Lifetime Achievement Award

I have heard of all sorts of awards with strange names - the Oscars, Nibbies, Daggers etc. But a new one to me, which has been around for at least 5 years is the "Frank Bellamy Achievement Award"!

"Originally formed in 1977 as the Society of Strip Illustrators where comics professionals could meet socially, swap stories, share information and network. It still does all these things. But we've also adapted and changed since then. In 1992 the Society changed its name to the Comics Creators Guild in a move to more obviously represent all the various arts and specializations that combine to produce comics." says their About Us page.

Winners in the past have been from both sides of the Atlantic:
2006: John Severin
2005: Peter O'Donnell
2004: Leo Baxendale
2003: Dave Sim
2002: Dr Jerry Bails

On our page with references to articles about Bellamy, there is mention of the old Society's newsletter where an article was written about Bellamy and a follow up letter correcting errors in said article.

If anyone can let me know why Bellamy's name was chosen for this award, I'd love to know

...ADDITION: Treasure

Steve Holland has padded out the data I had on the Robin Hood strips, which originally appeared in Swift. He points out that the reprints in Treasure were in fact from #197 - 261 (22/10/66 - 13/01/68). The later reprints in Storyland (new to Steve - a miracle in itself!) still need complete data.

Steve adds: "the Treasure Robin Hood reprint [...] was abridged and bowdlerised in various places. It also dropped two episodes" which explains the discrepancy with Treasure only having 65 episodes and the original running for 67 through the two titles Robin Hood and his Merry Men and then Robin Hood and Maid Marian. Thanks Steve.

....ADVERT: Andersonic (Follow up)

If you've never heard of Andersonic check out my blog entry of Sunday, 29 July 2007. The published article about Bellamy and Don Harley Frank, Don, Dan and the Tracys by Richard Farrell is now available at the address supplied on that blog entry or on my website (see the note)

Many thanks to Richard for a great article.... oh, and check out pages 25-27 for my thoughts on Anderson during my childhood!

I'm still looking forward to an authoritative piece detailing where Bellamy started his work on each Dan Dare story and where Don Harley et al continued. That's a story for another day, but compare the two heads of Rax from the same story "Terra Nova". The left detailed stippling was by Bellamy and the right hand one by Harley











Taken from Eagle 21st November 1959, Vol10:40.

...ADDITION: Bellamy's Star Trek work

Due to a frequently occurring erroneous statement on Bellamy's Star Trek work, (please don't hate me Rod ) I thought I'd wade into the waters with this blog entry.

THE BAD NEWS
The following comment appears in several places around the Net:
"Bellamy and Alan Willow produced covers for the series [TV21], which alternated between Star Trek and other titles until such painted illustrations were dropped as of issue 42 to allow an increase from two to three pages of Star Trek material per issue."

This originates (I believe) from a misreading of the wonderful The Gerry Anderson Complete Comic History which says: "Alan Willow is probably not a name most Gerry Anderson fans would recall... he is best known for the text illustrations in several early Doctor Who Target novelisations. But a few years before this, he painted most of the covers for TV21 & Joe 90 from late 1969, until the Star Trek strip replaced these on the front page in the summer of 1970."

To see the new series of TV21’s covers go to Comic Magazine’s sales site -and SCROLL DOWN. You’ll see no Bellamy covers at all, as he only drew for the first series. All those covers by Bellamy (five in total) were of Captain Scarlet strips.

At the time of Star Trek's first appearance in UK comics (Joe90 #1 dated 18th January 1969), Frank Bellamy, was still about to give another 9 months on his version of Thunderbirds in the original series of TV21 (and later 4 issues of the combined TV21 & Joe 90 – the new series). In TV21 #209, dated 18/01/1969 his cover for Joe 90 #1 appeared in an advert.

This picture is a poorly joined scan of my copy which has travelled a long way since I bought it!



He never drew Star Trek in comics!

THE GOOD NEWS
Bellamy won the 1971 Academy of Comic Book Arts Awards (for material published in 1971; awarded in 1972) for "Best Foreign Artist". Due to a technicality it was his Radio Times work on Star Trek that was judged rather than any of his past comics work as he was, at the time, not working in comics as such, but had just started Garth in the Daily Mirror. Barry Windsor Smith recommended him as a worthy candidate but due to the fact he wasn’t doing comics works they had to find a comic strip to display. Marv Wolfman showed some original Heros artwork and Bellamy won the award based on his Star Trek in the Radio Times. He also did two other Star Trek works; single panel illustrations to accompany the TV listings in the Radio Times





















Hopefully this clarifies this misunderstanding. Any comments?

Weblink: Garth - Cloud of Balthus

Rod McKie, illustrator extraordinaire, has mentioned his love of Bellamy's Garth on his blog. He reproduces some pages from the Titan Book reprints and reminds us why Bellamy's Garth was so loved by many.

Note: Martin Asbury, who replaced Bellamy on the strip, illustrates the head of Garth in the illustration below, (and he did the cover for the reprint book too.)

For those unfamiliar with Rod's work, he kindly shows some examples here.

...Addition: Northamptonshire Evening Telegraph

I've managed to get a few of Tony Smith's articles on Bellamy, written after Frank Bellamy's death Tony did however meet and interview Frank. Alas his first published work on Frank was his obituary.











This one is from 17th July 1990 and was written "to mark the 40th anniversary of the legendary Eagle comic" - to you and me that means the Hawk reprint books, The Adventures of P.C. 49, Harris Tweed, Riders of the Range and, of course, Fraser of Africa .

One particularly interesting feature in this article is a reprint of the rarely seen Bellamy work in the Football Telegraph or Pink 'Un, the sporting paper insert for the Northamptonshire Evening Telegraph. (18 October 1949) "All forms of transport were used by Kettering fans to see - Kettering win"

The readers at the time (1947) would have been familiar with the football clubs' nicknames - see my key on the NET page- and Tony Smith kindly provides clues in his 1990 article

Alan Class, Ally Sloper and Bellamy

ALLY SLOPER number 1 was published in September 1976 by Alan Class with Denis Gifford as editor. Frank Bellamy created "Swade", for the comic/magazine, a Wordless black and white 3 page strip. Unfortunately he died before being able to do a strip for the second issue (in which his obituary appeared).

I knew that Bellamy had been invited to the launch of Ally Sloper but Nancy, his widow, couldn't remenmber if he actually attended the event in London.

Terry Hooper has managed to interview Alan Class and he kindly put the question to Alan regarding Bellamy's appearance.

I'll leave you to read the full article which includes reference to the launch aboard "the Steam-ship “Tattershall Castle”,which was berthed on the Thames near Blackfriars Bridge". The master-of-ceremonies was, apparently, the comedian Ted Ray - a name I haven't heard for ages.

Read the full interview at Terry's site http://www.comicbitsonline.com/2007/08/04/exclusive-an-interview-with-alan-class/