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| Art FRANK BELLAMY. Characters copyright relevant owners |
Every serious comics aficionado of a certain age knows the name Frank Bellamy. I learned only relatively recently that apparently, Alan Fennell, editor of TV Century 21, originally wanted him to illustrate the Stingray strip for the new weekly, but he was still involved with Eagle at the time and had no room in his schedule so the job went to Ron Embleton instead. All I can say is - phew, thank goodness for that.
Now there's no question that Frank was a skilled artist, but I was never too impressed by his Thunderbirds pages when he eventually joined TV21 in early 1966. Sure, he painted pretty skies, but his Thunderbird craft didn't always match their TV counterparts, and his reference material for TB2 seemed as though it might've later included the Dinky toy, which wasn't a totally accurate representation of the vehicle.
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| Art MIKE NOBLE |
Then there was the 'style' he used, similar to John Burns' artwork later published in Countdown. You know what I mean - figure details filled on only one side, with the other rendered in coloured 'shadow'. Maybe Bellamy had too much work at the time and had to rush his TB pages to meet deadlines, but I think they were less impressive than Mike Noble's art on Fireball XL5 and Ron Embleton's on Stingray.
Every panel by Noble pulled the reader into the action, and Embleton's pages were objects of beauty that were a delight to gaze upon. (He was no slouch in the action stakes either, though Noble had the edge.) Bellamy's pages came a poor third to those of his artistic stablemates and were less involving. With Noble and Embleton, you had front row seats, with Bellamy it all seemed to be happening at a distance.
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| Art RON EMBLETON |
Of course, that doesn't quite cover things as it's likely more complicated than that, but I find it difficult to articulate precisely what I mean, though it's the best I can do given my ongoing brain-fog. What do you think, readers - am I being too harsh on Bellamy or do you agree with my assessment? Feel entirely free to record your thoughts, theories, and fancies in our (hopefully) controversial comments section.
