Frank Bellamy and Gerry Anderson: The Vintage Comic Collection

Just as I wrote about a future reprint of Frank Bellamy' "Happy Warrior", I received my first five volumes of my subscription to the new Gerry Anderson: The Vintage Comic Collection.

#1-5 of Eaglmoss' under-advertised Gerry Anderson reprints

You might have seen a TV advert over the New Year from Eaglemoss, the publishers of the Marvel Chess partwork. The company (according to their site) had a global turnover (in 2011) estimated "to reach €230M generated across more than 150 collections published in 35 markets and in 20 different languages. More than 50% of the group turnover arises outside the EU. We dominate the Eastern European and Russian language markets and invest to become leading publishers in Japan and the other BRIC countries. We are launching approximately 80 collections every year as independent publishers or in partnership with other publishers". [Link supplied by me as it was a new term to me!]

On October 12 (2013) I discovered this series was due to be published. The website (which was http://gerry-anderson-collection.com/)  [now mysteriously gone! Now here] showed some of the publicity I have reproduced below. My parcel (well plastic bag actually!) contained issue 1 and a second parcel had the other 4 issues, two of which had shrinkwrap and a backing card, which I imagine was used to make it stand out in newsagents. I have heard that there might have been three areas in the country that had this appear in the newsagents - as a trial - and that might explain the strange marketing going on here! Issue 5 came with this note:

Suspension notice!

I suspect this went out in the trial copies - but you would think if, (and I state if  because there is no other communication!) this was the case then someone would have taken these out to ensure idiots like me didn't think 5 was the total number of the whole subscription...and there there is the question of what will I be charged?, where are the free gifts mentioned? etc etc. The blurb in issue 5 mentions the start of the Fireball XL5 reprints in #6.

Each issue is a hardback and the complete set with its series of spines makes a lovely collage mirroring the endpapers (by Andrew Skilleter) but in full colour

Endpapers by Andrew Skilleter

Each of the five covers is by Lee Sullivan - I love the Captain Scarlet issue (#4) which I'm sure was influenced by one of his favourite artists, Mike Noble. The comic contents of all 5 are from TV21 and I'll concentrate on Issues 1,2 and 5, all Frank Bellamy stories presented in chronological order. If the series continues this will be the first time, since they were published, they appear chronologically  despite many reprints since 1966.

So the big question is how did they do with Bellamy's double page spreads? Well, that's interesting. The lovely brochure included with the books states that in reprinting these, "where possible, pages have been reproduced from the original artwork". I think I can see this in "Operation Depthprobe" but am not very sure. Then they mention:

• Step 1: Scanning is done "by archive restoration experts"
• Step 2: Colour correction "the yellowing of pages is eliminated"
• Step 3: Retouching

This sounds brilliant but using the example - see below - of TV21#63 I can't see the lines (shown in the publicity brochure)  on my copy and scanning doesn't add them. However, some of the touching up can be a bit clumsy

Eaglemoss excellent publicity

TV21 #63 cropped from my scan

In this panel from #109 - even with my camera flash - I think you can see the retouching has gone for a clumsy compromise of making Bellamy's clouds (admittedly not well produced in TV21) a single white colour

Eaglemoss retouching

My scan of #109

But let's be positive now! I really like the sympathetic colouring of Bellamy's black and white washes. For the issues #52 to #65 Bellamy did both a double page spread and also a black and white single page in each issue. Below you can see issue 52 "colourised" as Eaglemoss call the process, together with the original TV21 page.

Strange goings on!

TV21 #52

TV21 #53

So I love the left hand page of the above example in Eaglemoss' publication, but wait....why, oh why, have they chosen to cut up the next double page spread (see above)?? In some instances they have added a single page of nostalgic adverts (or TB1 launch sequence etc) to ensure they don't need to cut up the double page spread but I can't see a pattern to why they decided to do it this way.

I ought to mention the extra features. Graham Bleathman's cutaways feature in these hardbacks and there are newly written character profiles (Scott Tracy gets two pages in issue 1). Gerry Anderson gets two pages of his life story too in Issue 1
 
A brief Frank Bellamy biography (Part One) appears in Issue 1 and Part Two in Issue 2 where it is stated erroneously by an anonymous contributor (who Eaglemoss label "industry experts"), "When Frank Bellamy joined the Eagle in 1957 he initially worked on the religious and historical strips that were the comic's mainstay". He actually moved from Hulton Press' younger comic Swift to Eagle to start the "Happy Warrior" strip in October 1957 and then moved onto historical and religious strips. But if I asked you what the mainstay of the Eagle was, I suspect you might mention one "Pilot of the Future" not 'David the Shepherd King' or 'Marco Polo', but I think I'm getting too picky.

In Issue 2 you also get the whole of the story that appeared in TV21 #83-98 called "Solar Danger" in which Bellamy illustrates the first ten week's episodes and then the artwork is handled by Don Harley.

The last point I want to make is an interesting decision. When speech bubbles or captions appear in the original comic to cut into the middle of a double page spread Eaglemoss have digitally moved the caption.

TV21 #66

Note my arrows on this Eaglemoss scan
showing shifted captions

For those who want to know:
Issue 1 (All Bellamy):

1. Blazing danger
2. Mission to Africa 
3. Talons of the Eagle

Issue 2 (Bellamy and Harley):
Atlantic Tunnel
Solar danger
The big freeze
Issue 3: Stingray: The monster jellyfish, Curse of the Crustavons, The Atlantic kidnap affair, and The haunting of Station 17 (all Embleton)
Issue 4: Captain Scarlet: We will destroy Unity City, We will destroy the Observatory network, We will destroy earth communications and Secret Mission

Frank Bellamy and Winston Churchill reprint

The Happy Warrior: The Life Story of Sir Winston Churchill as Told Through the Eagle Comic of the 1950's (Eagle Comics) is due to be published in March/April by Unicorn Press

Paperback published by Unicorn Press

I previously wrote about the hardback American edition. David Britton, a great supporter of the Eagle Society, let me know he bought a copy of the American edition.

"The original [reprint in 1958 published shortly after the original series finished] had 64 pages with black & white photographs, which apart from the final page, only deals with Churchill. 
There is a lot more about Eagle in this version than in earlier versions. It is about 100 pages long, has the preface by the publishers "The Eagle That Dared", a slight pun, as it makes significant references to Dan Dare and presents the cover of the copy of Eagle when the story started and appears to have been written by Colin Frewin. It covers the origins and history of Eagle over 8 pages. Then the article by Richard M. Langworth (14 pages) "The Lion Still Roars" is a synopsis of Churchill's life followed by the strip, broken up into sections. Finally there is the epilogue and bibliography under "Why the Happy Warrior?". Overall it is a much more sophisticated book than the earlier [1958] version, perhaps to appeal to a wider and possibly an adult American audience."

To read a bit more go to the Unicorn Press site  - Amazon states it's a paperback of 96 pages so it does look similar (23.5 x 19 x 0.8 cm)
Let's hope they haven't made the same mistake that the 1981 reprint "High Command" and the 1958 reprint did, of omitting the final portrait that appeared in Eagle Vol 9:36 (6 September 1958)!

Thanks to Lew Stringer and John Freeman for spotting this and David for his permission to use his information 

Frank Bellamy and Waggoner's Walk

Andy's neat idea of an Advent Calendar inspired me to get out a copy of a specific image by Frank Bellamy from the Radio Times that I suspect many will never have seen before.

RADIO TIMES (06/03/1976 - 12/03/1976) page 36

I'm pretty sure that it was this image which finally convinced me in 1976 to start collecting Bellamy's published works.

The BBC say this about Waggoner's Walk:

As The Dales finally came to an end in the spring of 1969, Radio 2 launched its own soap, Waggoners Walk. This was a very different animal from the comfortable Dales or Archers and featured storylines about illegitimacy, homosexuality, abortion and a host of other hot social topics. It overtook The Archers in popularity and by the early seventies was attracting audiences of over 4 million. This did not save it from being axed in the midst of an economy drive in1980, however.

 Wikipedia says a little more:

Waggoners' Walk was a drama series that was broadcast on BBC Radio Two in 15-minute episodes, broadcast on weekday afternoons and repeated the following morning, and ran from April 1969 until 1980. It was set in an estate in Hampstead with most storylines involving the various tenants of No 1 Waggoners Walk, a large town house divided into several flats. Characters featured in the series included the Vaughan family (original owners of No 1), newspaper editor Mike Nash and his wife, Claire, and Lynn and Matt Prior, who ran a restaurant. The programme ceased broadcasting in 1980. When the BBC, as part of cut-backs, axed the series, they rejected a request from Capital Radio to take over the series. Actors who acted in the series included the Australian actor Barry Creyton. The series was created by Jill Hyem and Alan Downer and written by (amongst others) Peter Ling.


Jill Hyem, has a webpage about her experiences of choosing writing for the radio as opposed to TV acting - and further reading shows me she was behind the fantastic Tenko TV series!

Tim Brook in British Radio Drama - a cultural case history states:

Waggoner's Walk threw itself into social problems such as abortion, child custody, hypothermia, murder, and confrontations of every kind. By 1974 it had an audience of four million listeners which was much higher than the Archers. There was even a competition so that listeners could write their own plots. The suggestion that the whole cast board a bus which was then driven over the edge of a cliff was somewhat portentous because the series was axed in June 1980 as part of a money-saving plan.

So it looks (from my underlining of the above) that this was a script idea, to include a competition with a prize of £50 (now worth £305).

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If you need your fix of Waggoner's Walk, try AudioBoo for a compilation of clips and Andy Walmsley's page and the latter revisits Waggoner's Walk too with more details.

It's interesting how serendipitous Bellamy research is.... my mother-in-law lives between Skegness and Boston in Lincolnshire, and in Sibsey, a small village nearby, there's a Waggoner's Walk! Or am I still looking for some sort of meaning to what I do here and therefore seeing patterns where there are none! That's Essays In Love by Alain de Botton's influence on me.

Frank Bellamy and Boy's Own Paper 1952

It's Christmas! Here's your present which, unusually, you may open before the 25th December

From 18 January 1879 to February 1967 there were 2,511 issues of the Boy's Own Paper  which went from being a weekly to a monthly in 1913 until its demise. I would think, from those I've seen, it played a large role in youth propaganda during the Second World War. In its heyday - in my opinion 1940s to 1960 - it featured many illustrators that have mostly been forgotten. My other interest, Raymond Sheppard appeared in 34 issues from the 1930s to 1958 and Frank Bellamy produced work for 27 issues during the period March 1952 to March 1956. By 1956 he was in the thick of a weekly strip and about to, in October 1957, move onto his first continuous colour comic strip "The Happy Warrior", the life of Churchill in the Eagle comic.

December 1952 Cover Boy's Own Paper

I have previously written about C. T. Stoneham and Bellamy's illustrations of some of his work in Boy's Own Paper. I thought it was time to show, those who have never seen them, some of Frank Bellamy's lovely and interesting illustrations during the 1950s for this magazine and having finished all my Christmas shopping I had a moment free. I decided to share some pictures and also tidy up details - that only the most anally-retentive amongst you care about.

Firstly here's the content of the December issue - no Christmas theme here!

Boy's Own Paper December 1952
"River to nowhere" by Hugh B. Cave
"Suddenly the chief's son screamed a warning…"

The author Hugh Barnett Cave (1910-2004) was prolific to say the least.  His life story can be read on Wikipedia


As we have started with the December issue (a flimsy excuse indeed!) let's travel backwards in time...

BOY'S OWN PAPER Vol. 75:2 (Nov 1952)
"Whitey" by William MacMillan

William MacMillan is, like a lot of the BOP authors, a mystery. The name is too common - even among authors - for me to take a guess and confuse everyone. If the FictionMags Index has it right he wrote quite a few articles and stories from 1923-1952

BOY'S OWN PAPER Vol. 75:1 (Oct 1952)
"Man eater" by Tom Roan
Cover by Frank Bellamy

BOY'S OWN PAPER Vol. 75:1 (Oct 1952)
"Man eater" by Tom Roan
pp. 24-25
"Congo the great was billed as the most vicious man-eating lion in the world.
But his real enemies were the circus "cats" and a typhoon gave him his chance."

Tom Roan (1898-1958) wrote many pulp stories for American magazines including Bluebook, May 1952, where Bill Lohse illustrated the story when it was first published.Interesting to see how fast the UK used it.

BOY'S OWN PAPER Vol. 74:12 (Sept 1952)
"Devil-Lion" by C.T. Stoneham
pp.24-25 "A tall shaggy form came out of the leaves 
behind him…monstrous, terrible."

I've said a bit about Charles Thurley Stoneham (1895-1965) before so won't repeat it here.

BOY'S OWN PAPER Vol. 74:11 (August 1952) "No welcome" by Geoffrey Morgan
p.25
"...I pressed the other end of the spanner in his back"

Geoffrey Morgan (1916-1995) wrote extensively for the Children's Newspaper (where you can register for free and read more of his stories by searching for his name). His series about the Conway family's journeys aboard the Mirelda yacht were published by Lutterworth Press in the 1950s

BOY'S OWN PAPER Vol. 74:10 (July 1952)   
"Phantom buffalo" by Gerald Wyatt
pp.24-25

Gerald Wyatt, is here, writing about the Wild West and another few stories I have seen (for example this one) are on the same subject. I can't find any books authored by him, here or in the States.  His name appears in reprint collections that Jack Cox (the editor of BOP from 1946-1967) put together in the 1960s.

BOY'S OWN PAPER Vol. 74:8 (May 1952)
 p.24-25 "Elephant hunter" by C.T. Stoneham
"He saw the long yellow tusks thrusting at him and dived sideways..."

BOY'S OWN PAPER Vol. 74:7 (April 1952)  
"Mr. Quills wakes up" by David Stephen
pp.40-41
"The vixen reached down. 
Mr Quills felt her hot breath through a chink in his armour"

David Stephen was born in 1910 and after that I know nothing!

BOY'S OWN PAPER Vol. 74:6 (March 1952)
"There's a jungle on your doorstep!" by Alan C. Jenkins
pp32-33

Alan Charles Jenkins wrote a wealth of books and articles on subjects ranging from animal care, archaeology to Holland's sea defences. He appears to have been born in 1912 and I can't find a source that tells us whether he is still with us. Bellamy illustrated 3 of his works in Boy's Own Paper

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO YOU AND YOURS!

E-Thunderbirds Are Go!

Egmont have announced the launch of Thunderbirds e-comics! The recent publication of their hardback collection converted to e-format. There are two stories per download and the quality is very good - see below. The stories are not 'published' in chronological order.

For the moment you can download them from iTunes only - Android version to follow shortly. They have also thought of my international cousins in the United States

 

I have added all the details to my 'reprint' list of Bellamy's work in comics, starting with TV21 #141 where the first single page stories appeared

The individual issues of the books cost just £1.99 in the UK  and $2.99 in the US

Now to ensure they work on my iPad I have downloaded the first one for you to see. The fuzzy nature of the photos is due to my not cleaning the lens - not the e-books!

Zoom in on my iPad

Zoom in on my iPad

Last page to tempt you further

Original Art on Comic Book Auctions: Captain Scarlet

Lot#93 TV21 192 cover

John Freeman kindly alerted me to the fact that Comic Book Auctions are selling the original art of Frank Bellamy's cover to TV21 #192. It's Lot # 93 and priced with an estimate of £550-£650. Here's the description:


Captain Scarlet original front cover artwork (1968) by Frank Bellamy from TV 21 No 192 with original comic
Bright Pelikan inks on board. 15 x 12 ins
£550-650

UPDATE: Winning bid incl. 10% Buyer's Premium: £786 (January 2014) 


The picture above shows an issue of TV21 the comic plus the artwork and indicates, in my opinion, that the original has lost none of its vibrancy. And for those who are lucky enough to see Bellamy originals you can immediately see that the published work did him no favours - brilliant though it was!

Bellamy drew 5 covers to the TV21 comic which featured Captain Scarlet stories and to this little boy's eyes, strangely did not do the full stories. Later I understood why. He obviously had his work on Thunderbirds at the same time (and that work alone took about a week to do - two colour pages for this weekly comic!) so perhaps I'm being harsh. Don Harley completed the story in #185 and #186. We have seen Harley and Bellamy in the same area before - with Thunderbrids and Dan Dare. Jim Watson (see some of his Battle Picture Weekly art) completes the other stories listed below.

Just for the fun of it here are the other covers that Bellamy drew for the Captain Scarlet cover stories

TV21 185 (3 August 2068)

I love this design but worry about the plane carrying such flammable material!

TV21 186 (10 August 2068)

A headlonmg crash reminiscent of the Dan Dare one (below)

Eagle Vol 11:4

TV 21 & TV TORNADO 192 (21 September 2068)

Can you feel the crisp cold air on the ice? I always wondered whether boys (girls went to Lady Penelope, didn't they?) were interested in footballers and Gerry Anderson shows. I wasn't - except for one year in Secondary School!

TV 21 & TV TORNADO 193 (28 September 2068)

Bellamy was constrained by the giant advert for the Corgi Toy coupon but still thrills us with that storm

TV 21 & TV TORNADO 210 (25 January 2069)

Lastly I know that this cover is one loved by Rian Hughes and as stated on Gerry Anderson: Complete Comic History looks nothing like the more Anderson-type version inside the comic. But who's complaining?

I'll update the winning price after the auction closes on 26 November 2013