Frank Bellamy and Wide World

Martin Baines asked me about a few of the more obscure Bellamy pieces, so here I am again sharing....

pp. 2-3 "The toughest prey" written by Douglas Lockwood
(bigger version at FB.co.uk)

The cover of the issue in which Bellamy's work appears is credited to Langhammer - is this Walter Langhammer? Anyone tell me more?

January 1962 (art by Langhammer)

"There is no more formidable adversary than a monster buffalo" it says on the contents page of Wide World January 1962.The story it refers to is "The Toughest Prey" by Douglas Lockwood

Contents page

Douglas Lockwood
From the The University of Queensland, Fryer Library collection

Any of my Australian readers who fancy visiting the National Library of Australia can access the "Papers of Douglas Lockwood, 1942-1981" Lockwood lived from 1918-1980 and was predominantly a storyteller / journalist. Some of his books on native Australian life and his writings on what he called "the Australian Pearl Harbour" are still in print today. His writings in newspapers can been seen online via the excellent Trove resource which also contains loads of Lockwood's fascinating photographic collection.His biography can be found online, and from it come the following details.

 In 1941 Lockwood joined the Melbourne Herald. On 4 October that year at the Methodist Church, Wangaratta, he married Ruth Hay, a clerk. Soon afterwards he was sent to Darwin and in February 1942 saw the first enemy bombs fall on Australian soil. Enlisting in the Australian Imperial Force on 15 June, he trained in intelligence and security duties. He served in New Guinea and on Bougainville in 1944-45 with 'V' and 'Z' Field Security sections, and was promoted warrant officer. Following his discharge on 15 June 1945 in Melbourne, he was a war correspondent for the Herald, reporting from the Netherlands East Indies. In 1946 he returned to Darwin and, except for postings to the Herald's Melbourne (1947-48) and London (1954-56) offices, was to remain there until 1968. 

Taken from the Australian Dictionary of Biography

He obviously found the English weather not to his liking and returned home after only 3 years and perhaps encountered this international magazine, Wide World,  when here in 1954-1956. Wide World had been going since 1898. My other interest Raymond Sheppard did several pieces for Wide World and therefore I have trawled through quite a few. The tenor of the magazine was always real-life adventures told from all over the world. The earlier editions in the post WWII years have some fantastic covers on them, but interior art was reproduced in such a way to obscure any talent, thus the strange 'cut' photograph-dots look to them. Do a Google search to see images of the covers If you want to read some of the content from the past, try True Adventures for Boys or The Wide World: True Adventures For Men and of course the originals are fairly cheap - try eBay too.

p. 5 "The toughest prey" written by Douglas Lockwood
(bigger version at FB.co.uk)

In the late 50s and early 1960s up to its demise in 1965 more and more photographic materials, in lieu of illustrations, were used in Wide World which I personally found nowhere near as interesting. Contemporaries of Frank Bellamy produced for the magazine too but Bellamy appears to have only produced drawings for one issue. 


Douglas Lockwood Bibliography

• Crocodiles and Other People (London, 1959)
• Fair Dinkum (London, 1960)
• I, the Aboriginal (Adelaide, 1962) which won the Adelaide Advertiser's award for literature in 1962 and was later made into a television film We, the Aborigines (Melbourne, 1963)
• The Lizard Eaters (Melbourne, 1964)
• Up the Track (Adelaide, 1964)
• Australia's Pearl Harbour (Melbourne, 1966)
• The Front Door (Adelaide, 1968)
• My Old Mates and I (Adelaide, 1979)
• Northern Territory Sketchbook (Adelaide, 1968)

Co-author:

• Life on the Daly River (London, 1961) with Nancy Polishuk
• The Shady Tree (Adelaide, 1963) with Bill Harney
• Alice on the Line (Adelaide, 1965) with Doris Blackwell

Just before his death he was editing  a selection of Bill Harney's writings but this was taken on and completed by Ruth Lockwood and published as A Bushman's Life (Melbourne, 1990).

REMEMBER to see these Bellamy pictures in full size follow this link to Frankbellamy.co.uk and click on the 'MORE...' note

The second item Bellamy illustrated is introduced in the same contents page:"Britain's coastguards meet the challenge of unleashed elements" 

p. 20 "Killer wind" written by George Goldsmith Carter

George Goldsmith Carter was born in Aldeburgh and served on lightships during the war and has written extensively on the subjects of boats, ships and sailing.You can read the full text of "The Goodwin Sands" published in 1953 on Archive.org with its opening sentence "For two-and-a-half years I have stood my watch on the deck of the North Goodwin Lightship".Amazon have several of his titles

George Goldsmith Carter Bibliography

• Looming Lights: a true story of the lightships. London : Constable, 1945.
• The Smacksmen. A story of the fishermen of the Borough. London : Constable, 1947.
• Able Seaman. London : Constable, 1948.
• Peter Grimes’ Country, in Lilliput June 1948
• Lights on the Water, in Lilliput April 1949
• Tiger of the Channel, in Lilliput August 1949
• Margaret Catchpole, the Girl from Wolfkettel. London : Constable & Co., 1949.
• Red Charger. A trip to the Arctic fishing grounds. Illustrated by R. P. Bagnall-Oakley. London : Constable, 1950.
• Forgotten Ports of England. London : Evans Bros., 1951.
• The Goodwin Sands. London : Constable and Co Ltd, 1953
• Menace of The Out-Winds (illustrated by Hookway Cowles) in Everybodys August 14 1954 
• Death on the Longsand in Lilliput March 1956
• Sailors, sailors (Edited by Derek Lord.) London: Hamlyn, 1966
• Sailing Ships and Sailing Craft (Hamlyn all-colour paperbacks). London: Hamlyn, 1969
• Spotlight on sailing ships (Illustrated by Bill Robertshaw, Angus McBride). London : Hamlyn, 1973.
• The Battle of Britain : the home front. New York : Mason & Lipscomb Publishers, [1974]

 Co-authored

• Young Sea-Angler. (with Robert Bateman). London : Constable & Co., [1961]
• A fighting challenge (with John Ridgway; Michael Codd; Chay Blyth) London: Hamlyn, 1969.

Thank you Martin for an enjoyable afternoon doing some research! Your other choices will follow soon!

Frank Bellamy, Lilliput and W. R. Burnett

Lilliput 1954 (please excuse the crude joins!)

I have now produced 200 posts for this blog - frightening! If you had asked my teachers they would not have thought I could write the copy on the back of a [choose your favourite sweets/candy] let alone 200 articles!


I have mentioned the magazine called Lilliput in the past and felt it was time to show you some more of that artwork by Frank Bellamy.  The magazine begun by Stefan Lorant, photojournalist, was bought out by Hulton Press Limited who are best remembered for publishing Picture Post (which Hulton and Lorant created), and the famous and well-loved Eagle comic. But they also had Farmer's Weekly, Housewife, Electronic Engineering, Power Laundry and The Leader among others.

"War Party" by W.R. Burnett - Drawn by Frank Bellamy

The list of Bellamy's work in Lilliput:

1. LILLIPUT Vol. 34:4 #202 (April 1954) "Que-Fong-Goo" by Gerald Durrell
2. LILLIPUT Vol. 34:5 #203 (May 1954) "War Party" by W.R. Burnett
3. LILLIPUT Vol. 35:1 #205 (July 1954) "The drifters" by John Prebble
4. LILLIPUT Vol. 36:3 #213 (March 1955) "The raid to get Rommel" by Sandy Sanderson
5. LILLIPUT Vol. 36:5 #215 (May 1955) "Trick justice" by John Prebble
6. LILLIPUT Vol. 37:1 #217 (July 1955) "The demon bushranger" by Dal Stivens
7. LILLIPUT Vol. 39:6 #234 (Dec 1956) "Men with horse" by Allan Swinton

In his interview  with Dez Skinn and Dave Gibbons, Bellamy stated:

As soon as I gave [International Artists] permission to represent me, I had a commission to do two love story illustrations for Home Notes, a woman's magazine, regular commissions from Boy's Own Paper - covers and inside illustrat­ions, Lilliput - where I did my very first western illustration for a story by John Prebble

He wasn't remembering quite right. His first western story was by W. R. Burnett and his third commission and second western story for Lilliput was by Prebble. William Riley Burnett (November 25, 1899 - April 25, 1982) wrote many of the screenplays to films which I loved in my youth - well, now actually! I remember seeing The Great Escape and Ice Station Zebra in the 60s and loving the characters and stories, but this guy was writing back in 1930s with Little Caesar, Scarface, and High Sierra, all films I remember vividly (when they were broadcast on BBC1 back in the late 60s and early 70s - noir on a black and white TV - lovely! A very full bibliography appears here and many of his works can still be purchased
on Amazon Here are all the illustrations by Bellamy to accompany "War Party"

Lilliput 1954 Page 53

Lilliput 1954 Page 57

Lilliput 1954 Page 61

That's all the illustrations for this story, but one of them appeared again. Burnett states at the end of the story in an 'Author's Note': "The character of Walter Grein was drawn in part from the famous Chief of Scouts,of the Apache Wars, Al Sieber".

On the letter page of Lilliput August 1954, the following appeared:

The Internet is wonderful and has details for you (via Wikipedia) of Al Sieber, who was apparently born in Germany before moving to the States and you can even see his gravestone on Find a grave!

Heros reprint story continues.....

There's no need for me to add anything to the Book Palace / Peter Richardson blog but to say I've been fortunate enough to see the electronic version and they are superb! The colour is so vibrant - many having come from originals. Go over there now and read more.

I will scream loudly when the book actually reaches these shores!

Norman

NEW GARTH REPRINT - The Orb of Trimandias

Monday 3 June 2013 © Daily Mirror

THE GOOD NEWS:
Today we start the latest coloured by Martin Baines reprint originally produced by Jim Edgar, Frank Bellamy (and John Allard?) where Garth, our time-travelling hero heads back to Venice and the time of the Borgias. I know nothing of this era in Italian history, so this gives me the opportunity to have a rummage around the Net on your behalf.

Machiavelli, Da Vinci and Cesare Borgia

Machiavelli, Leonardo & Borgia: a fateful collusion: what happened when a philosopher, an artist and a ruthless warrior--all giants of the Renaissance--met on campaign in northern Italy? How's that for an article title? Written  by Paul Strathern in History Today. (59.3 (Mar. 2009): p15), he explains:  

During the latter half of 1502, when the Italian Renaissance was at its height, three of its most distinguished yet disparate figures travelled together through the remote hilly region of the Romagna in northeastern Italy. Cesare Borgia (1475-1507), backed by his father Pope Alexander VI (1431-1503), was leading a military campaign whose aim was to carve out his own personal princedom. He had hired Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) as his chief military engineer whose brief was to reinforce the castles and defences in the region as well as to construct a number of revolutionary new military machines, which he had designed in his notebooks. Accompanying this unlikely duo was the enigmatic figure of Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527), who had been despatched by the Florentine authorities as an emissary to the travelling 'court' with instructions to ingratiate himself with Borgia and, as far as possible, discover his intentions towards Florence whose position to the west, just across the Apennine mountains, left it particularly vulnerable to Borgia's territorial ambitions.

Detail from F28 of Professor Lumiére, Garth and Cesare Borgia

We see a portrait (in the fourth strip) of Borgia shown to Garth by Giovanni Cometti in the present day. The portrait looks to be the one by an anonymous artist, and is held at Palazzo Venezia, Rome, rather than the one shown above (with Machiavelli and Da Vinci). In this  tale Leonardo Da Vinci befriends the English Lord Carthewan (Garth) and the Orb's name, Trimandias, refers to "the Greek mystic and prophet", Borgia tells his sister later in the tale. The Orb allegedly has "strange occult powers - it can even conquer death!" At one point Leonardo suffers from the plague. It's difficult to pin down exact dates for the plagues occurrence in Venice but it certainly devastated the city during the same period as Britain (14th Century) and was last seen in Venice in 1630, so it is feasible - in story terms. I imagine Jim Edgar got the idea to include the plague and Leonardo because of the famous story of the artist/inventor's designs for the 'ideal city' as he surmised, whilst in Milan  - ahead of his time - that urbanisation might be to blame for the spread of the plague. The city, as designed by Da Vinci was never realized.

The Titan reprint, Garth: Cloud of Balthus - Comic Strip Bk. 1 has an introduction in which it states that this is the first strip in which Bellamy flies solo on the art. John Allard handled the lettering, but upto now also added bits to the art. Bellamy was always happier working alone and he certainly hits his stride in this story

THE BAD NEWS:
The list of Garth stories to which Frank Bellamy contributed is growing shorter - well, in reprint form in the current Daily Mirror newspaper anyway! The table below shows that we have only two more which haven't yet been coloured by Martin in this reprint form.

TITLE	Reprinted?
Sundance	YES
The Cloud Of Balthus	YES
The Orb Of Trimandias	Ongoing
The Wolf Man Of Ausensee	YES
People of The Abyss	YES
The Women of Galba	YES
Ghost Town	YES
The Mask of Atacama	YES
The Wreckers	YES
The Beast of Ultor	YES
Freak Out To Fear	NO
Bride of Jenghiz Khan	YES
The Angels of Hell's Gap	YES
The Doomsmen	YES
The Bubble Man	YES
The Beautiful People	YES
The Spanish Lady	YES
Man-Hunt	NO

For the purists, this tale was previously reprinted in The Daily Mirror Book of Garth, London: IPC Limited, 1975; Titan's Garth Book One: The cloud of Balthus London: Titan Books, 1984 and the American Menomonee Falls Gazette #67 (26 March 1973) - #83 (16 July 1973)


Let's see what's next after this brilliant tale - which Martin Baines, who supplied the superb artwork at the top of this page, says is his favourite Bellamy Garth. Thanks once again Martin,

Norman Boyd

Frank Bellamy and Red Devil Dean

Red Devil Dean (cropped image)

***STOP PRESS*** See the blog article expanding this one

The Unseen Frank Bellamy Exhibition has been mentioned on the blog a few times before and today we can close another mystery.

Chris Harris got in contact with me and innocently said:

I helped curate an exhibition called the Unseen Frank Bellamy, at a small gallery in Brixton in the late 80s/early 90s . We got artwork from his wife Nancy and presented it in our basement space. I still have a copy of the Escape magazine we put out at ACME comics with a brochure inside and some original artwork. The most significant is an exquisite watercolour treatment for a character called Red Devil Dean - never taken up I think. It still has his hand designed dust sheet, tracing paper insert and the treatment. Would you like me to send you a photo?

What would you say? OF COURSE, YES PLEASE etc etc. Fortunately I didn't scare him off and he was good to his word!

The next email came with attachments and I was bowled over by them. Remember the catalogue for the exhibition called this "Red Devil Dean Suggestions" - well it's obvious from the piece that Bellamy was trying out for something. The title on the artwork is "Suggestions for Red Devil Dean and Tug Wilson" and as Chris states he bought the artwork itself, plus an 'insert' which shows an amended Tug Wilson portrait plus a cover sheet to protect the artwork with the title on it. All the artwork can be seen on my website by following the 'More...' link on the Unseen Bellamy page

The artwork for Red Devil Dean

Bellamy often drew these overviews of characters before starting the assignment, such as the Garth one and others such as the Thunderbirds characters, Heros the Spartan, David the Shepherd King and Fraser of Africa. However, he swore to never having used 'white-out' or Tippex, to correct art (but that didn't mean someone else used it on his artwork!) But this is the first time I've seen an overlay like this which shows an alternative piece of artwork.

Express Weekly 3 March 1956, No76
Drawn by Ruggero Giovannini

So what about the title? Is the character a real person? Unlikely. The only references I've found to Red Devil Dean is when a person is called Dean and they gain this nickname. And the comic strip in the Express Weekly of the eponymous title illustrated above. I asked Steve Holland about this and he replied:

As far as I know there were just three artists on this strip -- but I've not seen all the episodes (nor, I should add, do I know anyone who has all the issues). Desmond Walduck was the original artist when the strip started in issue 41 of Junior Express Weekly (2 July 1955); Ruggero Giovannini took over with issue 59 and was the artist when it became Express Weekly (issue 74); and Bosch Penalva took over in issue 103 (8 September 1956). I don't know when the strip ended. Probably not long after in 1956 or maybe 1957. [Norman: I've seen Express Weekly #84 (28 April 1956) and it does appear there but not in #156 (14 September 1957)] The only episodes I have are in the issue 109-120 region in which Red is some kind of adventurer; in this story he's tracking down some crooks trying to rig the football pools and the crooks frame him for an attempt to blow up Parliament. Doesn't sound like the sort of thing that would involve a couple of British soldiers.

**ADDITION*** (Aug 2013) David Slinn states: "I can add to the information Steve Holland provided, in that the series was dropped from Express Weekly at the end of December 1956, coinciding with ‘Wulf the Briton’ being moved onto the cover and a number of new strips and features being lined up for the New Year."

So we still don't know and it seems unlikely Bellamy was commissioned to draw this strip as the dates are wrong. At the time of the strip beginning he was working on winding down Swiss Family Robinson, drawing Paul English and starting King Arthur as well as doing illustrations for Boy's Own Paper and Lilliput!

I wondered about the insignia on the art and  a kind 'Internetter' pointed me to the Wikipedia article on Combined Operations Headquarters As all three services were involved the only clue I gained was that landing craft and commandos are relevant but more of that later.

The Bellamy illustration above shows a redhead who is called Ted Dean. Could this be the origin of the name - redheads getting called "Red Devil"? No idea. Also I wondered if there was a player for Manchester United who was called Dean (as they are known by the nickname the Red Devils) but I can only find one name and he hardly played at all!  Any guesses gratefully received!

Lastly to add a little something else to the mystery, our generous friend Jeff Haythorpe sent me a picture that he always wondered whether it was Red Devil Dean

A boat (landing craft?) afloat with four soldiers, one of whom is redheaded!

He has promised a better scan so when that arrives I'll replace this one. But again it may be part of the above story. The signature is of the same pre-1950 period from what I can see.

So there you go a mystery solved (we now know what the Unseen Bellamy Exhibition refers to, but have a greater mystery as, like Anthony Falloway, we don't know if and where and when this was published!. If you have any ideas about the name's origins it would be interesting to hear from you.
My email is

Frank Bellamy and an unknown romance illustration - original art

Romance illustration by Frank Bellamy

UPDATE: Winning bid with 2 bids: £200 (April 2012) 

 
Thanks to Richard Farrell for pointing out the latest sale on eBay of a Frank Bellamy I've never met before. The seller (susita66) has listed it at the starting price of £200 and the auction ends on 25 April 2013. The piece measures 11.5" x 9" (approximately 27.94cm X 22.86cm) and is in colour. The medium used is unclear but decide for yourself. I've copied all the pictures provided on ebay and hope that the buyer will share a better scan of the piece.

The seller's description: 

"Graphics are of a dark haired man and blonde woman, with a circular feature of a house and trees in the background. The background is painted a luscious deep burgundy. Also has another small circle to the left of the picture of the same house. Board cuts are visible. Actual Artwork is on heavy paper."

Detail of a house with a light on

Bellamy's signature from pre-1950

Lines suggesting where cropping could be done

Now where did it come from? If I hear back I'll let you know what the seller says. I've checked the listing for the exhibition "Unseen Bellamy" but the size doesn't match anything there nor the descriptions. It looks to match another piece (provided by Tim Barnes - see below)  which I have yet to track down in any publication. The style matches his Home Notes work and the romance books "Dark Inheritance" and My True Love" 

To see a larger version visit website

NEW GARTH STORY - The Beast of Ultor AND A MYSTERY

NEW GARTH STORY - The Beast of Ultor...and a mystery!

Thursday 11 April 2013 © Daily Mirror

"Garth is exploring a deep pothole in Derbyshire with a girl friend four hundred feet below ground. 'Garth the water's rising!' 'Must be a heavy rainstorm above ground Liz! Let's get out of here before we're trapped!'"

Jim Edgar knew how to start a story with tension, and Frank Bellamy certainly knew how to attract the male readership straight away! They discover a colony of strange eggs and that thrusts Garth into another exciting adventure!

The original story ran in the Daily Mirror from 19 February 1974 - 5 June 1974 (H42-H131), 90 episodes.The story was reprinted in The Daily Mirror Book of Garth London: IPC Limited, 1976 and also Menomonee Falls Gazette #202 (27 October 1975) - #218 (16 February 1976)- but that's not quite true....

Can you see what's missing from the page illustrated below from the 1976 reprint book?

Interestingly Martin spotted it and told me. The reprint book from 1976 does not contain all the story. And by my calculations, the Menomonee Falls Gazette will have contained all of them, so that means the story has never been reprinted in full...in the UK! 

Using the page numbers from the 1976 reprint, the missing episodes are H61, H62 (page 53), H65 (page 54), H77, H78, H79 (page70), H116 (page 77/78). Unfortunately I don't have access to the MFG volumes in question to see what I missed. But I do have a couple of these in the ones I cut out crudely in 1974!

Missing strips H78-H79

And Paul Holder has come to my rescue with the others which I present in no particular order. And yes, the ladies are comfortable in their skins, so to speak (and avoid web-blockers!). I'd love to hear explanations as to why you think these strips were left out - beyond the fact this would have added 8 pages to the book's length!

UPDATE (20/04/2013)

I have gone through the whole book now and found the answer is indeed in multiples of four! The following are 

Mask of Atacama has the following missing:
G170, G173, G230, G231, G237, G246

and

People of the abyss:
F243, F259, F264, F272, F273, F299

H77-79

H115-116

H65

H61-62

Now children, you can print out this page and insert them in your copy of the 1976 reprint! But get an adult to supervise the cutting out and remember Bill Gates' tip in Microsoft Word from many years ago...DON'T run with scissors!

Thanks go again to Martin for sending me this first episode and also unearthing a bit of Bellamy background we hadn't found before! And to Paul for his kindness. I love the Internet for building community!