ADDITION - Letter from Frank Bellamy

Thanks to Richard Sheaf for forwarding scans of the cover and the letter that was published in Fantasy Advertiser Vol 3:43, May 1972, I thought it worth showing both here



The cover is not by Bellamy, but by Jim Baikie (does he really not have his own website?) who I know best for his co-creation of Skizz in 2000AD. The date of the fanzine is May 1972 - eleven years before that work!

Anway getting onto the Bellamy connection, his letter is really listed here for the purists among us. Later an interview and a portfolio of Bellamy's work appears in Dez Skinn's wonderful Fantasy Advertiser which are brilliant if you ever manage to get a copy

Corrections

Paul Holder let me know that I have got a couple of things inverted on the website, so I thought I better correct them and let you know, just in case you keep a list locally from the website

On the page listing Bellamy's appearances in newspapers, somehow I inverted the cover descriptions of the 2 Garth Annuals for which Bellamy did the covers.

To set the record straight:

Daily Mirror Book of Garth 1975, London: IPC Limited, 1975 was the one with the 'portrait' cover of Garth with the Wolfman of Ausensee

Daily Mirror Book of Garth 1976, London: IPC Limited, 1976 was the one with the 'landscape' cover of Garth swimming

Interestingly both of these contain strips which originally were published in the Daily Mirror with nudity. Obviously an editor must have decided, despite the increasingly seen nudity on TV and in literature during the Seventies (one author I read said there was far more then than now!), that some bits should be covered up!

Titan Books reprinted the strips (excuse the pun!) - more authentically.

Paul also says:

Actually on looking at my copies they have listed in the contents "Cloud of Baltus" instead of "Cloud of Balthus" (missing off the 't'), and they've even got the title wrong on the 1976 contents. "The People of Abyss" instead of "People of the Abyss". Small points I know.

Frank Bellamy font available!

I've been on the Internet since 1992 before the web browser was even available - command lines are nowhere near as pretty as the web interface! I am still constantly amazed at what drifts past my radar even after 17 years!

I received an email from one Keith Bates and after checking out his website decided to ask him why he'd created a Frank Bellamy font, The reply came back:

Hi Norman,

I've admired Frank Bellamy's artwork hugely since I was a kid in the sixties. Beautiful line quality. He seemed to love lettering as well as oozing confidence with figures and faces. Exceptional use of tone, colour and texture. Frank Bellamy exploded the boxiness of the traditional British comic page layout. He made TV21 as good as American comics. I never read Garth but I liked to look at the drawings.

I was delighted to discover "A Cowboy Story' when I bought 'Bert Fegg's Nasty Book' in 1974. It seemed as if Frank was really enjoying that project, I remember at the time thinking how great his pen lettering was.

I recently bought a copy of Martin Baker's 'Artists of Radio Times' and was really disappointed (maybe I was outraged) that Frank only got a brief mention (p.43) and not even a single reproduction of any of the beautiful Dr Who or Biggin Hill drawings he made. I suppose that made me decide to make the Frank Bellamy fonts.

Many of K-Type's catalog are inspired by artists' lettering or handwriting, it's an honour to have Frank Bellamy amongst my greats.

Best wishes,
Keith Bates
http://www.k-type.com

One question....where on Earth do I put this on the website?

Garth and the Bubble Man

Used with permission

In the national newspaper, the Daily Mirror, from the 16th August 1975 through to 28th November 1975, Frank Bellamy illustrated the 15th story in his 5 year run on Garth. Episode numbers J192-J281 - that's 90 daily strips, tell the story of how the Bubble Man is sent by the Warlord of the Universe to retrieve his daughter who had run away with her lover. Garth is taken aboard the spaceship (shown below) and encounters the Bubble Man. The story has all those quirks that you expect in a daily episodic newspaper strip. A highlight is that Garth meets again with Astra his immortal girlfriend whom he meets when time travelling.

Used with permission

The Bubble Man's companions are beautifully drawn and this story contains a lot of the famous Bellamy 'swirls' to shade space, in lieu of the more time consuming stippling which was a trademark. The only three other times, that I know of, when Garth appeared in colour were the two annuals, The Daily Mirror Book of Garth, with original Bellamy covers and the cover of the Disc newspaper If you click on the above picture you'll agree with me, I think, that John Ridgway has done a brilliant job on what could be seen as a controversial move. I find the projected cover somewhat busy but what do I know!

In these Internet days it's great that Rod Barzilay is still able to publish such a gorgeously glossy magazine. I recently moved my stack of the magazines and realised they must be the weightiest tomes I own - and I don't mean content. To order Spaceship Away click here, and here for the list of what's appeared in previous issues and finally here for summaries of stories.

Here for your enjoyment are 2 of the orginal non-coloured strips:

Episode: J272
Garth © 2009 The Daily Mirror

Episode: J273
Garth © 2009 The Daily Mirror

I read this was due to occur, but thank John Freeman and Lew Stringer for highlighting the new coloured strips and look forward to seeing some of this glossy version

REPRINT: Century 21 Volumes 1 and 2

Chris Bentley and friends are to be congratulated for producing an absolutely gorgeous work. This year we have seen so much Bellamy work reprinted, but the reproduction on this is amazing. The original art from the archives has been used where possible. Some of the art will appear publicly for the first time ever as it was meant to be seen. Even photogravure cannot do some of this justice and the modern digital process has been used to great benefit.

Both volumes are available via the usual sources, but if money is no object, go to the publisher's website and order a hardback with Gerry Anderson's autograph. (You'll need to scroll down the page a bit)



The cover reproductions are nice too and some of the black and white Noble work inside has a positive shine on it. Below is the page taken from Reynolds and Hearn's website but obviously a scan of a website graphic based on original art isn't doing Bellamy any justice. Trust me on this one, the two hardbacks are well worth the money even if you still have the original TV21s.


Lastly, just for fun, I've copied what was the provisional cover for one of these two books, but was not used. This was originally published in the Thunderbirds Poster Magazine No.3, I think.


Lastly which of the Bellamy strips are reprinted?

Volume 1 reprints Thunderbirds: Chain reaction and Thunderbirds: The Devil's crag as well as 2 Captain Scarlet covers #185 (3/08/68) & #186 (10/03/68). The Thunderbirds stories come from TV21 #227-234, #184-187

Volume 2 reprints Thunderbirds: Operation Depthprobe and Thunderbirds: Secret of the iceberg from TV21 #105-109, #155-161

All this information has been added to the website

Frank Bellamy's David the Shepherd King

ADDITIONAL NOTE: See update by clicking link




I have just been alerted to some more exciting news - Titan are publishing Jesus & David: Tales of Two Kings: The Road of Courage & David the Shepherd King in hardcover next March (2010). Although I liked Hampson's art from his trip to the Holy Land in 1959 (shades of Holman Hunt!), it's the other half I'm excited about. After all Hampson's Road to courage has been reprinted before. There's a copy on Abebooks at the moment but don't rush as I'm not sure it's worth £932!!


David the shepherd king ran in Eagle volumes 9:37 - 9:52 and continued in 10:1 - 10:15, between 13 September 1958 and 11 April 1959. A full colour back page with some beautiful portraits by Bellamy, and these hastily uploaded pictures do NOT do him credit. Trust me the strip looks fantastic.




If you want to see how glorious the original art is head over to Terry Doyle's Gallery at ComicArtFans. In the mean time here's a better scan. I'll soon have to start listing new Bellamy books, in the Steve Holland manner if this carries on. What with the next volume of Dan Dare reprints due next year, and the World War One at the end of this year!


#Jesus & David: Tales of Two Kings: The Road of Courage & David the Shepherd King (Hardcover) by Frank Bellamy (Author), Frank Hampson (Author)
# Hardcover: 112 pages
# Publisher: Titan Books (UK) (9 Mar 2010)
# Language English
# ISBN-10: 1848565259
# ISBN-13: 978-1848565258

REPRINT: The Happy Warrior (USA edition)

I thought I'd quickly add a note, thanks to Brian for the alert, that a new reprint of the Winston Churchill biography has appeared in the USA.

The price on the Levenger website is a very reasonable $38 plus shipping, which, after several emails I have found to be, for a single copy, $68.32. So by current reckoning that's a total of £64 in UK money for this book!

If you get a copy please do contact me with more information about it. Perhaps you have a kind friend in the US who might send it to you. But at that price, I shall be hanging onto my copy of the 1958 and 1981 reprints, as well as my original Eagle comics. But I'm here as a public service, so just letting you know.

Thanks again Brian - who incidentally said he saw this whilst in the USA recently, so presumably it's in stores! Maybe a wholesaler over here might consider looking into it....are you listening Geoff?