Category: James Bond

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The Secret Service: Kingsman


By Mark Millar, Dave Gibbons and Matthew Vaughn with Andy Lanning & Angus McKie (Titan Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-78116-703-8

We Brits know everything about the spy-game and think we’ve probably seen it all, from Bond to Smiley, Harry Palmer to Johnny Worricker and Spooks to Carry On Spying.

So it’s not often we get a look at a fresh take, but that’s what’s on offer here as comicbook legends Mark Millar & Dave Gibbons team up with film director/producer Matthew Vaughn (X-Men: First Class, Kick-Ass, Stardust, Layer Cake, Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels) to update the genre in a wickedly sly, cynically funny and irreverential thriller which nevertheless harks back to the glory-days of the “great game” of gentlemanly cloak-and-dagger as it was called when were still an empire, as well as the swinging superspy sagas of the 1960s and 1970s…

The original 6-issue miniseries The Secret Service was released as part of Millarworld’s unfailing hit-factory deal with Marvel Comics’ Icon sub-imprint, and this slick, sharp and wickedly tongue-in-cheek pastiche mixes all the favourite trappings and spectacle of big budget movie blockbusters with an archly satisfying class-war aesthetic that finds full expression following the traditional all-action opening attention-grabber, which finds actor Mark Hamill (almost) saved from abduction by an armed gang by an unlucky British secret agent…

The scene then switches to the urban wasteland of Peckham where Gary Unwin – known to his no-hoper wannabe-gangsta pals as “Eggsy” – is again at odds with the cheap thug who’s shacked up with his mum.

Dean is a former soldier. He’s also a bully and a brute: a typical South London Chav who thinks he’s hard and takes it out too often on Gary and his little brother Ryan as well as their long-suffering mother Sharon.

No wonder the jobless, shiftless teen spends all his time playing computer games, doing drugs, nicking cars and making mischief with his mates. Tonight is no exception, except for the part where the hapless joyriders crash their purloined ride and end up in police cells…

Meanwhile in the swank part of town, two movers-&-shakers in Intelligence are discussing a wave of mysterious abductions: actors from Star Wars, Doctor Who, Battlestar Galactica and Star Trek have all disappeared, as have scientists, sporting legends and other notables. There is clearly some major scheme afoot…

Jack London (I gather they’ve changed his name in the film version) is a self-made man. He escaped his lowborn origins and remade himself into a suave, sophisticated international man-of-mystery and Great Britain’s top operative: the spy who never fails. Nobody does it better. He’s also Sharon’s brother and is once again forced to apply his influence to save his nephew from the consequences of his actions…

He’s had to step in before but he swears it’s the last time and, after an unpleasant confrontation, determines to get Gary out of the toxic environment he escaped from decades ago…

As a mass wedding in Hawaii is turned into a bloodbath by a mysterious mastermind’s hi-tech secret weapon, in Peckham Uncle Jack is telling Eggsy the unbelievable truth. He gets a chance to prove his outrageous claims when Dean’s loutish cronies pick a fight…

Jack, plagued with guilt for neglecting his shameful family, then offers his nephew a chance to better himself by joining the Secret Service training program that made him one of the deadliest men alive…

The boy jumps at the chance to get away and is soon an outcast amongst the cream of Britain’s posh-boy private school and military college recruits, doggedly learning unarmed combat, ballistics, weapons training, tactics, computer science, seduction techniques, languages, piloting any vehicle and every skill and trick needed to keep the world safe from invasion and subversion…

Despite his background and lack of social skills Gary thrives – and even excels – in many of the less salubrious exercises (such as killing drug-dealers on a live fire exercise) even as Uncle Jack returns to his mystery kidnapping case. He slowly makes progress across the world, tracking a certain mad young billionaire with dreams of saving the planet from the plague of humanity. Doctor James Arnold is also extremely keen on preserving his childhood heroes from the Armageddon he’s about to trigger…

At precisely the wrong moment Gary drags Jack back to London again. When the pauper student overhears his well-meaning but privileged comrades condescending and pitying him, Eggsy steals Jack’s gadget-laden, weaponised sports car and goes for an explosive drunken joyride with his real mates from the estate.

Now the super-agent is forced to take extreme measures to sort him out…

Gary wakes up in Colombia with nothing but his underwear and is told he has 24 hours to return to Britain. The Resource Test is the final stage of an agent’s training and is make or break: neither the agency nor his uncle will have anything to do with him if he fails…

He passes with flying colours, and even destroys a drug cartel in the process, leading Jack to take him on as an apprentice, offering style tips and a chance for a palate-cleansing final confrontation with Dean and his mates in Peckham before setting off together to foil Dr. Arnold’s deadly scheme.

…And that’s when it all goes terribly wrong, leaving Gary to cope with imminent world collapse all on his own…

The film was in production simultaneously with the creation of the original six-issue miniseries with Millar, Vaughn and illustrator Gibbons (aided by inker Andy Lanning and colourist Angus McKie) frequently cross-fertilising and amending the print and movie iterations to produce a stunningly clever, outrageously rip-roaring, high-octane read which will astound all us paper-jockeys and no doubt be satisfactorily mirrored in the upcoming filmic extravaganza.

But why wait? Grab some popcorn, hit your favourite chair and experience all the thrills, spills and chills you can handle right now just by picking up this fabulous action comics classic in the making…
© 2012, 2013, 2014 Millarworld Limited, Marv Films Limited and Dave Gibbons Ltd. All rights reserved.

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The James Bond Omnibus volume 005


By Jim Lawrence & Yaroslav Horak (Titan Books)
ISBN: 987-0-85768-590-2

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: A Traditional Licence To Thrill… 8/10

There are sadly very few British newspaper strips to challenge the influence and impact of classic daily and Sunday “funnies” from America, especially in the field of adventure fiction. The 1930’s and 1940’s were particularly rich in popular, not to say iconic, creations. You would be hard-pressed to come up with home-grown household names to rival Popeye, Dick Tracy, Buck Rogers, The Phantom, Mandrake the Magician, Flash Gordon or Steve Canyon, let alone Terry and the Pirates or the likes of Little Lulu, Blondie, Li’l Abner, Little Orphan Annie or Popeye and yes, I know I said him twice, but Elzie Segars’s Thimble Theatre was funny as well as thrilling, constantly innovative, and really, really good.

What can you recall for simple popularity let alone longevity or quality in Britain? Rupert Bear? Absolutely. Giles? Technically, yes. Nipper? Jane? The Perishers? Garth?

I hope so, but I doubt it.

The Empire didn’t quite get it until it wasn’t an empire any more. There were certainly very many wonderful strips being produced: well-written and beautifully drawn, but that stubborn British reserve just didn’t seem to be in the business of creating household names… until the 1950’s.

Something happened in ‘fifties Britain – but I’m not going to waste any space here discussing it. It just did.

In a new spirit that seemed to crave excitement and accept the previously disregarded, comics (as well as all entertainment media from radio to novels) got carried along on the wave. Eagle, the regenerated Dandy and Beano, girls’ comics in general: all shifted into creative high gear, and so did newspapers. And that means that I can go on about a graphic collection with proven crossover appeal for a change.

The first 007 novel Casino Royale was published in 1953 and subsequently serialised in the Daily Express from 1958, beginning a run of paperback book adaptations scripted by Anthony Hern, Henry Gammidge, Peter O’Donnell and Kingsley Amis before Jim Lawrence, a jobbing writer for American features (who had previously scripted the aforementioned Buck Rogers) came aboard with The Man With The Golden Gun to complete the transfer of the Fleming canon to strip format, thereafter being invited to create new adventures, which he did until the strip’s ultimate demise in 1983.

The art on the feature was always of the highest standard. Initially John McLusky provided the illustration until 1966’s conclusion of You Only Live Twice and, although perhaps lacking in verve, the workmanlike clarity of his drawing easily coped with the astonishing variety of locales, technical set-ups and sheer immensity of cast members, whilst accomplishing the then-novel conceit of advancing a plot and ending each episode on a cliff-hanging “hook” every day.

He was succeeded by Yaroslav Horak, who also debuted on Golden Gun with a looser, edgier style, at once more cinematic and with a closer attention to camera angle and frenzied action that seemed to typify the high-octane 1960’s.

Titan books have re-assembled the heady brew of adventure, sex, intrigue and death into a series of addictively accessible monochrome Omnibus editions and this fifth compilation finds the creators on top form as they reveal how the world’s greatest agent never rests in his mission to keep us all free, safe and highly entertained…

The frantic derring-do and dark, deadly diplomacy commences with ‘Till Death Do Us Part’ which first ran in the Daily Express from July 7th to October 14th 1975. Solidly traditional 007 fodder, it found Bond assigned to kidnap/rescue Arda Petrich, the comely daughter of a foreign asset, and keep vital intelligence out of the hands of the KGB.

This pacy thriller is most notable more for the inevitable introduction of the eccentric gadgets which had become an increasingly crucial component of the filmic iteration than for the actual adventure, but there are still thrills and flesh aplenty on view.

Hard on the heels of that yarn is brief but enthralling encounter ‘The Torch-Time Affair’ (October 15th 1975 – January 15th 1976), wherein the hunt for a record of all Soviet subversion in Latin America leads to bodies on the beach, a mountain of lies and deceit, breathtaking chases on roads and through jungles, and an astonishingly intriguing detective mystery as Bond and female “Double-O” operative Susie Kew must save the girl, get the goods and end the villain.

But which one…?

‘Hot-Shot’ (January 16th – June 1st) finds the unflappable agent assisting Palestinian freedom fighter Fatima Khalid as she tries to clear the name of her people of airline atrocities committed by enigmatic Eblis terrorists. Their cooperative efforts uncover a sinister Indian billionaire behind the attacks before Bond recognises an old enemy at the heart of it all… Dr. No!

In ‘Nightbird’ (2nd June – 4th November) sporadic attacks by what appear to be alien invaders draw 007 into a diabolical scheme by a cinematic genius and criminal master of disguise apparently in search of military and political secrets and weapons of mass destruction. However a far more venal motive is the root cause of the sinister schemes and reign of terror…

Despite surreal trappings, ‘Ape of Diamonds’ (November 5th 1976 – January 22nd 1977) is another lethally cunning spy exploit as a deadly maniac uses a colossal and murderous gorilla to terrorise London and kidnap an Arab banker, leading Bond to a financial wild man determined to simultaneously destroy Britain’s economic prosperity and steal the Crown Jewels. Happily for the kingdom, Machiavellian Rameses had completely underestimated the ruthless determination of James Bond…

‘When the Wizard Awakes’ finds bad guys employing supernatural chicanery, when the body of a Hungarian spy – dead for two decades – walks out of his tomb to instigate a reign of terror that eventually involves S.P.E.C.T.R.E., the Mafia and the KGB until the British Agent unravels the underlying plot…

In 1977 the Daily Express ceased publication of the Bond feature and the tale was published only in the Sunday Express (from January 30th -May 22nd 1977). Later adventures had no UK distribution at all, only appearing in overseas editions. This state of affairs continued until 1981 when another British newspaper – the Daily Star – revived his career. Presumably, we’ll deal with those cases in another volume.

The first of those “lost” stories are included here, however, beginning with ‘Sea Dragon’, produced for European syndication: a maritime adventure with geo-political overtones wherein crazed billionairess and scurrilous proponent of “women’s liberation” Big Mama Magda Mather tried to corner the World Oil market using sex, murder and a deadly artificial sea serpent.

In ‘Death Wing’ Bond is needed to solve the mystery of a new and deadly super-weapon employed by the Mafia for both smuggling contraband and assassination. Despite a somewhat laborious story set-up, once the tale hits its stride, the explosive end sequence is superb as the undercover agent finds himself used as a flying human bomb aimed at the heart of New York City. His escape and subsequent retaliation against eccentric hit-man Mr. Wing is an indisputable series highpoint.

This astounding dossier of espionage exploits ends in ‘The Xanadu Connection’ (1978) as the daring high-tech rescue of undercover agent Heidi Franz from East Germany inexorably leads the super spy down a perilous path of danger and double-cross.

When Bond is tasked with safeguarding the wife of a British asset leading resistance forces in Russian Turkestan, the mission inevitably leads 007 to the Sino-Soviet hotspot where he is embroiled in a three-sided war between KGB occupation forces, indigenous Tartar rebels and their ancestral enemies of the Mongol militias led by insidious, ambitious spymaster Kubla Khan.

Deep in enemy territory with adversaries all around him, Bond is hardly surprised to discover that the real threat might be from his friends and not his foes…

Fast, furious action, masses of moody menace, sharply clever dialogue and a wealth of exotic locales and ladies make this an unmissable adjunct to the Bond mythos and a collection no fan can do without. After all, nobody does it better…
© 1975, 1977, 1977, 1978, 2013 Ian Fleming Publications Ltd/ Express Newspapers Ltd. All rights reserved.

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James Bond 007: Deathwing

James Bond 007: Deathwing 

By Jim Lawrence & Yaroslav Horak (Titan Books)
ISBN: 1-84576-517-6

The turbulent printing history of the James Bond newspaper strip leads to a novel bonus for British fans as two of the stories reprinted here are technically appearing for the first time.

‘When the Wizard Awakes’ ran originally only in the Sunday Express (January 30th – May 22nd 1977) and the next two tales had no UK home. These Bond adventures (which we’ll presumably see in the next book) only appeared in overseas editions. Finally a new British daily newspaper revived his career, and in 1981 the series returned in the Daily Star. We’ll deal with that in due course. This volume, however, features the first two ‘lost’ stories, ‘Sea Dragon’ and ‘Death Wing’.

Sadly, the disruption caused in production seems to have put the supremely talented creative team off their stroke somewhat, as these tales are far below the quality we have come to expect. ‘When the Wizard Awakes’ returns to the theme of the criminal masquerading as the supernatural, when a the body of a Hungarian spy, dead for twenty years walks out of his tomb and begins a reign of terror, that eventually involves S.P.E.C.T.R.E., the Mafia and the KGB. This is a, taut, action packed mystery, but somehow Horak’s usual graphic spark is not working, and the art seems tired and cluttered.

‘Sea Dragon’, produced for European syndication, is maritime adventure with geo-political overtones as crazed billionairess ‘Big Mama Mather’ tries to corner the World Oil market with sex, murder and Sea Serpents. Whilst the art seems to recover some of its verve, this time the script is a little lacklustre, with less tension and much more skin on show for those more cosmopolitan foreign readers.

‘Death Wing’ continues this lamentable gradual decline as Bond is needed to solve the mystery of a new and deadly super-weapon employed by the Mafia for both smuggling and assassination. However, although the story set-up might be below par, the climactic end sequence is superb, as the undercover agent finds himself trapped, a flying human bomb aimed at the heart of New York City. His escape and destruction of the eccentric hit-man ‘Mr. Wing’ is an undoubted series highpoint.

Despite the regrettable diminution of quality, Bond still remains a highly enjoyable strip, and there is still a huge amount to admire and enjoy in this splendid spy spectacular. And besides you do want a COMPLETE set of these great books don’t you?

© 1977, 1978, 1987 Glidrose Productions Ltd/ Express Newspapers Ltd. All Rights Reserved

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James Bond: Octopussy

James Bond: Octopussy 

By Ian Fleming, Jim Lawrence & Yaroslav Horak (Titan Books)
ISBN 1-84023-743-0

Octopussy is a classic Ian Fleming tale. Originally a short-story, under the skilful hands of Jim Lawrence and Yaroslav Horak, this smuggling romp in the West Indies blossoms into a complex tale of Nazi Gold, murdered agents and exotic deaths in exotic locales. Bowing to the wave of popularity caused by the films, there are even a few Q Branch gadgets on offer. Horak excels at the extended underwater sequences and the action is frenetic and non-stop.

The sea also plays a large part in the concluding story in this volume. The Hildebrand Rarity tells of a new Royal Navy robot weapon that seemingly fails but has in fact been stolen by flamboyant millionaire and career sadist Milton Krest. Undercover, Bond infiltrates his glamorous circle in a terrific tale full of innovation and intrigue. You won’t believe how many ways there are to kill with fish!

Top tales of adventure and absolutely captivating reading thrills. Get them all!

Strip © Express Newspapers Ltd. 1987. All Rights Reserved.

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James Bond: Man With the Golden Gun

James Bond: Man With the Golden Gun 

By Ian Fleming, Jim Lawrence & Yaroslav Horak (Titan Books)
ISBN 1-84023-690-6

By the time of the first story reprinted here (1966), the comic strip Bond had been running for some eight years. Lawrence and Horak had been surpassing themselves almost daily and the super agent had become a World phenomenon, so it’s no surprise that this tale of subversion and assassination was a masterpiece of periodical adventure.

After leaving the Heaven on Earth of a peasant’s life on a Japanese island, Bond is drawn back into the Intelligence game. Brainwashed, he attempts to murder “M”, and while being reconditioned he first encounters the power of Francisco Scaramanga, the world’s deadliest assassin and the top target of all the ‘good’ spy organisations on Earth.

Bond’s make or break mission to destroy the Man with the Golden Gun is a classic duel and captivating reading, which bears little resemblance to the lame film adaptation.

The follow-up tale was also poorly served by the movie industry. The Living Daylights is a tense Cold War thriller that is a metaphor for the conflict itself. Bond is dispatched to the Western side of the Berlin Wall to play a waiting game. A Red sniper is picking off valuable escapees as they try to cross the barrier and 007 is the only man capable of settling the matter. This sniper duel across the Wall is enlivened by the usual double-dealing and there is – naturally – a sexy blonde involved.

These espionage tales from masters of their craft deliver as much punch now as they ever did and should rank alongside the classics of British adventure fiction.

Strip © Express Newspapers Ltd. 1987. All Rights Reserved.

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James Bond: The Golden Ghost

James Bond: The Golden Ghost 

By Ian Fleming, Jim Lawrence & Yaroslav Horak (Titan Books)
ISBN: 1-84576-261-4 ISBN-13: 9781845762612

Jim Lawrence went from strength to strength as the premier Bond scripter with these tales from 1970-1971. The eponymous lead feature sees the British super-agent risking a deadly double cross as the head of Spectre offers to sell information of a potential disaster that leads Bond on a trail involving psychics and assassins and an attempt to destroy British prestige and end our country’s Nuclear Airship Programme. As usual there are thrills and glamour in abundance in a plot that presages modern summer blockbuster movies.

The Golden Ghost is followed by Fear Face, a tale of robotic assassins that might have been influenced by the “Cybernaut” episodes of that era’s other spy sensation, the TV series The Avengers. 007 is embroiled in a complicated plot when 0013 Briony Thorne, a disgraced agent, comes to him for help in clearing her name after a communist scheme has made her appear a traitor to the Realm. They are soon in contention with not only mad scientists, killer robots and ruthless gangsters but also their own secret service comrades.

Double Jeopardy is an early example of that now commonplace scenario, the replacement of prominent figures by flawless duplicates who steal, blackmail and kill. A deadly variation is the death of each duplicate and the original to close off the trail. Luck as much as skill is necessary to defeat a plot to sabotage a peace conference, by having the delegates murder each other.

The final story, Star Fire, is an enticing change of pace, full of ploy and counter-ploy as the leader of a ‘hippie cult’ unleashes what appears to be a plague of fireballs randomly incinerating anyone who mocks his beliefs. Just how that leads Bond to the death of a government scientist and the loss of secret plans for a top-secret British aircraft is a marvel of fast-paced storytelling, and the eventual resolution is bloody, thrilling, and a tribute to the real world roots of this most fantastical of espionage adventures.

Whilst tapping in to the contemporary fascination with the spiritual and supernatural, Lawrence and Horak never strayed too far from the basic solid grounding of the action-adventure. Sexy women and evil men litter the streets, cafes and bedrooms, evil organisations and enemy powers work their wiles and always the outcome depends on the determination and skill of the right man in the right place. These timeless thrillers are a joy to read and a pleasure to return to again and again.

© 1970, 1971 Glidrose Productions Ltd/ Express Newspapers Ltd. All Rights Reserved.

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James Bond: Colonel Sun

James Bond: Colonel Sun 

By Kingsley Amis (as Robert Markham), Jim Lawrence & Yaroslav Horak (Titan Books)
ISBN: 1-84576-175-8

James Bond proves he can never die as the first of the prose “continuation novels” is magnificently adapted by the regular strip-team of Lawrence and Horak. Unbelievably, by today’s publishing practises, when Ian Fleming died in 1964, there was only the unfinished Man With the Golden Gun to be eventually released. Bond books languished on hiatus until 1968. The story of how Kingsley Amis came to write Colonel Sun is a fascinating tale, and is fully recounted in this latest graphic collection from Titan Books.

What we all want though, is chills, spills, chicks and thrills and the opening reprint from the Daily Express in 1969 is American strip veteran Lawrence’s second all-original 007 script. And what a cracker it is! In River of Death Bond has to infiltrate the Amazon River stronghold of a maniacal oriental scientist. This madman is supplying trained animals to international criminals for the purposes of robbery, espionage and murder. Horak’s intense illustration is approaching a career peak and easily copes with action, mood, cutting edge science, beautiful women and exotic locales as diverse as the Alps, Rain Forests, London’s underworld and Rio de Janeiro at Carnival time. This is James Bond at his suave and savage best.

Colonel Sun might almost have been an anti-climax after such an auspicious run by two creators on such a visionary roll, but the sheer pace, complexity and action of Amis/Markham’s only Bond novel simply encourages them to up their game.

When “M” is kidnapped and 007 is too obviously lured into a rescue attempt in the Greek Islands it leads to an unlikely alliance with Soviet agents against a mysterious third force. These devils are not beyond using Nazi War criminals to achieve their nefarious ends, and this classic Cold War Spy-romp delivers a punch with every strip.

It must have hell on the nerves to follow this adventure in short daily doses, and doubly so at the week-ends. If ever comic strips become part of the National Curriculum we can only pray that this is the calibre of material on any reading list.

Strip © Express Newspapers Ltd. 1987. All Rights Reserved.

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James Bond: Goldfinger

James Bond: Goldfinger 

By Ian Fleming, Henry Gammidge & John McLusky (Titan Books)
ISBN 1-84023-908-5

This edition of Titan Books’ 007 newspaper strip collections comes from the period when the workmanlike John McLusky was the artist and features Henry Gammidge’s adaptations of no less than five Ian Fleming tales of the world’s most famous Secret Agent.

The title tale faithfully adapts Fleming’s novel of the world’s most ambitious bullion robbery, so if you’re only familiar with the film version there will be a few things you’ve not seen before. The action fairly pounds along and the tension is high throughout this signature tale.

Following Goldfinger is Risico. Bond is tasked with stopping a heroin smuggling gang whose motive is not profit but social destabilisation. Next is A View to a Kill, a traditional Cold War thriller with 007 on the trail of a gang who have been stealing secrets by ambushing military dispatch riders.

For Your Eyes Only, which was cobbled together with Risico to become the Roger Moore film version, is an adaptation of Fleming’s short story, wherein Bond is given a mission of revenge and assassination. Set in Jamaica with the Nazi war-criminal Von Hammerstein as culprit and target for the man with a licence to kill, it is a solid piece of dramatic fiction that once again bears little similarity to the celluloid adventure.

The volume concludes with the controversial Thunderball adaptation. That particular tale was censored and curtailed at the behest of Lord Beaverbrook, owner of the Daily Express, where the strip was running. Five days of strip were excised and for the full story you’ll need to read the ancillary text feature, but what remains is still pretty engrossing comic fare and at least some effort was made to wrap up the storyline before the strip ended.

James Bond was to return a year later in the adaptation of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service .These stories are a must for not only aficionados of Bond but for all thriller fans, as an example of terse gripping adventure uncluttered by superficial razzamatazz. Get back to basics, and remember that classic style is never out of fashion.

Strip © Express Newspapers Ltd. 1987. All Rights Reserved.

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James Bond: Dr. No

James Bond: Dr. No 

By Ian Fleming, Henry Gammidge & John McLusky (Titan Books)
ISBN 1-84576-089-1

The Dr No edition begins with an adaptation of Diamonds are Forever, which pits the Bond against an insidious gang of diamond smuggling criminals, in an explosive all-action romp before directly segueing into the tense, low-key thriller From Russia With Love, both courtesy of Gammidge and McLusky. The artist hits a creative peak with Dr No itself, scripted by Peter O’Donnell – before he created the amazing Modesty Blaise – as Bond returns to Jamaica to investigate the disappearance of two operatives and stumbles upon a plot to sabotage the American rocketry program.

These stories come from an age at once less jaded but more worldly; a place and time where the readers lived daily with the very real threat of instant annihilation. As such, the easy approachability of the material is a credit to the creators.

These volumes are a must for not only aficionados of Bond but for all thriller fans, as an example of terse gripping adventure uncluttered by superficial razzamatazz. Get back to basics, and remember that classic style never goes out of fashion.

Strip © Express Newspapers Ltd. 1987. All Rights Reserved.

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James Bond: Casino Royale

James Bond: Casino Royale 

By Ian Fleming, Anthony Hern, Henry Gammidge & John McLusky (Titan Books)
ISBN 1-84023-843-7

In Casino Royale Bond is ordered to gamble with and bankrupt Le Chiffre, a communist agent who has embezzled his Soviet masters’ operating capital in a moody tale of tension that results in torture and violent death, heady stuff for newspaper readers of 1958, when it first ran. Live and Let Die has 007 and US agent Felix Leiter tackle Mr. Big, another commie agent, who rules the Harlem underworld through Voodoo, and Moonraker concerns the attempt by Hugo Drax, a Nazi officer who has infiltrated the British aristocracy to drop a guided missile on London.

These editions of Titan Books’ 007 newspaper strip collections come from a period when the dependable John McLusky was developing a less formal approach, before going on to produce some of his best work, illustrating adaptations of Fleming’s tales. Casino Royale was the opening strip in a nearly twenty-five year run, and the somewhat muted artwork here shows an artist still not completely comfortable with his task. It was adapted and scripted by Anthony Hern, who had won the author’s approval after writing condensed prose versions of the novels for the Daily Express. Live and Let Die and Moonraker are both adapted by Henry Gammidge.

As the strip settles in for the long haul, McLusky warms to the potentialities of the job with cracking tales of Cold-War intrigue and fast, dangerous living set in a multitude of exotic locales. This is a welcome return to public gaze of some of the most influential – and exciting – comic strips in British history.

Strip © Express Newspapers Ltd. 1987. All Rights Reserved