Frank Bellamy - Spring Cleaning

Over the years there have been quite a few things wrongly attributed to Bellamy along with some known forgeries! I did an article early on on this blog (which took me a while to find today!).

But today I'm presenting some things about which I have known for a while but want to open for discussion.

Gary Player / Slazenger advert
EAGLE Vol.11 No.26, 25th June 1960, p.8.

The first is a reference that David Jackson had in the checklist from way back. He recently reminded me I hadn't changed the listing to indicate I know about this. Why? Because I don't think it is Bellamy. Do I have any evidence either way? No! I said in an email to David, "I personally would say it isn't FB. Why? It looks so 'photographic' with no interpretation - just a 'fuzzy' photo made to look artistic - not an original illo, IN MY OPINION!" To which he replied:

I think you are exactly right in your analysis but completely wrong in your conclusion..! My reading of it was that FB was supplied with a photo to work from - so that is what he did. It is exactly the dot-stipple technique he had developed up to and at that time. Interestingly published in the very issue where he was experimenting with changing it in that episode of Dan Dare. Discounting the possibility it isn't someone else trying out that stipple technique over a photo...

Interestingly Player received very little for advertising the merchandise as we recently found out on his Twitter account - £5!

Over to you what do you think? Bellamy or not Bellamy?

The second one I present to the jury of Bellamy fans is Supermousse, yes! Supermousse!

Supermousse from
TV21 New Series #48 p.24 22 Aug 1971

Lew Stringer has run old comic adverts and included this one, ironically, alongside the Letraset Transfer advert that Bellamy certainly had a hand in (please excuse the pun!). He couldn't see it as Bellamy but admitted "I can't see his style in the Super Mousse one but it's possible he changed his style slightly to suit the requirements of the client. There was a regular Super Mousse strip on the back of Countdown, but that was drawn by Peter Ford I believe."

Interestingly, considering this chocolate bar is all but forgotten, demand was so high in 1970 "you'll only find it in the Midlands and South England" it said on the advert in August 1971. It would have been too hot to store in Summer anyway! On  my other blog I've uploaded all the Supermoose adventures I could find but the actual stories appear to be by Peter Ford.

Is this Bellamy or not?

Let me know your thinking!

Frank Bellamy is still being published!

Look closely!

Over on my newly renamed Frank Bellamy Artwork Facebook page I often throw links to Bellamy I've found,  or recent news stories I don't think worth adding an article here about. But today I'm inspired to draw several threads (bad pun) together.

A young Paul Merton lookalike?

John Freeman and Jonathan Wyke alerted me to the fact that Bellamy jumpers (and scarves gentlemen!) are now available. But watch your bank account before hitting that Pay button! I'd love to know why Lou Dalton printed them in black and white and not colour.

Scarves

For some great images (and an appreciation of Thunderbirds) see Nick Carvell, the Fashion Editor of GQ.co.uk page. I'm still amazed that people who produce Bellamy materials don't send me free copies to promote their products but maybe it's because I do it anyway! I won't be buying the jumpers or the scarves, as they cost quite a bit, the jumpers, £250 and the scarves, £120.They are available to buy exclusively online at Lou Dalton for obsessive fans!

Both products are in three colours: bottle green, dirty pink (!) and white and they suggest you could wear them with their neoprene funnel neck blouson (see image at top of this article). Personally that image doesn't work for me with the Parthal's plane shooting downwards.But my family will tell you I know nothing about fashion! My eldest daughter tells me off if she thinks I should buy a new 'going-out' shirt! Anyway I apologise for not crediting the photographer as I couldn't find his/her name. As Jonathan points out they didn't credit Frank Bellamy either!

Thunderbirds duvet with Bellamy artwork

Moving swiftly on there's also a duvet cover using Bellamy's artwork which is a lot cheaper at £29 (and I hesitate to ask my wife to sew two singles together!). For those who need to know, the Thunderbirds Single Duvet Set includes one duvet cover and one pillow case made of polycotton and is machine washable and is available easily online from Isme and sister site Very.This reminded me that I saw something by Bellamy previously used as a duvet cover and after asking on Facebook, Shaqui came back with one of his 'Easter eggs' from his wonderful site:

If anyone has a copy - or a photo - Shaqui and I would love to see it. It was being sold by Undercover of Deer Park, Gnosall, Staffordshire in 1992.

This of course brings us back to the clothing line above which uses Bellamy's designs from the story that appeared in TV Century 21 #141 - 146 (30 September 2067 - 4 November 2067), "The Earthquake Maker" written, we believe by Scott Goodall. The story is about a man called Parthal who creates eathquakes!


As you've stayed this long you deserve to see the printed story from which some of the above artwork originates.

TV21 #146 Art by Frank Bellamy

TV21 #146 Art by Frank Bellamy

And finally back to books. Lew Stringer spotted that a second volume of Thunderbirds the classic comic collection is due in November. Amazon has some details Thunderbirds The Comic Collection Volume 2.  The cover looks to be by Graham Bleathman and the details are somewhat thin, (witnessed by the following, "Warning: Not suitable for children under 3 years. For use under adult supervision") so I'll add more when they become a bit clearer, but the blurb sounds promising:
 Fifty years after Thunderbirds first blasted off onto British TV, discover the comic strips that captured the thrill and excitement of the cult TV series in spectacular style. This dazzling collection features the first twelve comic strips illustrated by the legendary Frank Bellamy originally published in the 1960’s.
  

Due in November 2015

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Egmont (5 Nov. 2015)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1405279214
• ISBN-13: 978-1405279215
• Product Dimensions: 21.6 x 2.4 x 28 cm

Frank Bellamy still sells Thunderbirds products

I am so excited! Like a child in a sweet toyshop! "In shops now...!" I could say.

Messenger bag with Frank Bellamy's Thunderbirds art (RRP: £24.99)

I remember in the Sixties wishing so hard that I could get the comic stickers, notebooks etc etc that was advertised in Marvel and DC comics and wishing we had the equivalent range of comic toys, bags, alarm clocks for UK comics! Imagine when I found out that these are coming our way in the UK and with FRANK BELLAMY ARTWORK!!

Perhaps I should calm down and tell you more without using exclamation marks.

Thunderbirds flask with Frank Bellamy's Artwork

Firstly it was thanks to John Freeman over on Downthetubes.net that I found all this out.  I then went hunting and found that the 50th anniversary of Thunderbirds (how old does that make me?) has a raft of merchandising opportunities with it and that "during the last significant licensing programme in 2001, the brand was worth over £150m at retail" (see the full article on Licensing.biz).

Thunderbirds was on our screens for the first time in 1965 and the new Thunderbirds series - being produced in New Zealand (read more than you need to know here on the Fanderson website) will only increase excitement for little children like me.

Travel set with Frank Bellamy's Thunderbirds art

Trudy Hayward says elsewhere: "The new series looks stunning and we have every confidence that it will be a massive global hit. There is a huge affection for this much-loved brand in the UK where it is a national treasure and there are also many exciting themes and characters that will chime with global audiences tuning in for the first time. The series will be supported by one of our biggest ever marketing and retail campaigns ”  

Thunderbirds gadget case with Frank Bellamy's artwork (RRP:£24.99)

Housewares product designer, developer and distributor Bunkerbound are the company behind these products which should appear in shops this month. I have listed the Recommended Retail Price against each image with a link to further details under each image.  Bunkerbound's sales department kindly sent me the larger images and you can see the range and their fuller descriptions here

Thunderbirds alarm clock with Frank Bellamy's artwork (RRP: £22.99)

If like me you spotted that they all appear to use the same collage of images from Frank Bellamy ('Thunderbirds') , Eric Eden ('Lady Penelope')  and also, I think, John Cooper ('Thunderbirds'). Please let me know if you know who the other artists are if I'm wrong!

UPDATE:
TemptationGifts will be retailing these later this year. Their site is full of merchandised characters

Frank Bellamy and Blackpool

Blackpool 1976

On the 21 June 1976 Frank Bellamy submitted his bill of £145* to BBC Enterprises for his work on the Doctor Who Exhibition - Blackpool poster. He was commissioned by Lorne Martin, Assistant to Exhibitions Manager, on 10 March 1976 and had to have the art with the printers by 17 April 1976. He was asked to include the then current Doctor, Tom Baker and "the monsters displayed in Blackpool" and was provided with some photographic reference. He had his attention specifically drawn to "those marked with a red cross [which] are this year's new additions, and should therefore be given prominence".

The Blackpool Exhibition opened its doors, according to Kevin Taylor's Doctor Who Exhibitions site, in 10 April 1974, so it seems the poster illustrated here preceded Bellamy's one in 1976. The earlier poster (which is clearer here)  has a Cyberman, a Draconian, Aggedor, the Wirrn and K1 Robot. These characters appeared in Season 11-12 (1973-74, 1974-75). Bellamy's poster includes from the top left, Marcus Scarman (a servant of Sutekh from Pyramids of Mars), Brain of Morbius, Cyberman, Silurian,Dalek, and from top right, Sontaran, Kraal, Zygon, Sea Devil who generally appeared in the later Season 13 (1975–76). So despite David Bellamy's comment in the Timeview book of 1985, which included from the original artwork,  that the piece was used "between 1975 and 1977", it seems obvious it started being used in 1976

Timeview page 55

The story does not end there.

I spotted something strange on Dave Copsey's website - and wrote to him asking about the picture he had as....the Doctor is smiling in this version!

What's On in Blackpool 1976 Cover

Doctor Who Exhibition advert 1976

Close-up of Bellamy's art from Timeview

Close-up of the smiling Tom Baker!

It' a very clean change that's been made - the eye has more detail filled in, the cross-hatching on the smile has used the lines already there. But who (sorry!) is the artist who amended the artwork? Was it Bellamy himself? The timings say perhaps not as in July of 1976 he had passed away. Why do it? Was it that scary or depressing? If so, why not use photos - after all even if BBC Enterprises weren't part of the Corporation at that time surely they would have some agreement to use materials?

* Price comparisons for your interest, but note some things "cheaper" now as the technology has brought the price down in comparative terms mean :
From Radio Times 3-9 July 1976:

1. An advert for "Plumbs 3-piece suite covers" on the back cover shows the cost reduced from £16.55 to £7.95. Compare that to 2012....oh, you can't! But one price I read online said £1000. But a more conservative comparison would be £480 from a different 'covers' website.
2. In the same Radio Times we see Pan, Penguin and New English Library paperbacks in a W H Smith's advert and an example is John Wyndham's Day of the Triffids in a Penguin edition paperback 60p - in 2012 the same costs £7.00
3. Peugeot 104 (954cc) new is £1842.75 including VAT, Car tax, seat belts) - 2012, the 107 (1000cc)  is £8745 plus!

Draw your own conclusions!

=====ADDED 23 OCT 2012=====

FROM TIM KEABLE:
I'm absolutely gobsmacked by this! Never knew it existed. I firmly believe that Bellamy was responsible for the amendment as it's not just the smile but also the Doctor's hand.

I think Bellamy probably had second thoughts about it himself and decided to make  these changes off his own back. The hand in the amended version is much nicer in my opinion.

Maybe he was asked to change the Doctor's expression but then took the opportunity to change the hand as well. We'll never know.

All I'm going on is my own experience. I've done similar things to my own art after publication. Sometimes you don't notice an error until it's too late. Sometimes you just want to tweak.

I'd love to see the original. I bet there's scrape marks all over those areas on the CS10!

There was also a small promotional poster (slightly smaller than A4) An example of the wording added:

 "SEE THE DOCTOR'S LATEST ENEMIES AT THE BBC DOCTOR WHO EXHIBITION, BLACKPOOL. ENTRANCE ON THE GOLDEN MILE (OPPOSITE CENTRAL PIER).OPEN DAILY FROM 10AM UNTIL OCTOBER 31ST.

The poster is yellow with the writing in blue/green. The artwork depicts Tom Baker with his clothes colored in blue/green while the monsters are all in black and white. Finally the artwork for the poster is reproduced in "Timeview" on page 42.

Frank Bellamy competition poster

Mike Higgs (who sent me the recent  Old Bones picture) has done it again! You can imagine that I have all sorts of alerts out there on the Internet for Bellamy things. But this escaped my eagle eye, so thanks again Mike.

Special Auction Services sold a poster recently that -incredibly- we knew nothing about! The description reads:

Frank Bellamy - Southern Railway Poster Artwork, 'South for Sunshine' painted by Frank A Bellamy, for an RAAS competition, circa 1935, original artwork in poster paint on hardboard, Kettering home address to reverse, 42'' x 27''; as a competition entry, it is believed that this design was not used by the SR; Bellamy later became a legendary commercial illustrator, notably with Dan Dare for the Eagle comic in the 1950s [sic] and for Century 21 titles in the 1960s, G some minor stains and scuffing Estimate: 150-250 

It went for a hammer price of £200

It's interesting in many ways. If it is 1935 it's one of the earliest existing Bellamy pieces that I have come across. I would love to know what RAAS stands for.Also the style is unusual, but because it is an early example of his work this is likely to be the case. This certainly shows confidence in a self taught 18 year old!


UPDATE:
In the comments I received some further thoughts:
Tony Smith suggests "Royal Academy of Arts and Science" and John from the Netherlands says "Could the competition have a link to the RAS, instead of RAAS?"

Baked Beans and Bellamy

Steve Holland forwarded a piece of information which reminded me to post this picture. I had always listed Countdown as being the earliest copy of the advert for Crosse & Blackwell Baked Beans, but Steve has trumped me

Look and Learn 485, dated 1st May 1971 has the wonderful piece by Bellamy

© Look and Learn Magazine Ltd

Bellamy produced a lovely clear picture of knights in battle to illustrate the free pictures (on the rear of the wrappers)for the series "Life as it was 600 years ago". I can't personally remember seeing the wrappers, but feel that C&B beans were too expensive for my family at that time!

I've added large scans on the Advertising page of the website, as usual click on the Note



If you spot an earlier appearance I'd love to know

Frank Bellamy and Letraset transfers

LETRASET

Letraset's  Space Adventure Transfers

 None the of the above is Bellamy's artwork, but he did do the advertising artwork for the Space Adventures which I know appeared in TV21 and also Smash comic around October 1969 (a Christmas stocking filler?). Here's Bellamy's artwork and obviously the advert with Bellamy's art appeared in lots of UK comics at the time and not just TV21, it was just convenient to list that as I can say with authority it was the first TV21 appearance of the advert!

TV21 #242 the last issue before joining Joe 90

If you follow the links on his site you'll browse through a load of memories - if you're my age - which have sunk down in the brainpan, but have been quickly re-awakened! To save you time here's the link to the actual contents of this particular Action Transfer set.

Dean, the owner of the - the defunct - 7 Wonders site gave me permission to share images with you. As his site is now down I'm uploading what was there, none of which are Bellamy's artwork.  Read more about Letraset here

Tom Vinelott let me know:

Just to let you know that all Dean's Letraset scans on Seven Wonders moved over to Action-Transfers.com many months ago, so any links you may have on your site (I only checked a couple) will now be pointing to the wrong page.

 

Tom Vinelott's site 

 

Frank Bellamy licks the Daleks into shape

Shaqui and I had some email correspondence recently after I alerted him to the fact that Frank Bellamy had produced some Dalek material for Wall's Ice Cream around September 1975. Even research in the Unilever Archives showed me they do not retain any part of this series except the front part of a wrapper!



"The Dalek Death Ray wrappers was a revelation - I was kicking myself for not recognizing the style but then the repro is mushy at best and I didn't think Bellamy would do stuff like this!" Of course when he says 'mushy' I don't think he was making a pun - these wrappers were covering ICE lollies, after all and had a tendency to make the wrappers mushy! However, in his usual helpful manner, he supplied some examples so we could see what they looked like.

Shaqui tells me that Wall's Ice Cream published two series of Dalek material in the first half of the 1970s. The first series was called 'From the world of the Daleks...', while the second, non-Bellamy, one is called 'The Incredible Daleks...' The titles from the first series are:

The Grenium Invisibility System

Daleks and the Ancient Britons

The Swamp Creatures of Terroth

When the Daleks Flooded the Earth!

The Cyclops Z-Ray

A Dalek Deep Space Battle Cruiser

Dalek Officer

Transmol

Shaqui then told me something that I didn't know about this series: "The other interesting trivia note for the Bellamy series is all bar one ('Dalek Officer' although I think some notes come from some cutaway seen but the approach is quite different) are taken from the 1976 Dalek annual: 'Terroth' and 'Flooded' are based on the two strip stories, while the 'Cruiser' appears in a text story. 'Transmol', 'Z-Ray', and 'Grenium' are from one of those 'amazing Dalek facts/technology' features, while there is a mention of Daleks on Earth in AD42 in another."

Concepts for Bellamy work from this annual - Artist unknown

It should be stressed that no Bellamy artwork appears in  Dalek Annual 1976, and this would have been published at the end of Summer 1975 for Christmas sales in 1975. 

An eBay seller helpfully put some of these up for sale and here is one to show what the back looked like complete

Front and rear of a Bellamy Dalek's Death Ray

Bellamy had correspondence with Eric Fletcher of "Scheme", (presumably the agency creating the designs for Wall's). In it he mentions that "we could sit the creature with the fangs on a sort of 'all-seeing' eye." Could this be the design Alan Davis has on his website? Why was it not used?

 Lastly, in the correspondence mentioned above, a series called "Solar System" is mentioned. Did Bellamy do it? - We have no other reference to it

Walls Wonderman and Frank Bellamy

I wanted to show two pieces of Bellamy's work that is little known but was seen by millions of boys and girls in 1969 and 1970: Wall's Wonderman! I know it appeared in Smash, Lion and in Valiant, but can you add to the list?

In January 1970 Lintas Advertising Agency approached Bellamy to produce two comic strip adverts for their character Wonderman, a superhero who doles out lollies and confuses the name of his super-powers! He meets Jimmy Carter - no, not the ex-President! - and a Walls Van driver and saves the day!

Walls Wonderman and the Martian Inferno

Walls Wonderman and the Bridge of Terror

Bellamy also produced some Point-Of-Sale material and fortunately Alan Davis saved a photo from destruction. It's obvious Walls Wonderman's right arm is vanished because something would be placed over it such as a label which is local to the shop selling it, or maybe some other purpose.

Walls Wonderman photo from Bellamy's studio - Thanks to Alan Davis

Although the three illustration adverts below show they were commissioned by Lintas, and elements look to be by Bellamy are they his work?

Foreign Stamps offer

Moon Stamps offer

Wonder-Kite offer

If you look at the comments below you'll see Peter mentions an animation. The History of Advertising Trust have one on their site.


Here are some other images, just to make sure you see them all. Which are Bellamy and which are influenced by his initial concepts is hard to say. I'm open to comments.

Funundrum competition

Thirst-quenching Woppas

Walls advertising tin sign

Detail