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?

More original art sales and Dez Skinn too

UPDATES AUCTION PRICES BELOW IN RED

Just got back from holiday in Scotland and so am catching up with emails, RSS feeds, etc. etc. Of course I found a Bellamy connection with the place I stayed but more on that later. Some call it obsession...I call it serendipity!

So here are a few quick Bellamy items

Thanks to Lew Stringer I was alerted to Dez Skinn's latest story regarding the "the ones that got away". If you take a look at the covers shown (reproduced below), you'll see Dez's love of Bellamy.

On eBay recently we saw 2 bids on a Garth strip from the "The angels of hell's Gap" story (episode #J65) which sold for £67

But even more exciting is the current auction of three more Garths, one of which is especially rare. It's the title panel of "The Man-Hunt" story of Garth (episode #K239). Why so rare? None of the other title strips have appeared in auction or for sale to my knowledge since I started watching the Internet in 1993.

SOLD FOR £410 (with 26 bids)

This seller is also selling an episode from "The Wreckers" story (#G267) and also an episode from "The Orb of Trimandias" (#F86)

 

SOLD FOR £99.88 (with 10 bids)

SOLD FOR £129 (with 17 bids)

The same seller is auctioning off a beautiful Thunderbirds page from TV21 #54. This, for those who don't know, is the third page in black and white that Bellamy produced. Unbelievably for 14 weeks he drew a full colour double page spread plus a black and white ink wash. And this is from the 3rd week.

NOT SOLD FOR £1000 BEST OFFER

I'll be updating this page with the final prices fetched. While waiting take a look at the piece sold by Comic Book Auctions site and the price realised on my updated post

Frank Bellamy writes letters

"Comic Media Vol 2 no 2 whole number 9" it says in the indices. This particular issue of Nick Landau's fanzine carried an extensive interview with Peter O'Donnell (Modesty Blaise's creator) and an advert drawn by someone called Dave Gibbons (end irony) but is more of interest to Bellamy completists because Frank Bellamy wrote a letter that was published.

This wasn't the only letter we know about.

Bellamy also wrote to Dez Skinn's Fantasy Advertiser and Mike Tiefenbacher and Jerome Sinkovec Menomonee Falls Gazette

Fantasy Advertiser Vol. 3:43 May 1972, (no page numbers) had the usual Battlefield! letter column and the first letter taking pride of place is by Bellamy (incidentally that Dave Gibbons artwork also appears here too!)

and lastly (until more are discovered) the one from Menomonee Falls Gazette

This brilliant newspaper/magazine was published reprinting strips from all over the world in black and white. Garth started on September 4 1972 with the opening episode of Sundance which was not illustrated by Bellamy. This seems odd but if the guys hadn't reprinted this the Bellamy  episode wouldn't help them understand the story. Bellamy actually started in September 18 number 40

Tiefenbacher and Sinkovec wrote a letter asking for explanation of Allard's role in the strip's creation Bellamy's reply is interesting. Follow the links above (and as usual click on the NOTE links) to see the full copies on the website