Its time again for another Weekly Comics Hype. Im doing these alphabetically, but skipping around a bit, and we begin 2006 with a recommendation for Titans superb series of James Bond 007 collections.
The James Bond newspaper strip began in 1958 in the pages of The Daily Express and for most of the next ten years adapted the novels and many of the short stories by Ian Fleming. In late 1968, writer Jim Lawrence took the character on a series of original adventures, pausing to adapt the now-rare Kingsley Amis novel Colonel Sun, which continued until its cancellation in 1977. Another two years of strips, unpublished in England, followed before it returned to British papers in the pages of The Daily Star for two and a half years, finally ending in 1984.
Titan is some way into a quite remarkable series reprinting these strips. Brilliantly laid out and designed, they are packed with bonus features, interviews and essays about James Bond, along with a complete list of the strips and their date of publication which appears in the back of each volume. Additional details and contents for the collections are available on my Classic Comics Page.
First things first: these strips are incredibly cool and timeless and written for an adult audience. There are a couple of cases later on in the strips run, principally when Lawrence strikes out on his own, when Bond moves closer to his target because hes only been given a single clue, but these are stories originally intended for mature audiences, and they werent rewritten down for audiences when broken down into three-panel daily format. Theyre far more faithful to Ian Flemings novels than the films ever were.
Its the emphasis on the original source material that makes the stories so darn cool. The original novels didnt have the super-gigantic undersea bases and villainous armies of thousands cool as those can be, the film Bond is a different, larger character than the down-to-earth agent of the novels and comics, who spends most of his time in his undercover guise of Mark Hazard. He has to use his wits and ingenuity as his primary resources, and not sci-fi gadgets from Q Branch.
John McClusky was the original artist on the series. His work is never flashy but incredibly intricate. He took his inspiration for Bonds look from Flemings description of him looking something like the American singer Hoagy Carmichael. After eight years, Yaroslav Horak took over and his work really is interesting to look at. While following McCluskys models closely, he has an angular style and a dramatic flair thats really unique. I dont wish to imply that its mold-breakingly different, but the style and the camera angles are some years ahead of their time.
Several volumes of James Bond 007 are available from Titan and available to American retailers via Diamond. Your local comic shop would enjoy your custom; new books will ship Thursday this week, so why not stop in after work tomorrow?
The James Bond newspaper strip began in 1958 in the pages of The Daily Express and for most of the next ten years adapted the novels and many of the short stories by Ian Fleming. In late 1968, writer Jim Lawrence took the character on a series of original adventures, pausing to adapt the now-rare Kingsley Amis novel Colonel Sun, which continued until its cancellation in 1977. Another two years of strips, unpublished in England, followed before it returned to British papers in the pages of The Daily Star for two and a half years, finally ending in 1984.
Titan is some way into a quite remarkable series reprinting these strips. Brilliantly laid out and designed, they are packed with bonus features, interviews and essays about James Bond, along with a complete list of the strips and their date of publication which appears in the back of each volume. Additional details and contents for the collections are available on my Classic Comics Page.
First things first: these strips are incredibly cool and timeless and written for an adult audience. There are a couple of cases later on in the strips run, principally when Lawrence strikes out on his own, when Bond moves closer to his target because hes only been given a single clue, but these are stories originally intended for mature audiences, and they werent rewritten down for audiences when broken down into three-panel daily format. Theyre far more faithful to Ian Flemings novels than the films ever were.
Its the emphasis on the original source material that makes the stories so darn cool. The original novels didnt have the super-gigantic undersea bases and villainous armies of thousands cool as those can be, the film Bond is a different, larger character than the down-to-earth agent of the novels and comics, who spends most of his time in his undercover guise of Mark Hazard. He has to use his wits and ingenuity as his primary resources, and not sci-fi gadgets from Q Branch.
John McClusky was the original artist on the series. His work is never flashy but incredibly intricate. He took his inspiration for Bonds look from Flemings description of him looking something like the American singer Hoagy Carmichael. After eight years, Yaroslav Horak took over and his work really is interesting to look at. While following McCluskys models closely, he has an angular style and a dramatic flair thats really unique. I dont wish to imply that its mold-breakingly different, but the style and the camera angles are some years ahead of their time.
Several volumes of James Bond 007 are available from Titan and available to American retailers via Diamond. Your local comic shop would enjoy your custom; new books will ship Thursday this week, so why not stop in after work tomorrow?