Wall's WONDERMAN by Frank Bellamy (1970)
Frank Bellamy is well known in comics circles for his work on strips such as Heros the Spartan for Eagle, Thunderbirds for TV21, and Garth for the Daily Mirror, but (as some of you also know) he also worked in advertising. Some of those adverts appeared in the weekly comics too. In 1970, Bellamy produced two full page comic strips featuring Wall's Wonderman; a bespoke British superhero promoting Wall's Wonder Woppas ice cream lollies.
The strip shown above is one I scanned from my edition of Tiger dated 30th May 1970.
Another Wonderman adventure, Martian Inferno, appeared in Valiant dated 18th April 1970. I don't have that issue, but you can see it on Norman Boyd's blog here:
http://www.frankbellamy.co.uk/notes/wallswonder.htm
Well discovered Lew and thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteI felt sure I'd seen these around in a few more comics of the time, so appreciate this titbit of extra knowledge. If anyone has a scan of the Martian Inferno, I'd love to replace my old scan with my childish imitation of FB's signature!
The only comics I have a complete year for 1970 of are Tiger, Smash!, and Scorcher, but a quick browse through those didn't reveal Martian Inferno unfortunately. It might well be in there somewhere but I didn't have time to look through every issue. I suppose it's possible it may have been in Whizzer and Chips as well as Valiant. I threw out most of my W&C comics years ago though.
ReplyDeleteNormie: https://serendipityproject.wordpress.com/2011/08/28/aug-28-2011-space-age-exploitation-advertising-from-valiant-comic-1970-1972/walls-wonderman-and-the-martian-inferno-advertisement-1970/
ReplyDeleteThat what you are looking for?
May I say a big thank you to "Manic Man" via your blog Lew, for that link.
ReplyDeleteTHANKS Manic Man