Saturday 22 October 2016

Frank Bellamy, inflation and crocodiles

During an email exchange with David Jackson last year, we were writing about Bellamy's other work in the Daily Mirror, illustrations for articles, and David said:

Your mention of the "inflation" crocodile rang some faint bell and I had to go and check... And having looked at both the Speakeasy and the Daily Mirror I can confirm that the printed Mirror version I have, isn't reprinted in Speakeasy - which is in fact a completely different drawing of the "inflation crocodile. Speakeasy's is, as you say, facing to the left, but isn't a 'flipped' 'mirror' (heh) 'reversal' of the Daily Mirror image - both versions are signed Frank Bellamy, and 'signwritten' "INFLATION" along each reptile's flank.

And here to prove what David has quite rightly pointed out are both images

The Daily Mirror (15 June 1972) picture accompanies an article called "What is the cause?…The Mirror verdict" by Robert Head appearing on pp.16-17

Daily Mirror 15 June 1972, pp16-17 © mirrorpix
According to his obituary (February 19 2009 in the Times), Robert Head was "the youngest City editor on a national newspaper when he was appointed in his early thirties by the Daily Mirror’s bulky, hard-drinking but shrewd and authoritative Editor Lee Howard as the first in that post on a tabloid paper. Thirty years on he was the longest serving when he finally retired from the Daily Mirror and Sunday Mirror, both of which he had served for seven days a week."

 The second picture David and I were talking about appeared in the "Unseen Frank Bellamy" exhibition to which I have dedicated a page on the Checklist website. The catalogue was published to coincide with the exhibition, in Acme Press' Speakeasy magazine #100 (July 1989). The long-running (10 years or so) comics fanzine-turned-professional publication folded in the early 90s. Speakeasy was founded by Richard Ashford, whom Alan Davis (the comic book artist) took to visit Frank Bellamy's widow, Nancy Bellamy. The meeting set in motion the events that resulted in the Acme Press/Speakeasy art show The event itself took place at The Basement Gallery 391 Coldharbour Lane Brixton, London SW9 8LQ between the 15th of July and 3rd of September 1989.

The Unseen Frank Bellamy catalogue
 So there you go. Never having actually compared the two I had always assumed they were the same!!! The Archivist of the Year award goes to David Jackson!

Thursday 8 September 2016

Frank Bellamy and Star Trek

Thank you Gene Roddenberry!

As it's the 50th anniversary I thought it was time we celebrated Star Trek. I remember the day I found out it was due to be broadcast in the UK. I was laying some newspaper on the table where I sat, in school, with three others in anticipation of doing some painting. No idea what we were painting, but a photo (in black and white of course - no colour then-  stopped me in my tracks. What day was this auspicious day? Monday 2 June 1969. And the paper? The Daily Mirror (yes, the very same one that would be publishing the Bellamy-drawn "Garth" strip). How am I so certain of this? Well God bless the "Space Doubt" blog run by one Sham Mountebank, which I suspect is not her/his real name!

Radio Times 27 June 1970, p.49
My very own cut out copy (GULP!)
It s often reported that Frank Bellamy drew a comic strip of Star Trek in the UK. Well if you were trying to win on a TV quiz show the answer is .....no he didn't! The above is the nearest we get to one and it was a single colour page in the bestselling TV (BBC only) listings magazine, Radio Times. Was that all the Star Trek he did? No! But people often get confused as there was a Star Trek comic strip in the comic Joe 90, as is reported better than I could do, here on Lew Stringer's brilliant blog. When I saw that newspaper piece I was interested to see the emphasis on Mr. Spock as we all had been reading Joe 90 since January 1969 when it was launched with Captain Kurt at the helm. Go visit Lew for an explanation! And Bellamy's piece shows someone somewhere wanted to emphasise Spock's looks.

I must thank the excellent Star Trek Comics Checklist site (nice name!) as I realised I don't actually have a copy of the picture below of Kirk and Spock, and thus stole this from them. Bellamy was paid £12 for this drawing and £10 for the last one on this page (on 19 October 1971)


Radio Times 3 October 1970 - 9 October 1970, p.35
The third and last illustration that Bellamy did, was the brilliant shot of Spock and the Enterprise

Radio Times 11 Sept 1971-17 September 1971, p34

I understand that the single colour page above was part of the reason Frank Bellamy got the "Foreign Comics Award" from the Academy of Comic Book Arts in 1972 - for work published in 1971 he was awarded "Best Foreign Artist Frank Bellamy (Star Trek)". I'm sure Barry Windsor-Smith had a hand in recommending him for this and I know Archie Goodwin was in contact with him. Bellamy told Goodwin that Chris Lowder had informed him the Academy had seen a sample of his "Heros the Spartan" work and judged him more than worthy of the award. therefore his actual comic work for 1971 was concocted for the purposes of giving him the award. There were communications with Marv Wolfman regarding FB doing some work for the Marvel black and white horror comics line, but this never happened as Bellamy had his daily comic strip, "Garth", to do as well as many other assignments! Imagine, what if...!


Incidentally if you are interested in the UK Star Trek strips they were recently reprinted and included Mike Noble's gorgeous work. Volume 1 and soon to be Volume 2

Monday 5 September 2016

Al Williamson and Frank Bellamy recycled

Bellamy's art on "Dan Dare"
Eagle 7 Nov 1959 Vol.10 No38


****UPDATED: February 2023****See also Part Two

I recently saw a story drawn by Al Williamson, a great artist, on 'Groovy's' brilliant blog and remembered previously writing something on Williamson's 'borrowing' of others' work.Unfortunately none of my wonderful storage methods have enabled me to recover this work, so here goes again!

Referring to the first King Comics, (a short-lived comic book imprint of King Features Syndicate), "Flash Gordon" comic, the author (Mark Schultz, no mean artists himself) states:

"Produced under an intimidating deadline, the leadoff story in particular not only borrows from a Raymond but also features panels lifted cold from instalments of Frank Hampson and Frank Bellamy's Dan Dare, a British science fiction comic.  Williamson has been open about his "swipes" of the work of others, a not-uncommon practice in the comics field and one attributable to the constant deadline pressure.  He has always willingly given credit to his sources." (p.20) - Al Williamson's Flash Gordon: A Lifelong Vision of the Heroic, (2009), Flesk Publications. ISBN-13: 978-1933865126
 Indeed he did say such things, I'd previously noted in James Van Hise book "The Art of Al Williamson", that he learned about drawing using photographs from assisting John Prentice (read more here about that work) and after this kept a 'morgue file' as artists call their clippings before the Internet made it so much easier.

I should acknowledge that until today I was not aware of Eric Mackenzie's interesting article in Spaceship Away #3 - another strange coincidence whilst researching this topic. I did see the article on BritishComicArt blog and it was then that I thought 'Crow', the blog author, 'borrowed' from my article (which I suspect was in an old Facebook profile and lost now!) but as you can read in the comments, it was a coincidence! I also remember long ago in the 1970s reading (was it in Fantasy Advertiser Dez Skinn?) an article on the same subject, but that's long gone! However I think I have remembered something of this - see below.

So let's get started.

Firstly I quote Frank Bellamy's letter to Mike Tiefenbacher and Jerome Sinkovec of Menomonee Falls Gazette
Thank you for the complimentary remarks about my work. You are very kind. It means a lot to me to find acceptance in the United States. I was very interested to read about Al Williamson. As I am a great admirer of his work it gives me great pleasure to know that he is familiar with at least some of my work. Taken from Bellamy's letter to Menomonee Falls Gazette  Published in no.81, July 2nd, 1973.

Oh he certainly was Frank! The page above contains the following panel which we will see was a definite favourite of Williamson's!

Bellamy foliage from Eagle 7 Nov 1959 Vol.10 No38

Al Williamson's Flash Gordon #1, 1966 p.4
Note the shape of the foliage

Williamson à la Bellamy

UPDATE: I thought that was it until Bill Storie mentioned he'd see Bellamy's explosion appear in another Williamson work and he's sent it to me!

Al Williamson Star Wars


Al Williamson's Flash Gordon #5, 1967 p.28
Below an enlarged panel

Hmm, that foliage looks familiar
The most frequently spotted of Williamson's 'recycled' Bellamy pieces is the spaceship "Nimbus 2" Bellamy created in the "Dan Dare" story "Project Nimbus". Frank Hampson (Don Harley, Gerald Palmer, Keith Watson inter alia) created "Dan Dare" over a 10 year period before Bellamy, Harley and others took over. Bellamy, unfairly I think, gets a lot of criticism by those who were reading "Dan Dare" at that time because he was asked to upgrade things. Fortunately he agreed from the start to do it for one year and that's what his contract stated.

Bellamy's art on "Dan Dare"
Eagle 16 April 1960 Vol.11 No16

Al Williamson's Flash Gordon #1, 1966 p.1
...and Bellamy's Nimbus 2!

Williamson loved the craft so much he used another panel
Bellamy's art on "Dan Dare"
Eagle 7 May 1960 Vol.11 No19

Enlarged panel by Bellamy
Al Williamson's Flash Gordon #1, 1966 p.15 - see below for full page

An interview mentioned in Gopherville Argus (a short-lived fanzine on Bellamy, put out by Bill Storie and Terry Doyle) quotes an interview with Williamson (original source unknown)

From Gopherville Argus #3
Off I went...tanks?...Tanks...Ah, TANKS! Take a look at the tank on the right in the first panel and then....

The well renowned Blazing Combat (1965) #2
take a look at the tank on the right above Monty's profile - to the right of the page!
Eagle 21 April 1962


While I was researching this article, I found something very interesting. Remember I said I thought there was an article in Fantasy Advertiser, Dez Skinn's fanzine of the 70s, well my memory says it included this page by Bellamy but you know what memory is like - especially after 40 years!

Bellamy's art on "Dan Dare"
Eagle 9 April 1960 Vol.11 No15
Here's the panel in question I wish to highlight

Bellamy's unique hardware
Well whilst re-reading Flash Gordon comics I tripped over this page by the wonderful Wally Wood


The Phantom #18, 1966
"Flash Gordon and the Space Pirates"
One moment what's that hardware there? It looks familiar! So Wally Wood copied Bellamy, or did Williamson sketch for Wood to ink his work. Personally I don't think this looks like a Wood original despite the excellent Grand Comics Database entry. The figure of Gordon does not look 'Wood-y' enough for my liking.
Wally Wood copies Bellamy
 And before we round off Williamson's recycling of Bellamy art, I should point you to Bellamy's art above which shows the launch of the Nimbus 2. The first panel of that page looks very similar to this one:
The Phantom #18, 1966
"Flash Gordon and the Space Pirates"

The figure here certainly looks like Wally Wood's work but the spacecraft? I don't think it was his original idea!

UPDATE (17 May 2022): Lastly "HarryDobermann Esq" pointed out a later image I missed completely in the same Wood story! Look closely at the bottom right hand panel! Thunderbird One is go!

The Phantom #18, 1966
"Flash Gordon and the Space Pirates"
TV21 #77 has the following image which I'm guessing formed the basis for Woody's image. But who knows? TB1 launches with wings 'in', maybe that's why this copy doesn't look too true to the original. 

TV21 #77 cropped

Bear with me as I round off this article with two more examples of Williamson's use of the Eagle comic, although I must emphasize this is not Frank Bellamy artwork. the first is one of my favourite comic covers of all time by the UK's other Frank...Hampson.


Frank Hampson's art for Eagle 28 March 1959 Vol.10 No13
"The Galactic Galleon"
Take note of the rounded base of the craft. Williamson used the bottom of this craft as positioned in the above image, below!



Frank Hampson and Don Harley's art for Eagle 12 March 1960 Vol.11 No11

Al Williamson's Flash Gordon #1, 1966 p.15 -
see above for enlarged panel by Bellamy
and Hampson's gorgeous ship
Notice these three panes are all 'recycled'!

The craft, "Tempus Frangit" is so iconic in later "Dan Dare" stories as drawn by Keith Watson, I thought it worth showing this recycling by Williamson too. Take a look at the following - my post . Some of this is also mentioned here

Eagle Vol 14:41 12 Oct 1963
Keith Watson artwork

Creepy #112
Al Williamson art
Thanks to Eric Mackenzie's article in Spaceship Away #3 I also see now I have a copy, that Willimason borrowed from Don Harley and Bruce Cornwell

Eagle Vol 11 #52

One of a few adverts which Williamson
drew for various magazines for Union carbide

If you can add anything, let me know! And I must emphasise that I love a lot of Williamson's work and am in no way criticising his practice. Even Bellamy used reference photographs...more on that another day.

 

READ THIS FAR AND WANT MORE? Part Two is here

Monday 29 August 2016

Frank Bellamy at Kettering exhibition ended.

I managed to get to the Comics Unstripped Exhibition at the Alfred East Gallery, Kettering previously mentioned a few weekends ago.  I must apologise for the blurry photos. I must get in the habit of cleaning my phone's camera before taking photos!

Paul Holder and I met Alan Davis - yes that Alan Davis! - on Saturday 30 July, more about this meeting another time, promise! We both went in to look around the exhibition, this being the first time I had been to the gallery, despite its history of showing Bellamy's work one way or another.

The gallery has two large very open exhibition spaces and all walls had artwork on them.
Biography of Bellamy
The biography is uncredited unfortunately but is substantially correct. It mentions Bellamy's call-up during WWII to "Auckland" - this being West Auckland, near Bishop Auckland - Deerbolt Camp to be exact. And it implies John [sic] Pertwee was a collector of Frank's artwork which is incorrect, although Jon Pertwee did write to say how nice the cover Bellamy did for the Radio Times January 1972 was.

Bellamy nearly takes up a wall
 One of the regrettable features of the exhibition was the labeling. I fully understand some fans might not want to be identified as owning the artwork, but some art were evidently prints, not originals and these were not differentiated. "Montgomery of Alamein" appeared to be prints, as did "Heros the Spartan" and the Disc Garth features. "David the Shepherd King" were originals. Bellamy photos were peppered around artwork and included the photo of Nancy Bellamy tied up as Lady Penelope for the Thunderbirds 6 film poster as well as a school photo - Bellamy is not identified. A glass cabinet displayed various magazine and comics in which Bellamy's work appeared.

Gallery Sales table and the right hand side of the 'Bellamy' space
Paul Holder who helped to set up a lot of the Bellamy artwork produced a booklet, with permission from John Morrow, using Paul's chapter from True Brit [Link to paper edition. Note the digital version is full colour and much cheaper - see below!]. The chapter is a biography of Bellamy with some nice accompanying artwork and photographs. You can still buy the digital edition of the whole of True Brit: A Celebration of the Great Comic Book Artists of the UK via Twomorrow's site (as outlined by John Freeman below).


From Garth: The Mask of Atacama (G182)

From: Garth: Bride of Jenghiz Khan (H301-303)
Owned by the Gallery
The three strips above are also reproduced in Alfred East Art Gallery: The Permanent Collection Guide, p.90. It also comes with a small biography (with a few unfortunate typos) but the guide also mentions Bellamy's involvement with the Kettering And District Art Society. It seems odd that the Gallery did not buy some of Bellamy's artwork which, in print form, were also on show here.

Various from Garth: The Wolfman of Ausensee
I enjoyed seeing the placement of oil paintings from the Alfred East collection alongside some comic covers, raising the perennial question of what is 'fine art'. Original art prices for comic covers are at a premium and in my head I was wondering which artwork I would take for a few thousand pounds, if they were for sale!
Placing original paintings from the collection with comic artwork

Overall, I have to say I'm a bit jaded having already seen a lot of what was on display of Bellamy's work, but it is so good to see his work being celebrated locally.

John Freeman has an article about True Brit and how to order high quality prints of original art by Bellamy and Colin Noble reviewed the exhibition for John's Downthetubes site.

Tuesday 23 August 2016

Fans of Frank: Will Brooks and Frank Bellamy

Eagle 23 January 1960 Vol. 11:4, p1
Original art scan thanks to owner
Will Brooks works with digital art  and "is a freelance designer based in Cardiff Bay. His main work is Doctor Who-based, and previous clients have included Big Finish Productions and BBC Worldwide. Currently, Will provides photo cover variants for Titan Comics’ range of monthly Doctor Who titles".  Take a look at his gallery on Deviant Art and follow his Tumblr account.  He has become a follower of Frank Bellamy's work, and so I asked him to add some words to my infrequent feature "Fans of Frank" . Over to you Will....

Will Brooks
When I was first discovering Doctor Who at the tail end of 2003, most of my knowledge about it came from great big books I’d picked up at geeky specialist shops. Things like Justin Richard’s The Legend were my absolute bible. I’d sit there for hours just staring at the pictures from all these stories that seemed so far off and distant. While I’d started picking up odd VHS tapes from the library and the same geeky shops, I knew I was really better off waiting for the DVDs in many cases, and my calculations at the time suggested that at their current release rate, I’d not have a full collection until somewhere around 2025.

Everything I knew about Doctor Who came from books like that. Even now when I think of certain stories, the first thing that comes to mind is whatever image was printed as a full- or half-page in connection to them. It was in one of these books that I first came across the work of Frank Bellamy.

Radio Times 30 Aug- 05 Sep 1975, p.6
Note the punch holes - Norman was stupid in 1975!

Specifically, it was the gorgeous 3/4 page "Terror of the Zygons" piece for Radio Times [30 Aug1975-5 Sep 1975], with a terrifying but beautiful Skarasen lurching from the bottom panel while the Doctor muses on the nature of the threat they’re facing. Just in the way that I picture specific photographs when thinking of certain Doctor Who stories, when "Terror" crosses my mind, it’s [the above] image I see.

Radio Times 30 Aug- 05 Sep 1975, p.17
Such an unusual piece!

I’ve less clear memories of when I first saw the rest of Frank Bellamy’s Doctor Who work. Over time, it’s all sort of merged into that great big Who-flavoured soup in my head. That’s not to take away from any of the other art, though, because it’s all beautiful in its own way. There’s another piece from the Radio Times for "Terror of the Zygons" - a smaller, 1/4 page affair - which is very different in style to the first, but really sells those opening moments of the story. There’s a similar piece for the previous season’s "The Ark in Space", too, which brings together the Doctor, the Ark, a Wirrn, and one of the cryogenics bays in a way that’s more beautiful than any of the subsequent covers the story received for novelisations, or on video, or DVD.
Radio Times 16-22 August 1975 p34:
"The Ark in Space"
That "Ark in Space" piece might - just might - be my favourite one of these Radio Times pieces, looking at it again. Because it’s one that really sums up what it is I love so much about Bellamy’s design work. He’s got a way with layout, with compositing the elements together, that has rarely been matched in Doctor Who artwork since. It’s the use of negative space as much as the actual art itself - in this example the way the lines break up not only the distinct elements of the design, but cut across the images too. It’s an effect I’ve tried - and always failed - to implement several times in my own work. For now, I’ve decided it’s a technique best left to the expert.

Radio Times 16-22 August 1975 p34:
Norman's copy pasted in his scrapbook from the 1970s

It’s that real genius for layout that I love the most about Bellamy’s work, and it’s as distinctively ‘him’ as that terribly long signature that adorns so much of his work. It’s present in those preview pieces for Radio Times (as well as in his single episode images that accompanied many stories in the early 1970s), but it’s perhaps more obviously on display in his work outside the world of Doctor Who.

Eagle 23 January 1960 Vol. 11:4, p1

The more my interests around archive television have expanded, the more I’ve found myself bumping into Bellamy’s earlier work, and every time it’s instantly recognisable and totally distinctive. From his work on comic strips for Thunderbirds and Star Trek, and right back earlier than that to his time on Dan Dare in the late 1950s and early 1960s, his style is totally unique, so distinctly his. It’s also, dare I say, completely timeless. The way he arranges the panels on a page in a comic strip sets my imagination alight now at 27, so I can’t imagine what it did to a generation of kids opening up their copies of the Eagle each week to check in on their favourite pilot from the future. I’ve recently had a copy of the Thunderbirds Comic Collection as a gift (which means I can stop gazing lovingly at it in branches of Waterstones), and I’m pacing myself as I work my way through, taking time to really appreciate every page.
Will Brooks' montage a lá Bellamy
from Titan Comic's Third Doctor series

Recently, as a cover for an issue of Titan Comic’s upcoming Third Doctor mini series by Paul Cornell, I was able to try and mimic a bit of Frank’s work. It’s perhaps telling that of all the covers I’ve put together for Titan (it’s a lot, and the number keeps growing!), it was the cover that homaged his work that had the biggest impact. Every element is rather shamelessly cribbed from his style - the red circle picking out the Doctor is a lift from the Radio Times cover for 1972’s "Day of the Daleks", for example, while the lightning bolt and the way images are cut off comes directly from that "Terror of the Zygons" piece which introduced him to me.
Radio Times 1-7 January 1972 Cover
Much imitated, never bettered!

His style is totally ingrained in that period of the programme, and it suits the tones of the era. It’s a crushing shame he died so young, and I can only imagine what he might have done with covers to stories like "The Deadly Assassin", or "The Talons of Weng-Chiang". I’m at least comforted by the fact that there’s still so much of his portfolio out there for me to discover.

I rather like that while I started out as a Doctor Who fan who liked the work Bellamy did in connection to the programme, I can now claim to be a fan of Frank Bellamy in his own right. One day, if I’m very lucky and I wish very hard, I might even master even half his skill with layouts…

=========================================

Thanks a lot Will, for adding an entry to my Fans of Frank series where I unashamedly ask people to tell me why they love Bellamy. In return I am left to say, head over to Will's Tumblr to see his photographic collage work and follow links to Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Behance, DeviantArt and even Etsy! When does he get time to work? I can't even post more than one blog article a month!