Customer Reviews

James Bond: The Man With the Golden Gun

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How influential were the Bond comic strips? Desmond Lewellyn (Q) was on record saying he never read the Flemming novels, but was quite a fan of the Daily Mail strip.Clearly the casting of Sean Connery had to be inspired by the image of Bond in the original run of the comic strip, which began in 1958, four years before the film Dr. No.

These stories were published in 1966 , nearly 10 years before the Roger Moore film version, and 20 yrs before the Timothy Dalton movie. These are not the gadget driven romps that the films have become, this is solid, cold war action. The plots and characters share names with the film versions, but their charcterizations and motivations are far different, and surprisingly more complex.

This JB is the classic Ian Flemming Bond,adapted by Jim Lawrence, with beautiful art from Yaroslav Horak, that carrys on the tradition of excellence established by the strips first core team of Henry Gammidge & John McClusky. Titan Books has produced a solid collection , that begs for more volumes to follow.

Jim Lawrence and Yaroslav Horak took over the James Bond Newspaper Strip in the mid 60's and produced some of the best adaptations of Fleming's work in any medium.
After the bulk of Fleming's books were adapted by Jim McClusky and henry Gammidge, who's work today seems quite dated, Lawrence was left with two novels, The man with the Golden Gun and the Spy who Loved me, as well as a hand full of short stories to adapt, but he takes what he has and makes something memorable. Both stories are far superior to the silly Roger Moore movies they inspired; so much so it's a shame the Brocolli family didn't ask Jim Lawrence to script their movies. We may have been spared some really poor 70's adaptations.
If you are thinking of picking these volumes up, start with the Lawrance and Horak stuff, you will be rewarded.

I discovered the James Bond comic strips when there was a reference to the James Bond Fan Club releasing a book, THE ILLUSTRATED JAMES BOND, 007 in a Starlog magazine. This was in 1981. At the time I couldn't afford to get it, even at it's modest $6.95 price. I knew there were a limited number of these books so I'd resigned myself to the idea that I would never own it.

Then, in 1988, I was in the Washington D.C. area when I stumbled onto a store that was selling Titan's first releases- THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS and OCTOPUSSY. Included in THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS, a popular title at that time because of the movie that had recently been released, was the complete THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN adaptation.

Needless to say, I snapped them both up and enjoyed them for many, many years. Eventually I found the THE ILLUSTRATED JAMES BOND, 007 on Ebay and purchased that too- along with Titan's later releases, THE SPY WHO LOVED ME and CASINO ROYALE.

Then, in more recent years, I discovered Titan was releasing the Bond strips again- this time in more complete packages with value added bonuses. Historical essays and introductions by famous names within the James Bond world. These are the books that you are looking at now- and they are stunners!

THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN still includes THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS, as well as an introduction by Ian Fleming's niece, Lucy Fleming. It's a brief but nice statement about her memories of that famous uncle of hers.

THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN is the story that started the collaboration between Jim Lawrence and Yaroslav Horak, who both went on to work together for man years on several adaptations and eventually original stories.

Lawrence's script is tight and snappy. He also is less slavish to the original words of Fleming, probably because the book and short storeis he adapted needed some flourish. While TLD is my favorite of all Fleming's short stories, TMWTGG is one of my least favorite novels. It is largely incomplete as a novel because Fleming never had a chance to revise it from it's first draft, having succombed to a heart attack, and not lung cancer as a previous reviewer stated. Lawrence deftly avoids the more brutal devices of the story without changing the "feel" of the original. In fact, I might say that I enjoy this comic adaptation better than Fleming's original novel.

Horak's artwork is different fom John McLusky's previous work, reminding me of Gil Kane who did Spider-Man (as well as many others!) for a while in the early seventies. Obviously they were contemporaries, so that's not too strange. What sets Horak ahead of the game, in my opinion, is his use of black. Shadows become a major part of the storytelling. Even a story that spends a lot of time outside in the hot Jamaican sun is often shrouded in darkness.

The entire series is reprinted on high quality paper and is well worth the cover price. Not only is this a great introduction to the Bond of Fleming's novels, but it is a fantastic piece of pop culture which we can enjoy again... for the first time.

I hope Titan Books will continue releasing the remaining strips by Yaroslav Horak, starting with the wonderful adaptation of "Colonel Sun".

Titan editors, Are you listening?