Original Art: Garth on eBay - The Beautiful People

Another eBay sale for you to have a look at. This is a really lovely example of Bellamy's work. Click on the seller's name below for the eBay description

© Daily Mirror

To quote phUKone, the seller:

From the story 'The Beautiful People' from 1976. Code K23.

Artwork is absolutely pristine and is drawn much larger than the printed size. Artwork panels measure 135mm x 520mm. Signed with his distinctive signature and drawn on heavyweight CS10 board. The blacks are very dense, having been inked over many times - sometimes as many as eight - to give the density of black that he required. Hopefully the photos give some idea but obviously can't compare to the original.

UPDATE: Sold for £110.00 (May 2011) with 1 bids

Original Art on Comic Book Auctions: Thunderbirds x2

Comic Book Auctions Ltd has launched it Summer 2011 catalogue with bidding closing on Tuesday 7 June 2011 at 8 PM UK Time.

The piece that will be of particular interest to Bellamy fans is Thunderbirds original artwork (1968) from TV Century 21 No 137 - Lot number 216

Lot #216 Original art

Printed version

Thunderbirds original double page artwork drawn and signed by Frank Bellamy for TV Century 21 No 137 Sept 21 1967

The survey ship 'Palmerston' ploughs through icy seas that inexplicably start heating to boiling point. The Thunderbirds space station alerts to their S.O.S. and John Tracy launches Thunderbirds 2 and Gordon takes Thunderbirds 4 to the water. Then suddenly, 'Virgil The Sun - that light! It's - aaagh!'
The green and blue has faded from this piece, the red remains strong. Pelikan inks on board. 18 x 25 ins
£1,000-1,500

Yes, the piece is faded - don't blame the seller, we all have things displayed in our houses, that we like and the sun just keeps on shining - and therefore fading the inks. Those people who are smart (I have faded art so guess which I am!) get a laser copy and mount that and then store the piece away. When I first saw an original that had been stored properly I was absolutely shocked how vibrant the colour gradations were that Bellamy did.

UPDATE: Winning bid incl. 10% Buyer's Premium: £1,815(June 2011) 

There's also Lot # 217

Thunderbirds original artwork by Frank Bellamy from TV Century 21 No 168 1968
The Hood targets the final destruction of Tracy Island but brainwashed Brains is found alive - now he has to be electronically debriefed in the lab - but will he be rescued from the borders of insanity?
The green and blue has faded from this piece. Pelikan inks on board. 16 x 13 ins
£600-800

TV21 #168 Original art

TV21 #168 published version

UPDATE: Winning bid incl. 10% Buyer's Premium: ££968(June 2011)

But the thing that regularly hits me about FB is that he didn't do things easily. He knew the header would be added to his artwork and left space for it, but that didn't mean leaving the space blank. Some examples are more shocking than others, but look at the one above - enlarged below - 

The header is not left blank!

Here's another example from Thunderbirds

The printed header TV21 #164

The original art header

The recent Chris Bentley reprints showed this very clearly wherever the original art was shown without the lettering stuck on. (see Amazon link for details) Next time you look at Thunderbirds take a look behind the header, you'll be surprised what artwork you missed!

Original Art: Garth on eBay - The Beast of Ultor

 H93 from The Beast of Ultor

UPDATE: Sold for £137.45 (May 2011) with 5 bids

To quote phUKone, the seller:


This is from his tenth story 'The Beast of Ultor' from 1974. Code H93.

Artwork is absolutely pristine and is drawn much larger than the printed size. Artwork panels measure 135mm x 520mm. Signed with his distinctive signature and drawn on heavyweight CS10 board. The blacks are very dense, having been inked over many times - sometimes as many as eight - to give the density of black that he required.

As usual I'll update this page at the end of the auction

Original Art: Garth on eBay - Orb of Trimandias

F55 from The Orb of Trimandias

UPDATE: Sold for £151.66 (April 2011) with 12 bids

To quote Tweedacedmy, the seller:

Another great example of Frank Bellamy's work on Garth, showing his love of historical settings. Our hero is transported back to the the intrigue of the Venitian court under the infamous Borgia regime. Along the way he will meet Leonardo Da Vinci and his muse and lover the beautiful goddess Astra. Here some unwise slave traders try to capture our hero and his comrade.

Those two giants Abdul! What a price they would fetch on the Algiers slave-mart!'

This is a task for Kemal!

(Exit Kemal).

A wonderful action packed example with great swashbuckle factor.

This is strip number F55 from March 1972.

The scan above is mine - check out the original on eBay

Original Art: Garth on eBay - Spanish Lady

UPDATE: Sold for £135 (March 2011) with 10 bids

K77 of the Spanish Lady story

This time we have an auction on eBay for K77 in the The Spanish Lady strip. This isn't one of my favourite periods of Bellamy on Garth, but still worth looking at as it's drawn in the last year of his life and of course is an original. On the endlessly interesting ComicArtFans site, Steven Taylor has a picture of K79 (2 strips later than this one for auction). The original story ran from 17 March 1976 - 7 August 1976 (K65-K160)

Original Art on Comic Book Auctions: Thunderbirds

UPDATE: Winning bid incl. 10% Buyer's Premium: £2,420

Comic Book Auctions Ltd has launched it Spring 2011 catalogue with bidding closing on Tuesday 15 March 2011 at 8 PM UK Time.

The piece that will be of particular interest to Bellamy fans is Thunderbirds original artwork (1968) from TV Century 21 No 166 - Lot number 178.

Thunderbirds original artwork (1968) by Frank Bellamy for TV Century 21 No. 166
Unaware that Brains is still alive and held captive by The Hood, Jeff Tracy stands helpless as a successful attack is launched on Tracy Island International Rescue HQ where Thunderbirds 2 and 3 are destroyed. Now Thunderbirds 4 must counter-attack …
Pelikan inks on board. With loose laser copied ‘Thunderbirds’ header for attachment if desired. 18 x 14 ins £1,500-2,000

This story is one of my most fondly remembered. Imagine my shock as a kid seeing Brains dead - and what's more it went on for 8 episodes and therefore the suspense was great especially having to wait a week between episodes (TV21 162 - 169 (24 February 1968 - 13 April 1968 - or 2068 as it futuristically said on the comic!) I wondered how the Hood managed to do sky lettering in that smoke, but hey, it was the future - the 21st century!

This original art looks especially 'new' with the colours very bright. But more interestingly I wonder why someone (presumably at TV21) has crossed out Bellamy's neat writing saying this is episode 5 and putting instead p.10. It would have been page 10 and weekly epsiode number 5 as he had written on it.

Below are the two pages of the episode for your reading pleasure (notice how the original and this scan compare) and many thanks to 'Wayne' for reminding me the auction was now on!

Original Art: Thunderbirds on eBay

Just a quick reminder that 'tweedacademy' is selling a top notch piece on eBay. That guy must have a collection of Bellamy originals! He has set this double page spread of Thunderbirds at £3,500, which is a large sum of money but this looks to be in very good condition. The Buy It Now option expires on 6 March, 2011 so if you have the money go for it now.

From TV21 number 125, this is part one of the 11th story to appear. The Hood does his usual stuff and exposes Tracey Island. Read all about the story at Shaqui and friends' site. If you enlarge this scan of the whole comic you'll see the original art actually exposes the beautiful colour Bellamy produced that despite much care could not be reproduced well at the time. Shame this hasn't been scanned and reproduced in the Century21 reprints by Reynolds & Hearn

TV21 125

 

Original Art: Garth on eBay - Sundance

I noticed our old friend 'tweedacademy' has another unique Bellamy for sale on eBay. He is auctioning E173 of the Sundance strip.

UPDATE: Sold for £227 (February 2011) with 32 bids

As Nick Landau explains in the Titan reprint "The cloud of Balthus" Steve Dowling the creator of Garth took on a young assistant John Allard in 1943. "On Dowling's retirement in 1968, Allard took over Garth until a permanent replacement could be found." which of course happened in 1971 with the 13th strip in the Sundance story.

The strange thing was he stayed on making amendments to Bellamy's art, by changing ballon layouts or by adding something Bellamy never used to my knowledge, Letraset, or what the Americans call 'zip-a-tone' In reply to a letter received by the editors of the newspaper reprint title "Menomonee Falls Gazette" Bellamy said

You ask about the functions of Jim Edgar and John Allard. Well Jim Edgar is the scriptwriter. John Allard was on the strip for a number of years before I was called upon to draw it. He sometimes letters the balloons. However, I now do all the drawing, but the credits remain. Sounds confusing... it is!

Follow the link to read the full story on that.

I thought this might be the opportunity to share something I scanned crudely many moons ago. I really wish I had been more careful with my references, but all I can tell you it's definitely Boy's Own Paper and page  451 - and comes from around the early 1950s. I think it's  author is Godsell (the excellent Fiction Mags Index site says "GODSELL, PHILIP H(enry) (1889-1969); Canadian writer; spent 20 years in Hudson’s Bay Company and wrote about his experiences" soi it's not unlikely to be the same guy

Wikipedia has an article on the Sun Dance (two words)and at the Native People of Canada site you can see a portion of this very photograph.

For those who think I'm going too far off track, here's a selection of the story reprinted in the afore-mentioned  "Menomonee Falls Gazette" (with thanks to Pete the Pipster for the scan)

Click to enlarge 

Garth © Mirror Newspaper Group PLC

Original Art: Garth on eBay

Taken from a scan of the strip - not the eBay picture - click to enlarge

Just a quick message to alert you to the fact that, on eBay, at the moment is...

An original artwork by the brilliant Frank Bellamy for the Daily Mirror daily strip 'Garth'. An episode from the story 'The Doomsmen' code no J126, showing Garth himself with Professor Lumiere. The story is basically about killer robots (the Doomsmen) and Garth's struggle to stop them (not dissimilar from The Cybernauts in 'The Avengers' TV series).

The seller goes on to say: 

The original which measures approx 520mm x 34mm (image area), so is much larger than the size in the Daily Mirror. The board is clean and white.

I'll update this entry with the sale price when the auction is over

UPDATE: £82 (December 2010) with 2 bids

Original Frank Bellamy art: Garth strip

Just a quick note, as this seems to be part of this blog's purpose, to let you know of a Garth strip that has sold recently

An episode from the story "The Spanish Lady" , K137, was sold for £142 after 5 bids. The seller added this paragraph:

"The seller of this item worked on the Northamptonshire Evening Telegraph, where Frank bellamy's long and distinguished career began, and was the last journalist to interview the artist". which I'm guessing means Tony Smith who indeed did talk to Frank many times and promote his work in the local paper on many occasions over the years.

I apologise for the quality of the strip - I found again my collection let me down as I don't have that particular strip!

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

Original Frank Bellamy art for sale: Thunderbirds

UPDATED AUCTION PRICE:
Winning bid incl. 10% Buyer's Premium: £3,726. This must be the most expensive Bellamy piece to date!

TV21 was going to finish in its first incarnation at number 242, but in issue 220 Bellamy was still producing lovely artwork. This story ran from TV 21 and TV TORNADO issues 218-226 (22/03/69 - 17/05/69). And as we have seen from the Reynolds and Hearn reprints, (the publisher's website seems to be down now!) the artwork delivered was extremely vibrant compared to the printed versions of the 60s even if in photogravure.

Front Cover TV21 220

Bellamy's 2 single pages (rather than the earlier double page spreads) are still full of action and great perspective.

Page 10 TV21 220

The second page of this story is now on the Comic Book Auctions site for previewing purposes. The auction will be opening soon - sign up for an email reminder

The scan on their site looks like this

http://www.compalcomics.com/catalogue/lot158A.htm

Lot # 158:
Thunderbirds original artwork (1969) drawn and signed by Frank Bellamy for TV 21 No. 220
Thunderbird 2 lands near Project City and the giant Mole is deployed to bore through the concrete walls with Virgil and Brains at the controls.
But the walls are live - they’re being electrocuted...
Pelikan inks on board 18 x 14 ins
£700-800

Glad to see Malcolm has realised Bellamy drew all his comic work (to my knowledge) in coloured ink! 

And finally here's the published version to compare (well, as best you can online!)

Page 11 TV21 220

As usual I will update this page when the piece is sold and price fetched announced

Happy Bidding - and tell Malcolm I sent you...he may send me a free catalogue, as I certainly can't afford to bid!

Heros the Spartan art for sale

UPDATE
I have added the price below that was realised for this piece. I'm beginning to wonder whether I might, through all my blog and web activity, be the cause for the large sums that Bellamy art now fetches! Rightfully so too.

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Just a quick post to let you know that another poiece of rare Eagle artwork is up for auction. It's at Comic Book Postal Auctions Spring 2010 auction - Lot #160 . Before you click the link make sure you have a couple of thousand pounds to bid. See my last mention and the winning prices!

The piece's description is:
Heros The Spartan original colour artwork drawn and signed by Frank Bellamy. From The Eagle centre page spread Vol 16: No 20 (1965) Heros is saved from The Living Dead by Zathran, ex-commander of the Black Guard … Some of the blue colour faded, reds still strong. Poster paint on board. 19 x 28 ins Estimate: £1,000-1,400

Auction ended March, 2010 at £2,421

Edited on 22 March 2010

It is the 12th episode of the story "The Slave Army" and Eagle issue dated 15 May 1965. The story tells of Heros accompanying a caravan to the Libyan gold mines. Remember this is 1965 storytelling and the Internet was not to hand. Libya has no gold mines, but does have the very modern resource of oil in abundance (their neighbour to the south, Chad, has gold). Bellamy’s depiction of desert light and Berber buildings in this his last Heros comic story are wonderful, and his detailed Arab faces, and weaponry are amazing. Several classic Bellamy devices appear in this particular episode

I'll update the page once the final price is released

Original art sold

Just a quick note about a recent sale of a Garth strip by Frank Bellamy, number J70. This sold on eBay last month for $250 - which in Pounds Sterling today equates to £154, a nice sum for a well loved story.

This is an episode from The Angels of Hell Gap, which ran in the Daily Mirror from 15 January 1975 to 02 May 1975 (Numbers J12-J101). You just might be able to see the date pencilled in (presumably by the editor) of '26-3-1975'

The thing we all loved reading at that time was the opening episode, as Bellamy always did the equivalent of a comic's splash panel.

Here's the first episode of The Angels of Hell Gap

More original artwork for sale

UPDATE
I have added the prices that these two pieces sold for. I'm amazed at how much they raised for the relevant party and pleased to see Bellamy at last become a major contender - to quote Marlon Brando!


Just wanted to alert you to the fact that right now there are two pieces of artwork by Frank Bellamy on Comic Book Postal Auctions. Look at lots #99 and 100.

The first is a double-page spread of the "Montgomery of Alamein" from - to quote the site"Eagle Vol 17 No 13 1967". Now that's the first time I've heard of this appearing so late in Eagle and as this looks like the original (note the lack of pasted title top-left) I can't imagine how they got the information. I believe it is an original of Volume 13:17 (28/04/1962). Mind you the entry does say "Gouache on board" and Bellamy always used inks for these comic pieces! And I'm not so pedantic to mention the spelling mistake in the title! Whatever the information, the estimate is a bargain in my opinion: £550-650 Let's see what it goes for as it looks in great condition. I'll add the result when it's finished

Auction ended December, 2009 at £2,849! In a recession as well! That's the highest amount paid for a Bellamy to my knowledge

Edited on 28 December 2009

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The second comes from "Heros The Spartan" and appears somewhat faded, but nice. The information for this one is right: Eagle Volume 16 No 11 1966. It's episode number 3 from the story called The Slave Army. Bellamy used inks again not gouache and the estimate is £500-550


Auction ended December, 2009 at £2,262!

Edited on 28 December 2009

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Bellamy art for sale

Head over to ComicArtFans Galleries as Terry Doyle is selling a lot of his tremendous collection!

You'll need to hurry as despite a recession, they are selling fast!

My favourite, which I certainly can't afford, is the Churchill strip from The Happy Warrior - but £2,500 is a bit much for me!. Also King Solomon's Mines because of its uniqueness and beauty- I blogged about it a while ago - and the price is £4,000 which because of the fact it was unpublished and a full centrespread is worth that sort of order, in my opinion. I recently browsed an art fair and saw far lesser lights sell for the equivalent or more than this.

Oh, and there are lots of non-Bellamy materials

Thanks for sharing the information Terry

Frank Bellamy original artwork sales

Heros the Spartan for a mere $8000 on ComicArtFans! If the link doesn't work search for 'Heros the Spartan' here. The piece has kept its colour very well

If my collection wasn't so buried I'd tell you which particular issue of Eagle it comes from. Anyone want to race me to their collection?

Edited on 27 July 2009

THUNDERBIRDS from TV21 July 29 2067 #132

I think a visit to eBay right now would be worth doing if you'd like to see a really good colour Thunderbirds strip. This is likely to sell for an enormous amount of money. The colour is superb and I think demonstrates how devoted Bellamy was to using inks properly in his colour strips. The story it comes from is one set around the terrorists who ram a liner called the President in the narrow Nicaragua Canal. It ran for 7 parts and this is part #3







Auction ended 21 Jun, 2009 at £827 - 20 bids - reserve not met! These are indeed hard times as I would have predicted at least £1000 would be bid!

Edited on 28 June 2009

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I have avoided pointing to sales and auctions in the past, as any eBay links will date very quickly. But so much has come out of the woodwork recently, I couldn't resist and have copied the pictures from the auction sites so you can see the actual items. (If anyone objects for copyright reasons let me know and they will be removed!)

On eBay we have seen several items raise surprisingly better prices than usual, which is encouraging.

Currently you could spend that spare £1500 and buy an original Thunderbirds from TV21
Tweedacademy is also selling a rare Heros board for a snip at £2000!
...and lastly rush over to Comic Book Auctions Limited where Lot#136 (The Daily Mirror Book of Garth, 1976) will see a lot of interest in my opinion. The estimate of £450-£500 seems modest as this is a totally one off piece. The auction ends on 4th March - so hurry! May 2008 - AUCTION END NEWS: Winning bid incl. 10% Buyer's Premium: £1,089
An original single page from Thunderbirds recently was for sale at a starting bid of £300 but petenovitch ended the auction early because the item is no longer available for sale, normally meaning it was sold outside eBay before the auction ended
petenovitich also sold a nice single page with 9 bids for a low price of £404.95 - a bargain in my opinion.
Someone in the USA had 18 bids on the original Marco Polo page raising a nice £1,116.80
Garth original come up fairly regularly for a wide variety of prices. Three sold recently £72.70, £150.91, and £125.76. Why the range of prices? - no idea! It's basically what the buyers were willing to pay!
Also one range of books has always had interest; that's the reprints of Garth strip published by John Dakin in the late 1970s The Doomsmen raised £24.02 for the seller - a good price!

Well that rounds it up for now. I've managed to post something at least once a month since launch! Hopefully with the new Robin Hood book coming from BookPalace in March we might see some new stuff!