I doubt very much it will be a comic book artist (though some of them would certainly be just fantastic for the job; maybe
too fantastic). I've got the impression IFP has approached some more or less established writer, perhaps even someone considered "serious" (for whatever that term means). And as it seems highly probable that the 2008 novel will be period 60s, maybe they even gave him enough freedom to make his work
really outstanding. After all, IFP wants something different and remarkable for the 2008 event (or at least that's what I gather from the statements up to now).
Unfortunately, there are only ever so many ways to achieve that goal. I can only think of drastic measures to get something new and up-to-now-unheard-of in a Bond continuation.
Really drastic, as in, for example, getting taken out of the 00-section (finally reached the mandatory age of 45
); getting entirely thrown out of the service for behaviour unfit for an intelligence officer; getting crippled during his last mission. Or, of course, being killed. The James Bond novel to end all James Bond novels. The definite end of James Bond. No Holmes/Reichenbach treatment. We already had that in YOLT/TMWTGG. Just the coffin lid for Bond and
The End on the last page. Somehow I feel, we're going to get one of the above mentioned plots, or a combination thereof.
And don't think that would be the killing of the franchise/the duck with golden eggs. Whenever IFP choses to, they can hire another author to write another continuation, either period 60's, 70's or 80's; they can aknowledge or disregard any work of any continuation writer as they see fit. And change their minds the next day. Or the next century.
Edited by Trident, 27 July 2006 - 03:01 PM.
