Frank Bellamy and Lilliput

I was browsing my collection of Bellamy magazines and realised I have never shared anything about Lilliput magazine. I recently supplied some information to Paul Liss, a fine art dealer, (see the catalogue of Raymond Sheppard's work) and thought it worth showing some of Sheppard's contemporary, Bellamy's work from that very popular magazine. One day I might emulate the late great historian Alan Bullock and do a parallel lives of the two of them.

Stefan Lorant created Lilliput in July 1937. “The Pocket Magazine for Everyone” certainly was pocket-sized (it grew in size later in 1954, presumably as all rationing ended in England and consumerism really took off)  One of the lovely things about sitting page turning in the British Library is that you really get a flavour for a period. I am in love with the 1950s. The plethora of illustrations in these magazines is amazing. Line work with wash, cartoons, caricatures and so on. All the names are there too: Eric Fraser's bold lines; Robin Jacques delicate pointillism , Neville Dear adventurous illustrations and so on. The most famous was Ronald Searle, whose St. Trinians cartoons appeared from October 1941 until he (unsuccessfully) killed off the characters in 1951. July 1960 was the last issue of Lilliput which - like many children's comics of my youth, contained so called 'good news' - the merger with Men Only (more of which in a later article).

 Bellamy's work in Lilliput,  began in 1954 at the time he had a regular strip in Mickey Mouse Weekly, 'Monty Carstairs' and also he was doing regular illustrations for Boy's Own Paper. The following year he was illustrating for Everybody's (another prestigious magazine that Sheppard also illustrated for) and Outspan, the South African equivalent of Everybody's. All this from a self-taught artist from Kettering, Northamptonshire

Gerald Durrell (January 7, 1925 – January 30, 1995) was first published a year before this article appeared in Lilliput - 'Overloaded ark' appeared in 1953 and of course his Bafut Beagles (his "party of native specimen hunters" from Cameroon) were equally famous at the time . It would be fantastic to know how Bellamy was chosen to illustrate this story called "Que-Fong-Goo" - the native name for the skink illustrated. Illustrators were very important to Durrell's work (see Wikipedia)  he was no mean artist himself - but Bellamy obviously didn't make enough of an impression on Durrell for him to request him at a later date. But that's all supposition on my part! 

The six illustrations accompanying this article are all by Bellamy and show his love of all things native. Remember references for these things had to be worked at - no Internet back then - and photos of Bellamy at home show his collection of Africana

Bellamy's stippling (that mass of dot s that provide perspective in the illustration above) and line work here are very mature. I'm sure he knew this was a prestigious commission and as we can see he went on to do six more commissions for Lilliput. I suspect by the end of 1956 his regular work in Swift (and then Eagle later in 1957) plus these odd commissions were enough work to keep his small family comfortable

 All illustrations are copyright of their owner, which I'm guessing is IPC (who acquired much of Odhams, who acquired Hulton. Please contact me (feedbackATfrankbellamyDOTcom) if anyone can enlighten me

Original Art: Garth on eBay - Spanish Lady

UPDATE: Sold for £135 (March 2011) with 10 bids

K77 of the Spanish Lady story

This time we have an auction on eBay for K77 in the The Spanish Lady strip. This isn't one of my favourite periods of Bellamy on Garth, but still worth looking at as it's drawn in the last year of his life and of course is an original. On the endlessly interesting ComicArtFans site, Steven Taylor has a picture of K79 (2 strips later than this one for auction). The original story ran from 17 March 1976 - 7 August 1976 (K65-K160)

Original Art on Comic Book Auctions: Thunderbirds

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

Comic Book Auctions Ltd has launched it Spring 2011 catalogue with bidding closing on Tuesday 15 March 2011 at 8 PM UK Time.

The piece that will be of particular interest to Bellamy fans is Thunderbirds original artwork (1968) from TV Century 21 No 166 - Lot number 178.

Thunderbirds original artwork (1968) by Frank Bellamy for TV Century 21 No. 166
Unaware that Brains is still alive and held captive by The Hood, Jeff Tracy stands helpless as a successful attack is launched on Tracy Island International Rescue HQ where Thunderbirds 2 and 3 are destroyed. Now Thunderbirds 4 must counter-attack …
Pelikan inks on board. With loose laser copied ‘Thunderbirds’ header for attachment if desired. 18 x 14 ins £1,500-2,000

This story is one of my most fondly remembered. Imagine my shock as a kid seeing Brains dead - and what's more it went on for 8 episodes and therefore the suspense was great especially having to wait a week between episodes (TV21 162 - 169 (24 February 1968 - 13 April 1968 - or 2068 as it futuristically said on the comic!) I wondered how the Hood managed to do sky lettering in that smoke, but hey, it was the future - the 21st century!

This original art looks especially 'new' with the colours very bright. But more interestingly I wonder why someone (presumably at TV21) has crossed out Bellamy's neat writing saying this is episode 5 and putting instead p.10. It would have been page 10 and weekly epsiode number 5 as he had written on it.

Below are the two pages of the episode for your reading pleasure (notice how the original and this scan compare) and many thanks to 'Wayne' for reminding me the auction was now on!

Garth reappears in the Daily Mirror

UPDATE: The Angels of Hell's Gap reprinted in colour!

© Daily Mirror

Above is the scan I did of the newly reprinted first episode of "The Angels of Hell's Gap" from the Daily Mirror dated today - Monday 21 February 2011. It's been coloured by Martin Baines - which of course was impossible back in 1975, as we only got coloured newsprint in 1986 in the UK. The original story ran from 15 January 1975 to 2 May (Episodes J12-J101).

Also notice the classic reprints of The Perishers by Collins and Dodd. When cutting and collecting the daily Garths from the Daily Mirror in the 70s, I regularly read the Perishers and it's interesting to see how it hasn't dated

Well done Daily Mirror - we're now looking forward to you announcing a complete reprint of Bellamy's Garth strips in hardback - Norman dreaming again!

---

© Daily Mirror

There's an announcement on the Daily Mirror's website that they are publishing Garth again. He will re-appear in the Monday 21st February 2011 edition apparently. Former Mirror cartoon editor Ken Layson says:

Garth was the brainchild of cartoonist Steve Dowling, who based him loosely on Superman. But the hero really shot to prominence under the ground-breaking artwork of the late Frank Bellamy, who had sketched Dan Dare before turning to Garth in the early 70s.

Ken says: “When Bellamy took over, the character of Garth took off. His artwork was dynamic with strong shadows and beautifully sculpted figures.”

Frank, who died in 1976, also put the strip into the comic strip. Ken explains: “There was quite a bit of nudity in the 70s Garth. Frank’s wife was the model for most of those half-naked ladies.”

In 2008 they produced new adventures of Garth for the first time since 1997 (Martin Asbury was both writer and artist in 1997 having taken over from Bellamy)  - read more about that on John Freeman's site


However they go on to say: Now the hero’s old adventures are set to enthral both nostalgic fans and a new generation of readers. Start queueing at your local newsagents as this reads like reprints to me!

Link: http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2011/02/18/comic-hero-garth-returns-to-the-daily-mirror-115875-22930756/

Original Art: Thunderbirds on eBay

Just a quick reminder that 'tweedacademy' is selling a top notch piece on eBay. That guy must have a collection of Bellamy originals! He has set this double page spread of Thunderbirds at £3,500, which is a large sum of money but this looks to be in very good condition. The Buy It Now option expires on 6 March, 2011 so if you have the money go for it now.

From TV21 number 125, this is part one of the 11th story to appear. The Hood does his usual stuff and exposes Tracey Island. Read all about the story at Shaqui and friends' site. If you enlarge this scan of the whole comic you'll see the original art actually exposes the beautiful colour Bellamy produced that despite much care could not be reproduced well at the time. Shame this hasn't been scanned and reproduced in the Century21 reprints by Reynolds & Hearn

TV21 125

 

Frank Bellamy and the Wright Brothers

©  BBC Magazines Ltd

I've just had a holiday and started reading Moondust: In Search of the Men Who Fell to Earth by Andrew Smith in which he tracks down as many of the 12 astronauts who have walked on the Moon as he can as well as the Command Module pilots. People of my generation will love this book. But the thing that struck me was how from 1903 (the first flight man made with an aeroplane) to 1972 (the last manned Moon landing) was just one generation. Who was more brave, the former or the latter? No idea, but this blog is focussing on the Wright Brothers and reading around the web, I find myself in awe of the two brothers as well as the Apollo astronauts - especially as I type on a computer X more times as powerful as the computational power they had!

The Washington Times in 2003 had a great article on the centenary of the Wright Brothers' accomplishment called "The Wright stuff … and the wrong" in which it shows the Smithsonian didn't even acknowledge the event previously. However, that humble pie, which the Smithsonian ate must have tasted good as their online presence is really good now and shows many exhibits including a large jpg of the original successful flying machine. The Aeronautical Engineering Collection of the The Franklin Institute in Philadelphia were designated by Wilbur Wright as the benefactors of their archives including their notes on scraps of wallpaper!


In relation to Bellamy's work on this subject, we can also view the original telegram sent by Orville Wright to his father, Bishop Milton Wright, at this site,and if this has picqued your interest, here's a list of links on the history of early flight

©  BBC Magazines Ltd

Up to 1972, Bellamy had produced many black and white, and colour illustrations and comic strips for the Radio Times under the Editor Geoffrey Cannon (who was in place between 1969-1979). More importantly, David Driver (previously mentioned on this blog) was the person who commissioned Bellamy during this most interesting period of Bellamy's non-comics period. Driver was Art Editor for the Radio Times 1969-1978 before becoming Deputy and Features Editor.

Tim Barnes, who owns the black and white original of page 55 (Radio Times 22 January to 28 January 1972)  has kindly supplied pictures of the art with and without the overlay. Often even this can give valuable clues to how these things are dealt with in magazine publishing. The overlay in this case shows "reduce to 28½ ems wide (as to trace)" and in pencil we can see 'cut away metal' which s where the text will wrap around the illustrations.

Original art

Bellamy must have been supplied with photographic reference for this but I suspect, as usual he made of it what he wanted and laid down his design skills. Incidentally when you enlarge these pictures you'll notice that the article actually has a third page but no Frank Bellamy artwork therefore I have not scanned it. And interestingly the Radio Times date on this page is wrong. The Radio Times is usually dated from Saturday to Friday (in 1972, Saturday fell on 22 January, not 20 January!)

EXTRA - Read all about it!
Having made contact with David Driver (mentioned above)  he wrote about this blog entry :

My word, I had forgotten this particular sequence, but I certainly designed these pages,
and again in conversation with Frank, he had expressed an interest in this subject.
As I got to know Frank as a friend, I encouraged him to let me know what he fancied drawing,
so that when the subjects emerged, I was able to marry him with a story. That is how
Movie Crazy Years emerged as a cover, feature and ongoing programme page vignettes.
When he took on Garth, that somewhat curtailed the regular commissions for Radio Times,
which I deeply regretted.

Thanks David for those memories

and

Thanks to Bill Storie for reminding me I could have 'bookended' this with Bellamy's work on the Moon landing - Now done via this link!

Original Art: Garth on eBay - Sundance

I noticed our old friend 'tweedacademy' has another unique Bellamy for sale on eBay. He is auctioning E173 of the Sundance strip.

UPDATE: Sold for £227 (February 2011) with 32 bids

As Nick Landau explains in the Titan reprint "The cloud of Balthus" Steve Dowling the creator of Garth took on a young assistant John Allard in 1943. "On Dowling's retirement in 1968, Allard took over Garth until a permanent replacement could be found." which of course happened in 1971 with the 13th strip in the Sundance story.

The strange thing was he stayed on making amendments to Bellamy's art, by changing ballon layouts or by adding something Bellamy never used to my knowledge, Letraset, or what the Americans call 'zip-a-tone' In reply to a letter received by the editors of the newspaper reprint title "Menomonee Falls Gazette" Bellamy said

You ask about the functions of Jim Edgar and John Allard. Well Jim Edgar is the scriptwriter. John Allard was on the strip for a number of years before I was called upon to draw it. He sometimes letters the balloons. However, I now do all the drawing, but the credits remain. Sounds confusing... it is!

Follow the link to read the full story on that.

I thought this might be the opportunity to share something I scanned crudely many moons ago. I really wish I had been more careful with my references, but all I can tell you it's definitely Boy's Own Paper and page  451 - and comes from around the early 1950s. I think it's  author is Godsell (the excellent Fiction Mags Index site says "GODSELL, PHILIP H(enry) (1889-1969); Canadian writer; spent 20 years in Hudson’s Bay Company and wrote about his experiences" soi it's not unlikely to be the same guy

Wikipedia has an article on the Sun Dance (two words)and at the Native People of Canada site you can see a portion of this very photograph.

For those who think I'm going too far off track, here's a selection of the story reprinted in the afore-mentioned  "Menomonee Falls Gazette" (with thanks to Pete the Pipster for the scan)

Click to enlarge 

Garth © Mirror Newspaper Group PLC