Titan Books: James Bond: Spectre: Complete Comic Strip Collection

Spectre
 Ian Fleming , Yaroslav Horak , John McLusky
272pp 

Hardback

Dimensions: 265 x 287mm
Illustration detail: Black and white throughout.
Publication date: 23 October 2015

ISBN: 9781785651557
RRP £24.99

The daring James Bond is back, this time in a lavishly put together collection celebrating the iconic SPECTRE storylines. Featuring 1. Thunderball 2. On Her Majesty’s Secret Service 3. You Only Live Twice 4. The Spy Who Loved Me. 

These fully restored and thrilling stories are based on the original Ian Fleming James Bond novels.

 Okay, the postman delivered this book later yesterday afternoon (What the hell is going on with UK post deliveries??) and complained of groin strain.  My response was a dignified: "I have no interest in your groin. Good day to you, Sir!" and closed the door.  How can 272 pages be that heavy?  It's the quality of the paper used -glossy and quite thick with a lovely hard cover that should be sturdy enough to survive most accidents in a person's collection.  Unlike the Bond newspaper strip collections, of which I've only seen two but they are both excellent quality paperbacks, Titan have pulled out all the stops for quality with this one....is there a new Bond movie out?

These reviews have had some of the highest views on CBO so I guess Bond is still popular!

Omnibus 005: http://hoopercomicart.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/titan-books-james-bond-omnibus-vol-005.html

Omnibus 004: http://hoopercomicart.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/titan-books-james-bond-omnibus-volume-4.html

Now, the Bond newspaper strips were in "the wrong paper" -Ma and Bill only got the Daily Mirror and Bristol Evening Post so I was familiar with Garth and Modesty Blaise -Blaise has had her own Titan collections but sadly not Garth. Later, of course I discovered Scarth in the Sun.  But Bond was in the wrong newspaper so I only caught glimpses of it.

Firstly, and this is important if you are a collector, the reproduction is superb.  Lovely black and white and some very cool cross-hatching on display, too.  Believe me, the quality was not this good in the original newspaper strip -I know. I'm from the past.

The artwork is great. McLusky's work gives the whole strip that "of the time" feel (1961 onward)  and work by Yaroslav Horak was great to see and he is, probably, best known for his Bond work.  If you have never read a James Bond book then you are going to get confused.  These are not the movie stories and in You Only Live Twice you get to see Tiger Tanaka quite passive as a week ("was going to fail any way") ninja trainee is executed by his instructor.  So not quite ninja reality.  Drawn, the comic strip Bond looks slightly more Japanese than the movie Sean Connery!  However, not well enough to not be spotted as Bond by Irma Bunt....I know, that confused you.

Thunderball starts somewhat like the movie with Bond's health in question since he drinks bourbon and  "continues to smoke sixty strong cigarettes a day", has fibrositis, high blood pressure and occipital headaches.  But from there on in you are out of the movie!

In a way. I think that You Only Live Twice is the strip that will make many go "WHAT?!?!" I'm giving no secrets away here.  The story merges into what would have been the next Bond strip as he travels to Russia.

This book was a joy to read and look at (several times) and gives a real feel of the 1960s spy/secret agent genre (epitomized in movies by the late great Tom Adams playing Charles Vine (Wiki)"He starred as the lead of a film series featuring a low budget imitation James Bond named Charles Vine in three films beginning with Licensed to Kill (aka: The Second Best Secret Agent in the Whole Wide World, 1965) and the sequels Where the Bullets Fly (1966) and Somebody's Stolen Our Russian Spy (aka: "O.K. Yevtushenko" 1967) that was shot in Spain.").

If you are a Bond film fan, movie fan or specialise in collecting Bond memorabilia then this one is for you.  I would highly recommend it.

Now, this brings me to what I did not like. Ian Fleming is credited on the cover.  On the two intro splash pieces he is named (having not seen recent Bond movies I guess John Logan has a connection though I can't say I leapt up and down shouting "There's a foreword by John Logan!!").  WHO is not credited on the cover or on those pages?  THE ARTISTS -you know, the two who did....oh....what was it now? Oh yes: THEY DREW THE ****** STRIPS THE BOOK IS COMPRISED OF!  That takes the book from 10 out of 10 to 7 out of 10. I should not have to look through the small print to find out who the artists were!

Always -ALWAYS- credit the artist of books (not to mention any colourists!).

Still a great book!