11 replies to this topic

[Clarence Leiter]

I am sorry if this has been discussed already because I am new here and the cbn forums are so god-damned huge.

Anyway, on ebay I came across this book:

http://www.amazon.co...7165544-7930038

It's called "The Life Of Ian Fleming: The Man Who Created James Bond," by John Pearson. The same one?

The synopsis reads:
It is now 40 years since the premiere of the very first Bond movie, "Dr No", with a youthful Sean Connery as 007: perhaps the most charismatic - and certainly the most durable - movie hero ever. The latest addition to the series will no doubt try and outdo all its predecessors in the scale of its pyrotechnics and special effects. But James Bond was invented by one man, Ian Fleming, a wartime intelligence officer and Sunday Times newspaper man who lived to see the beginning of the Bond cult, but not its astonishing growth into a multi-million-dollar industry. John Pearson knew him well, as his assistant at the Sunday Times when Fleming was writing its "Atticus" column, and in 1966, after Fleming's death, wrote this autobiography. It remains a definitive account of how only Ian Fleming could have dreamed up James Bond, for his own life as colourful as anything in his fiction - indeed, it shows how the Bond books were nothing less than a covert autobiography. Glamorous, ruthlessly womanising, charming and debonair, leading an exotic, globetrotting life from wartime Algiers to his beachside house, Goldeneye, in Jamaica, Fleming was nevertheless as elusive and opaque as his fictional hero - a man whose icy reserve few could breach. For this edition of the autobiography, John Pearson has added a new introduction, in which he looks at the extent to which the character of Fleming survives even immortality beyond its creator's wildest dreams.

Another book can be found here:

http://www.amazon.co...7165544-7930038

It is called "James Bond the Man With the Golden Gun," by Fleming and James Lawrence (he rings a bell).

No synopsis, so I do not know what it is all about.

Comments anyone?

[zencat]

Hey, nice find, Clarence Leiter. Looks like James Bond the Man With The Golden Gun is a reprint of the old James Lawrence comic strip adaptation of the novel (orginally published in the Daily Express, I think?). This is great that they're publishing this in a book form!

Thanks for bringing this to our attention, and welcome to CBn.

[Blue Eyes]

Thanks heaps for that Clarence!

I own the Lawrence adaptation of The Spy Who Loved Me and I think it is really quite brilliant! Hopefully they'll reissue all the ones done.

I'd also like to see the few Thunderball ones that were originally done.

[box]The 1960's comic strip adaptation of Ian Fleming's novels are set to be republished through 2003.
The comic strips were drawn Yaroslav Horak and adapted by Jim Lawrence and featured in Britain's Daily Express throughout the 1960's. The last time a compilation of the comic strips were publised was in the late 1980's. Then Titan publised adaptations of The Spy Who Loved Me, Octopussy and The Hildebrand Rarity, The Living Daylights and The Man With The Golden Gun, and Casino Royale.

So far, only publication details for a reissue of The Man With The Golden Gun have been released through Amazon. The 1980's adaptation saw both The Living Daylights and The Man With The Golden Gun released in the same edition, however, there is currently nothing to indicate that the same will happen again this year.

James Bond the Man With the Golden Gun is set for release on May 30, 2003 and is retailing at [url="http://"http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1840236906/cbn-21"]Amazon UK[/url] at the discounted price of

[Donovan]

Those comics are really something. It's amazing, for instance, how much M's office looks like the one in the films. I purchased every one I could find. I have four books from one publisher, Titan Books. Octopussy and The Hildebrand Rarity are in one book, The Man With The Golden Gun and The Living Daylights are in another book, and Casino Royale and Live And Let Die are in the third book, and finally The Spy Who Loved Me.

The Hildebrand Rarity is remarkably similar to the film "For Your Eyes Only" (or is it the other way around?). Instead of the ATAK (Automatic Targeting Attack Communicator) transmitter beling lost underwater and in danger of being grabbed by the opposition, it is a device called the ULRAC (Underwater Long-Range Communication).

There was another book published by one of the clubs, I believe. It had three other complete comic stories. I think they were Diamonds Are Forever, From Russia, With Love, and Doctor No.

[Red Grant]

This is good news. I hope they do more than just reprint the already published strips. It is a great opportunity for fans to see an almost forgotten part of the Bond canon. I tried to present the best overview I could on my site but limited webspace did not permit me to showcase more of the art. I am thinking of expanding this section with a larger gallery of images as I do have a lot of complete stories that have not been seen for a very long time. I'd love to see the aborted THUNDERBALL strip in full (I have a shortened Swedish version which doesn't do justice to McLusky's wonderful images). I was leafing through YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE the other day and was amazed to see how much like Sean Connery his version of Bond turned into towards the end of his tenure as artist for the strip. As much as I love Horak's work, I feel McLusky captured the essence of Fleming's stories better and they almost serve as storyboards for unfilmed sequences in many cases.

[zencat]

I'd really like to see them publish the original strips, not just the book adaptations. Some of the titles sound great: "Polestar", "The Nevsky Nude", "Die With My Boots On", "The Girl Machine"... It

[Turn]

This would a good way to keep Bond out there in a different form. Especially as a way of keeping the fans interested in between new books and Bond 21.

I just wonder why TMWTGG was selected. I would like to eventually see all of these as I have most of those compilations from the 1980s. I'd really like to see Goldfinger, OHMSS and YOLT.

[General Koskov]

So The Hildegbrand Rarity's story was changed? I thought the comics were just illustrating the story.

This is good though, more material to think up what Bond 21 may be like!

[Blue Eyes]

I'd love to see the aborted THUNDERBALL strip in full (I have a shortened Swedish version which doesn't do justice to McLusky's wonderful images).

So was it actually done in full? My understanding was that if just 'stopped'. But I wasn't even award of the Swedish version.

[Red Grant]

Originally posted by Blue Eyes


So was it actually done in full? My understanding was that if just 'stopped'. But I wasn't even award of the Swedish version.

Yes, as I understand it the strip was done in full by McLusky but was just printed in a shortened version in the UK due to a legal dispute between the Newspaper and Ian Fleming. I think the Swedish comic version I have is this shortened version as the climax to the story is tied up in about eights panels at the end of the strip. Many of the strips have been printed throughout the world in this was. Some even coloured in! Nnnnnnoooooooo!!! The Swedish version also has cropped frames rather like the version of LIVE AND LET DIE that was printed in the 1965 Annual.
I mentioned in the last post that McLusky's image of Bond looked started to look like Connery towards the end. Well, take a look at the attached pic from MOONRAKER from 1959 and see if it wasn't a case of life imitating art!

[Donovan]

You know, when you look at the complete list (as printed in the Titan books) of the strips and how long they lasted (early 1980s), I'd be all for Glidrose striking a deal to serialize the modern Bond novels. Colonel Sun was in 1969-70, then came the original stories.

It is doubtful that any of the Gardner or Benson novels will be officially adapted for the screen (although who can say 20, 30 years from now?). But it would be a kick to see them brought to a new form of life as the original novels were.

What I'd really like to see, of course, is the entire Ian Fleming Bond novel comic strips, but that is stating the obvious.

P.S. Oh hell, in honour of this fine thread, I'll post this fun little item. Click here and enjoy!

[kevrichardson]

One book on Bond - "Licence to Thill" -A cultural history of the James Bond films by James Chapman. (CUP-2000) . One book on Fleming - 17F -The Life of Ian Fleming by Donald McCormick (London 1993) . I just re-read the original edition of John Pearson Biography of Ian Fleming .