Frank Bellamy and Doctor Who: Sea Devils original art

Timeview p.23 - pink colour as published

Original Art 1

Original Art 2

Original Art 3

UPDATE: Winning bid with 15 bids: £466.56 (July 2012)

I have had it pointed out to me that a piece on eBay of Bellamy's art is for sale. The seller is tinkswesterman (with 100% good feedback) and lives in Kirkby on Merseyside and appears to sell quite a few Doctor Who rare items.

When I looked at it, I was a bit puzzled and decided to scan the version that appears in Time View: Complete "Doctor Who" Illustrations of Frank Bellamy written by Bellamy's only child, David.

The original reproduction in the Radio Times is not worth reproducing - for those who don't know - the Radio Times in 1972 when this appeared was published mostly on pulp paper and therefore linework didn't come out too clearly. However here is a scan of the listing for Doctor Who for the relevant day:

Radio Times (18/03/1972 - 24/03/1972), p.20

Why do I feel puzzled? The 'RADIO TIMES' and signature look a bit wobbly. Below is a photo I saved from ebay when the last original piece of these Doctor Who cameos came up for sale by a renowned Doctor Who collector based in Luton. I'm sorry the detail is not very clear, but one can see the 'Radio Times' lettering added by Bellamy and it appears somewhat at odds with the one above.

Also draw a vertical line from the bottom left and in the 'original' art you do not bisect the 'ear' - it appears whole; in the Radio Times version you bisect an incomplete 'ear'. There are other tiny differences I would query when I look very closely.

I don't want to claim this is a fake, but it appears puzzling, particularly as the seller has lots of unusual BBC Doctor Who materials and has had no complaints but he bought it in good faith. The piece below sold before I started this blog!

I'll add any comments I get and update the selling price as and when

Sold in June 2001

Frank Bellamy - various bits and pieces again

I get quite a few emails regarding Bellamy's work and there are a few enthusiasts who know that no detail is too small, and Bill Storie gave me several things to do this week when I was wondering what to share with you!

Firstly he alerted me to this sale on eBay of a single that has some familiar artwork on it!

Frank Bellamy's artwork

The artwork is taken from TV21 Thunderbirds story "The Bereznik Zoo Rescue" from TV21 issue 110. I've asked the seller for more information and will update this on receipt

TV21 110

Bill made me realise that as a "Southerner" I hadn't realised that the Daily Record was the Daily Mirror's name in Scotland when Bellamy was around. Why did he mention this?

I have noted one of the times Bellamy was interviewed on TV. I have a transcript and recording and to be honest it's not much use as an interview. In my view Barry Askew held the opinion that comics were ephemeral and hardly worth mentioning and the usual BAM, POW, CRASH were mentioned - a good indicator that someone's view of comics is stuck in the 60s Batman show. The programme, Edition, went out as the last programme of the evening (yes, TV used to be less than 24 hours a day!) and states "Frank Bellamy, the artist who draws 'Garth' in the Daily Mirror and the Daily Record [...]"

Radio Times (24/11/1973 - 30/11/1973) Page 51

As Bill says:

The Radio Times "Modest Strip Artist" reference mentions that (erroneously) FB drew for the Daily Record - this is technically accurate inasmuch as he was never (as far as I know) commissioned to do art for that paper but his work did appear there quite often in the form of Garth and various other spot illustrations such as the moon landing piece. Back in those days the Daily Record was basically the Scottish version of the Daily Mirror (the Mirror did not have a large Scottish readership and much of the Mirror's daily output was simply re-jigged into the Daily Record).

It's amazing to me how I can seen this piece for 40 years and not have noticed the Daily Record reference. I've added the version from the copy of the Radio Times that I cut out and stuck in a lined notebook all those years ago. Needless to say I didn't stay up that late to watch it as I didn't even notice it was on till too late - and videos were as likely to be in my possession as a full size replica of Thunderbird 1!

Radio Times (24/11/1973 - 30/11/1973) Page 4 as it appeared

Lastly Bill also pointed out to me a piece that I knew about was glad to be reminded so I could show it to you. I've placed it under the Unpublished section of Bellamy's work.

Lion and lioness in profile with dead zebra

And for good measure here we see Bellamy's rather abstract image of a Lion and zebra

Lioness and zebra - abstract

Two lions and a zebra

 Many thanks to Bill, a fellow Mike Noble fan, for his prompting me to look at these points.

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?

Fans of Frank: Tim Keable

My tentacles stretch far and wide throughout the Internet and my contacts are really good to me. Richard Sheaf alerted me to some look-a-like art that I may be interested in.  Off I went to Justyce Served: A Small Start with a Big Finish

Tim Keable's 'Justyce Served'

It looked so much like Bellamy I had to ask the artist about it. Sure enough it turns out Tim Keable's influences certainly include Bellamy. But I also felt that this looked like something I'd seen by Kelly Freas, the famous American SF artist. Why did I think this?

Kelly Freas 'Lorelei of the mist' borrowed from
http://mydelineatedlife.blogspot.co.uk/2010/04/lorelei-of-red-mist.html

I'd seen the above many years ago and thought although obviously not Bellamy it had an aspect of his work and this helped me to think about FB's work in better terms.Look at the square thumb, the hairy arm, the impressionistic 'slashes' of lines and the shadowy implied figure, oh, and there's a naked woman.

Frank Bellamy: Radio Times17 June - 23 June 1972, p.12

Compare the above to Tim's drawing and you see immediate inspiration. The above was drawn by Bellamy to accompany The Quatermass experiment a programme about Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee and Hammer Horror films. "The blob that won the Queen's Award" was the byeline under the picture - sorry for the awful photocopy.

Frank Bellamy: Radio Times 11 - 17 May 1974, p.54

Another Bellamy extended arm, in this piece to accompany  The Movie Quiz Late horror show "Can you escape the icy grip of the Movie Quiz late horror show: 11.12?"

After asking Tim about this, he kindly wrote back to me regarding this work:

The brief was to do a Doctor Who illustration that couldn't have the Tardis or Daleks or anything that might be deemed as copyright material. That's why that box with the light on top might just be a rectangular spaceship passing in front of a big star! As to my influences you're right. Frank's RT horror pix are among my very favourite of his illustrations. Yes, Kelly Freas too.  I did the art on white scraperboard which allowed me to scrape away highlights much as Kelly Freas did.I think Frank used this technique and surface for some of those early magazine illustrations he did in the 1950s There's a pic of a lizard that springs to mind [Norman: see FB and Lilliput].I was also influenced by another Analog artist called called George Schelling. If you Google him you'll see that he shares a similar approach to his work that Frank had.

Frank Bellamy: Radio Times 29 May - 4 June 1971

 Frank Bellamy was extraordinary in so many ways. Firstly, as a comics artist the number one priority is clarity of storytelling. Frank always achieved this and then delivered a page that always had so much design going on there too.Then there is the impeccable draughtsmanship. Second to none in my opinion. He always knew when to apply the "less is more" principle and in most cases his drawings are much simpler than they look.This applies to his colour work as well. Often he used a very limited palette to achieve his desired result. Take the RT cover "Movie Crazy Years": Mostly brown but with a touch of green in there with very little red, yellow or blue to be seen. Add to this the speed at which he (and his contemporaries to be fair) had to work. There are few around today who could deliver this quality of work within the time frame. Often when I'm struggling I'll ask "How would Frank have got over this problem?" and it always helps! Once again Norman I'd like to congratulate you on a wonderful site. Keep up the good work! Kind wishes,Tim.

Thanks a lot for taking the time to answer my questions Tim and to allow me to add some new pictures to the blog.

Bellamy - Lasting influence on Doctor Who illustration

Various Doctor Who listings from Radio Times

You might have already seen the adverts around the Net for the following and I'm recommending it as I have followed Andersonic (the sister fanzine) for many years and find them both great fun.

Being your keen reporter on all things Frank Bellamy I had to try it as it cunningly has an article entitled: Frank’s Who – the lasting influence of Frank Bellamy’s Radio Times art on Doctor Who illustration - catchy huh? I confess now,  to not having a clue what the title meant but the Net proved useful and I soon educated myself. The article on Bellamy's influence on Doctor Who illustrators is really interesting. I'm not going to reproduce it here as I think you ought to support the Editor's efforts in getting out a regular print fanzine in these e-days!

The article is an intelligent overview of Bellamy's lasting influence and contains many interesting insights in just 4 pages including how Haylock appears to have swiped Bellamy and how Chris Achilleos was influenced by Bellamy. BUY ONE NOW

Plaything of Sutekh is a new Doctor Who fanzine from the people behind Andersonic.

Issue 1 is now available and it includes:

• What Did the Sixties Do For Who? 
• a look at how the Troughton era of Doctor Who reflected the changes facing Britain in the late 60s
• Frank’s Who – the lasting influence of Frank Bellamy’s Radio Times art on Doctor Who illustration. 
• Secret Who – we re-evaluate a clutch of less popular stories and find there’s more to them than meets the eye: Underworld, The Krotons and The Android Invasion. Don’t be afraid – they’re better than you think. 
• Accidental Art – while Nation and Adams were pulling in opposite directions, Ken Grieve’s innovative approach raised Destiny of the Daleks above the norm.
• A New Direction? – a look at the evolution of Doctor Who under Steven Moffat · 
• DWDVD – recent DVD releases Invasion of the Dinosaurs and The Daemons · 
• Return of the King – a look at (or a listen to) Tom Baker’s return as the Doctor in Big Finish audios … 
• and more 

The issue is 40 b/w A5 pages, fully illustrated with colour covers. To order, visit the Blog

As for the above mentioned Andersonic - Issue 13 of Andersonic is available now and is just plain fun to read and Richard farrell's charicatures are beautiful. The current issue features:

• A 9-page interview with Space: 1999 director Ray Austin in which he discusses his time on the series, including his favourite episodes, his style of direction and working with Martin Landau. 
• Jan King Interview - Jan discusses his time working on Captain Scarlet, Joe 90 and Terrahawks, including burning hotel rooms, puppet eunochs and old Ninestein himself. 
• Specsavers TV Advert - a photo feature on the making of the recent Thunderbirds Specsavers TV advert. 
• Thunderhawks - the aborted concept that later evolved into Terrahawks with loads of photos, some even in colour. 
• Pat Silver - a short Q&A with the co-writer of Space:1999/ Full Circle. 
• The Bringers of Wonder - a review/script to screen feature of this Space:1999 two-parter. 
• Recollections of a Floor Puppeteer - John Last recalls his brief time working on Joe 90 
• Plus reviews of The Sound of Silence, Attack of the Alligators and more. For more details on ordering, click here

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!

Frank Bellamy recent sales

I was amazed to see a couple of recent sales on eBay and thought it might be a good opportunity to mention them here.

 Firstly this ice cream lolly wrapper sold for £26.99 with 6 bids. Mick, who sold this, had a question about the wrappers he was selling (the others were not by Bellamy):
Q:  Hi, is it possible to get each title in both of the two packet front designs (with and without 5d)? Did Frank Bellamy do the art work for all the series of Walls wrappers? Thank you 25-May-10
A:  hi I haven't seen any RED version wrapper that has the price on the front.There is Another version of the red one ,that features a smaller image of the front design on the back .Bellamy only did the artwork for the From the worlds of the Daleks series. All the BEST mick

An unusual and truly rare item. Who would have known it would be worth so much?

Secondly, a copy of the Radio Times, with a cover featuring Jon Pertwee (as Doctor Who) and the Daleks sold, after three bids for £123.25. I personally still have the cover that I cut from my family's Radio Times - again, that seemed the best thing to do to keep a copy!

And finally...

An original Garth strip sold for £150.80. This was from the Bride of Jenghiz Khan story. As I don't actually own a copy of this strip I have taken the scans provided by the seller. The episode number is H282, and I checked the Menomonee Falls Gazette partial index (by Roger Clark) and see that the newspaper reprint finished before they got round to reprinting this particular episode, so it was no use looking to see if I had a copy! I checked, but I don't have a copy of the Dakin reprint from 1979 Garth: Bride of Jenghiz Khan (Daily Strips No. 1).which reprints the whole story (H228-J11) - nor do I have Garth: Bride of Jenghiz Khan reprinted by the All Devon Comic Collectors Club. So, sorry, but here's the best I can do.

NEXT BLOG ENTRY....


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