Frank Bellamy and "Cover Story: Radio Times at 90"

Cover Story: Radio Times at 90
at the Museum of London

I spent a delightful day with my wife and 24 year old son walking the streets of London as we headed to the Radio Times at 90 exhibition which is on until 3 November 2013 and is free to visit. Where? The wonderful Museum of London.

The Museum's exhibition page (from which the above picture is taken) states:

From iconic covers and Doctor Who, to historic broadcasts and never-before-seen BBC archives; the Museum of London is celebrating the 90th anniversary of Radio Times. The exhibition charts the history of the British weekly TV and radio listings publication and its close association with the history of broadcasting in Britain. Highlights include original Radio Times covers, a 1920s Marconi valve radio and a 50th anniversary display for Doctor Who, which has been a regular in the Radio Times since 1964.

What's the connection with Bellamy? Well, I was contacted with a query a few months ago, about whether I knew anyone who owned an original Bellamy Radio Times illustration. I don't know how the organizers decided who to talk to or which artwork of those I know I suggested they might use, but one collector's piece ended up in the exhibition.

The covers on the top row, you can just about see here, are reproductions and Doctor Who, unsuprisingly in this the 50th anniversary year, gets a space of his own. I don't want to spoil all your fun by showing you all the pictures I took with my Samsung Galaxy Ace but the big drawing in the middle is bound to get die-hard Dalek fans excited. But for me, I was there for Bellamy art. The two pieces at the bottom right hand corner are both by Bellamy.  Here are two more photos taken in far from perfect lighting conditions.

Radio Times (16/12/1972 - 29/12/1972)
Doctor Who and the Sea Devils [Omnibus edition], p.82

Radio Times (30/08/1975 - 05/09/75)
Doctor Who - Terror of the Zygons, p.17

There's not much original art in the exhibition, but those by Mark Thomas (the "Singing Detective" and the very recent "Call the midwife") are gorgeous as well as the laughing cat cover for the 'Humor' edition of 1936 by John Gilroy (who also did famous Guiness adverts) and a Nevinson original too. But I loved the Reinganum art too. I have always suspected that Bellamy was inspired by him. Their work appeared in similar places, such as Lilliput, and of course the Radio Times and both had a graphic design approach in my opinion. Unfortunately there's not a lot about him on the Net, thus ensuring I have another artist for my little retirement projects!

Here are his Daleks:

Reinganum's Daleks from Radio Times (9 June 1969)

If none of this has persuaded you to visit the Museum how about you can take your photo with a Dalek

And I haven't said a word about how really interactive the exhibitions are and how easy to walk from Liverpool Street the Museum is.

Other articles on the exhibition

• TimeOut
• Vintage Guide to London
• Guardian
• Mediaweek
• BBC News
• Mike Paterson & Russ Whilley's London Historians' Blog
•  Philip Bates' article on Kasterborous

Latest Garth reprint

Reprinted in colour Tues 30 July 2013 © Mirrorpix

The above is the next story to be reprinted in the Daily Mirror newspaper in the UK starting today. The artwork is by Martin Asbury, the story "Voyage into Time" sends Garth on another time travel adventure. So we shall have to wait for the last two Bellamy-drawn stories that have not yet been reprinted in the Daily Mirror: "Freak out to fear" and "Man-Hunt" - the latter being Bellamy's last work on the strip which was completed, after his death, by Martin Asbury.

I have recently revamped and added to the Garth listing on the website (where I list all known work by Frank Bellamy) So if you're wondering when each of the Daily Mirror stories were reprinted - whether in the Daily Mirror or not, pop over there.  And if you want to know about international listings of Garth, they are included in my international reprint list - clever eh? And thanks to Ant Jones' great work on the Garth Facebook page I have learned of other international versions of Garth - I shall write about Bellamy's Turkish work soon! And while you are logged into Facebook I have never mentioned my FB FB page

Screen shot of the reprint list

Next Time - a newly, yes, newly discovered Bellamy artwork!

Frank Bellamy and Doctor Who: Sea Devils original art

Timeview p.23 - pink colour as published

Original Art 1

Original Art 2

Original Art 3

UPDATE: Winning bid with 15 bids: £466.56 (July 2012)

I have had it pointed out to me that a piece on eBay of Bellamy's art is for sale. The seller is tinkswesterman (with 100% good feedback) and lives in Kirkby on Merseyside and appears to sell quite a few Doctor Who rare items.

When I looked at it, I was a bit puzzled and decided to scan the version that appears in Time View: Complete "Doctor Who" Illustrations of Frank Bellamy written by Bellamy's only child, David.

The original reproduction in the Radio Times is not worth reproducing - for those who don't know - the Radio Times in 1972 when this appeared was published mostly on pulp paper and therefore linework didn't come out too clearly. However here is a scan of the listing for Doctor Who for the relevant day:

Radio Times (18/03/1972 - 24/03/1972), p.20

Why do I feel puzzled? The 'RADIO TIMES' and signature look a bit wobbly. Below is a photo I saved from ebay when the last original piece of these Doctor Who cameos came up for sale by a renowned Doctor Who collector based in Luton. I'm sorry the detail is not very clear, but one can see the 'Radio Times' lettering added by Bellamy and it appears somewhat at odds with the one above.

Also draw a vertical line from the bottom left and in the 'original' art you do not bisect the 'ear' - it appears whole; in the Radio Times version you bisect an incomplete 'ear'. There are other tiny differences I would query when I look very closely.

I don't want to claim this is a fake, but it appears puzzling, particularly as the seller has lots of unusual BBC Doctor Who materials and has had no complaints but he bought it in good faith. The piece below sold before I started this blog!

I'll add any comments I get and update the selling price as and when

Sold in June 2001

Frank Bellamy and Wide World

Martin Baines asked me about a few of the more obscure Bellamy pieces, so here I am again sharing....

pp. 2-3 "The toughest prey" written by Douglas Lockwood
(bigger version at FB.co.uk)

The cover of the issue in which Bellamy's work appears is credited to Langhammer - is this Walter Langhammer? Anyone tell me more?

January 1962 (art by Langhammer)

"There is no more formidable adversary than a monster buffalo" it says on the contents page of Wide World January 1962.The story it refers to is "The Toughest Prey" by Douglas Lockwood

Contents page

Douglas Lockwood
From the The University of Queensland, Fryer Library collection

Any of my Australian readers who fancy visiting the National Library of Australia can access the "Papers of Douglas Lockwood, 1942-1981" Lockwood lived from 1918-1980 and was predominantly a storyteller / journalist. Some of his books on native Australian life and his writings on what he called "the Australian Pearl Harbour" are still in print today. His writings in newspapers can been seen online via the excellent Trove resource which also contains loads of Lockwood's fascinating photographic collection.His biography can be found online, and from it come the following details.

 In 1941 Lockwood joined the Melbourne Herald. On 4 October that year at the Methodist Church, Wangaratta, he married Ruth Hay, a clerk. Soon afterwards he was sent to Darwin and in February 1942 saw the first enemy bombs fall on Australian soil. Enlisting in the Australian Imperial Force on 15 June, he trained in intelligence and security duties. He served in New Guinea and on Bougainville in 1944-45 with 'V' and 'Z' Field Security sections, and was promoted warrant officer. Following his discharge on 15 June 1945 in Melbourne, he was a war correspondent for the Herald, reporting from the Netherlands East Indies. In 1946 he returned to Darwin and, except for postings to the Herald's Melbourne (1947-48) and London (1954-56) offices, was to remain there until 1968. 

Taken from the Australian Dictionary of Biography

He obviously found the English weather not to his liking and returned home after only 3 years and perhaps encountered this international magazine, Wide World,  when here in 1954-1956. Wide World had been going since 1898. My other interest Raymond Sheppard did several pieces for Wide World and therefore I have trawled through quite a few. The tenor of the magazine was always real-life adventures told from all over the world. The earlier editions in the post WWII years have some fantastic covers on them, but interior art was reproduced in such a way to obscure any talent, thus the strange 'cut' photograph-dots look to them. Do a Google search to see images of the covers If you want to read some of the content from the past, try True Adventures for Boys or The Wide World: True Adventures For Men and of course the originals are fairly cheap - try eBay too.

p. 5 "The toughest prey" written by Douglas Lockwood
(bigger version at FB.co.uk)

In the late 50s and early 1960s up to its demise in 1965 more and more photographic materials, in lieu of illustrations, were used in Wide World which I personally found nowhere near as interesting. Contemporaries of Frank Bellamy produced for the magazine too but Bellamy appears to have only produced drawings for one issue. 


Douglas Lockwood Bibliography

• Crocodiles and Other People (London, 1959)
• Fair Dinkum (London, 1960)
• I, the Aboriginal (Adelaide, 1962) which won the Adelaide Advertiser's award for literature in 1962 and was later made into a television film We, the Aborigines (Melbourne, 1963)
• The Lizard Eaters (Melbourne, 1964)
• Up the Track (Adelaide, 1964)
• Australia's Pearl Harbour (Melbourne, 1966)
• The Front Door (Adelaide, 1968)
• My Old Mates and I (Adelaide, 1979)
• Northern Territory Sketchbook (Adelaide, 1968)

Co-author:

• Life on the Daly River (London, 1961) with Nancy Polishuk
• The Shady Tree (Adelaide, 1963) with Bill Harney
• Alice on the Line (Adelaide, 1965) with Doris Blackwell

Just before his death he was editing  a selection of Bill Harney's writings but this was taken on and completed by Ruth Lockwood and published as A Bushman's Life (Melbourne, 1990).

REMEMBER to see these Bellamy pictures in full size follow this link to Frankbellamy.co.uk and click on the 'MORE...' note

The second item Bellamy illustrated is introduced in the same contents page:"Britain's coastguards meet the challenge of unleashed elements" 

p. 20 "Killer wind" written by George Goldsmith Carter

George Goldsmith Carter was born in Aldeburgh and served on lightships during the war and has written extensively on the subjects of boats, ships and sailing.You can read the full text of "The Goodwin Sands" published in 1953 on Archive.org with its opening sentence "For two-and-a-half years I have stood my watch on the deck of the North Goodwin Lightship".Amazon have several of his titles

George Goldsmith Carter Bibliography

• Looming Lights: a true story of the lightships. London : Constable, 1945.
• The Smacksmen. A story of the fishermen of the Borough. London : Constable, 1947.
• Able Seaman. London : Constable, 1948.
• Peter Grimes’ Country, in Lilliput June 1948
• Lights on the Water, in Lilliput April 1949
• Tiger of the Channel, in Lilliput August 1949
• Margaret Catchpole, the Girl from Wolfkettel. London : Constable & Co., 1949.
• Red Charger. A trip to the Arctic fishing grounds. Illustrated by R. P. Bagnall-Oakley. London : Constable, 1950.
• Forgotten Ports of England. London : Evans Bros., 1951.
• The Goodwin Sands. London : Constable and Co Ltd, 1953
• Menace of The Out-Winds (illustrated by Hookway Cowles) in Everybodys August 14 1954 
• Death on the Longsand in Lilliput March 1956
• Sailors, sailors (Edited by Derek Lord.) London: Hamlyn, 1966
• Sailing Ships and Sailing Craft (Hamlyn all-colour paperbacks). London: Hamlyn, 1969
• Spotlight on sailing ships (Illustrated by Bill Robertshaw, Angus McBride). London : Hamlyn, 1973.
• The Battle of Britain : the home front. New York : Mason & Lipscomb Publishers, [1974]

 Co-authored

• Young Sea-Angler. (with Robert Bateman). London : Constable & Co., [1961]
• A fighting challenge (with John Ridgway; Michael Codd; Chay Blyth) London: Hamlyn, 1969.

Thank you Martin for an enjoyable afternoon doing some research! Your other choices will follow soon!

Frank Bellamy, Lilliput and W. R. Burnett

Lilliput 1954 (please excuse the crude joins!)

I have now produced 200 posts for this blog - frightening! If you had asked my teachers they would not have thought I could write the copy on the back of a [choose your favourite sweets/candy] let alone 200 articles!


I have mentioned the magazine called Lilliput in the past and felt it was time to show you some more of that artwork by Frank Bellamy.  The magazine begun by Stefan Lorant, photojournalist, was bought out by Hulton Press Limited who are best remembered for publishing Picture Post (which Hulton and Lorant created), and the famous and well-loved Eagle comic. But they also had Farmer's Weekly, Housewife, Electronic Engineering, Power Laundry and The Leader among others.

"War Party" by W.R. Burnett - Drawn by Frank Bellamy

The list of Bellamy's work in Lilliput:

1. LILLIPUT Vol. 34:4 #202 (April 1954) "Que-Fong-Goo" by Gerald Durrell
2. LILLIPUT Vol. 34:5 #203 (May 1954) "War Party" by W.R. Burnett
3. LILLIPUT Vol. 35:1 #205 (July 1954) "The drifters" by John Prebble
4. LILLIPUT Vol. 36:3 #213 (March 1955) "The raid to get Rommel" by Sandy Sanderson
5. LILLIPUT Vol. 36:5 #215 (May 1955) "Trick justice" by John Prebble
6. LILLIPUT Vol. 37:1 #217 (July 1955) "The demon bushranger" by Dal Stivens
7. LILLIPUT Vol. 39:6 #234 (Dec 1956) "Men with horse" by Allan Swinton

In his interview  with Dez Skinn and Dave Gibbons, Bellamy stated:

As soon as I gave [International Artists] permission to represent me, I had a commission to do two love story illustrations for Home Notes, a woman's magazine, regular commissions from Boy's Own Paper - covers and inside illustrat­ions, Lilliput - where I did my very first western illustration for a story by John Prebble

He wasn't remembering quite right. His first western story was by W. R. Burnett and his third commission and second western story for Lilliput was by Prebble. William Riley Burnett (November 25, 1899 - April 25, 1982) wrote many of the screenplays to films which I loved in my youth - well, now actually! I remember seeing The Great Escape and Ice Station Zebra in the 60s and loving the characters and stories, but this guy was writing back in 1930s with Little Caesar, Scarface, and High Sierra, all films I remember vividly (when they were broadcast on BBC1 back in the late 60s and early 70s - noir on a black and white TV - lovely! A very full bibliography appears here and many of his works can still be purchased
on Amazon Here are all the illustrations by Bellamy to accompany "War Party"

Lilliput 1954 Page 53

Lilliput 1954 Page 57

Lilliput 1954 Page 61

That's all the illustrations for this story, but one of them appeared again. Burnett states at the end of the story in an 'Author's Note': "The character of Walter Grein was drawn in part from the famous Chief of Scouts,of the Apache Wars, Al Sieber".

On the letter page of Lilliput August 1954, the following appeared:

The Internet is wonderful and has details for you (via Wikipedia) of Al Sieber, who was apparently born in Germany before moving to the States and you can even see his gravestone on Find a grave!

Heros reprint story continues.....

There's no need for me to add anything to the Book Palace / Peter Richardson blog but to say I've been fortunate enough to see the electronic version and they are superb! The colour is so vibrant - many having come from originals. Go over there now and read more.

I will scream loudly when the book actually reaches these shores!

Norman

NEW GARTH REPRINT - The Orb of Trimandias

Monday 3 June 2013 © Daily Mirror

THE GOOD NEWS:
Today we start the latest coloured by Martin Baines reprint originally produced by Jim Edgar, Frank Bellamy (and John Allard?) where Garth, our time-travelling hero heads back to Venice and the time of the Borgias. I know nothing of this era in Italian history, so this gives me the opportunity to have a rummage around the Net on your behalf.

Machiavelli, Da Vinci and Cesare Borgia

Machiavelli, Leonardo & Borgia: a fateful collusion: what happened when a philosopher, an artist and a ruthless warrior--all giants of the Renaissance--met on campaign in northern Italy? How's that for an article title? Written  by Paul Strathern in History Today. (59.3 (Mar. 2009): p15), he explains:  

During the latter half of 1502, when the Italian Renaissance was at its height, three of its most distinguished yet disparate figures travelled together through the remote hilly region of the Romagna in northeastern Italy. Cesare Borgia (1475-1507), backed by his father Pope Alexander VI (1431-1503), was leading a military campaign whose aim was to carve out his own personal princedom. He had hired Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) as his chief military engineer whose brief was to reinforce the castles and defences in the region as well as to construct a number of revolutionary new military machines, which he had designed in his notebooks. Accompanying this unlikely duo was the enigmatic figure of Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527), who had been despatched by the Florentine authorities as an emissary to the travelling 'court' with instructions to ingratiate himself with Borgia and, as far as possible, discover his intentions towards Florence whose position to the west, just across the Apennine mountains, left it particularly vulnerable to Borgia's territorial ambitions.

Detail from F28 of Professor Lumiére, Garth and Cesare Borgia

We see a portrait (in the fourth strip) of Borgia shown to Garth by Giovanni Cometti in the present day. The portrait looks to be the one by an anonymous artist, and is held at Palazzo Venezia, Rome, rather than the one shown above (with Machiavelli and Da Vinci). In this  tale Leonardo Da Vinci befriends the English Lord Carthewan (Garth) and the Orb's name, Trimandias, refers to "the Greek mystic and prophet", Borgia tells his sister later in the tale. The Orb allegedly has "strange occult powers - it can even conquer death!" At one point Leonardo suffers from the plague. It's difficult to pin down exact dates for the plagues occurrence in Venice but it certainly devastated the city during the same period as Britain (14th Century) and was last seen in Venice in 1630, so it is feasible - in story terms. I imagine Jim Edgar got the idea to include the plague and Leonardo because of the famous story of the artist/inventor's designs for the 'ideal city' as he surmised, whilst in Milan  - ahead of his time - that urbanisation might be to blame for the spread of the plague. The city, as designed by Da Vinci was never realized.

The Titan reprint, Garth: Cloud of Balthus - Comic Strip Bk. 1 has an introduction in which it states that this is the first strip in which Bellamy flies solo on the art. John Allard handled the lettering, but upto now also added bits to the art. Bellamy was always happier working alone and he certainly hits his stride in this story

THE BAD NEWS:
The list of Garth stories to which Frank Bellamy contributed is growing shorter - well, in reprint form in the current Daily Mirror newspaper anyway! The table below shows that we have only two more which haven't yet been coloured by Martin in this reprint form.

TITLE	Reprinted?
Sundance	YES
The Cloud Of Balthus	YES
The Orb Of Trimandias	Ongoing
The Wolf Man Of Ausensee	YES
People of The Abyss	YES
The Women of Galba	YES
Ghost Town	YES
The Mask of Atacama	YES
The Wreckers	YES
The Beast of Ultor	YES
Freak Out To Fear	NO
Bride of Jenghiz Khan	YES
The Angels of Hell's Gap	YES
The Doomsmen	YES
The Bubble Man	YES
The Beautiful People	YES
The Spanish Lady	YES
Man-Hunt	NO

For the purists, this tale was previously reprinted in The Daily Mirror Book of Garth, London: IPC Limited, 1975; Titan's Garth Book One: The cloud of Balthus London: Titan Books, 1984 and the American Menomonee Falls Gazette #67 (26 March 1973) - #83 (16 July 1973)


Let's see what's next after this brilliant tale - which Martin Baines, who supplied the superb artwork at the top of this page, says is his favourite Bellamy Garth. Thanks once again Martin,

Norman Boyd