James Bond

IAN FLEMING'S James Bond remains an enormously popular fictional figure, and many actors have portrayed him on film. Prior to that the character had been appearing each day within the pages of The Daily Express newspaper, as a popular comic strip for a number of years.

It has been said that Sean Connery was more aware of the comic strip version of James Bond than the actual books that the character originated from. While not always the most dramatic of adventure strips, it certainly had its moments and lasted right through to the 80s, having transferred from The Daily Express to The Daily Star along the way.

The strips were syndicated abroad, and material originated internationally too, as were comic books.

For those wishing further information on James Bond in comics, the first stop-off on the internet highways should be: www.mi6.co.uk

I hope to be able to feature a rare interview with the late John McLusky, one of the main Bond artists, that was conducted by Rob Kirby, in the near future.

UK publisher Titan Books has been publishing collections of the newspaper strips that are well worth collecting, and some reviews now follow.

James Bond 007: Dr No
By Ian Fleming, Henry Gammidge & John McLusky
(Titan)

Diamonds Are Forever kicks off this collection and runs to about twice the length of the other two stories collected, so much so that it has the feel of two storis in one via its lengthy epilogue.

Gammidge's first person narrative for Bond proves awkward, interfering with the element of surprise. McLusky's art is rather staid within and it's only near the end with some fight scenes that you get the impression he begins to become interested in drawing the strip rather than going through the motions. Maybe it's the script and just a visualisation of it ratter than the synchronistic exchange that should be comics.

From Russia With Love moves more briskly, with Gammidge abandoning the narrative style and McLusky getting looser, beginning to experiment and finally in Dr No a highly entertaining story unfolds, McLusky pulling tricks form out of thin air; being interested in the form, demonstrating an influence from his UK contemporaries of the time and possibly American newspaper strip artist Al Williamson too, and trying their tricks out for himself to varying success.

Articles fill out the book. The strips suffer in reproduction in the strips - words punch out, especially in From Russia With Love. It is an important historical collection nonetheless.

James Bond 007: Goldfinger
By Ian Fleming, Henry Gammidge & John McLusky
(Titan Books)

Kudos aplenty to Titan Books for the increasingly complex and thorough packages they are putting together in their James Bond newspaper strip collections.
Not only do we get articles on the strips themselves, noting their relationship or actual indifference to Fleming's novels, but ones of associated memorabilia also. And from as far a field as Russia of all places!

There's a real cornucopia of strips inside this collection. They include Goldfinger, Risco (from the For Your Eyes Only short story collection), the similarly brief A View to a Kill (no resemblance to the film), For Your Eyes Only and Thunderball. This last comes not only in its abridged version that ran in The Daily Express but also rare samples of edited episodes and those scenes published only abroad, in this case from Norway.That's some package for only £11.99p.

Now I'll be truthful, there's acertain predictability to the strips but I'll take them over what I've always felt was the campness of the Conway-starring film days anytime. McLusky doesn't get to play to his strengths all the time but his penchant for overt decorativeness is still there from time to time.

It's a collection whose editor should proudly be credited.

James Bond 007: Casino Royale
By Ian Fleming, Anthony Hern Henry Gammidge & John McLusky
(Titan Books)

Titan has a tendency to publish its reprint series out of chronological sequence. For the completist, and elitist, out there, it can be a pain, but to Titan I'm sure it makes economic sense to put out breadwinner editions first.

As such the strips have an early rough and ready feel about them, McLusky's art's evocative with its post-war grime looking towards a plastic age. It's all about dirty spies, left over nazis and no good commies, plus a beautiful girl who's fool enough to fall for Bond, or at least in all cases but one!

We get Casino Royale, Live and Let Die and Moonraker, plus some articles, rare art and an intro by no less than Sir Roger Moore (Look I grew up on him in The Saint and Simon Templar will always be cooler than Bond to me). The stories favour Fleming's originals rather than the films, there's a bit of finding of one's feet needed, Writer Hern is uneasy to begin with but he would soon put his mark on the series.