...Weblink: Comic Librarian's heaven!

I have always enjoyed seeing annotations to some of those popular graphic novels of the Eighties - Watchmen, V for Vendetta, Sandman etc. In the prehistory of the WWW, we had command line interfaces and boy, were they tough to learn! I always tested them by looking for any comics related materials and starting dribbling on discovering text files of this sort of material! Remember this is before web browsers, and images on the net!

Anyway, Peter Karpas and friends have put together all these miscellaneous web references in one place on their strangely-titled enjolrasworld.com including reference to one FrankBellamy.co.uk!

I feel humble as there are few UK entries!

Pictures taken from the Eagle strip "The Happy Warrior"

....ADVERT: Andersonic

I have avoided taking any income for the Frank Bellamy site - and I will keep it advert free.

But what happens when one correspondent sends you information and asks you to author an article? Well, I have thanked Richard Farrell for his info, accepted the request to write an article and.... promised to put the following on my Blog - click to enlarge:
Andersonic is a small fanzine which I found entertaining but have never seen advertised extensively. Richard says "No need to use the cartoon - hardly up to the standards of an FB site! The next issue will be out around September and will include a feature on Bellamy and Harley's Thunderbirds strips and Starcruiser from Look-In"

I like the cartoon! Instantly recognizable! I didn't write the article on Bellamy, but look forward to seeing it - as I haven't even been offered one for this advert
Norman

...Correction: Comicon 76

Richard Sheaf has supplied the following information on Comicon 76. It appears that the Comic Convention brochure contains a simple Bellamy entry. Opposite the advert for (what I remember to be) an interesting fanzine is the following message taking up the whole page.

"In memory Frank Bellamy 1917-1976" No black border; no pictures; no biography, just a reminder we had lost a major person in the comic world!

Weblink: Look and Learn - Fortunino Matania

Head over to the Look and Learn site to view a picture show (great feature gentlepersons!) and view Fortunino Matania's works in that magazine.

You can read a short biography on BookPalace's excellent site and buy original artwork and prints of his work

Why am I highlighting this? What's the Bellamy connection? Matania was admired greatly by Bellamy who wrote a fan letter or two to Matania and also received Christmas cards from his hero. Whether they met is still a mystery, but it's always interesting to see who influences whom.

There's a long list of his war work with loads of samples on "The Great War in a different light" website. But he is remembered , like Alma Tadema, for his drawings of classical antiquity with his 'accurate' detailing.

Fortunino Matania's version of Armistice celebrations (from the Sphere magazine Nov 1918) and Bellamy's from the series he did with Mike Butterworth on World War One (from Look and Learn #462, 1970 © Look and Learn Magazine Ltd)

...Correction: Comic Media News / Comic Collector

Clearing up a few more bits that that kind Richard Sheaf sent me:

Comic Collector No. 2 Apr 1992, Announcement on the Frank Bellamy Appreciation Society Richard supplied the advert below


I managed to get a copy of the following recently:
Comic Media News No 27 Jul-Aug 1976, which has a tribute to the then recently departed Bellamy with a rarely seen photo of him.

Comic Media News #27

Comic Media News #27, p14

Comic Media News #27, p.15

...Which leads me to wonder whether the following entry on that page is wrong.
Comicon 1976 No 27 tribute and photo as it appears so like the above! Does anyone have, or know anyone that has the Comicon programmes for the Seventies?

...Correction: Garth character tryout sheet

Making a few corrections in the pages:
Deleted the description: Garth tryout - Black & white: 6 drawings of Garth used as a tryout for the strip from the Unpublished page

Added the details onto the Saga of Garth entry (c/o Comics Journal) on the Articles page. Click on the note accompanying the Saga entry for a bigger scan

Bellamy, of course, did many "character sheets" of strips before commencing on them. The site lists quite a few, but the recent appearance of a 'Marco Polo' sheet was a great suprise - see the following blog entry!

Unseen Bellamy - FRENCH INFANTRY identified

On the Unseen Bellamy exhibition page, we had a placeholder asking if anyone could identify the French Infantry (item #9 in the catalogue)

Not only can we now identify it, but if you click the corresponding note, Jeff Haythorpe has sent me a scan and tells me he bought it at the exhibition. What better authority could a researcher want?

It appears to be an unpublished part of the series for the Look and Learn magazine/comic called The Story of World War One (LOOK AND LEARN 437 - 462 - 30/05/70 - 21/11/70)

Many thanks to Jeff...again!