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.

Fans of Frank: Andy Walker

By Andy Walker

In my continuing series (where I unashamedly ask fans of Frank to tell me why they are) I had my attention drawn to this interesting piece on eBay which at first glance made me think of Orson Welles and then I realised it was in a style like Bellamy's. I wrote to the seller - Andy himself - and he replied:

I have just listed my Frank Bellamy inspired comic strip artwork on eBay. I think I first encountered his amazing artwork in the form of reprints of his THUNDERBIRDS comic strip in the pages of Polystyle's COUNTDOWN comic. The artwork that really struck me however were the illustrations he did based on DOCTOR WHO for the RADIO TIMES in the early to mid 1970s. He was one of those very gifted artists who had that almost indefinable extra something that always shone through all of this work. This artwork of mine is a humble nod to an amazing talent that has inspired an entire generation of artists across the globe!

 His description on ebay explains a bit further:

"THE TRAVELLER" ORIGINAL COMIC STRIP ARTWORK SIGNED BY UK ILLUSTRATOR ANDY WALKER. This is a high quality, full colour double page comic strip rendered in black Indian ink, coloured inks and gouache on thick watercolour board. It was originally commissioned in 1987 as a promotional piece of artwork for the "Traveller" series of books which failed to be published. My brief was to produce a double page comic strip splash in the style of the hugely popular British comic strip artist Frank Bellamy. "The Traveller" books were a series of 5 novels that sadly remains unpublished, however all 5 covers won me many future commissions and formed a crucial part of my original portfolio.The 5 stories concerned the journeys through time of a mysterious character known only as "The Traveller". Sound familiar? Perhaps that's why they remain unpublished!

Take a look at Andy's other sales to see more of his more mature artwork including another Traveller artwork which shows he had Brian Blessed rather than Orson Welles in mind (in my opinion!)UPDATE: and of course have a look at his website which I almost forgot to mention!

So for Andy here's the first Bellamy story form Polystyle's Countdown comic which was the 1970s answer to TV21 in which Frank Bellamy's Thunderbirds strips were reprinted (and Don Harley drew new art for Thunderbirds stories too). The editor was the former Art Editor of TV21, Dennis Hooper. Read more about it on Lew Stringer's ever interesting blog. I have reproduced the reprint of the first part of the story from TV21 #59 (5 March 2066). Presumably the reprint was cheap, but after hacking Bellamy's artwork from 3 pages to 2 and in black and white, surely it would have been easier just to reprint as was!

Countdown, #24, 31 July 1971

Countdown, #24, 31 July 1971

Andy mentions his love of Doctor Who too so here's a set of those famous cameos that were printed at size12/16 inch width by 1 inch tall - yes I checked! The paper of the Radio Times at that time was of a pulp feel and therefore reproduction wasn't superb. Here are three of the Doctors up to that point - from left to right Jon Pertwee, Patrick Troughton, William Hartnell

Radio Times - various

Lastly, just because we mentioned Countdown here's the cover of the issue that saw Bellamy's reprint start which shows, what I think must be Roy Cross artwork for the Airfix Saturn V - let me know if I'm wrong. A very iconic image for little boys my age - and covered later by Mike Noble on a cover of Look-In (where the former TV21 editor Alan Fennell was resident!)

Art by Roy Cross?