Kev O'Neill art for 'The new Thunderbirds' art for auction

Lot 5239 at the upcoming auction of Terrahawks material at Ewbanks auctioneers is described thus...

'The New Thunderbirds' / T-Force - Original concept artwork showing Gunship (T1), Interceptor (T2), Transporter (T3) and Commanders, Pen and Pencil, signature 'O'Neill', (37 x 53 cm). with 'New Thunderbirds' Agenda for February 1984, Introduction booklet with details / images of new characters and spaceships, with distribution and production schedules, dated November 1983.

Provenance: From the Julian Bell Collection. All lots will be supplied with Certificate of Authenticity signed by Ewbank's Auctioneers.

What should be obvious to comic fans looking at these drawings is that they are by Kevin O'Neill

Looks like he wasn't involved in the character designs...

Lot 5239 has an estimate of £400-£600 and the auction itself takes place on Monday 30th November from 11am

In fact lot 5221 (estimate £300-£500) is the original art of the above - and shows that the art is by Steve Kyte

Steve also drew the art for lot 5222 (estimated at £400-£600)

There's also lot 5224 (estimate £150-£250) by Kevin O'Neill described thus...

Hand drawn concept design artwork for a Gerry Anderson series with the artwork containing spaceships, Anderson Burr Pictures 1982, hand signed lower left O'Neill, on board, 31 x 36 cm.

...and a final piece of Steve Kyte artwork from lot 5238 (estimate £800 - £1,200)

There's loads of other great items in the sale - including this Frank Bellamy poster for the 'Thunderbirds 6' poster - this is lot 5002 and is estimated at £300-£500

Lot 5160 (estimate £200-£400) includes Jim Baikie artwork (from Look In?)

The auction itself takes place on Monday 30th November 2020 from 11am

Check out all the lots here

Good luck if you bid!

UPDATED: 'Mighty Max' from Marvel UK

Published by Marvel UK in 1994-5 'The adventures of Mighty Max' ran for 10 issues - cover art is by Mario Capaldi, precise issues details when I have them...

New details in red

Mighty Max (Marvel UK) comic issue 1 

Story 1 = If the cap fits... [story by Dan Abnett, art by Mario Capaldi]

Story 2 = A site for sore eyes! [story by Dan Abnett, art by Keith Page]

Story 3 = Max's snack attack! [story by Dan Abnett, art by Keith Page]

Mighty Max (Marvel UK) comic issue 2

Story 1 = Cry wolfship! [story by Dan Abnett, art by Mario Capaldi]
Story 2 = Max cracks it! [story by Dan Abnett, art by Keith Page]
Story 3 = Mutant on the bounty! [story by Dan Abnett, art by Mario Capaldi]

Mighty Max (Marvel UK) comic issue 3

Story 1 = Time & again! [story by Dan Abnett, art by Mario Capaldi]

Story 2 = Nuts with bolts! [story by Dan Abnett, art by Keith Page

Story 3 = The big thaw! [story by Dan Abnett, art by Mike White]

Mighty Max (Marvel UK) comic issue 4

Story 1 = A sting in the tale! [story by Dan Abnett, art by Mario Capaldi]

Story 2 = Heads you lose! [story by Dan Abnett, art by Keith Page]

Story 3 = Back to the stone age! [story by Dan Abnett, art by Keith Page]

Mighty Max (Marvel UK) comic issue 5

Mighty Max (Marvel UK) issue 6

Story 1 = Sonic Doom! [story by Dan Abnett, art by Mario Capaldi]
Story 2 = Night of the living dude! [story by Dan Abnett, pencils by Phil Gascoigne, inks by Bambos Georgiou]
Story 3 = Suckers and sea! [story by Dan Abnett, art by Keith Page]

Mighty Max issue 7

Story 1 = Teacher's pet! [story by Dan Abnett; pencils by Mario Capaldi; inks by Bambos Georgiou; letters by Gary Gilbert; colour by Andy Seddon]

Story 2 = The apes of wrath! [uncredited; but art is by Keith Page & Mario Capaldi]

Story 3 = The whys and werewolves [story by Dan Abnett; pencils by Phil Gascoigne; inks by Bambos Georgiou; letters by Pat Prentice; colour by Andy Seddon]

Mighty Max issue 8

Mighty Max issue 9

Mighty Max issue 10

and then there was the Mighty Max freebie comic - details here and here

I posted the above on a Facebook groups and John Michael Burns (renowned colourist and nephew of artist John M Burns) commented about colouring the cover to issue 1 (and therefore possibly other covers too I guess).

Talking Doonesbury

I recently recorded (here) a podcast all about my love of legendary Amercian newspaper cartoon strip Doonesbury -

So as well as suggesting giving it a listen I thought I'd share some images from my collection - most of which get a mention in the podcast...

Ok no mention for this but the Doonesbury stamp album truly is a thing of beauty...

An actual Duje action figure from the book, Action Figure!

Here's that terrifying list of books (from the first ever Doonesbury book I got)

That same booked complete with GB Trudeau squiggle

Another signature - thanks to Steve at the Cartoon Museum for helping with this...

A great starting point for all those new to Doonesbury

For that deeper dive - the 40th anniversary volume - it's not all the strips from the last 40 years (but it feels like it when you pick it up) 

Comic Treasures (1)

Comic Treasures (2)

  

 

Workin' klass superhero #2 - Glenn Fabry

From July 1979 here's an early comic by Glenn Fabry - A4 sized (and not cheap at 40p) this is a 44 page comic featuring workt by Glenn Fabry, Steve Brown, Kev Pike, John Mould and Mark Casto.

Cover by Glenn Fabry (look for that GF signature in the bottom left)

...and top right we have a youthful Glenn at a gig... 

Glenn's main contribution to the komic is this 8-page strip 'Green TV time' - looking a lot like Moebius was a big influence!

There were only 2 issues of "Workin' klass superhero"...

Micron minitext series

Ages ago I came across a couple of 'books' that look like Commando and were published by a company (Micron) that issued picture libraries but were in fact text based (albeit with plenty of illustrations). I'd mentally filed these 2 booklets away as just being an odd thing that the company produced, now I've discovered that there were at least 16 in the series and possible more.

The first 2 books (at least) weren't numbered or even branded as being in the 'minitext' series. This and the fact that issues 1 & 2 (at least) were cheaper (1/- rather than 1/6) than the earliest 'branded' issues I've found so far (#5) makes me think that the first 2 booklets were to test the market a bit and, having proved successful, more booklets were subsequently produced (at a higher price point).

I love collating a series so here's what I've found so far...

Micron publication - minitext book 1 - Fighting planes of world war 2

image not to hand - can you help?

Micron publication - minitext book 2 - Bombers of world war 2

Micron publication - minitext book 3 - Fighting Britain

image not to hand - can you help?

Micron publication - minitext book 4 - British tanks of world war 2

image not to hand - can you help?

Micron publication - minitext book 5 - Fighting jets

Micron publication - minitext book 6 - British racing cars

Micron publication - minitext book 7 - British athletics 1962

Micron publication - minitext book 8 - Fighter aircraft of World War 1

Micron publication - minitext book 9 - Facts and figures of the American west

Micron publication - minitext book 10 - German secret weapons of world war 2

image not to hand - can you help?

Micron publication - minitext book 11 - The red air force, 1913-1963

Micron publication - minitext book 12 - veteran and vintage cars

Micron publication - minitext book 13 - Japanese ships and naval aircraft

image not to hand - can you help?

Micron publication - minitext book 14 - rockets and missiles

image not to hand - can you help?

Micron publication - minitext book 15 - British locomotives 1829-1963

Micron publication - minitext book 16 - foreign racing cars 1895-1963

Micron publication - minitext book 17 - Luftwaffe

image not to hand - can you help?

Micron publication - minitext book 18 - bomber command

image not to hand - can you help?

A number of these images are sourced from auctions that are currently running on ebay - a search for 'Micron minitext' will take you to them

Battle heroes - sketches by Patrick Goddard

If you've been following artist Patrick Goddard's (@PaddyGod1) recent sketches for October you'll know that while he didn't quite manage one a day he did draw a very respectable 22 characters from British and American comics.

The first batch of these is now up for sale on his ebay store - and I've picked out (below) a few of the heroes of Battle that he drew - namely Major Eazy, Johnny 'Red' Redburn and Charley Bourne

His seller name is ngod2 and here's a link to the Johnny Red sketch here

The sketches are A5 size and come with the preliminary pencil sketch too - good luck if you bid

 

Sketchbooks from Book Palace

Following on from the news here that Book Palace books, publishers of the Illustrators quarterly magazine, are to bring out a new book all about Frank Bellamy (written by friend of the blog Norman Boyd) come news that they have another Frank Bellamy book under production!

In what looks like a new series from Book Palace books we have this image taken from here on their website

Hmmm, I recognise that image but I'm guessing they'll be plenty more that I don't recognise inside, yippee!

In the same series there will also be this volume looking at the work of artist Fortunino Matania - the page to check is here 

Both books are due in Spring 2021