James Bond returns as we salute Sir Roger Moore, who passed away last week–the first franchise film James Bond actor to leave us. This time Bond is back in the 1960s adaptations of six of his adventures in Goldfinger, the latest volume of The Complete Ian Fleming’s James Bond: The Classic Comic Strip Collection. In addition to Goldfinger, you’ll find adaptations of the short stories and novels Risico, From A View To A Kill, For Your Eyes Only, The Man With The Golden Gun, and The Living Daylights. These are restored editions of the original comic strip title that pre-dated the film adaptations. But it’s a challenge not to read them in your head in the voices of the actors that portrayed them.
You haven’t heard of Risico? Risico is a drug trafficking story that hails from Ian Fleming’s For Your Eyes Only, a collection of Bond short stories that also featured From a View to a Kill and Quantum of Solace, all adaptations themselves of plots for a Bond television series that was never filmed. It’s always a curiosity to wait and see what the next Bond film will be titled, with almost all pulled from a Fleming novel, short story, or, in the case of Goldeneye, a Bond concept. Risico is not only an unused film title, but an interesting story, adaptable to the modern day–prime fodder for another Daniel Craig outing–and the classic comic strip here is a fun introduction to this Fleming story.
The standout creator in this new book is late artist John McLusky, who is superb in his ability to keep a dialogue-heavy series full of action and intrigue. McLusky is responsible for all the Bond trope visuals–the look and feel of Bond that carried over into the movie versions. The streamlined but completely fleshed-out adaptations were provided by writers Henry Gammidge and Jim Lawrence.
