Don Harley talks about Bellamy

Cover of Spaceship Away Part 22 by Ian Kennedy (Used with express permission) 

In the latest Spaceship Away, (Part 22 Autumn 2010) Rod has secured an autobiographical "sketch" by - what I consider to be - Frank Hampson's key co-worker on Dan Dare, Don Harley. To view his work browse the excellent ComicArtFans.
Don retells his first meeting with Hampson and his first job on the story "The Red Moon Mystery" in October 1951 at the age of 24. His story about being on a deadline on New Year's Eve  and staying up to work, shows how our comic artists worked all hours for our entertainment! There are many gorgeous (and relevant) illustrations accompanying the article as well as a new portrait of his 4 co-workers and himself and Dan Dare too.

The main interest for this blog is his overview of the arrival of Frank Bellamy in the Dan Dare stable. This period is often viewed by those who grew up on Dan Dare as sacrilege against the Hampson vision as Bellamy was asked to take over from Hampson (due to the takeover and new ownership of Hulton Press)  and his version of DD was what you might call in modern terms a 're-boot'. His style was so different from Hampson it has suffered from comparisons ever since. And to make matters worse he wasn't left to do the work by himself, as he had done brilliantly for Eagle on the Happy Warrior, David the Shepherd King and Marco Polo strips.

"My own opinion is that Marcus [Morris, Eagle editor] picked Frank Bellamy because he was such a good artist and that Morris could not tell the difference between artists' styles of drawing. Frank Bellamy's style was loose and flowing with much black ink, while Frank Hampson's style was much lighter, more realistic with superfine linework and natural colour. The two styles were so different that it was impossible to merge them. Marcus was angry when he saw Frank Bellamy's first drawings  of Dan Dare's face and asked me to re-draw them.(Vol. 10 No.28). We all loved Frank Bellamy's artwork but it was a rare artist who could copy it." (Harley, 2010, p.41)

The article goes on to tell of the working arrangements in the Dan Dare team in the Hulton office and Bellamy's involvement.

I'd love to know if anyone has the original art for the first episode so we can see how Don covered this 'mistake'. I've added this as an entry on the website which lists articles that contain reference to Bellamy in some way

This is a really splendid work by Rod and team and the colours are so vibrant in the whole glossy magazine. Click on Ian Kennedy's superb cover above to see the beautiful colours and trust me, this quality is not seen anywhere else in our field to my knowledge

Oh, and in case that's not enough to convince you to buy a copy (blast it! buy a subscription!) there's also the continuing never before reprinted re-coloured (by John Ridgway ) episodes of Frank Bellamy's Garth story "The Bubble Man". They look absolutely superb!

And just in case you think I've forgotten to show any Bellamy work, here's one of those superb covers form the Eagle

MANY THANKS to Rod Barzilay for his kind permission to use some of Don's text as well as the cover above . He deserves another link to the excellent Spaceship Away (http://spaceshipaway.org.uk/) so here's the printed version of the above cover

 

Bellamy on display this Christmas

EAGLE Vol. 12:25(24 June 1961) Fraser of Africa will be on display along with lots of other art at:

 

Go and make someone happy for Christmas!

Original Frank Bellamy art: Garth strip

Just a quick note, as this seems to be part of this blog's purpose, to let you know of a Garth strip that has sold recently

An episode from the story "The Spanish Lady" , K137, was sold for £142 after 5 bids. The seller added this paragraph:

"The seller of this item worked on the Northamptonshire Evening Telegraph, where Frank bellamy's long and distinguished career began, and was the last journalist to interview the artist". which I'm guessing means Tony Smith who indeed did talk to Frank many times and promote his work in the local paper on many occasions over the years.

I apologise for the quality of the strip - I found again my collection let me down as I don't have that particular strip!

Bellamy original artwork: Thunderbirds

Comic Book Auctions Ltd has launched it latest catalogue with an end time of Tuesday 30 November at 8 PM UK Time. The piece that will be of interest to Bellamy fans particularly is Thunderbirds original artwork (1968) from TV Century 21 No 206 - Lot number 176.

Scott and Professor Davies have to travel back in time to get Thunderbird 4 and save the fractured dam's waters from drowning New York, but before they can activate the main controls the time-machine topples into the torrent …
Pelikan inks on board. 18 x 14 ins

It looks as if the artwork has been kept out of the sunlight which often fades these pieces. Notice some of the  lettering in the middle panel is missing. It's fairly obvious from the comic version that an overlay was done that has now gone from the artwork. The missing word appeared as 'dismantled'


The estimate for this piece is  £1,500-2,000 and I will update this entry when the auction results come through

UPDATE: Winning bid incl. 10% Buyer's Premium: £2,420 (December 2010)

For those who can't wait to see what did happen in the story I have reproduced the following page for TV21 207

By the way the auction also has a run of Boy's World and Eagle as well as TV21s that all contain Bellamy artwork - check out my website if you need to know which ones have Bellamy art in them.

Bellamy and bags of rubbish

The famed comic artist Alan Davis has taken a lot of trouble in scanning a large range of images of Frank's work.

He helped Nancy Bellamy clear out Frank's studio after his early death and rescued many things from ending up in the rubbish for which Bellamy fans should be eternally grateful.

Some of this I have seen before and listed on the Frank Bellamy website, and it's great now to be able to see the pictures online but some is new even to me.

Take a long time over it and visit each link and slowly be amazed

MANY THANKS to Alan for sharing!

Bellamy and the Bank House Twins (by way of Burke and Hare)

Cover with flyleaf

Recently my wife decided we were both holidaying in Edinburgh. At first I agreed and thought nothing of it, as any break from the usual 9-5 is a break and whose company would I like whilst on holiday? - hers, of course!

As the time crept nearer an amazing coincidence (or two) occurred that led to me anticipating the event even more.

Firstly I had been following the Forbidden Planet blog in which amongst other things they review graphic novels and things I find of interest. Very useful for a guy like me who no longer can be bothered to understand the complexities of pre-, post- and infinite crisis sales pitches! I finally took the plunge and ordered a copy of this gruesome graphic novel which I first read about on John Freeman's blog. It is now being sold direct by the creators themselves - see their details at the new Burke and Hare website. After a lovely correspondence by email, Martyn sent my signed copy and I had time, just before the holiday, to read it. It certainly reminded me that the 'auld reekie' was not as pleasant a place to frequent 150 years ago as it is now! I'd recommend the book and Edinburgh town too (and there is a comedic film version coming from the excellent Simon Pegg and friends!)

But what has this got to do with Bellamy, you ask? Bear with me while I tell the story

On the drive along the A1 to our cottage in Longniddry (14 miles east of Edinburgh) we passed what, to me looked like a giant slag heap in the distance. I assumed that there was an old mine in the area as this bump in the landscape was so out of character with the fairly flat edges of the Firth of Forth. However I soon remembered that the North Berwick Law was no slag heap! "North Berwick Law may be described as as a round or slightly oval plug of felstone which comes up vertically through the ash, [...] into a cone of which the top is 612 feet above the sea." (Howell Hyatt, 2009. The Geology of East Lothian, Including Parts of the Counties of Edinburgh and Berwick. BiblioBazaar)

North Berwick Law -Taken September 2010 by Norman Boyd

We both decided to climb it and once at the top I let my wife know there was a connection with Bellamy. He illustrated a 1955 children's book called "The Bank House Twins".

The story concerns the Currie children, whose father is Manager of the bank in North Berwick - thus the title of the book. The twins, Christine and Colin are annoyed when they learn a friend of the family's is coming to stay with the twins for the summer. They initially try to get rid of him, and this is where the North Berwick Law comes in. 

p.40: "I think I can reach the dog now""

The twins hear that Donald does not like climbing and they therefore avoid the path (my wife and I took) and climb the rocks to the top. Donald appears to struggle, all the time not letting on he knows their game. The main thrust of the story revolves around some bank robbers - rather predictably, but the whole story reads so much like a simpler Enid Blyton, and is extremely dated now, but fun as a nostalgic piece.

Frontpiece: "There! See! The safe door's swinging wide!"

p.9

p.27: "Oh Donald. Your back tyre is terribly flat."

p.61: "The fire seems to have got a good hold"

p.83: In another second they were all struggling in the water

p.113: Borsky reached forward and grabbed her

p.131: He pointed the gun at Petkov

A review of a later book by Fidler by Brian Alderson appears in the Times newspaper of Wednesday 11 March 1980 of "the last book of a writer who made a small corner in "holiday adventure stories" and who died [in 1980] with more than 80 titles to her name. Kathleen Fidler's The Ghosts of Sandeel Bay has all the ingredients of triteness that the genre demands." Despite a rather disparaging review he goes on to describe how she was well loved in her adopted home in Scotland (she was born in Coalville, Leicestershire on August 10, 1899) and Blackie and Sons sponsored a "Kathleen Fidler Award" which appears to have run until at least 1996, Hodder Children's Books took over the sponsorship of the award and the name was changed to the Fidler award for a while. The interesting Wee Web Author and Illustrator's website has a longer biography and listing of her books

Bellamy's drawings are interesting in that I doubt he had seen the North Berwick Law himself and perhaps didn't even have reference material sent to him for this commission, apparently choosing subjects he knew would be acceptable.

Other Bellamy sales

I have updated my recent post to show the prices fetched for various original artwork by Frank Bellamy. I missed mentioning another unique piece by the same seller.

SOLD FOR £620 (with 18 bids)

"Probably done when starting his tenure on the Daily Mirror strip, perhaps to show the paper's art editor his treatment for the character? Interesting to see he has a cowboy theme going here, as Bellamy had a great love of westerns, a period of history Garth visited on occasion, notably on the 'Ghost Town' story"

... says the seller.There a quite a few of these character studies that Bellamy prepared for his strips - Thunderbirds, Heros, David the shepherd king, Dan Dare etc.

I wonder if Bellamy was told that he would join the Garth strip in a "cowboy story" - actually Garth is shown as a US cavalryman in Bellamy's first strip "Sundance" which ran in the Daily Mirror from 28 June1971 to 11 October 1971

The other far less impressive sale, but interesting nonetheless was for a poster that remains unidentified beyond being a reprint of the famous and often reprinted Radio Times cover of Jon Pertwee from January 1972. It sold for £18.43  and is sized 18 by 26 inches. The logo places it in time and I'm guessing was in a Doctor Who Magazine. The reproduction not very good as most of the subtle stippling that Bellamy did is lost here. Anyone know where this appeared?