The Bubble Man starts in the Daily Mirror today

Wednesday 9 November 2011 © Daily Mirror

An unusual strip to reprint this time in the Daily Mirror, is The Bubble Man, which ran originally from 16 August 1975 - 28 November 1975 (numbers J192-J281). It has been reprinted twice to my knowledge in Garth: The Bubble Man by the fan publisher All Devon Comic Collectors Club Daily Strips: Collectors Club Editions No.28. And more recently by Spaceship Away (Issues #19, October 2009, to #23 March 2011 where they were coloured by the excellent John Ridgway.

As Martin Baines said to me when kindly forwarding the first strip, "I think it makes a interesting exercise to compare John's colouring to mine..." It will indeed and I'd love to know what Frank himself would have thought of it all!



Incidentally, I try and keep this blog about Bellamy - other artists do slip in occasionally and thanks to Martin's mention of John Ridgway, I'd like to recommend his new strip in ...Strip Magazine. It's called Age of Heroes, written by James Hudnall and beautifully drawn and coloured by John Ridway. Don't believe me? Follow the link and see a copy. Phew I think I got away with that, just!

True Brit reprinted digitally

True Brit was published in 2004 (that long ago!) and soon went out of print (see below for link for the old edition). The book had up to date profiles, interviews and lots of pictures of British comic artists and their works. It was edited by TwoMorrows regular George Khoury and my old mate Paul Holder (who designed the whole book) wrote pages 34-43 on Frank Bellamy and included some rare photos of the man. (I'm too modest to mention my contribution on Mike Noble).

True Brit © TwoMorrows 2011

True Brit © TwoMorrows 2004

Anyway, TwoMorrows, who have been making loads of their regular magazines available in the digital format, have now asked Paul to enhance the old version and add colour and some new pictures for the digital publication. Just look as his new cover above. You can see it was a labour of love!. The article of "The History of British Comic Art" by David Roach is worth the price of admission alone.

When I say some colour has been added I mean Paul has enhanced the previous black and white pictures, added several pieces that weren't in the original book  - just look at the Don Lawrence, Frank Hampson, the Dalek artwork - many from the original art! Add to that Grimly Feendish, Little Plum, Steel Claw, double page spreads by Bellamy, Gerry Haylock, John Burns, and Ron Embleton. Oh and just in case you think I'm stuck in the past, there's all these people in there:

Leo Baxendale Frank Bellamy Brian Bolland Mark Buckingham John M. Burns Alan Davis Ron Embleton

Hunt Emerson Dave Gibbons Frank Hampson Bryan Hitch Syd Jordan Don Lawrence David Lloyd

Dave McKean Mike Noble Kevin O'Neill Frank Quitely Ken Reid Bryan Talbot Barry Windsor-Smith

How much teasing do you need? Run, don't walk, over to TwoMorrows and order yourself an e-copy and why not browse their other superb books and magazines whilst there - I'm not getting any commission, but love what they do.Oh, if you don't believe my hyperbole, download the free PDF sampler with a handy clickable link at the end to point you to the fuller 284 pages - all for $6.95...and I could add a joke about no delivery charges, but that would be cheap!

True Brit. p.52 © TwoMorrows 2011

True Brit, p.53 © TwoMorrows 2011

P.S. At the time of the 2004 publication there were other books called True Brit published - and looking at these links you'll see it's a popular title. Our title was up against Britney Spears and John Cleese's Superman as well as Commando and the fact that the draft pre-publication cover was seen all over the Net meant, I feel, customers were confused. The 2004 cover above was the final published version - don't believe everything you read online!


So just to confuse things further, here's the unpublished cover from 2004 with a link to the old edition

True Brit: Celebrating The Comic Book Artists Of The UK

Frank Bellamy and lions!

I was recently casually browsing through some comics and thought I remembered the scene of a man fighting a lion that I found in a TV21 comic - number 61 to be precise. Where would Bellamy have illustrated a man being attacked by a lion? Of course, in Fraser of Africa in Eagle

Eagle 26 November 1960

I tracked it down and thought you might like any excuse to see some Bellamy in his colourful glory. You will know that Bellamy loved Africa and had a whole hive of merchandise and collectables (they didn't use such silly labels back then!) In the Eagle of 26 November 1960 a report on Bellamy showed the artist amidst his paraphernalia. Nancy, his wife, didn't share his enthusiasm for stuffed animals but is still proud to show off her husband's work in her house today. She has some beautiful originals of Maasai warriors on display

Here's the Fraser of Africa strip - whole and below the scan of my copy of the comic so you can see more detail 

Eagle 4 March 1961, page 12

Detail of the above

Interesting to see what appears to me to be a rushed job on the final panel. The cross hatching/shading is not up to his usual standard. Maybe someone else did a 'correction' on it for some reason. I've seen that happen even in his Thunderbirds work. Here's the TV21 shot which started me on this search for lions.

TV21 #61 pp 10-11

Detail from above

Original Art: Garth on eBay - Freak out to fear H180

Another Garth for sale on eBay, ending 26 Oct, 2011, 21:57:03 BST

This is from the story Freak out to fear which appeared in the Daily Mirror from 6 June 1974 - 27 September 1974 (H132-H227). This story has only been reprinted in 2 obscure places: the All Devon Comic Collectors Club Daily Strips No.17  and in the American reprint title Menomonee Falls Gazette from number 218 (16 February 1976).  If you can help me identify which exact issues this story was in I'd be grateful for an email

UPDATED 27 Oct 2011- £85 (3 bids)

My own scan of H180 - click to enlarge

Frank Bellamy and King Kong

King Kong 1933

I love the simple story of King Kong, whether told by Merian C. Cooper, John Guillermin or Peter Jackson. I remember my teenage eyes moistening after seeing Jessica Lange looking at Kong dying and I also remember some of the people I went with laughing at me! But I didn't care. I'm still touched by the story - stop motion, monkey suit or CGI, don't care. It's a simple old story wrapped in a monster theme which goes back to Beauty and the Beast if not further

DC Comics used to use loads of ape covers as the DC editors believed that sales increased whenever there was a giant ape on the cover of a comic. Twomorrows published "Comics gone ape!" in 2007 and featured comments by several DC creators such as Infantino, and Cardy who used the ape motif many times in their cover careers.

So what does this have to do with Bellamy? Well, by now you'll have learned my style is to not get straight to the point.

King Kong 1976

The excellent MagForum site, about magazines and magazine publishing, is written by Tony Quinn, founder of Magforum.com. he tells us:

19 magazine was published by IPC, monthly, from 1968 - May 2004
Young women’s glossy aimed at 16- to 19-year-olds. The established magazines in this sector all steadily lost sales after 1980. 19 was the last survivor of the three big IPC titles: Honey merged with 19 in 1986 after circulation almost halved in five years; a similar fate befell Look Now in 1988. These mergers helped 19, but its sales were still down by about a fifth in 1990 over the decade. When it finally closed, IPC said: 'Over the last few years, the face of the teenage market has changed. The boundaries between the teen market sub-sectors have become blurred and sales patterns suggest that readership at the older, young women’s end appears to have migrated to the fashion and celebrity markets.' Final editor was Helen Bazuaye. The publisher launched Teen Now, a spin-off from its celebrity weekly Now in spring that year and in March Emap had closed The Face and J-17 (Just 17) Taken from: MagForum.com and used with permission 

King Kong 2005

When I flicked through every issue from the start, trying to find an illustration I knew to exist, I was stunned by how it changed over the 6 years I browsed. The end of the 1960s was a liberating time - especially regarding sex and sexuality. 19 appeared to me to be mostly about fashion, and short articles of interest to the 19 year olds it was named for. However as time went on and I turned more pages I found articles on sex and attracting a mate more numerous. It was a real journey through the transition in time - the editor must have been very 'with it'. I liked the short story illustrators - among many others - Jill Watkins, Margaret Power, Julian Allen, Mick Brownfield, and Alan Cracknell. The latter two were also prolific in the Radio Times of the period (for whom Bellamy also illustrated). Chris Achilleos's early work appeared here - Achilleos was obviously hugely influenced by Bellamy when creating his classic Doctor Who covers for Target Books (have a look at this page to see what I mean)


The contents page of the February 1975 issue of 19 contained the black and white image from the main double page spread Bellamy drew. Keith Jones, was the Assistant Art Editor for IPC magazines at that time who paid Bellamy £86.40p for the colour spread commissioning it in May 1974. Bellamy's King Kong appears on the celluloid which is melting, and twisted strands of wire is shown in the background of the montage. A hand carefully pulls the 'i' from Kong's name. I've read the article and can't see what this represents so would love to generates some comments below

Cropped contents page

19 "King Kong", pp.66-67

Another coincidental link to Bellamy (and if anyone can find these it's me - just ask my family!)  is that 19 magazine carried an article in March 1976 on Gerry Cottle's Circus for whom Bellamy drew three posters

Links:

To read about the history of the films - (I didn't realise Linda Hamilton did one!) see KiKn (Kong is King.net)

A visual view of the FB Blog

In the interest of sharing, just a quick note about something new in the bloggersphere - at least to me!

You can see a month's worth of Frank bellamy Checklist blog by clicking on this URL
http://frankbellamy.blogspot.com/view/flipcard
and if you have a blog, substitute your web address instead of mine and there you go! Blogger have even introduced "seven new ways to experience your favorite blogs"



Using Blogger.com's Flipcard feature

 Next: King Kong!

The last great invention

Last Great Invention - panel

In the 1960s publishing saw more and more magazines that were partworks published in numerous countries as co-editions to bring down costs. The format of a weekly partwork caught the public's imagination -but not often their mathematical skills - total costs of a partwork could far exceed any total price for the equivalent book, but it did allow families to buy weekly rather than lay out a lot of money up front! This was in the days before 'easy credit'. I remember my Mother loved 'The British Empire' with its glossy appearance and colour throughout. I preferred 'World of Wildlife' as it contained animals in their natural surroundings. You have to remember back then - no Internet and colour had only just come to UK TV and we had three terrestrial (what other sort were there?) channels! So colour glossy magazines - great!

Cover of Sunday Times
23 August 1970

Bellamy contributed to this in two places that I know of and the following relates to the more famous one: The Sunday Times (Colour) Magazine (23rd August 1970). "Last of the Great Inventions" was, as it says in the magazine "Drawn by Frank Bellamy and written by Tony Osman".

The Sunday Times was forging ahead in Britain in displaying innovative colour in a giveaway weekly newspaper magazine. It all started in 1962 when the owner Roy Thomson wanted a way to sell colour advertising at a time that newspapers could only print black and white (it was 20 years later that Eddie Shah shook up the newspaper industry with a colour paper) Its first editor Mark Boxer was joined a year later, by Michael Rand as Art Director.

"It was 12 months before it was voted a huge success – by the readers and advertisers (due to editors Mark Boxer, Godfrey Smith and its design guru Michael Rand). It was Smith’s idea to produce another innovation, the part-work series which could be collated, at the end, in a special binder: A Thousand Makers of the 20th Century remains a landmark" (Evans, H, 2008. I wish we could have done this in my day. Sunday Times [London, England] 6 July 2008: 9.)

Many artists and photographers praise Michael Rand as being an inspiration in allowing them to push the boundaries and Rand knew Bellamy's work well (confirmed in an email from Robert Lacey - yes I contact all sorts of important people!), but he is not credited in the series itself instead it appears Arnold Schwartzmann was the Consultant art Director on the project. .

Binder cover

First part

 Eureka!: The Sunday Times Magazine "A history of inventions in 10 parts" was published weekly between 21 June 1970 and 23 August 1970. The pages were not numbered but a note appears in each 'supplement' saying "To prepare for the Eureka binder cut out pages down centrefold" Bellamy produced only the last installment.

Last episode includes a competition

The commission was to show  the President of America being woken to be told that the ballistic Missile Early warning System had detected missiles approaching and the President's reaction and conversation with the USSR (This was Nixon and Brezhnev)

Bellamy draws Nixon again!

I personally found the whole piece awfully confusing. The script is not written by someone who knows comic strips and I suspect that (unlike earlier Sunday Times work) Osman was glad to be getting to the end of this piece. Mind you any quick search shows that Osman - who was elected to the committee of the Association of British Science Writers, has written many factual articles and books.

Anyone want to buy me an A3 scanner?

As an aside, to this already wordy blog post, my copy of the bound Eureka series also contains the Bruce Chatwin partwork "One million years of art". having read the excellent biography by Nicholas Shakespeare, I was not surprised to see no comic art in the partwork, let alone any Bellamy, after all Chatwin was an ex-Sotheby's man so 'art' means 'fine art', not illustration or comics!