Daniel Craig’s modern James Bond inspired by classic comic strip versions of Bond?

According to the foreword in James Bond: Spectre – The Complete Comic Strip Collection by John Logan, screenwriter for Gladiator, Star Trek Nemesis, The Last Samurai, The Aviator, Skyfall, and the latest James Bond film, SPECTRE, it’s the original Bond from Ian Fleming’s novels–the Bond before anyone viewed him as Sean Connery, and the same Bond revealed in the British comic book strips–that guided the writers to form Craig’s Bond in the last two movie installments.

After reading the comic strip adaptations of Thunderball, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, You Only Live Twice, and The Spy Who Loved Me, it’s easy to see it.  This less superheroic and more human, worn down, aging Bond is the Bond of the modern films.  Titan Books’ James Bond: Spectre – The Complete Comic Strip Collection, is now available in a deluxe hardcover edition, pulling from the rich archive of Bond strips those stories that dig into the origins of SPECTRE, that evil organization that Blofeld manipulated so well, and that was the focus of last year’s blockbuster.

You’ll find digitally remastered, original black and white versions of the iconic 1960s cartoon strips in an edition similar to the Flash Gordon series reviewed here previously at borg.com–a size that is ideal for reading these old comic strips easily, cover to cover.  Each story is based on Fleming’s novels, selected from the 52 comic strips that appeared between 1958 and 1983 syndicated in British newspapers.  The illustrations of the strip were rendered by John McLusky who would illustrate thirteen James Bond comic strips along with writer Henry Gammidge until 1966.

Although Fleming authored the original novels, the stories in this edition were adapted into comic strip form by Gammidge and McLusky, except for The Spy Who Loved Me, which was adapted by writer Jim Lawrence and artist Yaroslav Horak.  Craig fans will love this classic Bond.  You’ll see villains like Blofeld, Emilio Largo, Giuseppe Petacchi, Count Lippe, Irma Bunt, familiar faces like M, Miss Moneypenny, Draco, and Felix Leiter, and it wouldn’t be Bond without the Bond Girls, like Comtesse Teresa Di Vicenzo, Ruby Windsor, Kissy Suzuki, and Mariko.  Bond as world traveler comes through as well, visiting locales including Sicily, Zurich, Munich, Paris, The Bahamas, and Tokyo.

James Bond: Spectre – The Complete Comic Strip Collection includes nearly 300 pages of comic strips, all very modern and just as accessible by modern readers as they were decades ago.  Pick up your copy now here at Amazon.com.

C.J. Bunce
Editor
borg.com