Saturday 31 August 2013

Frank Bellamy and Doctor Janet Brown

This is going to be a very short piece....you know as much as I do about this.....I promised a new discovery of a piece from Bellamy, and here it is.

Doctor Janet Brown
Jeff Haythorpe, who has kindly shared so much artwork over the 13 years that I've been doing this research on Bellamy, just popped this into my inbox with no more clue than I had.

The word balloons say "So at last - Doctor Janet Brown - aren't you pleased?" with two name plaques - one with Dr. D. A. Brown and one with Doctor Janet Brown. Is this a husband and wife practice? An article on conquering sexism? A story of a country General Practice?

The three portraits look as if they might have been 'spotted' throughout an article/story, but the panel looks so like a comic panel that I half think it is too unusual for a romance magazine....but I have no idea really. I have no records to match anything here. The style looks very like the Monty Carstairs era, i.e. 1953.

I asked David Slinn (who worked in UK comics during the 50s and 60s) what he thought, and he replied:

"As I’m sure you’ve come across in researching magazines and newspapers of the early 1950s, small line portraits of the main characters were dotted about the text (even repeated during the run of a serial), either with or without a main illustration; or little vignettes of “typical professions” appeared in advertisements."
 

So there you go. Does anyone know anything about this? Let me know.

And for no other reason than I mentioned the Monty Carstairs strip from Mickey Mouse Weekly, here's an arbitrary page from 21 November 1953 just because it looks so good!

Monty Carstairs from Mickey Mouse Weekly 21 November 1953



2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Norman,

It looks more like a father-daughter thing (in the good sense).
Daughter just became a doctor, and her proud father welcomes her into his, now their, practice.
She looks young enough to be his daughter...

Best, John

Norman Boyd said...

Thanks for that John.

Another 'commenter' said:
Here we have Dr. D.R. Brown, his just-qualified daughter, Dr. Janet Brown and a, supposedly, eminent hospital consultant. The single frame could equally depict, either the start or the denouement of the accompany storyline and, just to cover all eventualities, perhaps, during her finals, Janet was having difficulties getting a good night’s sleep... ... ...

Or, in a word, Norman, it is a bit of a puzzle – and I’ll be intrigued to learn where Jeff Haythorpe chanced upon it.