Frank Bellamy and Man About Town

Frank Bellamy’s cover for the 1953 first issue of Man About Town at Cutterandtailor.com

When it comes to legendary illustrators, the names don’t come much bigger than Frank Bellamy. He’s associated in people’s minds with Dan Dare and The Eagle, but produced so many other strips, such as ‘Thunderbirds’ in TV 21 and ‘Garth’ in the Daily Mirror. His dramatic style also attracted cover commissions from the likes of the Radio Times and the Sunday Times Magazine. These are being brilliantly documented by Frankbellamy.co.uk and Frankbellamy.com.

The Frank Bellamy profile from the 1953 first issue of Man About Town

Another publication that Bellamy worked on is Man About Town, described in my book, British Magazine Design. Bellamy did the first issue cover in 1953 with its dapper chap stickman.

He has a profile on p171 of the magazine on its contributors’ page.

The Cutter & Tailor blog has scanned all Man About Town‘s first issue pages and put them online.

Below are two rarely-seen spreads by Bellamy. The first is from a 1969 issue of the Sunday Times Magazine (which is in the British Magazine Design book) and the second from Welcome Aboard, BOAC’s inflight magazine, from 1970.

Frank Bellamy spread from the Sunday Times Magazine (16 November 1969)

BOAC’s Welcome Aboard inflight magazine commissioned this spread from Frank Bellamy (1971) 

 

 

Tags: comic strips, Daily Mirror, Dan Dare, Eagle, Frank Bellamy, Garth, magazines, man about town, thunderbirds, TV 21, TV Century 21