comic you'll see the original art actually exposes the beautiful colour Bellamy produced that despite much care could not be reproduced well at the time. Shame this hasn't been scanned and reproduced in the Century21 reprints by Reynolds & Hearn

TV21 125

 

Frank Bellamy and the Wright Brothers

©  BBC Magazines Ltd

I've just had a holiday and started reading Moondust: In Search of the Men Who Fell to Earth by Andrew Smith in which he tracks down as many of the 12 astronauts who have walked on the Moon as he can as well as the Command Module pilots. People of my generation will love this book. But the thing that struck me was how from 1903 (the first flight man made with an aeroplane) to 1972 (the last manned Moon landing) was just one generation. Who was more brave, the former or the latter? No idea, but this blog is focussing on the Wright Brothers and reading around the web, I find myself in awe of the two brothers as well as the Apollo astronauts - especially as I type on a computer X more times as powerful as the computational power they had!

The Washington Times in 2003 had a great article on the centenary of the Wright Brothers' accomplishment called "The Wright stuff … and the wrong" in which it shows the Smithsonian didn't even acknowledge the event previously. However, that humble pie, which the Smithsonian ate must have tasted good as their online presence is really good now and shows many exhibits including a large jpg of the original successful flying machine. The Aeronautical Engineering Collection of the The Franklin Institute in Philadelphia were designated by Wilbur Wright as the benefactors of their archives including their notes on scraps of wallpaper!


In relation to Bellamy's work on this subject, we can also view the original telegram sent by Orville Wright to his father, Bishop Milton Wright, at this site,and if this has picqued your interest, here's a list of links on the history of early flight

©  BBC Magazines Ltd

Up to 1972, Bellamy had produced many black and white, and colour illustrations and comic strips for the Radio Times under the Editor Geoffrey Cannon (who was in place between 1969-1979). More importantly, David Driver (previously mentioned on this blog) was the person who commissioned Bellamy during this most interesting period of Bellamy's non-comics period. Driver was Art Editor for the Radio Times 1969-1978 before becoming Deputy and Features Editor.

Tim Barnes, who owns the black and white original of page 55 (Radio Times 22 January to 28 January 1972)  has kindly supplied pictures of the art with and without the overlay. Often even this can give valuable clues to how these things are dealt with in magazine publishing. The overlay in this case shows "reduce to 28½ ems wide (as to trace)" and in pencil we can see 'cut away metal' which s where the text will wrap around the illustrations.

Original art

Bellamy must have been supplied with photographic reference for this but I suspect, as usual he made of it what he wanted and laid down his design skills. Incidentally when you enlarge these pictures you'll notice that the article actually has a third page but no Frank Bellamy artwork therefore I have not scanned it. And interestingly the Radio Times date on this page is wrong. The Radio Times is usually dated from Saturday to Friday (in 1972, Saturday fell on 22 January, not 20 January!)

EXTRA - Read all about it!
Having made contact with David Driver (mentioned above)  he wrote about this blog entry :

My word, I had forgotten this particular sequence, but I certainly designed these pages,
and again in conversation with Frank, he had expressed an interest in this subject.
As I got to know Frank as a friend, I encouraged him to let me know what he fancied drawing,
so that when the subjects emerged, I was able to marry him with a story. That is how
Movie Crazy Years emerged as a cover, feature and ongoing programme page vignettes.
When he took on Garth, that somewhat curtailed the regular commissions for Radio Times,
which I deeply regretted.

Thanks David for those memories

and

Thanks to Bill Storie for reminding me I could have 'bookended' this with Bellamy's work on the Moon landing - Now done via this link!

Original Art: Garth on eBay - Sundance

I noticed our old friend 'tweedacademy' has another unique Bellamy for sale on eBay. He is auctioning E173 of the Sundance strip.

UPDATE: Sold for £227 (February 2011) with 32 bids

As Nick Landau explains in the Titan reprint "The cloud of Balthus" Steve Dowling the creator of Garth took on a young assistant John Allard in 1943. "On Dowling's retirement in 1968, Allard took over Garth until a permanent replacement could be found." which of course happened in 1971 with the 13th strip in the Sundance story.

The strange thing was he stayed on making amendments to Bellamy's art, by changing ballon layouts or by adding something Bellamy never used to my knowledge, Letraset, or what the Americans call 'zip-a-tone' In reply to a letter received by the editors of the newspaper reprint title "Menomonee Falls Gazette" Bellamy said

You ask about the functions of Jim Edgar and John Allard. Well Jim Edgar is the scriptwriter. John Allard was on the strip for a number of years before I was called upon to draw it. He sometimes letters the balloons. However, I now do all the drawing, but the credits remain. Sounds confusing... it is!

Follow the link to read the full story on that.

I thought this might be the opportunity to share something I scanned crudely many moons ago. I really wish I had been more careful with my references, but all I can tell you it's definitely Boy's Own Paper and page  451 - and comes from around the early 1950s. I think it's  author is Godsell (the excellent Fiction Mags Index site says "GODSELL, PHILIP H(enry) (1889-1969); Canadian writer; spent 20 years in Hudson’s Bay Company and wrote about his experiences" soi it's not unlikely to be the same guy

Wikipedia has an article on the Sun Dance (two words)and at the Native People of Canada site you can see a portion of this very photograph.

For those who think I'm going too far off track, here's a selection of the story reprinted in the afore-mentioned  "Menomonee Falls Gazette" (with thanks to Pete the Pipster for the scan)

Click to enlarge 

Garth © Mirror Newspaper Group PLC

Recent references to Bellamy

This time's blog is about Bellamy's appearances in the media this Christmas - yes I know that's impossible but it's my way of highlighting that Bellamy, although no longer with us, is still being mentioned by lots of people in one way or another

MIKE TRIM: Designer of many Gerry Anderson vehicles

In 1964, young Mike Trim answered a newspaper advertisement seeking modelmakers for a film production crew and began an odyssey that would last for more than 40 years. Beginning in the final days of Stingray, Trim would work as a modelmaker and designer for Gerry and Sylvia Anderson's television series Thunderbirds, Captain Scarlet, Joe 90, The Secret Service, and UFO, as well as their feature films Thunderbirds are Go, Thunderbird 6, and Journey to the Far Side of the Sun (a.k.a. Doppleganger).

Starting out in the model shop, Mike eventually became Special Effects director Derek Meddings' assistant in designing the fabulous futuristic vehicles, buildings, and look of the Andersons' imaginitive series. Eventually, he would take on the bulk of design work for the series as Meddings became more involved in feature films.

Contributing a single (unused) vehicle design and model to Space: 1999, Trim then moved into freelance illustration, creating an iconic cover painting for one of the best selling albums of all time; Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of The War Of The Worlds, in 1978. Today, Mike is a freelance illustrator and conceptual designer for film and television. He lives in the south of England.

Taken from his website http://www.miketrimart.com/index.html

The website is well worth exploring. But let me point you to YouTube where "ACthelegend" has uploaded many of his films from last year's Fanderson convention. He says about Trim "he's a really nice guy" and gave me permission to link to his video. The video is worth watching (as are the others listed) but the reference to Frank Bellamy starts at 3 minutes 35 seconds. I've transcribed it below (so if I ever need it I can search for it on my PC).

INTERVIEWER:"You're a big fan of Frank Bellamy's artwork..."
MIKE: "Yes indeed"
INTERVIEWER: "What was it like reading the Thunderbird stories in TV21 and Captain Scarlet - especially with your designs in there?"MIKE: "Again that's quite weird, seeing someone else doing your designs. For me [one of my great regrets was that] Frank Bellamy did come into the studio with the original first spreads of Thunderbirds and I did meet Frank very briefly and I would have so loved to have sat down and had a chat with him. Having sat as a lad looking at his comic strips, it wasn't just the Dan Dare strip, which he also did [reference to earlier part of the interview on Hampson's creation] but he did strips before that which were absolutely brilliantly drawn, he just had this dynamic style that was superb, but I never got the opportunity but he carried that on through and the thing that struck me was none of the strips that he'd done before really ever called Frank to venture into the realms of science fiction"

JOHN COOPER: Fellow TV21 artist

The second piece was published by Terry Hooper in his interview with John Cooper (a fellow TV21 artist) on the interesting ComicBitsOnline

TERRY: I just realised there is a question I should have asked you earlier - has anyone influenced you great –art-wise- in comics and why?
JOHN: I always admired Frank Bellamy in comics. The man was a genius.

Unfortunately he says no more on the matter, but again shows Bellamy is far from forgotten.


EAGLE: THE SPACE AGE WEEKLY

Thirdly, many mailing lists and blogs mentioned the rather excellent programme over Christmas Eagle: The Space Age Weekly which was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on 23rd December 2010. I managed to capture the comment on Bellamy within the predominantly Hampson programme (fair enough!) where Tim Curry says:

"Frank Bellamy, who inherited Dan Dare after Frank Hampson left, drew the gripping 'Heros the Spartan' about a Roman warrior. With his attention to fine detail Bellamy was as great a perfectionist as Frank [Hamspon]"

The programme was written by Roger Dobson and is produced by Stephen Garner and featured among others David Britton who produced the wonderful Eagle Exhibitions for the Eagle Society a few years back, one of which, in Northampton, featured a talk on Frank Bellamy by Paul Holder. This review by Steve Winders sums up my opinion of the programme nicely

THE SECRET LIFE OF BOB MONKHOUSE
Lastly for now in this catchup on Bellamy's appearances I hope you all saw the wonderful bio/documentary on Bob Monkhouse, a well known Bellamy collector. BBC Four broadcast this 90 minute documentary "The Secret Life of Bob Monkhouse" on Monday 3 January 2011. A nice review can be found at Suite101: Television Review: The Secret Life of Bob Monkhouse  The interesting thing for me was the fact that in one dolly shot through a corridor we see original art (which was not, to my recollection, mentioned at all) and clearly visible are three framed Garths by Bellamy from the first Sundance story. He also had to my knowldge a wealth of Thunderbirds and other Bellamy art.

Perhaps we'll see this hit the market one day - but better still wouldn't it be great to see his work hanging in a public area for all to enjoy.

Bellamy, Thunderbirds and the Royal Mail

I received news today, when catching up with my email from the Christmas period, that Gerry Anderson's creations are about to star on British stamps from 11th January! What a new year's surprise.

 

Taken from the Royal Mail website

These photographs look really nice and Royal Mail have done some lovely items for the launch date of 11th January 2011. Click on the link to see presentation sets, first day covers and so on.

So where's the Bellamy connection?

Scificollector @ The Stamp Centre, who are based in the Strand, London, produce many Anderson, Doctor Who and other products and their signed First Day Covers have always appealed to me. As I'm sure a lot of you philatelists will know the Royal Mail produce special First Day Covers for the launch event of any new set of commemorative stamps. But The Stamp Centre have gone one better by inviting Gerry Anderson to sign their unique covers.

As they say on the website:

Gerry Anderson 2011 Limited Edition First Day Comic Strip Covers
On January 11th 2011, the Royal Mail are issuing a set of 6 stamps to celebrate the genius of Gerry Anderson M.B.E..
We are immensely proud to have been exclusively authorised by Gerry to produce a range of fan dedicated collectable First Day Covers to complement the 10 stamps.
There are six 'comic strip' covers each featuring one of the main six stamps and combine to create a comprehensive set, which is stylistically consistent and inspired by the works of, amongst others, Frank Bellamy. Each cover also features a special postmark, dated on the day of issue and each piece is individually marked with its unique edition number. All the covers will also be signed in person by Gerry Anderson, making for a truly wonderful collectable.
The set of six is available to pre-order now for £80 post-free UK or they can be pre-ordered individually by making your selection/s below for £15+£1 P&P each.
Also released by the Royal Mail is a Thunderbirds Miniature Sheet, featuring for the first time a lenticular moving image design showing the Thunderbirds countdown sequence. A separate cover adorned with this sheet is also available, as are 3 different 'behind the scenes' covers which carry the full set of the six main stamps.

 For the Thunderbird cover they've used Frank Bellamy's drawing from TV21 (plus Embleton, Noble and others for the remaining covers). If you're visiting them, take a look attheir other Anderson set too

The Stamp Centre's covers

Original Art: Garth on eBay

Taken from a scan of the strip - not the eBay picture - click to enlarge

Just a quick message to alert you to the fact that, on eBay, at the moment is...

An original artwork by the brilliant Frank Bellamy for the Daily Mirror daily strip 'Garth'. An episode from the story 'The Doomsmen' code no J126, showing Garth himself with Professor Lumiere. The story is basically about killer robots (the Doomsmen) and Garth's struggle to stop them (not dissimilar from The Cybernauts in 'The Avengers' TV series).

The seller goes on to say: 

The original which measures approx 520mm x 34mm (image area), so is much larger than the size in the Daily Mirror. The board is clean and white.

I'll update this entry with the sale price when the auction is over

UPDATE: £82 (December 2010) with 2 bids

Don Harley talks about Bellamy

Cover of Spaceship Away Part 22 by Ian Kennedy (Used with express permission) 

In the latest Spaceship Away, (Part 22 Autumn 2010) Rod has secured an autobiographical "sketch" by - what I consider to be - Frank Hampson's key co-worker on Dan Dare, Don Harley. To view his work browse the excellent ComicArtFans.
Don retells his first meeting with Hampson and his first job on the story "The Red Moon Mystery" in October 1951 at the age of 24. His story about being on a deadline on New Year's Eve  and staying up to work, shows how our comic artists worked all hours for our entertainment! There are many gorgeous (and relevant) illustrations accompanying the article as well as a new portrait of his 4 co-workers and himself and Dan Dare too.

The main interest for this blog is his overview of the arrival of Frank Bellamy in the Dan Dare stable. This period is often viewed by those who grew up on Dan Dare as sacrilege against the Hampson vision as Bellamy was asked to take over from Hampson (due to the takeover and new ownership of Hulton Press)  and his version of DD was what you might call in modern terms a 're-boot'. His style was so different from Hampson it has suffered from comparisons ever since. And to make matters worse he wasn't left to do the work by himself, as he had done brilliantly for Eagle on the Happy Warrior, David the Shepherd King and Marco Polo strips.

"My own opinion is that Marcus [Morris, Eagle editor] picked Frank Bellamy because he was such a good artist and that Morris could not tell the difference between artists' styles of drawing. Frank Bellamy's style was loose and flowing with much black ink, while Frank Hampson's style was much lighter, more realistic with superfine linework and natural colour. The two styles were so different that it was impossible to merge them. Marcus was angry when he saw Frank Bellamy's first drawings  of Dan Dare's face and asked me to re-draw them.(Vol. 10 No.28). We all loved Frank Bellamy's artwork but it was a rare artist who could copy it." (Harley, 2010, p.41)

The article goes on to tell of the working arrangements in the Dan Dare team in the Hulton office and Bellamy's involvement.

I'd love to know if anyone has the original art for the first episode so we can see how Don covered this 'mistake'. I've added this as an entry on the website which lists articles that contain reference to Bellamy in some way

This is a really splendid work by Rod and team and the colours are so vibrant in the whole glossy magazine. Click on Ian Kennedy's superb cover above to see the beautiful colours and trust me, this quality is not seen anywhere else in our field to my knowledge

Oh, and in case that's not enough to convince you to buy a copy (blast it! buy a subscription!) there's also the continuing never before reprinted re-coloured (by John Ridgway ) episodes of Frank Bellamy's Garth story "The Bubble Man". They look absolutely superb!

And just in case you think I've forgotten to show any Bellamy work, here's one of those superb covers form the Eagle

MANY THANKS to Rod Barzilay for his kind permission to use some of Don's text as well as the cover above . He deserves another link to the excellent Spaceship Away (http://spaceshipaway.org.uk/) so here's the printed version of the above cover

 

Bellamy on display this Christmas

EAGLE Vol. 12:25(24 June 1961) Fraser of Africa will be on display along with lots of other art at:

 

Go and make someone happy for Christmas!

Original Frank Bellamy art: Garth strip

Just a quick note, as this seems to be part of this blog's purpose, to let you know of a Garth strip that has sold recently

An episode from the story "The Spanish Lady" , K137, was sold for £142 after 5 bids. The seller added this paragraph:

"The seller of this item worked on the Northamptonshire Evening Telegraph, where Frank bellamy's long and distinguished career began, and was the last journalist to interview the artist". which I'm guessing means Tony Smith who indeed did talk to Frank many times and promote his work in the local paper on many occasions over the years.

I apologise for the quality of the strip - I found again my collection let me down as I don't have that particular strip!

Bellamy original artwork: Thunderbirds

Comic Book Auctions Ltd has launched it latest catalogue with an end time of Tuesday 30 November at 8 PM UK Time. The piece that will be of interest to Bellamy fans particularly is Thunderbirds original artwork (1968) from TV Century 21 No 206 - Lot number 176.

Scott and Professor Davies have to travel back in time to get Thunderbird 4 and save the fractured dam's waters from drowning New York, but before they can activate the main controls the time-machine topples into the torrent …
Pelikan inks on board. 18 x 14 ins

It looks as if the artwork has been kept out of the sunlight which often fades these pieces. Notice some of the  lettering in the middle panel is missing. It's fairly obvious from the comic version that an overlay was done that has now gone from the artwork. The missing word appeared as 'dismantled'


The estimate for this piece is  £1,500-2,000 and I will update this entry when the auction results come through

UPDATE: Winning bid incl. 10% Buyer's Premium: £2,420 (December 2010)

For those who can't wait to see what did happen in the story I have reproduced the following page for TV21 207

By the way the auction also has a run of Boy's World and Eagle as well as TV21s that all contain Bellamy artwork - check out my website if you need to know which ones have Bellamy art in them.

Bellamy and bags of rubbish

The famed comic artist Alan Davis has taken a lot of trouble in scanning a large range of images of Frank's work.

He helped Nancy Bellamy clear out Frank's studio after his early death and rescued many things from ending up in the rubbish for which Bellamy fans should be eternally grateful.

Some of this I have seen before and listed on the Frank Bellamy website, and it's great now to be able to see the pictures online but some is new even to me.

Take a long time over it and visit each link and slowly be amazed

MANY THANKS to Alan for sharing!

Bellamy and the Bank House Twins (by way of Burke and Hare)

Cover with flyleaf

Recently my wife decided we were both holidaying in Edinburgh. At first I agreed and thought nothing of it, as any break from the usual 9-5 is a break and whose company would I like whilst on holiday? - hers, of course!

As the time crept nearer an amazing coincidence (or two) occurred that led to me anticipating the event even more.

Firstly I had been following the Forbidden Planet blog in which amongst other things they review graphic novels and things I find of interest. Very useful for a guy like me who no longer can be bothered to understand the complexities of pre-, post- and infinite crisis sales pitches! I finally took the plunge and ordered a copy of this gruesome graphic novel which I first read about on John Freeman's blog. It is now being sold direct by the creators themselves - see their details at the new Burke and Hare website. After a lovely correspondence by email, Martyn sent my signed copy and I had time, just before the holiday, to read it. It certainly reminded me that the 'auld reekie' was not as pleasant a place to frequent 150 years ago as it is now! I'd recommend the book and Edinburgh town too (and there is a comedic film version coming from the excellent Simon Pegg and friends!)

But what has this got to do with Bellamy, you ask? Bear with me while I tell the story

On the drive along the A1 to our cottage in Longniddry (14 miles east of Edinburgh) we passed what, to me looked like a giant slag heap in the distance. I assumed that there was an old mine in the area as this bump in the landscape was so out of character with the fairly flat edges of the Firth of Forth. However I soon remembered that the North Berwick Law was no slag heap! "North Berwick Law may be described as as a round or slightly oval plug of felstone which comes up vertically through the ash, [...] into a cone of which the top is 612 feet above the sea." (Howell Hyatt, 2009. The Geology of East Lothian, Including Parts of the Counties of Edinburgh and Berwick. BiblioBazaar)

North Berwick Law -Taken September 2010 by Norman Boyd

We both decided to climb it and once at the top I let my wife know there was a connection with Bellamy. He illustrated a 1955 children's book called "The Bank House Twins".

The story concerns the Currie children, whose father is Manager of the bank in North Berwick - thus the title of the book. The twins, Christine and Colin are annoyed when they learn a friend of the family's is coming to stay with the twins for the summer. They initially try to get rid of him, and this is where the North Berwick Law comes in. 

p.40: "I think I can reach the dog now""

The twins hear that Donald does not like climbing and they therefore avoid the path (my wife and I took) and climb the rocks to the top. Donald appears to struggle, all the time not letting on he knows their game. The main thrust of the story revolves around some bank robbers - rather predictably, but the whole story reads so much like a simpler Enid Blyton, and is extremely dated now, but fun as a nostalgic piece.

Frontpiece: "There! See! The safe door's swinging wide!"

p.9

p.27: "Oh Donald. Your back tyre is terribly flat."

p.61: "The fire seems to have got a good hold"

p.83: In another second they were all struggling in the water

p.113: Borsky reached forward and grabbed her

p.131: He pointed the gun at Petkov

A review of a later book by Fidler by Brian Alderson appears in the Times newspaper of Wednesday 11 March 1980 of "the last book of a writer who made a small corner in "holiday adventure stories" and who died [in 1980] with more than 80 titles to her name. Kathleen Fidler's The Ghosts of Sandeel Bay has all the ingredients of triteness that the genre demands." Despite a rather disparaging review he goes on to describe how she was well loved in her adopted home in Scotland (she was born in Coalville, Leicestershire on August 10, 1899) and Blackie and Sons sponsored a "Kathleen Fidler Award" which appears to have run until at least 1996, Hodder Children's Books took over the sponsorship of the award and the name was changed to the Fidler award for a while. The interesting Wee Web Author and Illustrator's website has a longer biography and listing of her books

Bellamy's drawings are interesting in that I doubt he had seen the North Berwick Law himself and perhaps didn't even have reference material sent to him for this commission, apparently choosing subjects he knew would be acceptable.

Other Bellamy sales

I have updated my recent post to show the prices fetched for various original artwork by Frank Bellamy. I missed mentioning another unique piece by the same seller.

SOLD FOR £620 (with 18 bids)

"Probably done when starting his tenure on the Daily Mirror strip, perhaps to show the paper's art editor his treatment for the character? Interesting to see he has a cowboy theme going here, as Bellamy had a great love of westerns, a period of history Garth visited on occasion, notably on the 'Ghost Town' story"

... says the seller.There a quite a few of these character studies that Bellamy prepared for his strips - Thunderbirds, Heros, David the shepherd king, Dan Dare etc.

I wonder if Bellamy was told that he would join the Garth strip in a "cowboy story" - actually Garth is shown as a US cavalryman in Bellamy's first strip "Sundance" which ran in the Daily Mirror from 28 June1971 to 11 October 1971

The other far less impressive sale, but interesting nonetheless was for a poster that remains unidentified beyond being a reprint of the famous and often reprinted Radio Times cover of Jon Pertwee from January 1972. It sold for £18.43  and is sized 18 by 26 inches. The logo places it in time and I'm guessing was in a Doctor Who Magazine. The reproduction not very good as most of the subtle stippling that Bellamy did is lost here. Anyone know where this appeared?

More original art sales and Dez Skinn too

UPDATES AUCTION PRICES BELOW IN RED

Just got back from holiday in Scotland and so am catching up with emails, RSS feeds, etc. etc. Of course I found a Bellamy connection with the place I stayed but more on that later. Some call it obsession...I call it serendipity!

So here are a few quick Bellamy items

Thanks to Lew Stringer I was alerted to Dez Skinn's latest story regarding the "the ones that got away". If you take a look at the covers shown (reproduced below), you'll see Dez's love of Bellamy.

On eBay recently we saw 2 bids on a Garth strip from the "The angels of hell's Gap" story (episode #J65) which sold for £67

But even more exciting is the current auction of three more Garths, one of which is especially rare. It's the title panel of "The Man-Hunt" story of Garth (episode #K239). Why so rare? None of the other title strips have appeared in auction or for sale to my knowledge since I started watching the Internet in 1993.

SOLD FOR £410 (with 26 bids)

This seller is also selling an episode from "The Wreckers" story (#G267) and also an episode from "The Orb of Trimandias" (#F86)

 

SOLD FOR £99.88 (with 10 bids)

SOLD FOR £129 (with 17 bids)

The same seller is auctioning off a beautiful Thunderbirds page from TV21 #54. This, for those who don't know, is the third page in black and white that Bellamy produced. Unbelievably for 14 weeks he drew a full colour double page spread plus a black and white ink wash. And this is from the 3rd week.

NOT SOLD FOR £1000 BEST OFFER

I'll be updating this page with the final prices fetched. While waiting take a look at the piece sold by Comic Book Auctions site and the price realised on my updated post

Frank Bellamy writes letters

"Comic Media Vol 2 no 2 whole number 9" it says in the indices. This particular issue of Nick Landau's fanzine carried an extensive interview with Peter O'Donnell (Modesty Blaise's creator) and an advert drawn by someone called Dave Gibbons (end irony) but is more of interest to Bellamy completists because Frank Bellamy wrote a letter that was published.

This wasn't the only letter we know about.

Bellamy also wrote to Dez Skinn's Fantasy Advertiser and Mike Tiefenbacher and Jerome Sinkovec Menomonee Falls Gazette

Fantasy Advertiser Vol. 3:43 May 1972, (no page numbers) had the usual Battlefield! letter column and the first letter taking pride of place is by Bellamy (incidentally that Dave Gibbons artwork also appears here too!)

and lastly (until more are discovered) the one from Menomonee Falls Gazette

This brilliant newspaper/magazine was published reprinting strips from all over the world in black and white. Garth started on September 4 1972 with the opening episode of Sundance which was not illustrated by Bellamy. This seems odd but if the guys hadn't reprinted this the Bellamy  episode wouldn't help them understand the story. Bellamy actually started in September 18 number 40

Tiefenbacher and Sinkovec wrote a letter asking for explanation of Allard's role in the strip's creation Bellamy's reply is interesting. Follow the links above (and as usual click on the NOTE links) to see the full copies on the website

Dez Skinn, Dave Gibbons and Frank Bellamy

Used with permission of Dez Skinn

You may not know but Dez Skinn has started a website in which he recounts the early days of UK fanzines and his early publishing ventures. He is one of few people who interviewed Frank Bellamy, taking as he explains, his backup, Dave Gibbons:

Dave Gibbons and I did the interview, going up to Frank and his wife Nancy’s semi-detached three bedroom house in Kettering, Northamptonshire one Saturday morning. There were two of us so Dave could cover any “tricky” art questions which may come up.

Frank was, as ever, a genial and self-effacing host, seemingly oblivious to his standing as one of the all-time greats of British comics. As we spoke, his enthusiasm was apparent, undiminished by time, he was still able to be excited over the smallest of things. One example he scurried away to proudly show us was a letter from America. An editor at DC Comics had written, asking if Frank would consider working for them. While most historians and fans would consider this a retrograde step in his career, Frank was thrilled at the thought.

Both Archie Goodwin and Marv Wolfman corresponded with Bellamy back in the early 70s and as the Daily Mirror reported Bellamy won the Foreign Comics Award of the American' Academy of Comic Books Arts, of which Goodwin was President in June 1972.

Daily Mirror (16 June 1972), p.11
"The Victor" by Anthony Delano

"FRANK BELLAMY, who draws the Daily Mirror's Garth strip, has been given the He was the only Briton to be nominated (he lives at Malden,[sic] Surrey ), and came ahead of all other, as seen from America, foreigners.
The award covers his work over the years, including the Dan Dare strip for the boys' magazine Eagle. It also-gave a nod to one cartoon he drew in the Eagle series, Heros the Spartan. The Academy displayed it at an exhibition in New York. It shows a massive battle scene with a cast of 200" 

Dez tells the story of how he auctioned some original Bellamy pieces at the 1971 comic convention (one of which is shown in an old photo), how Bellamy drew an original as a birthday present for Dez and how Bellamy dealt with lettering problems and the restrictions in drawing Garth

Head over there and read some fascinating original material about Bellamy from Dez

Original Frank Bellamy art for sale: Thunderbirds

UPDATED AUCTION PRICE:
Winning bid incl. 10% Buyer's Premium: £3,726. This must be the most expensive Bellamy piece to date!

TV21 was going to finish in its first incarnation at number 242, but in issue 220 Bellamy was still producing lovely artwork. This story ran from TV 21 and TV TORNADO issues 218-226 (22/03/69 - 17/05/69). And as we have seen from the Reynolds and Hearn reprints, (the publisher's website seems to be down now!) the artwork delivered was extremely vibrant compared to the printed versions of the 60s even if in photogravure.

Front Cover TV21 220

Bellamy's 2 single pages (rather than the earlier double page spreads) are still full of action and great perspective.

Page 10 TV21 220

The second page of this story is now on the Comic Book Auctions site for previewing purposes. The auction will be opening soon - sign up for an email reminder

The scan on their site looks like this

http://www.compalcomics.com/catalogue/lot158A.htm

Lot # 158:
Thunderbirds original artwork (1969) drawn and signed by Frank Bellamy for TV 21 No. 220
Thunderbird 2 lands near Project City and the giant Mole is deployed to bore through the concrete walls with Virgil and Brains at the controls.
But the walls are live - they’re being electrocuted...
Pelikan inks on board 18 x 14 ins
£700-800

Glad to see Malcolm has realised Bellamy drew all his comic work (to my knowledge) in coloured ink! 

And finally here's the published version to compare (well, as best you can online!)

Page 11 TV21 220

As usual I will update this page when the piece is sold and price fetched announced

Happy Bidding - and tell Malcolm I sent you...he may send me a free catalogue, as I certainly can't afford to bid!