Frank Bellamy and King Kong

King Kong 1933

I love the simple story of King Kong, whether told by Merian C. Cooper, John Guillermin or Peter Jackson. I remember my teenage eyes moistening after seeing Jessica Lange looking at Kong dying and I also remember some of the people I went with laughing at me! But I didn't care. I'm still touched by the story - stop motion, monkey suit or CGI, don't care. It's a simple old story wrapped in a monster theme which goes back to Beauty and the Beast if not further

DC Comics used to use loads of ape covers as the DC editors believed that sales increased whenever there was a giant ape on the cover of a comic. Twomorrows published "Comics gone ape!" in 2007 and featured comments by several DC creators such as Infantino, and Cardy who used the ape motif many times in their cover careers.

So what does this have to do with Bellamy? Well, by now you'll have learned my style is to not get straight to the point.

King Kong 1976

The excellent MagForum site, about magazines and magazine publishing, is written by Tony Quinn, founder of Magforum.com. he tells us:

19 magazine was published by IPC, monthly, from 1968 - May 2004
Young women’s glossy aimed at 16- to 19-year-olds. The established magazines in this sector all steadily lost sales after 1980. 19 was the last survivor of the three big IPC titles: Honey merged with 19 in 1986 after circulation almost halved in five years; a similar fate befell Look Now in 1988. These mergers helped 19, but its sales were still down by about a fifth in 1990 over the decade. When it finally closed, IPC said: 'Over the last few years, the face of the teenage market has changed. The boundaries between the teen market sub-sectors have become blurred and sales patterns suggest that readership at the older, young women’s end appears to have migrated to the fashion and celebrity markets.' Final editor was Helen Bazuaye. The publisher launched Teen Now, a spin-off from its celebrity weekly Now in spring that year and in March Emap had closed The Face and J-17 (Just 17) Taken from: MagForum.com and used with permission 

King Kong 2005

When I flicked through every issue from the start, trying to find an illustration I knew to exist, I was stunned by how it changed over the 6 years I browsed. The end of the 1960s was a liberating time - especially regarding sex and sexuality. 19 appeared to me to be mostly about fashion, and short articles of interest to the 19 year olds it was named for. However as time went on and I turned more pages I found articles on sex and attracting a mate more numerous. It was a real journey through the transition in time - the editor must have been very 'with it'. I liked the short story illustrators - among many others - Jill Watkins, Margaret Power, Julian Allen, Mick Brownfield, and Alan Cracknell. The latter two were also prolific in the Radio Times of the period (for whom Bellamy also illustrated). Chris Achilleos's early work appeared here - Achilleos was obviously hugely influenced by Bellamy when creating his classic Doctor Who covers for Target Books (have a look at this page to see what I mean)


The contents page of the February 1975 issue of 19 contained the black and white image from the main double page spread Bellamy drew. Keith Jones, was the Assistant Art Editor for IPC magazines at that time who paid Bellamy £86.40p for the colour spread commissioning it in May 1974. Bellamy's King Kong appears on the celluloid which is melting, and twisted strands of wire is shown in the background of the montage. A hand carefully pulls the 'i' from Kong's name. I've read the article and can't see what this represents so would love to generates some comments below

Cropped contents page

19 "King Kong", pp.66-67

Another coincidental link to Bellamy (and if anyone can find these it's me - just ask my family!)  is that 19 magazine carried an article in March 1976 on Gerry Cottle's Circus for whom Bellamy drew three posters

Links:

To read about the history of the films - (I didn't realise Linda Hamilton did one!) see KiKn (Kong is King.net)

A visual view of the FB Blog

In the interest of sharing, just a quick note about something new in the bloggersphere - at least to me!

You can see a month's worth of Frank bellamy Checklist blog by clicking on this URL
http://frankbellamy.blogspot.com/view/flipcard
and if you have a blog, substitute your web address instead of mine and there you go! Blogger have even introduced "seven new ways to experience your favorite blogs"



Using Blogger.com's Flipcard feature

 Next: King Kong!

The last great invention

Last Great Invention - panel

In the 1960s publishing saw more and more magazines that were partworks published in numerous countries as co-editions to bring down costs. The format of a weekly partwork caught the public's imagination -but not often their mathematical skills - total costs of a partwork could far exceed any total price for the equivalent book, but it did allow families to buy weekly rather than lay out a lot of money up front! This was in the days before 'easy credit'. I remember my Mother loved 'The British Empire' with its glossy appearance and colour throughout. I preferred 'World of Wildlife' as it contained animals in their natural surroundings. You have to remember back then - no Internet and colour had only just come to UK TV and we had three terrestrial (what other sort were there?) channels! So colour glossy magazines - great!

Cover of Sunday Times
23 August 1970

Bellamy contributed to this in two places that I know of and the following relates to the more famous one: The Sunday Times (Colour) Magazine (23rd August 1970). "Last of the Great Inventions" was, as it says in the magazine "Drawn by Frank Bellamy and written by Tony Osman".

The Sunday Times was forging ahead in Britain in displaying innovative colour in a giveaway weekly newspaper magazine. It all started in 1962 when the owner Roy Thomson wanted a way to sell colour advertising at a time that newspapers could only print black and white (it was 20 years later that Eddie Shah shook up the newspaper industry with a colour paper) Its first editor Mark Boxer was joined a year later, by Michael Rand as Art Director.

"It was 12 months before it was voted a huge success – by the readers and advertisers (due to editors Mark Boxer, Godfrey Smith and its design guru Michael Rand). It was Smith’s idea to produce another innovation, the part-work series which could be collated, at the end, in a special binder: A Thousand Makers of the 20th Century remains a landmark" (Evans, H, 2008. I wish we could have done this in my day. Sunday Times [London, England] 6 July 2008: 9.)

Many artists and photographers praise Michael Rand as being an inspiration in allowing them to push the boundaries and Rand knew Bellamy's work well (confirmed in an email from Robert Lacey - yes I contact all sorts of important people!), but he is not credited in the series itself instead it appears Arnold Schwartzmann was the Consultant art Director on the project. .

Binder cover

First part

 Eureka!: The Sunday Times Magazine "A history of inventions in 10 parts" was published weekly between 21 June 1970 and 23 August 1970. The pages were not numbered but a note appears in each 'supplement' saying "To prepare for the Eureka binder cut out pages down centrefold" Bellamy produced only the last installment.

Last episode includes a competition

The commission was to show  the President of America being woken to be told that the ballistic Missile Early warning System had detected missiles approaching and the President's reaction and conversation with the USSR (This was Nixon and Brezhnev)

Bellamy draws Nixon again!

I personally found the whole piece awfully confusing. The script is not written by someone who knows comic strips and I suspect that (unlike earlier Sunday Times work) Osman was glad to be getting to the end of this piece. Mind you any quick search shows that Osman - who was elected to the committee of the Association of British Science Writers, has written many factual articles and books.

Anyone want to buy me an A3 scanner?

As an aside, to this already wordy blog post, my copy of the bound Eureka series also contains the Bruce Chatwin partwork "One million years of art". having read the excellent biography by Nicholas Shakespeare, I was not surprised to see no comic art in the partwork, let alone any Bellamy, after all Chatwin was an ex-Sotheby's man so 'art' means 'fine art', not illustration or comics!

Century 21 Volume 5 is called "Menace from space"

Cover by Lee Sullivan

I happen to know that Lee Sullivan, the cover artist of the latest Century 21 reprint volume, loves Mike Noble's work (I learned this at the exhibition that is still running) and this view of Thunderbird 3 appears to me to be inspired by Mike's drawing of TB3 from a provisional cover earlier in this series. Obviously Lee's version matches the 'cameo' look that the others have

Non-published - Mike Noble

John Freeman, on Downthetubes.net,  shares some exciting news on his site:

Publisher Marcus Hearn also tells us: "We've just uncovered an amazing batch of original Frank Bellamy artboards, so if and when we do another volume we'll be including them."

Let's hope we see that too - Marcus we'd love a Bellamy only volume - and would die to see a landscape - no gutter version.

Anyway back to the point of this entry.

Marcus heads up Signum Books and this is Chris Bentley 's fifth outing in this series. The theme this time - can you guess - is space! Therefore we have the following Bellamy illustrated stories:

• Thunderbirds - The Eye of Jupiter Script: Scott Goodall Art: Frank Bellamy (Originally published in TV Century 21 issues 147 - 154 , November-December 2067)
• Thunderbirds - The Space Mirror Script: Scott Goodall Art: Frank Bellamy (Originally published in TV Century 21 issues 137 - 140, September 2067)
• Thunderbirds - The Barracuda Awaits Script: Scott Goodall Art: Frank Bellamy (Originally published in TV Century 21 issues 179-183, June-July 2068)

You can buy via the usual channels (including the Amazon widget I use) - the ISBN is 978-0956653420  - but Signum are offering Gerry Anderson signed copies - follow this link: http://www.signumbooks.com/buybooks.htm

And just so we always have some of the great man's work on these blog entries here's a scene I like from "The Space Mirror", a very short story at 4 double page spreads!

TV21 #139

Ghost Town starts in the Daily Mirror

DEDICATED TO GEOFF PROVINS 

"who recently passed away. 

He was a huge friend of Garth as well as Dan Dare 

and it would have meant something to him."

- at the request of Martin Baines

Geoff's name appears on the list of people who have been generous enough to contribute to the formation of the checklist of Bellamy's work. He was a member of the Eagle Society and my heartfelt condolences go out to friends and family.

---

Yesterday saw the end of "The  Beautiful People" so today we have......

Saturday 24 September 2011 © Daily Mirror

Click on this to see the superb work Martin is doing - in my opinion - on the colouring. This story was Frank Bellamy's favourite of all his Garths and it was re-run on the announcement of his death in July 1976 - therefore this is the third reprinting in the Daily Mirror - but you won't hear me complaining!

Martin sent me the above and also added this message to accompany the piece below:

Also I have included the first colouring I did for Garth which was in the style of colouring that Scorer used. This was before the decision of style of colouring was made. This colouring was inspired by Fraser Of Africa...

© Daily Mirror

Thanks again to Martin for his forethought and generosity.

Next: Sunday Times feature - watch this space

Original art for sale - Thunderbirds, Look-in and Garth

The title of today's blog post is a bit like the chant from the Wizard of Oz! "Thunderbirds, Look-in, and Garth, oh my!" And it certainly is a magical day for Frank Bellamy fans.

The latest Comic Book Auctions Limited catalogue is out and bidding closes on Tuesday 6 September at 8pm UK time.

I have copied the details below as it turns out this blog is one way some buyers keep a track of sales! Or so I was told by a gentleman recently! I'll update this entry with the sale prices as soon as they are known UPDATED 10 Sept 2011 - see below 

TV21 #133

Lot # 187 is described as

Thunderbirds original double page artwork drawn and signed by Frank Bellamy for TV Century 21 No 133 Aug 5 1967. Bright Pelikan inks on board. 19 x 27 inches £2,000-2,500

UPDATED 10 Sept 2011 Winning bid incl. 10% Buyer's Premium: £3,025 

TV21 #206

Lot # 188 is described as

Thunderbirds original artwork (1968) by Frank Bellamy from TV 21 No 206 Dec 28 1968. Bright Pelikan inks on board. 18 x 15 inches
£800-1,000

UPDATED 10 Sept 2011 Winning bid incl. 10% Buyer's Premium: £550 

Lot # 221 is described as

Southerner original double page artwork painted and signed by Frank Bellamy for Look-in #23 June 12 1971 with original magazine.
On the night of Friday October 3 1970 the 42,000 ton Liberian oil tanker, Pacific Glory was transformed into a blazing inferno after a collision with another tanker off the Isle of Wight. Southern Television's film news were the first TV units to reach the scene as Southerner, the world's first outside broadcast vessel sped to the area. The newsmen and technicians later carried off six major news film awards. The true story of the Pacific Glory Disaster was dramatised and painted by Frank Bellamy for the centre pages of Look-in eight months later
Pelikan inks on board, some fading to the blues. 24 x 18 inches (Removable laser colour copy text boxes added to complete the story) £550-650

 UPDATED 10 Sept 2011 Winning bid : U/S (Unsold?)

Lot # 223 is described as

Garth original artwork (1971) by Frank Bellamy for The Daily Mirror 14 July 1971. Entitled Sundance, this was Bellamy's third board
Indian ink on board. 21 x 7 inches
£180-220

UPDATED 10 Sept 2011 Winning bid incl. 10% Buyer's Premium: £203


Now what do I think of all this? Well funnily enough I am excited by this episode of Garth (don't forget it's being reprinted in the Daily Mirror right now!). This is the 15th episode of the story 'Sundance' (Jim Allard preceded Bellamy's fondly remembered run). It's only Bellamy's 3rd episode of the story.  What's interesting, and you can't really see it here, is that Bellamy did not use zip-a-tone, or letraset/letratone but it does appear here on the fallen soldier's trousers. And worse there is white-out / Tippex! FB was proud of never having used the stuff, so who did it? The answer: John Allard, who was kept on to do various things on the strip.

Below is a photo I took when I had access to the owner's original artwork. Hopefully you can see this interesting fact. It certainly doesn't mar the original delicate linework of Bellamy.

E164 - Note the zip-a-tone - click to enlarge

I suspect the estimate on this particular board is low.

And secondly the very rare Look-In piece. The description mentions faded blues, but I think even with that fact this should fetch a good price as it's the only piece that Bellamy did for his former editor on TV21 (Alan Fennell) in this comic. Having the work on Garth as well as many other individual commissions, Bellamy didn't have time, even if he wanted to go back to weekly comic strips! Having the "Removable laser colour copy text boxes" makes this a very interesting piece. One wonders why the text was not on the original board, but if you look at the scan below you'll see that it's not hand lettering but type

Look-in 12 June 1971

That leaves just the Thunderbirds to comment on.....They look brilliant and the colours vibrant.

One curiosity - I notice that the colour in the comic shows a pink sky in places - but a natural blue in the original. Anyone know anything about this? I have discovered other adjustments (certainly not improvements!) to Bellamy's artwork in the Thunderbirds strips. I expect he wouldn't have seen the published art - David, his son, was born 8 December 1944 so was a bit old for TV21 at that time (that's rich from the guy who still owns a complete set!) and I have no knowledge that he received a gratis copy

Here are the two compared:

Anyway, I still owe money on my house so I'll leave you all to bid!

Comicartfans - Original art: Garth - Beast of Ultor

WARNING! Following this link could serious put a dent in your free time!

If you've never heard of Comicartfans site, you haven't been reading the detail of my blog. It's grown enormously since its first appearance. Various people share their pictures and some trade on there. That's swap and sell in other words.

'Zaalxx' has put up for offer a beautiful example of Frank Bellamy's Garth. It's an episode from the Beast of Ultor

H93 The Beast of Ultor

To see the original at Comicartfans click here and if you want to make 'Zaalxx' an offer you'll need to register with the site first but can then use the form provided.

If you want to see some of the beautiful Bellamy art that Jeff, Paul, Chris, Terry, John, Stephen and many others have shared, click here. But don't say I didn't warn you that you'd find this a 'sticky' site!