Fans of Frank: Edoardo di Muro

Eagle 4 March 1961

Now I'll confess straight away that I had never heard of Edoardo, but an email I was sent set me off on a course researching his work and I thought I'd add a quick link for you to see what this is about.

In March this year, Eduardo's book "Noir et Blanc en couleurs" (literally 'black and white in colours') was published by édition roymodus. Even if your French isn't up to scratch, this video will show you that Eduardo has obviously been influenced by Bellamy's African colours and in particular by Fraser of Africa (from the Eagle in the UK and Il giorno dei ragazzi in Italy, his birthplace). This entry on the publisher's website shows a beautiful reproduction of a page in Italian - my translation of the webpage appears below - so don't blame anyone else!

In 1961, Edoardo di Muro was 16 years old  when he read the magazine "Il giorno dei ragazzi". On the last page, a strip by Frank Bellamy tells the adventures of "the intrepid Frazer".

More than a comic, it's an immersion in Africa that will impress the adolescent (di Muro) forever, but also the artist in his aesthetic quest

Edoardo di Muro:
 "Outside the town, towards the river between wasteland and scrub, hyenas like scruffy stray dogs roamed around! The round backs of hippos were like large polished stones upon which I jumped without fear of them opening their large mouths... Your beautiful drawings with their stippled shadows have sown the seeds for my career and at the same time formed the backdrop of my life. Thank you big brother Frank!"

You can read more about Edoardo's background here and you might like to follow Google's crude translation here   il giorno dei ragazzi was produced as a beautiful comic supplement for children and featured many strips from the Eagle as well as home grown comics  The only full reprint of Fraser to date is the Hawk Books reprint which appears on eBay, Abebooks and Amazon from time to time

Which reminds me, I'd love to hear what you think about the Amazon gadget on the left. I have so many email requests for reprints, I thought this was a neat way of adding a link. It;s unlikely I'll make anything but hey, it all helps!

Fans of Frank Bellamy: Steve McGarry

A while ago I read this blog entry  on Steve McGarry (whom I must confess I didn't know - you'll see why in a moment) and noticed that he mentions his favourite artist is Frank Bellamy. Once again on your behalf  I asked if he would be interested in adding to my series "Fans of Frank Bellamy" and the nice guy replied in the affirmative with the following story. Without sounding too sycophantic I also steer towards Steve's tastes in artists!


And before you go searching for the paucity of information on Trevillion, who Steve mentions a few times, he was the guy who did a brilliant job on the Munsters in TV21, for whom Bellamy did Thunderbirds of course.


Long before I knew who Frank Bellamy was, I was a huge Frank Bellamy fan.

Growing up in Manchester in the late 1950s and early 1960s, television was small, monochrome and limited to two basic channels that offered little programming designed to capture a youngster’s attention. So in those pre-videogame days, it was comics that fired our imaginations. We would graduate from The Beano and The Dandy, Topper or Beezer, to the adventure comics ... the girls to their Bunty or Princess and tales of ballerinas and gymkhanas, we boys to the likes of The Victor or The Hotspur. Each week, we would race to the newsagents on the day of publication, ready to devour the adventures of Alf Tupper or Gorgeous Gus and pocket the bonus swag – from football league ladders to cardboard gliders or contraptions that made noises - that was invariably included. Comics were printed in one or two colours on cheap, coarse paper, with one notable exception. In all its full colour, glossy glory, The Eagle was the undisputed king of comics. In addition, every Christmas there would be a football book and The Eagle Annual waiting for me under the tree.

By the early 1960s, I had moved on to the new Marvel comics that had begun to appear on a carousel rack at Fitton's newsagents. I can remember buying the first few issues of Spiderman, The Fantastic Four, Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos, Thor and sundry others that could have funded a retirement had they been carefully preserved, instead of consigned to a binbag destined for the corporation tip. But my two younger brothers were still loyal to the homegrown imprints, and The Eagle landed with great regularity at McGarry Towers. Having gown up with The Eagle, I'm sure I must have been familiar with the art of Frank Bellamy, but it was his work on Heros the Spartan that really grabbed me. I thought it was the greatest comic art I had ever seen ... and nearly 50 years later, my opinion hasn't changed.

Even so, I can't swear that the artist's name had registered with me, although I must have seen his signature. By the mid-1960s, my attention was fixed firmly on football, girls and pop music, and my appetite for comics had waned ... but I recall admiring the way Frank breathed life into the Anderson puppets in the TV21 comics my younger brothers avidly collected. And while I recognised his style instantly by then, I'm not sure at that point I could yet attach a name to that stunning artwork.

By my late teens, I was learning the ropes in an art studio and beginning to harbour thoughts of pursuing a career in illustration (on the off-chance that one of the many incarnations of my rock bands didn’t take off.) I was particularly interested in sports and music illustration. My inspiration came from the Daily Mirror that arrived on our mat each weekday morning and the assortment of Sunday papers we would take at the weekend. 

 

The Munsters drawn by Trevillion

By the early 1970s, Paul Trevillion was making a name for himself as the country's premier sports illustrator, and I was captivated by his bold depictions of footballers in the Sunday tabloids. It was around that same time that Frank Bellamy debuted on the Garth strip in The Daily Mirror, and the strip was instantly transformed. Dull, rudimentary line was suddenly replaced by the most vivid and exciting artwork ever to grace a newspaper comics page. I became a Frank Bellamy fanatic. I read the strip avidly for a couple of years, and finally could contain myself no more. Plucking up courage, I wrote to Frank, effusively praising his work and asking if he had any tips to pass on to an aspiring artist. He replied with a very gracious note, warning me that the business was tough but wishing me well. I saved that letter for years ... I even saved the envelope ... and was genuinely upset to discover I had mislaid it when we moved out to the U.S. many years later.

I sold my first illustrations, to the girls' comic Romeo in 1974 ( I was 21) and by 1977 I had taken the plunge and gone freelance. I did the occasional piece for comics, did some ad agency illustration work, and picked up a lot of work in the music business. I designed quite a few record sleeves, including album covers for the likes of Jilted John and Slaughter & The Dogs that showcased my illustration talents.

By then, of course, Frank was gone, having died of a heart attack in1976.

I was employing a linework approach heavily influenced by comic books, and although I was enjoying some success, I felt that I hadn't yet found my style. In those pre-Google days, most artists kept scrapbooks of reference material. Besides photos of interiors, cars, places and anything else I felt might prove useful down the line, I'd also clipped out illustrations from sundry publications, particularly sports and entertainment material. Leafing through one of those albums, probably in late 1980 or early 1981, I came across a Doctor Who cover illustration that Frank Bellamy had done for The Radio Times in 1972. I'm not sure why it hadn't registered with me up until that point, but it suddenly dawned on me that the stipple style he had employed to render Jon Pertwee was a natural fit for me. What if I employed that approach to render portraits of musicians for record sleeves? Better still, what if I tackled the kind of sports subjects that Trevillion covered with a similar stipple style?

In my spare moments, I began to experiment with the approach, using a rapidograph pen for the stipple and dip pen and brush for the hair. I was already a confirmed fan of CS10 line board, which was Frank’s preferred board of choice. The china clay surface accepts ink beautifully and mistakes can be scratched out with a razor blade without any feathering, so the art always looks pristine. Almost immediately, it felt perfect, and I was excited with the results I was getting over a period of a couple of weeks, I created a portfolio piece, a mock poster for Humphrey Bogart's "The Maltese Falcon" as I felt the "noir" subject matter was ideally suited to that style. The finished piece convinced me that I was now ready to try pitching. But who to approach?

The Daily Mirror used a lot of sports illustrations, but they already had Paul Trevillion and a great illustrator called Charles Dupont to call upon. (Which reminds me, I always suspected that Charles DuPont and another Mirror illustrator, Bob Williams, were one and the same. I’d love to know if that hunch was right!) I was a big admirer of Arthur Ranson, who was doing incredible things with biography strips of Abba and The Beatles for Look-In magazine, and I had seen his stuff in such papers as The Sunday Times. I was hesitant to approach any publication that was already working with such outstanding artists, figuring I probably wouldn't get the time of day. Then it struck me that The Daily Star, which had only launched a couple of years earlier, might be in the market for illustrations ... and it was the only national newspaper whose editorial offices were based in Manchester, not a mile away from my studio. The FA Cup Final was approaching and I knew that a lot of papers liked to do special pullouts, usually featuring illustrations. I stuck a photocopy of my ”Maltese Falcon" illustration and a brief note in the post and crossed my fingers.

A few days later I got a call from the paper's art editor, Mike Burnham, who invited me for a lunchtime drink and a chat. One liquid lunch later, I was being introduced to the Daily Star's sports editor, Arthur Lamb. He loved the "Maltese Falcon" sample and loved the idea of doing an FA Cup special. We agreed a very generous fee and shook hands on the deal. On Saturday, May 14, 1981, to commemorate my beloved Manchester City taking on Spurs in the FA Cup Final, I made my national newspaper debut with a giant centre-spread illustration featuring all 24 players and two managers ... all rendered in my new Bellamy-inspired stipple style.

I can honestly say, I've never looked back. Soon, I was illustrating a Steve Davis snooker series for The Daily Star. Then they gave me my own weekly sports illustration spot, as well as commissioning front page illustrations for general elections and such. In 1986, they launched my daily series The Diary of Rock & Pop. By then, I also had my own series each week in the soccer magazine "Match Weekly" and my clients included Look-In and The Daily Mirror. The syndication arm of Express Newspapers began to sell my soccer features worldwide.

United Media, the giant New York syndicate who gave us Peanuts and Garfield, spotted my work and I was invited to sign my first US syndication contract in 1989, the same year that my "Badlands" cartoon launched in The Sun. I moved my young family to California that summer.

At one point in the early 1990s, "Badlands" was appearing daily in The Sun, my "Pop Culture" strip was appearing daily in the Today newspaper and syndicated to 600 newspapers worldwide through NEA, I had a weekly series in the News of The World and a weekly series in "Shoot!' magazine, The Sun was running my daily soccer strip and I was supplying a monthly to SIForKids magazine [Sports Illustrated for kids]. I've slowed down a little since then ... but I still make the majority of my income from drawing pop stars and footballers!

We've now lived in sunny California for 20 years and my work is still syndicated all over the world. I'm a two-term former President of the National Cartoonists Society and am the first artist to win Illustrator of the Year awards from both the NCS and the Australian Cartoonists Association. And I can honestly say that I owe all of my professional success to the inspiration that Frank Bellamy's genius provided.

As I write, I find myself occasionally glancing at the framed piece of art that hangs directly above my drawing board. It's a Frank Bellamy "Garth" strip (H105 from The Beast of Ultor series) that I bought from Frank's widow, Nancy, a few years after his death. It's one of my most- treasured possessions.

Many, many thanks to Steve for this extensive romp through his contact with Bellamy and his own story. Take a look at Steve's site www.stevemcgarry.com My parents never bought a paper but a friend of the family kindly cut out the Garth strips for me, and we certainly didn't see the later Sun, Today, or News of the World - thus i missed Steve's excellent work until now. Steve, I hope you like the accompanying illustrations.

Now if any of you have an easy was for me to get to John Byrne or Al Williamson, I'd love to add them to my 'Fans of Frank' series

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FOOTNOTE::
From Steve:
"Incidentally, Trevillion is currently appearing on The Guardian site each week with his long-running "You are the Ref" series, that now runs in The Observer:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2010/apr/30/you-are-the-ref-laws"

Thanks Steve

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Frank Bellamy - first past the post!

Martin Baines asked me to do a piece on the Bellamy Sunday Times work and a rare opportunity presented itself to make this even more interesting


After his long run on Thunderbirds, Frank Bellamy saw the writing on the wall for TV21 as he knew it - Alan Fennell the editor, was moving on and Bellamy decided to spread his wings and seek employment elsewhere. In March 1969 Bellamy was commissioned to produce a strip about an imaginary young artist called Blenkinsop. We are very fortunate that David Driver of the Radio Times (have you see the photo never before published in this issue of Eagle Times?) and the Sunday Times (Colour) Magazine wanted to send assignments his way.

After completing 6 assignments for the colour Sunday supplement to the prestigious Times, he was asked to create a double page spread for an article on horse racing. This was to be his final work for the Sunday Times magazine, but interestingly due to the generosity of Tim Barnes we are able to compare a rough (that presumably was rejected) with the published version.

Over the Summer of 1989 the Unseen Frank Bellamy Basement Gallery Exhibition took place and several people, (including our old friend Jeff Haythorpe) have written to tell us what they saw at the Gallery. Today we are looking at "Devious ways to win" or as it became when published "Inside Racing". Tim has sent me other scans/photos and I'd like to write about them in the future, so watch this space.

Complete double page spread

The Sunday Times (Colour) Magazine 25 April 1971

It looks as if this commission may have given Bellamy some trouble. Firstly notice that the header strip looks like a Bellamy trick which would allow the Art Editor to add the title "Inside Racing" easily, but he or she has chosen to not use that opportunity and has laid the title and text at the bottom of the art.

'Header or title strip'

But even more interestingly is the rejected idea for this piece. Compare the Bellamy logo title for example - it is so much more dynamic - perhaps too much for the magazine!

Rejected strip sold at Basement Gallery exhibition - Thanks Tim Barnes

One can also see that Bellamy's layouts had to changed and he had started laying some colour in the piece...

Single panel

Perhaps Bellamy mis-counted how many text boxes were needed? We can only guess, but what a fantastic opportunity to see an unfinished and rejected piece. Thank you Tim for sharing this - more pieces to follow.

I'd love to know more about the Magazine itself and the reason that Bellamy's commissions dried up in 1971. Obviously he was then drawing a national daily strip, Garth, but we know of other commissions he received during this time. Was there a change of editor who didn't approve of the prestigious Sunday Times having a comic strip? Bellamy always quoted the fact he had produced the first strip to appear in the Sunday Times, and was justifiably proud of this fact.

UPDATE: The original art came up for sale

Far from quiet on the Western Front!

"Far from quiet on the Western Front"... or ... "Stormin' Norman goes to war" - both titles suggested by my family as titles for this blog entry.

This week for me has been a rollercoaster ride. It started with a hospital visit to review some test results with my best friend (all clear, thank God), picking up one of my children from her one and a half year visit to the Far East (M25 rush hour, two major roadworks, and raining on the way to Heathrow!) but ended on such a high note!

Yesterday morning at Geoff West's BookPalace, a bunch of us unpacked some of the boxes from China containing three exciting titles. If you had told the teenage Norman that he would be signing books to which he would contribute a couple of pages (1518 words to be exact), he might have quietly thought you were mad and then dismissed the comment!

When (not, if!) you buy a copy of the excellent "Story of World War One" illustrated throughout by Frank Bellamy, you will have the choice of a signed hardback or an equally excellent paperback. Both have lovely covers but the hardback limited edition has, firstly a limited edition print inserted in the book and also Steve Holland's and my signatures. When you have a copy in your hand I can guarantee the signature is mine as I signed 175 copies of the book yesterday morning.

Open it and gaze at the Bellamy illustrations but take a moment to congratulate Stuart Williams for the design. I did wonder how one would reproduce a three page article including a double page spread in such a book. I was prepared for the blank fourth page. However Stuart has taken the cameos of the major players in the First World War (which were drawn by Bellamy and incorporated in the illustrations he did) and placed them on those empty fourth pages. The text has been completely reset and pictures cleaned up (by Steve Holland).



This resource would be brilliant in schools and gives a great general introduction for those studying World War One in Key Stage Three (Years 7 - 9) - the prime target of the original Look and Learn from which this comes.

Steve Holland, being more geared up for this sort of occasion, brought his camera along to the event and we had on hand a photographer, (well my wife!). Steve kindly sent me this picture - I insisted we hide behind the books - from left to right - Geoff West, Norman Boyd and "the famous" Steve Holland, (as I named him yesterday) after he called me "Bellamy expert"


You will have already seen the books Steve is holding (on the right) I'm proudly displaying the above title and finally Geoff is holding a very thick leather bound and very limited Complete Swift Stories volume in which you get all the adventures that Bellamy illustrated in that young people's comic. I've yet to sit down and read through the whole lot and check the contents (a natural bibliographer!) but they haven't forgotten the Swift Annual story which often gets overlooked! I very much doubt these will ever be reprinted again, so my advice is get over to Book Palace and order a copy - you will not be disappointed and you need to support such work so that the future projects can be produced.

I ought to also say the pictures I have scanned are not indicative of the quality of the above books, they are lot better but I thought it would be good to show some detail other than the spreads I have used in the past

Heros the Spartan art for sale

UPDATE
I have added the price below that was realised for this piece. I'm beginning to wonder whether I might, through all my blog and web activity, be the cause for the large sums that Bellamy art now fetches! Rightfully so too.

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Just a quick post to let you know that another poiece of rare Eagle artwork is up for auction. It's at Comic Book Postal Auctions Spring 2010 auction - Lot #160 . Before you click the link make sure you have a couple of thousand pounds to bid. See my last mention and the winning prices!

The piece's description is:
Heros The Spartan original colour artwork drawn and signed by Frank Bellamy. From The Eagle centre page spread Vol 16: No 20 (1965) Heros is saved from The Living Dead by Zathran, ex-commander of the Black Guard … Some of the blue colour faded, reds still strong. Poster paint on board. 19 x 28 ins Estimate: £1,000-1,400

Auction ended March, 2010 at £2,421

Edited on 22 March 2010

It is the 12th episode of the story "The Slave Army" and Eagle issue dated 15 May 1965. The story tells of Heros accompanying a caravan to the Libyan gold mines. Remember this is 1965 storytelling and the Internet was not to hand. Libya has no gold mines, but does have the very modern resource of oil in abundance (their neighbour to the south, Chad, has gold). Bellamy’s depiction of desert light and Berber buildings in this his last Heros comic story are wonderful, and his detailed Arab faces, and weaponry are amazing. Several classic Bellamy devices appear in this particular episode

I'll update the page once the final price is released

Frank Bellamy and Patricia McCormick bullfighter

Taken from Men Only March 1955

In his interview with Dez Skinn and Dave Gibbons Bellamy mentions he illustrated stories in Men Only, which produces a laugh, as the interviewers think of the risqué 'top-shelf' magazine which Paul Raymond bought from Leonard Matthews in 1971. But as Bellamy explained, they're thinking of the 1970s magazine, not the one he drew for in the 1950s!

Recently I was looking through Picture Post magazines from the 1950s, looking for information and art on my other passion, Raymond Sheppard, and came across some photos of a bullfighter (27 September 1952).
Nothing unusual there, but it was a woman bullfighter that was being highlighted. Her name was Patricia McCormick. I remembered one of the Men Only illustrations was of Ms McCormick.

The accompanying caption in Picture Post reads:
"Perhaps 22 year old American girl Pat McCormick was teethed on Papa Hemingway; perhaps she just resented male monopoly of a dangerous trade. Whatever the reason she abandoned brush and palette for cape and sword - the art of painting for the art of killing. Now, in Mexico, in bright sanded ring instead of college campus, she practices technique and dreams of the bulls to die. The reward? Dust in honey-blonde hair, blood on the blade, a black bull dead at her feet - and the crowd's roar."

Cover of Men Only March 1955

In the March 1955 issue of Men Only, McCormick wrote the article "Alone she fights the bull……." which included some of her drawings but also Bellamy's. On pages 85 and 89 we see the two black and white illustrations of McCormick as Matadora fighting a bull and McCormick being thrown by the bull. Both, you will notice are signed 'Bellamy' in a cursive style - whereas his later signature became more flat and linear, matching, in my opinion his more graphical style .

Men Only p.85

Men Only p.89

The article by Patricia McCormick has not only Bellamy's accompanying drawings but also photographs of McCormick. None of Bellamy's drawings are based on the photos, but one wonders if he had reference material beyond shots of bullfighters. Here he shows a woman, is it based on Pat McCormick photos? To be honest it doesn't matter as the original publication fitted inside a pocket and was printed on cheap paper.

If you'd like to read more, Michael Gage kindly sent me an article in PDF form from True Woman's Adventures (May 1956, Volume 1 Issue 1) which was published by 148 Publishing Corp, at 147, East 50th Street, New York 22


Serendipity plays a large underrated part in research for this sort of information - note Michael's scans and the Picture Post, but to finish this article I suddenly thought to Google McCormick's name and lo and behold she has a website, where you can see some of her own art as well as a video of her glory days! It works best in Internet Explorer, something I wouldn't usually highlight as I'm a Firefox fan). This lady really did buck the male stereotypes thrust on her in the earlier less enlightened age! Unfortunately the contact link doesn't work but if anyone out there knows Pat I'd love to let her know of this blog entry

And finally I ought to return to Frank Bellamy and say he did a great job too!

Frank Bellamy's reprinted stories - UPDATE

In my post of the 14 August 2009 I was looking forward to Titan's reprint book. I felt that with some misleading information on the Net I ought to write a little bit for anybody that relies on this blog for news of Bellamy's reprinted material.

Rather than perpetuate any more errors, I wrote to the authority in these matters John Freeman.

"I think the confusion may have arisen because the original plan was to run Courage and Bellamy's David in the same volume. I argued Jesus and Mark would complement each other better and offer the possibility of a second volume with another well known strip, David, alongside Eagle's story of Paul. There's no planned publication date for this second volume. As you may already know from reading my blog an animated film based on the imagery of Road of Courage is in development."

John then kindly provided the following blurb, as it's called in the trade

The Road of Courage Written by Marcus Morris; drawn by Frank Hampson Ran in Eagle from volume 11, issue 12 to volume 12, issue 14 [19/03/60 – 08/04/61] (56 episodes)

• The Road of Courage starts with Herod ordering a census. Joseph appears in episode 3, Mary in episode 4 and Jesus is born in episode 5. It features every major incident in the biblical life of Jesus: the flight from Egypt, Jesus’ early life, the battles against the occupying Romans, Jesus’ fights against the Pharisees, Palm Sunday, throwing the money lenders out of the temple, the Last Supper, Judas betraying Jesus, the confrontation in the garden of Gethsemane, the trial of Jesus, setting Barabbas free, Jesus carrying the cross and rising from the dead.
• The Road of Courage has only been published in a collection once before (in 1981, by Dragon’s Dream) as The Road of Courage – The Story of Jesus of Nazareth. It was also published in Dutch and French. This collection is long out of print and commands a considerable premium on ebay etc. when copies are for sale.

Mark, The Youngest Disciple Subtitled “The story of John Mark writer of the 2nd gospel” Ran in Eagle from volume 5, issue 46 to volume 6, issue 26 [12/11/54 – 01/07/55] = 34 episodes [there were 53 issues in volume 5] Written by Chad Varah, who died in 2007 (follow the link for Steve Holland's excellent article) and drawn by Giorgio Bellavitis (who died very recently)

• The timeframe over which Mark, The Youngest Disciple is told is different from every other normal back page Eagle “True Life” story. Normally, they covered a lifetime but in the case of Mark, the tale spans just over seven weeks, from Maundy Thursday (the Thursday before Easter) until Whit Monday (seven weeks after Easter). Even then, most of the action takes place on just a few days.
• The story is based around Mark rushing around Jerusalem getting into scrapes as he follows Jesus through this momentous time in Jesus’s life, opening with the Last Supper before moving quickly to Judas’ betrayal of Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane. It features the trial of Jesus, setting Barabbas free, Jesus carrying the cross, his rising from the dead, the founding of the Christian church and the first baptisms, ending with Peter agreeing to let Mark work with him as a missionary.
• Throughout, Jesus is featured but his face is never seen

Shepherd Lad of Bethlehem Written by Chad Varah, drawn by Norman Williams Ran in Eagle from volume 2, issue 37 to volume 2, issue 38 [21/12/51-28/12/51] – 2 episodes

• A seasonal tale set in Bethlehem and never before re-published.

Thanks for the information John. I have the first reprint of Road to Courage (by Dragon's Dream) and it's great to see pure Hampson, so it's well worth buying for that alone

So what does this mean to us Bellamy fans? Wait patiently and pray sales on Titans reprints encourage the reprinting of the next volume and then we might see David reprinted

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Meanwhile Geoff West of Book Palace has reminded me that the shipment of his two reprints are due in the third week of February and this gives me an excuse to outline what they are about.

The Story of World War One (Hard cover Signed Limited Edition)

• Artist: Frank Bellamy
• Author: Michael Butterworth, Frank Bellamy, edited by Steve Holland (and that Norman Boyd too!)
• Publisher: Book Palace Books
• Publication Date: February 2010 First Edition.
• Pages: 112 pages
• Size: 9" x 12" (220mm x 297mm)
• Format: Hard Cover
• Illustrations: Part Colour
• ISBN: 9781907081033
• Territory: World
• Synopsis: For the first time ever, Michael Butterworth's epic series of articles recounting the history of the First World War collected from the pages of Look and Learn, where it was fully illustrated each week by the incomparable Frank Bellamy. From the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand through the desperate battles fought at Gallipoli, Verdun, the Somme and Passchendaele. The story is told in a series of beautifully illustrated episodes that are suitable for children. This book is a testament to the the greatness of this famous British strip and the artists who drew it. 110 works of original art beautifully reproduced.

LIMITED TO 200 Copies with a unique numbered print of a double page spread of original art.

The Story of World War One (Signed Limited Edition)

• Artist: Frank Bellamy
• Author: Michael Butterworth, Frank Bellamy, edited by Steve Holland
• Publisher: Book Palace Books
• Publication Date: February 2010 First Edition.
• Pages: 112 pages
• Size: 9" x 12" (220mm x 297mm)
• Format: Soft Cover
• Illustrations: Part Colour
• ISBN: 9781907081002
• Territory: World

LIMITED TO 1250 numbered copies

Frank Bellamy's Complete Swift Stories Deluxe Edition (Limited Edition)

• Due February 2010.
• This book brings together every strip and illustration produced by Frank Bellamy for the classic British children's comic Swift, Frank Bellamy's Swift contains the complete adventures “Robin Hood”, “King Arthur and His Knights” and “Swiss Family Robinson”, plus his contributions to other strips (“The Fleet Family”, “Paul English”) and the Swift Annual.
• As a bonus, the book is issued with a Limited edition Robin Hood print.
• 380 pages. Hard Cover Part Colour 9" x 12" (220mm x 297mm)
• (ISBN-13: 9781907081026)

Deluxe Slipcased Limited Edition of 200 copies. With bonus Limited edition Robin Hood print.