Did you know that the words that we in the West sing to "Happy birthday" are copyright, so rather than do that allow me to add my congratulations in a quick note on Frank Bellamy and those amazing craft.
Four and a half thousand articles on any blog is pretty damn good Paul. I've been going a year longer and managed 206 posts on my blog and I thought I was obsessed with my subject! As you kindly asked me to write something for this blog being a glutton for punishment here's my attempt.
But how do I connect Frank Bellamy with Moonbase Central? Well, Bellamy did draw for TV21 - that classic 60s (we don't mention the 70s version!) in which Project S.W.O.R.D. first appeared. He didn't contribute anything to it that I know of, but then illustrating Thunderbirds was - almost - a full time job.
Why 'almost'? Well, he did many other things (The Avengers TV programme - http://bit.ly/1bzIASq and book covers - http://bit.ly/19utsQj for example) during that period of 188 weekly issues of TV21 from January 1966 to January 1969. (It would have been an extra 7 but Don Harley took over for 7 weeks - well even Bellamy couldn't produce all those pictures for a TV AND still do Thunderbirds every week! ).
I wondered just how many pages he produced and being Norman The Nerd (actually I can think of two more nerds called Norman!) I added up the figures.
Frank Bellamy drew 188 weekly episodes of Thunderbirds, 375 colour pages (85 of which are superb double page spreads) and 18 single black and white pages in those 3 years! He also did 5 colour pages as covers - depicting Captain Scarlet. That's an incredible output.
He had reference photos for the wonderful Gerry Anderson hardware, but he much preferred fantasy than depicting work others had created. He loved his work - on the soon to be reprinted - Heros The Spartan (from the Eagle comic), but still, his depictions of the Thunderbird craft are still being reprinted - October sees the latest incarnation.
If he had negotiated reprint rights, and was still alive, he'd be pretty rich. Bellamy's name appears on your blog quite often I see ( http://projectswordtoys.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=bellamy) and deservedly so as you are interested in craft and toys and fantasy vehicles. I adore the way he 'painted' those Thunderbirds and liked a lot of his other designs.
Now I'm older I can appreciate how off-beam some of them were at the time (and still are to some extent) and I wonder if toys had been made of his peripheral craft how popular they might have been.
That's enough from me, after all if you need waffle head over to one of 4 blogs! I've included here some examples of machinery that FB created or drew from photos and I think you'll see, despite him apparently not enjoying drawing them, I think they stand up quite well.
Best Wishes
Norman Boyd
Frank Bellamy Blog
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