It is in fact, Telegraph Sunday Magazine No. 49, 21st August 1977 pp. 18-22, "Where Eagles dared", by Byron Rogers, a three and a half page history of the Eagle comic - with one reference to Bellamy, but no relevant content!
But there is an interesting photo included - see below - with an error on it. Can anyone correct this for us, although not directly concerning Bellamy!
"The men behind the comic: from left to right, Frank Hampson, the original illustrator, Clifford Makins, who succeeded Morris as editor, John Pearce who launched the first promotion, Macdonald Hastings, Eagle Special Investigator, and Marcus Morris, the clergyman who conceived and created it, pore over early issues of Eagle.[...]" (p.18).
Unfortunately there are indeed five gents, but Hampson is instantly recognisable as being second from the left. Can anyone tell me who the first guy is?
They are, according to an
Eagle Times article ("Memories of Eagle" by Graham Page, Eagle Times,
Vol 30:3, Autumn 2017, pp12-14):
As stated earlier, Richard Sheaf has been really helpful in supplying details of articles about Bellamy in fan magazines.
The updated information (on the Articles page) includes:
Astral Group Member's Forum #4-5 Feb 1982
Astral Group Newsletter #7, 1981-2
Comics Journal #28 (UK version), Autumn 1994
Eagler magazine #2, Winter 1983
Eagle Times 1987 [pilot issue] which is a reprint of....
Northamptonshire Evening Telegraph 3 Sept 1987
Many thanks Richard - who supplied scans too! The last article by Tony Smith (who must have interviewed Bellamy more times than anyone) contains some more information which I'll use. The others are fairly derivative.
Interesting also to note the article reproduces this cartoon done by Bellamy for the Pink 'Un but with the wrong date! To understand the nicknames for the football teams read the description on the N.E.T .page
NORTHAMPTONSHIRE EVENING TELEGRAPH (Sat 11/10/1947) (Football Telegraph) "Will Ar Tarn douse posh, and the Russians scare the Poppies"
I thought it was time to correct something I left up on the site, namely this mysterious entry in the unpublished list:
Robin Hood:
Black & white with an inscription "Best wishes to XXXXXX" and signed
I'm pleased to say that wonderful Marv Wolfman agreed that I could let people know that he owns this original Bellamy drawing. He says "I also have two original painted Heros the Spartan pages, too."
It was the latter that was the start of suggesting that Bellamy be entered in the ACBA award for Best Foreign Artist in 1972. Due to the age of the Heros strips (1962-1965), they could not be used. However, someone (Barry Windsor-Smith?) had the bright idea of using the one-off comic strip of Star Trek that appeared in the TV and radio listings magazine in the UK, the Radio Times. And the rest as they say is history......
Footnote:
Many people think therefore Bellamy drew Star Trek in the UK. He drew only only this single page mentioned above with 2 spot illustrations for the TV listings. Mike Noble's run on Star Trek in the second series of TV21 is considered a high point.
Penny Turner, (the best person to have with you on a pub quiz team), reading the website mentioned 'had I read "Pawley's Peepholes"?' I hadn't....she had a copy which I borrowed and shortly after, I encountered Wyndham's clever take on time travel.
The story tells of ghostly appearances in a small town which turn out to be time tourists! The townsfolk get tired of the intrusions on their private lives .....and fight back. I won't spoil the ending!
What's this got to do with Bellamy? In November 1969 Bellamy was asked by BBC Educational Publications to produce 9 drawings in black and white for "Music Session One "Pawley's Peepholes Pupil's Pamphlets for the Summer of 1970.
To date, we have not seen a pamphlet. Can you help? Email us at the usual address See here for this
An aside taken from "Time Travel" - PBS Airdate: October 12, 1999: STEPHEN HAWKING: Time travel might be possible, but if that is the case why haven't we been overrun by tourists from the future? CARL SAGAN: This argument I find very dubious.
Shaqui has done it again. He's sent me a scan of the Daily Mirror for the 1st Mar 1978 and as he says, "it's a bit of a non-starter but, hey, you're the completist!"
But Shaqui has sent me other stuff which I have never seen! More to follow shortly
I tripped over some new information about "Suzy and the Red Stripes" and thought I'd look again at this article to improve it somewhat as I started it in 2007 (updated 10 years later)!
Bill Storie writes: "I was told by Terry Jones (when I was researching Bert Fegg's book) that he himself had been told the "Wings" illustration [as I've labelled it] for Paul McCartney was originally commissioned for the cover of a solo album by Paul's wife Linda under the project title of "Linda and the Red Stripes". Terry himself didn't know if that was 100% true though and MPL publishing never replied to me on the subject but maybe someone else out there on the net might know?" Below are the comments on this story Bill wrote back in 1992 for his fan publication dedicated to Frank: Gopherville Argus
Bill Storie and Terry Doyle produced Gopherville Argus in 1992 (Taken from Issue 1)
Paul McCartney takes two years to pluck up the courage to commission Frank Bellamy
It's for a record sleeve
Frank drew the rough
Meeting arranged in London
Frank died in July 1976
Gopherville Argus 1992 (Taken from Issue 2)
A bit more certainty it was for Linda's solo persona "Suzy and the Red Stripes"
This interesting article Seaside Woman by Suzy and the Red Stripes explains: "Paul called the group Suzy (Linda) and the Red Stripes (Wings) and they signed with Epic under that name. The name Red Stripes is from one of Paul and Linda's favorite drinks."
Linda's Pictures 1976
I put out another call to the Internet via Facebook and received this from Tony Smith, the reporter who most wrote about Frank during his lifetime:
I
also wrote to Paul [McCartney] not long after Frank's death, but received no reply.
When I interviewed Frank early in 1976, he told me Macca and Linda
called at his home entirely unannounced a few weeks earlier. He showed
me a photographic book written by Linda and signed by them both, which
they gave him, and I understand they wanted him to do the artwork for a
forthcoming Wings album.
I'm guessing the present was Linda's pictures: a collection of photographs / photographs and words by Linda McCartney London: Cape, 1976.
So now we also know this encounter was likely to be the beginning of 1976
Which set me looking for any other information and I remembered this interview with Nancy Bellamy. On 9 July 1992 Nancy and Howard Corn (who was the Editor of the Eagle Times and lifelong champion of Eagle, who passed away in 2016) were interviewed on the radio programme Turning Back the Years with Arnold Peters
AP: And of course through Frank’s work and his… for so many different people… it was largely the Eagle but also lots of other people you had strange phone calls some times, didn’t you?
NB: Well..
AP: The phone rang and you answered… go on, tell us.
NB: Yes, well one, I think it was a Saturday morning, the phone.. I used to answer the phone for Frank because it sort of helped him, it didn’t disturb him drawing, and this voice said ‘Can I speak to Frank Bellamy?’ and I said ‘Yes, who’s calling?’ and the voice on the other end said ‘Paul McCartney’ and I think my eyes must have widened very much but anyway I went to get Frank and sort of whispered to him ‘Paul McCartney’s on the phone for you’. So anyway the outcome of that was he went up to London to meet Paul and Linda McCartney and he said they were very very nice people and they wanted him to do a rough for a design for a sleeve for a record that they were producing.
AP: Just like that?
NB: Yes, just like that.
So here we learn
Phone call initiated process
Saturday morning?
London meeting happened
Rough required for record sleeve
Lastly Russell Jenkins - Frank's nephew - mentioned:
I seem to remember Franks’ meeting Paul and Linda being several years before Frank died [1976] and before the move to Geddington [1975] . I asked him what he had drawn for them and he said it was a woman coming out of the sea. So, “Seaside Woman” makes sense. Maybe the artwork was never used because of Franks’ death?
The artwork was of a woman coming out of the sea
Wikipedia tells us that:
In 1977 the reggae-inspired single "Seaside Woman" was released by an obscure band called Suzy and the Red Stripes on Epic Records in the United States. Suzy and the Red Stripes were Wings, with Linda (who wrote the song) on lead vocals.The song, recorded by Wings in 1972, was written in response to allegations from Paul's publisher that Linda's co-writing credits were inauthentic and that she was not a real songwriter.
"Seaside Woman" was first recorded 27 November 1972 at Air studios, London. later in 1973 further work was carried out at E.M.I.'s Boulogne-Billancourt Studios near Paris, and on 26 November at the Pathe-Marconi studios, Paris. An album was planned but never appeared at the time, however the single "Seaside Woman" (A-side) and the wittily titled B side "B-Side to Seaside" was released eventually in America on 31 May 1977 and reached number 59 in the Billboard charts.
Oscar Grillo created an animated short for the song in 1980, a year after it's first official release, and it went on to win the Cannes Film Festival’s "Short Film Palme d’Or.”
There's more information on The Paul McCartney Project website on "Seaside Woman" and Linda's explanation for the name "Suzy and the Red Stripes" appears in "Band on the Run" by Barry McGee, (NY: Taylor Trade Publishing, 2003) where she says:
"When we were in Jamaica, there had been a fantastic version of "Susie Q", so they used to call me Suzy. And the beer in Jamaica is called Red Stripe, so that makes it Suzy and the Red Stripes" (p.225)
I've checked through all those items of artwork I have access to and still not found one of a anything that's likely to be this, so I would love to see the draft artwork. If anyone wants to suggest how Paul might communicate with me, or me with him - after a few attempts already - I'd be so grateful
~Norman Boyd
=============
(Thanks to Bill Storie and Terry Doyle for dating the interview in Goperville Argus #2 Aug 1992, p.2) and Tony Smith for a better date, and for the wonderful websites such as The Paul McCartney Project,
"The men behind the comic: from left to right, Frank Hampson, the original illustrator, Clifford Makins, who succeeded Morris as editor, John Pearce who launched the first promotion, Macdonald Hastings, Eagle Special Investigator, and Marcus Morris, the clergyman who conceived and created it, pore over early issues of Eagle.[...]" (p.18).
