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BooksDoctor WhoIllustration

Doctor Who: Timeview: The Complete Doctor Who Illustrations Of Frank Bellamy by David Bellamy (book review).

It’s amazing what turns up on the off-chance. If you’ve seen the art of Frank Bellamy (1917-1976) illustrating ‘Thunderbirds’ in ‘TV21’ and the ‘Garth’ newspaper strip for the ‘Daily Mirror’, you might or might not be aware that he illustrated ‘Doctor Who’ for the ‘Radio Times’.

They would bring photo-reference in on a Friday night and collect the art by Monday, usually of Jon Pertwee, which was used on the cover once, and Tom Baker. It’s rather interesting seeing how his work got polished and sharper over these pieces.

His son, David Bellamy, tells of his father’s life. Frank Bellamy wasn’t classically trained in art, just extremely talented. He also worked at the size it would be printed rather than at least double the size and never used process white. The latter is the name of correction colour to clean by illustrations. By going his own way, he never learnt the habit. For more, you need to read the text for yourself.

I was surprised mint copies are still out there. Whether you’re a fan of Bellamy’s art or into ‘Doctor Who’, then you’d need this book to fit into your collection.

GF Willmetts

December 2020

(pub: Who Dares Publishing, 1985. 55 page stiff card softcover. Price: I pulled my copy for about £14.00 (UK). ISBN: 0-948487-03-8)

UncleGeoff

Geoff Willmetts has been editor at SFCrowsnest for some 21 plus years now, showing a versatility and knowledge in not only Science Fiction, but also the sciences and arts, all of which has been displayed here through editorials, reviews, articles and stories. With the latter, he has been running a short story series under the title of ‘Psi-Kicks’ If you want to contribute to SFCrowsnest, read the guidelines and show him what you can do. If it isn’t usable, he spends as much time telling you what the problems is as he would with material he accepts. This is largely how he got called an Uncle, as in Dutch Uncle. He’s not actually Dutch but hails from the west country in the UK.

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