Frank Bellamy and the floating mine

Wham Annual 1972, p.15

Richard Sheaf has sent me a new bit of information showing a reprint of Bellamy's work which gives me a good excuse to show you some more unusual Bellamy artwork. The above piece, sent by Richard, comes from the Wham Annual of 1972, so interestingly would have been on sale while Bellamy was still alive.

He created two covers at the end of his Eagle work before moving onto his 4 year stint on "Thunderbirds" in TV21. The first was for Eagle Vol.16:35 (28 August 1965) titled "Arms Through the Ages: No. 5: The crossbow"

Eagle Vol 16:35

It was for 16:36 copy dated 4 September 1965 he created his "Arms Through the Ages: No. 6: The floating mine".

Eagle Vol. 16:36

This lovely example of a Bellamy explosion shows his professionalism - just because he was leaving didn't mean he would stint his employer. Wikipedia has a long article on the subject of floating mines, but obviously Bellamy would not have had access to the Internet in the early 1960s. He had previously visited the Imperial War Museum when researching Churchill's life so it does not seem unreasonable to assume he repeated this experience.

And here's what the cover to the Wham Annual 1972 looks like:

Frank Bellamy and Apollo 11 Moon landing

I personally have been extremely pleased to see all the programmes on the Apollo 11 Moon landing as I watched the whole thing as much as I could at the time - live. Admittedly it's great to see the crystal clear photos now compared to the grainy quality of the film we watched, but nevertheless, a wonderful positive uplifting achievement. All kids of that era wanted to be astronauts (including girls - way before their time!) and all have a story about watching the moon missions. Mine is simple and dedicated to Mr. Furnell, a wonderful Primary School headteacher who was a visionary. He said in the assembly of the morning of July 20th 1969 we could all appear in the morning tired or even not attend school, as we might want to watch the whole thing as it was a once in a lifetime thing! Imagine how powerful that was at the age of 11! He was also the guy who read BB's books and Tolkien to the class.

Anyway you're here for Bellamy not me! What did Bellamy have to do with this - simple! In the Daily Mirror dated 11 July 1969, Bellamy illustrated it! Mirrorscope was the name of the centre pages of the Daily Mirror which covered a single topic. On this occasion it was the future (10 days in the future) moon landing. He had been illustrating the space adventures of Thunderbird 3 and 5 for TV21, but this was something else. I remember turning the page in my Daily Mirror and seeing a great small picture in the middle of the page - there was Bellamy, fantastic!



But then, I turned the page again!

Pages 14-15, the middle pages, had the whole tabloid centrespread taken up with Bellamy art. (please forgive my crude copy - one day I'll master Photoshop and get these scans to join properly and look better).


Alan Davis has a copy of a rough sketch of the Lunar Module by Bellamy on his interesting website. He also has a cleaned up copy of the above picture. The excitement of following Armstrong's first walk and Aldrin's photos and thinking about the loneliness of Mike Collins in orbit were stirring stuff. Seeing Frank Bellamy illustrate the event...from down here, was stunning!

As a footnote to this, the same Daily Mirror actually mentions Bellamy on page 11:

Space craft

Readers of today's Mirrorscope who feel they have seen the drawings for the 'Footsteps On The Moon' feature somewhere else a long time ago are in good company. They gave the artist the same I've been here before feeling.

Frank Bellamy first blasted of into Space ten years ago when he did a stint, of drawing for that excellent comic strip Dan Dare, which was created by Frank Hampson. Bellamy did only about a year on Colonel Dare's staff but has been in orbit With various science-fiction strips almost ever since.

The Mirrorscope drawings are the first Bellamy has done from fact (as opposed to imagination). He is rather pleased to find that over the years he has guessed so close to the scientists. " In fact." he says. " I found myself tempted to put in speech balloons for Mirrorscope."

A nice way to end a blog entry!

Mickey Mouse Weekly, Frank Bellamy and Basil Reynolds

John Wigmans from the Netherlands, together with our very own Phil Rushton have been corresponding with me regarding the "True Life Adventures" series in the 1954 copies of Mickey Mouse Weekly, and particularly the "Living Desert" episodes. This comic series was based on Disney's pioneering wildlife documentaries - we take it for granted these days, but in the 1940s-1950s these were unique - witness the award won on the Living Desert. I remember in the days before home video watching The Wonderful World of Disney on Saturdays in the early 1970s and Disney Time on Bank Holidays in the UK -the only chance, back then, to see some of these Disney films, or at least snippets of them.

Basil Reynolds illustration in Junior Express 4th June 1955

Anyway, as John said:

I am doing some research on Basil Reynolds (1916-2001), and the true life or nature features he drew for a number of magazines: Mickey Mouse Weekly (1952-1954), Junior Express/Express Weekly etc. (1955-1961) and Playhour Annual (1957-1958).

He came across my site where I had referenced the phenomenal Inducks database - all things Disney in comics! After much discussion and debate we concluded I needed to make an amendment to the site. But the thrill is in the nit-picking detail. Firstly, Bellamy's comment from the Skinn/Gibbons interview:

WHEN YOU WERE DRAWING "MONTY CARSTAIRS" FOR MICKEY MOUSE WEEKLY, DID THIS TAKE UP MOST OF YOUR TIME, OR WERE YOU ALSO TAKING ON OTHER FREELANCE JOBS? FB: I was still doing some advertising work and illustrations for Boy's Own Paper at the same time. It did help that Boy's Own Paper was a monthly, though. But not only did I draw "Monty Carstairs" in Mickey Mouse, I also got my first colour strip work, Walt Disney's "Living Desert" in the centrespread. But unlike on "Monty Carstairs", I couldn't sign "Living Desert" with my own name. I had to sign it 'Walt Disney'. Which, by the way, you have to write upside down because if you don't, you get your own handwriting instead of his. DIDN'T YOU FEEL SOMEWHAT CHEATED,HAVING TO SIGN HIS NAME AFTER ALL THE WORK YOU PUT INTO THE SET EACH WEEK? FB: Well, yes really, because it was hard work drawing such a thing as "Living Desert", which was my first experience of what I'd call a NON-continuity strip. There was no flow from picture to picture.

Unfortunately the dates are not very specific, but at least we do know that at the same sort of time he did Carstairs, he also did some "Living Desert". John takes up the tale:

Mickey Mouse Weekly 736 [using the Inducks method of numbering] is the issue with a cover date June 19, 1954, this issue contains Basil Reynolds’ last True Life Adventures in the series The Living Desert. After years of drawing series after series of True Life Adventures Reynolds suddenly quit drawing them, and handed The Living Desert over to Bellamy to finish this series. MMW-737, cover date June 26, 1954, not only contains Bellamy’s first TLA in the series, The Living Desert, but it also features his last episode of Monty Carstairs.

At this point I remembered how Paul Holder and I came about listing what we thought was Bellamy in this comic - laying comics on the table and arguing that 'this rock looks like his but this shading doesn't' etc. etc. It was obvious that the latter Carstairs strips were rushed compared to earlier ones, and now we know why. John:

Dear old Basil did most of the TLA's, from the early 50's up to number 736. His work can be recognized by looking at the dots at the end of almost every caption or balloon. The three (or more) dots are open... There are more clues that will point to Reynolds (like his lettering), but the open dots are easiest to spot. Even in Schoolfriend he showed this peculiar habit, and in the artwork he did for Express Weekly and the Express Annuals they can be spotted as well.

If we look at scans (provided by the guys mentioned above) we see some differences. The first taken from MMW 693 August 22 1953. ...and then a blown up panel showing the 'dots' The 'Reynold's dots' are clearly there. Now skip forward to MMW-736 of June 19 1954, his last strip in the Living Desert story before Bellamy takes over. and then one panel of text expanded: It's obvious that these are one and the same letterer, but because John assures us that this is Reynold's trademark art/lettering we now know what to look for. Now take a look at the very next episode, what I now consider to be Bellamy's first colour comic strip work (remember the interview above?) from MMW 737 June 26 1954: Now if you are still with me I want to move this up a couple of notches. Let's look at the blown up panel below: The dots are definitely more 'on the line' rather than floating in mid line and are not so hollow looking. So then who lettered this? Well, we agree when Bellamy did his last "Monty Carstairs" - 26 June 1954 - the same published date as the "Living Desert" above. If we look at this particular Carstairs we find something rather interesting. ...and here's the blown-up panel - the very last Bellamy Carstairs. Now look at the following letters in the "Living Desert" and the "Monty Carstairs" above and decide if it's the same letterer. The letters 'S', 'G', 'R' and 'H' are particularly interesting! The 'G' has a weighting at the top, and almost appears like a '6'; the 'S' almost looks like a number '5'. The 'R' always starts its 'foot' from the circular bit and lastly the 'H' has a 'stump' at the left. There are other letters to look at ('Y', 'P', 'A' and so on), but the 'F' certainly draws my attention as it's Frank's first initial and we have seen his (post-1950) signature many times in his work! I believe this proves which episodes of the "Living Desert" are by Reynolds and which by Bellamy, I have amended the website entry under Mickey Mouse Weekly accordingly. 

Here are the rest of Bellamy's 'Living Desert' strips.

Mickey Mouse Weekly #738, 3 July 1954

 

Mickey Mouse Weekly #739, 10 July 1954

Mickey Mouse Weekly #740, 17 July 1954

Mickey Mouse Weekly #741, 24 July 1954

Mickey Mouse Weekly #742, 31 July 1954

Thanks to John Wigmans for help with the scans

Something still puzzles me: what did Bellamy mean about the Walt Disney signature? As far as I can see he never signed any of the "Living Desert" strips either with Walt's or his own signature! I wonder if he was merely repeating a story that he'd heard Lastly a BIG thank you to Phil and especially John for the scans and the opportunity to close down one more mystery... that is until other evidence arises! 

NEXT TIME: Alan Davis adds to the question of lettering with a unique photograph!

Fans of Frank Bellamy: Mike Collins

Here's a new feature that I hope to add to occasionally

Mike Collins is a British artist who has successfully worked for DC, Marvel, Eclipse (I loved them!) and many more, as well as the famous UK comic 2000AD. He recently made a brilliantly visual comment about Frank Bellamy's art in the Garth strip:

"Frank Bellamy's art boiled my brain with its unbelievably dynamic energized art"

Taken from a (now-defunct and not archived in 2020) Alan Moore Senhor do Caos blog - which even if you don't know Portuguese, I'm sure you can translate



I plucked up the courage and emailed Mike a request to say more, and got this by return:

"I was stunned as a kid to see that artwork... it was odd things, like the way he'd draw an E Type Jag roaring down a country lane and make it look just the most dramatic thing you'd ever seen, or how he'd compose a battle scene which had you convinced you were seeing the whole of Little Big Horn or some Conquistadors getting the sharp end of his sword from horseback, or breathtaking alien or sea environments, all in these frankly tiny squares of art—and sometimes not even squares... Bellamy's brilliant design sense (which I loved on the Gerry Anderson stuff but was probably too young to realise it was the same guy) gave us panels which more resembled crazy paving images that only enhanced the kinetic drive of the work. Oh and, god, could he draw sexy women! He managed like no artist before or since to make that thin strip of art into cinescope in your head. I've worked on newspaper strips -notably Judge Dredd for three years-- and know just how hard it is to utilize that space into something eye catching and spectacular. Frank Bellamy did it with artistic verve that I can't get near for trying."



I am honoured to present this, and know that if he had said this to Bellamy himself, Frank would have replied in the same humble way about Mike's art, as he did with fans of his such as Sir William Russell Flint.

The pictures, in order, are taken from :

• The Beautiful People K25 and K26 (one of the never reprinted stories)
• The Beast of Ultor H50 and H51

Copyright Mirror Group Newspapers Limited

Thanks Mike for giving me an excuse to browse my Garths and fulfilling your desire to see one aspect of Garth, although you mentioned several!

Frank Bellamy visits King Solomon's Mines

Episode #1

Terry Doyle was kind enough to remind me I hadn't blogged anything about the scans he sent me recently (OK, Terry, it was January!). I originally wrote to Terry when looking at what I knew about Bellamy's activities in 1961/1962. I was aware that Terry had an unpublished strip on the wonderful ComicArtFans site (Terry's gallery is here).

We know that in 1961 Bellamy had drawn three complete stories in the excellent "Fraser of Africa" series, the last was completed for 12 August 1961 issue of Eagle. He then did an illustration in the 26 August 1961 of a rhinoceros crushing its way through the undergrowth and also for the issue dated 18 November 1961 "Men of Action No.5 Sir Edmund Hillary" (written about here). For a story magazine about true adventures, he produced three illustrations in Wide World (Vol. 128 January 1962). He then started the series in Eagle called "Montgomery of Alamein" in the issue dated 10 March 1962.

So my question was what did he do between the dates August 1961 and March 1962?

I know he exhibited at the Summer Salon 18th Annual Exhibition at Royal Institute Galleries, but other than that I have a big gap in my knowledge. All the usual sources are not all helpful on the detail

Episode #2

Here's where Terry enters the picture. he owns one of the three unpublished double page boards showing work Bellamy did on "King Solomon's Mines".

"Unfortunately, I don't remember who it was told me the story behind the aborted KSM strips. It came from a reliable source, and was not specualation. Just can't recall. Must be getting senile . . ! [So it's not just me then Terry!] ". It appears that the proposed series was scrapped after the editorial team felt another African strip was too much. Each strip will have taken one week to produce (plenty of evidence for that fact!)and it's likely he will have been paid for the strips.

But when were these produced? Back to Terry:

"Might be worth remembering that Bellamy's pre-"Dan Dare" episodes (for the back page of Eagle) were large-sized CS10 artboards. When he took over "Dan Dare", he illustrated his pages at the same size as the printed page, which conformed to the Hampson studio's method of working. When he left "Dan Dare", he continued with same size boards for "Fraser of Africa".

The King Solomon's Mines" strips were all illustrated same size (I've seen the other two Episodes in person). When Bellamy illustrated "Montgomery of Alamein" he continued illustrating at same size. When he illustrated "Heros the Spartan", he went back to large sized artboards. So, if nothing else, it makes sense that KSM is post-"Dan Dare" and pre-"Heros"."

Size comparison - thanks to Terry

There are few people on this planet who own large amounts of original Bellamy artwork and I have seen some myself, so I can bear out what Terry is arguing here.

I also found that Terry published his thoughts in "Illustrated Comic Journal" #31 (1998?), a magazine for British comics enthusiasts

So it appears that these three strips are very likely to have been done in this gap period. Nancy, Frank's widow, has no recollection of this specific time period (it is after all 49 years ago and I've forgotten to publish these strips since January!). Perhaps there is more Bellamy work to turn up for the period August 1961 to March 1962.

Episode #3

Thanks to the kindness of Alan Davis I share this preparatory work on Episode #1

Bellamy and the Wild West:

Frank Bellamy illustrated pieces in the Boy's World Annuals of 1965 and 1966. He then only appeared in 1971 edition to the best of my knowledge - (and I love being contradicted!)

In the 1965 he illustrated "A Question of Honour" by Henry Casson, various matador drawings - a subject he loved very much. His subject for 1966 was "The Raid" showing war topics - wish I'd remembered this for the essay I wrote for Steve Holland's new book Frank Bellamy's Story of World War One (for the latest on this follow Steve's blog or take a look at Geoff West's site - scroll down the page a bit). I've reproduced the cover here and would expect it to be available on Amazon fairly soon and as Geoff says, you can pre-order on his siteAnyway, getting back to Westerns and Bellamy. In the Boy's World Annual 1971 he illustrated an author my Dad loved - no, not Zane Grey this time, but J.T.Edson. Steve asked me to help out by providing an illustration or two from that annual - which I do have in my collection - for his article written by Jeremy Briggs on Edson and his stories in the Victor comic. Click here for Part One and here for Part Two. This set me thinking about a theme for the blog: Bellamy and the Wild West

Bellamy's love of Africa is well known, but he was also very keen on cowboys and the Wild West. Throughout the 1950s Bellamy produced many illustrations to accompany Boy's Own Paper stories such as "Phantom buffalo" by Gerald Wyatt, "Vivo the wild colt" by Ross Salmon and "Stormy round-up" by Ross Salmon. For the children's annual Swift 1956 he drew some pictures of a young Indian brave, and various illustrations for Lilliput magazine such as "War Party" by W.R. Burnetta and "The drifters" by John Prebble.

In the 1970s he illustrated the annual that started this article, the particular story being on pages 23-27 "Johnny Boyland and the quail hunters" by J. T. Edson, and of course, one of his most famous works "Garth" saw two great western stories - "Ghost Town" and the one he opened the series with "Sundance". "Ghost Town" was reprinted around the time of Bellamy's death whilst a replacement was found (Martin Asbury) as it was one Bellamy's personal favourites.


He also did some odds and ends during the 70s such as the cover later used after his death for the Comicon '78 cover and a sketch of "Chilli Willi" whatever that was! One interesting cowboy feature at this time was for the Monty Python team - Bert Fegg's nasty Book for Boys and Girls, published by Methuen, in 1974 (also reprinted in Dr Fegg's Encylopedia of All World knowledge 1984. The story was called "A Cowboy Story" and was in full colour. "How the west was won" was drawn to accompany the showing of that famous film, in the Radio Times

The next piece to mention is "Hombre" as we have no idea what it was. In the picture below of Bellamy in his studio, we can just see "Hombre" in the picture on the right.


The content looks very similar to the last strip he published before his untimely death in 1976 "Swade" in Denis Gifford/Alan Class magazine Ally Sloper.


Then finally I also ought to mention again "Wes Slade" which you can read all about on my website, he also produced a cover posthumously (sort of) in 1980 for Marvel Comics (UK) of all people, thanks to Dez Skinn - Marvel Western Gun Fighters.

I suppose I could also add that as Bellamy appeared on ITV and this feature is on Westerns I should mention Quick on the draw, but as the quiz show from 1974 was about cartoons and comic artists , then again I don't think I will as that pun would be too awful!

Happy Trails Pardners!

Frank Bellamy Lifetime Achievement Award (Part 3)

On Tuesday, 18 September 2007, I first mentioned I had learned about the "Frank Bellamy Lifetime Achievement Award" and my good email friend Richard Sheaf added a bit of information on Friday, 11 January 2008.

Subsequently Richard has sent me several scans from various fanzines which have articles on this award. Although not directly related to Bellamy, except in name, I felt this pieces of history might interest a few people.

WHO WON THE FB AWARD?
Eagle Times #22:1 (Spring 2009)

James Slattery of Dragon's Dream for 'Most outstanding contribution to strip illustration' says Alan Vince in his interesting article just published in this quarter's ET. The magazine celebrates its 21st birthday this year and long may it continue. Alan's memories of 1970s/80s comic conventions, when Embleton, Hampson, Lewis et al were still with us are really interesting. Who is James Slattery? He worked on the reprints from the Eagle, including Bellamy's never since reprinted "High Command" which had the brillaint Churchill and Montgomery strips in full colour

Comics International #127 (Christmas 1992) - Alberto Breccia - interesting choice as he's not really appreciated much in the English language
Comic World 12 February 1993 - same announcement in a different form


Comics International #139 (February 1994) - Jack Kirby, whom I think you will all know!

Comics International #153 (March 1995) - Alex Toth, again you should know him!


Comics International #178 (February 1997) - Julius Schwartz, and if you're as old as me he needs no introduction either.

Want to add anything, please comment below...till next time