Remembering James Bond. James Bond Omnibus Volume 5.

James Bond Omnibus Volume 5. *** 1/2 /*****

There's no question that the 9 strips written in the mid 70's that make up Volume 5 are not the high point of the James Bond comic strip. Bond battles a giant ape, coincidentally in a strip that came out in 1976 the same year as the big budget King Kong remake, mechanical birds and sea dragons. The shortest strip in the entire series,  The Wizard Awakes makes no sense and some of the characters seem to completely change appearance. Also in the strip "Hot Spot" Bond saves the life of the US Secretary of State. Though unnamed it doesn't take a genius to figure out from the SOS's appearance it's Henry Kissenger. Coincidentally James Bond is such a "secret" agent that when ol' Henry is told his plane is safe to take off he surmises it was Bond who stopped the plan to blow the plane up.

However it must be said Volume 5 closes on a high note. The last 3 strips The aforementioned Sea Dragon, Death Wing and The Xandu Connection are all strong strips. The Xandu Connection in particular is a favorite of mine amongst the later strips. The 70's saw the growth of feminism and it's handled here in a way you'd expect a James Bond comic strip written and drawn by 2 men to be handled. In Sea Dragon a militant feminist group, really an all female criminal group using feminism as a guise, creates a giant sea dragon to try and kill all of the partners of an Oil consortium so they can take it over. It's actually a decent comic strip and like all of the strips contained here, and from here on out, and really since the strips contained early in volume 3 uses the "feminist" group as just a reason to draw lots of bare breasted "birds". In fact it must be said the plots of the Bond comic strips in the Express from 1970 until they ended in 1983 seem to revolve around ways to show naked breasts. Again it shows the difference in culture between America and Europe. Honestly I am not exactly sure how the drawings of topless women could traumatize our youth. Just as these stories make it plain that just coming up with reasons to draw topless women in and of itself won't make for a great story.

James Bond Omnibus Volume 5 *** 1/2 out of ***** There is one more Omnibus left Volume 6 do out later this year.

Modesty Blaise A Taste For Death

Modesty Blaise A Taste For Death by  Peter O'Donnell **** 1/2 / *****  

The fourth Modesty Blaise novel starts with Willie Garvin noticing the grisly death of Judy Pilrim while her blind sister Dinah escapes. The murder was ordered by  the criminal mastermind Gabriel and  Dinah was kept alive because although blind she has a psychic ability to find buried objects.  pipes, treasure...etc. Garvin rescues Dinah and threw a series of coincidences Modesty Blaise and her sometimes boyfriend Steve Collier become involved and it become apparent that not only Gabriel but  the giant killer Simon Delicata  working with Gabriel need to use Dinah Pilgrim to find buried treasure. It's difficult to judge the Modesty Blaise books by The James Bond Books even though they are the same genre. The Books are clearly designed to be fun fast reads. And that they are. There's violence and sex o'pleanty and O'Donnell proves just as adept at moving a story a long in novel form as he is in Comic strip form. Willie Garvin gets a bigger role here but as always it's clear it's Blaise who is at the end of  the day the boss. That Garvin (the male) is Robin to Blaise (the female) batman is what makes these stories work so well.

The first four novels in the series were all well done and there isn't much to separate them in terms of merit. I would put A Taste Of Death just below  Sabre-Tooth and just above I Lucifer and Modesty Blaise. The Next book in the series is The Impossible Virgin. 

Remembering James Bond. A Parody That Lead To Further Bond Books. Book Review The Liquidator 1964

Reading John Gardner's first foray into fiction one can understand what the Ian Fleming folks saw that made them decide he was the man to handle the job of bring the literary James Bond into the 80's. Gardner's Bond books are a roller coaster affair some are quite good and some simply are not. Gardner himself was never a fan of the Bond novels and his opinion of their silliness led him to write The Liquidator whose hero is ultimate the anti-James Bond Brian (Boysie) Oakes. Years after (mistakenly) saving the life of the man who would become the head of British secret service in World War 2 Oakes is hired to become an assassin for the British Government. Just one problem. Oakes is a coward who can not stand
killing...of any kind even the smallest bug. Not being a man of great talent Oakes hasn't had much financial success since the war so in-spite of his cowardliness and his aversion to killing he takes the job simply for the pay. When Oakes has to carry out a killing he contracts the job to a gangster.

The Book opens with Oakes getting ready to go on holiday with his boss's secretary Iris to the South of France. This is leads to the first problem of Oakes profession he is afraid of flying. While on vacation he gets a call to come back to London and carry out a killing panicking Oakes because he doesnt have the time to get a hold of his hired killer. It turns out that the call was a fake and Oakes himself is being used to kill a member of British royalty. With the help of his boss Oakes figures out the plan in time and again becomes the hero again quite by accident thus making the British Secret Service continue to believe he is a brave killer.

The book is a product of the mid 1960's spy craze even if it's intent was to poke some fun at it's leader James Bond. It does stand as proof that given his own creation and some incentive Gardner could turn out a fine spy novel even if it was a parody. Not that Gardner's Bond books were bad. Several were quite good in fact, but this is better than any of his Bond creations. Garners characterization of Boysie Oakes succeeds for the same reason his characterization of James Bond often did not. Gardner makes Oakes the common man. You or I could be Boysie Oakes. In the subtext of a book who's hero is not invincible this works marvelously in the world of James Bond it does not. One often reads a Gardner Bond novel and says "wow I could have pulled this off" killing the escapism that is essential in a Bond novel. Here knowing that you or I could do what Boysie does only to have others believe he is a super human killing machine only adds to the fun of the book.

As is to be expected the book is outdated and the story isn't exactly fresh. There were a few 1960's British slang terms I needed some schooling on. The book is 46 years old and certainly wouldn't work in 2011 which may say more about 2011 than 1964. It was, as I said earlier, made in the beginning of the spy craze. Between 1964 and 1968 most everything was about spies and the quality was always variable. The Liquidator never pretends to be anything other than a quick comical read and succeeds as such. Gardner himself towards the end of his lfe said at the time he thought they were fun but now considered them rubbish which is more than a little harsh. It may not be War and Peace but at least people who claim to have read and liked The Liquidator have actually read and like it.

There would be 7 more Boysie Oakes novels by John Gardner I have them all and will review them in time. Only one The Liquidator was turned into a movie. It was made in 1965 and starred Rod Taylor and Trevor Howard. The movie is not available on DVD and does not have a quality reputation though some find it amusing for what it is. The film was on youtube and I of course decided not to watch it until I had the book read. Once I finally read the book the film was gone.

Amongst James Bond fans, even ones who aren't crazy about Gardner's Bond output, the Boysie Oakes novels are very highly thought of and considered worth the time to track them down. I finally have one down and I can say the first The Liquidator certainly was.

The Liquidator John Gardner ****/*****

Time For Some Lite Reading

Knowing how I feel about critics you can understand how I am always a little apprehensive about these books. Perusing the book at borders this one didn't seem too bad though I could tell the author was one of those who liked to wow himself with how witty he could be. The little I read was way better than Simon Winder's piece of shit book "James Bond The Man Who Saved Britain" Of course what isn't better than 300 pages of a British James Bond fan opening up his soul because he is a fan of a character he hates and a native of a country he despises? It also seemed better than most of the over blown publish or perish rubbish that comes from the pens of academia fighting to keep their jobs at Coffeyville Jr College.

The Count Wants This Book...

Who could be such a nerd that they would write and self publish a book about On Her Majesty's Secret Service? somebody after the Count's own heart.

NY Times The Complete Front Pages.

Finally got this is in the mail and I am excited to look into it. NO the complete 54,267 front Pages ARE NOT included in the book though it comes with 3 CD ROMS that do contain each front page. On Amazon people are complaining that book doesn't contain every front page itself and it's too big at the same time. Call me crazy but if it contained all 54,000+ front pages wouldn't it really be too big? I also find it funny that people are complaining of the small print the papers in the book. Again call me crazy but I believe one is not really suppose to actually read each front page word for word. Though with the CD ROM one could do just that with all except the earliest pages which ARE difficult to read.

Anyway this looks pretty cool.

First James Bond Novel In 6 Years For The Adult Market....

To be released later today...

Devil May Care By Sebastian Faulks.


British Book Cover

American Edition.

I for one am looking forward to this and will probably pick it up tomorrow but 3 small excerpts have been released through various newspapers and None too surprisingly the anticipation has turned to agony on James Bond fan sites. Also The New York Times as given the book a mixed review. ( considering the reviews they gave Fleming this is a good thing.) Unfortunately for many literary James Bond Fans Ian Fleming himself is not going to write another James Bond book again so we are going to have to settle for continuation novelist who are never going to write James Bond books as well as their creator which is of course a completely ridiculous expectation anyway (If this were reversed Fleming could not write books using Faulks characters as well as Faulks could) Faulks' pedigree is one of the best of any of the continuation novelist and Penguin is doing something they never did for Raymond Benson, or John Gardner for that matter, hyping the book. Despite the predictable handwringing I suspect this will be a highly entertaining book.

The Flemings say there will be further books after this but Faulks says this is the only one he will contribute. Both are wise moves. As good as Higson's Young Bond books are it's good to have another book aimed at the adult market and Faulks knows that anymore than one continuation novel is really a no win situation. He ignores his own work while writing books for a group of people who largely won't appreciate it anyway. One wonders if faulks hasn't been in contact with Gardner (before Gardner passed away last August) and Raymond Benson both of whom know all to well the market Faulks is writing for.

Late Edit. One wonders why the drawing of Bond is a dead wringer for George Lazenby. The one guy who played Bond that nobody remembers. Of course if the book is as good as Lazenby's movie then everything will be fine.

New Editons Of Ian Fleming's James Bond Novels.

Artwork

There are new edition s of Ian Flemings Novels being released later this month as part of the centenary celebration of his birth. Unfortunately these are only for sale in the United Kingdom so unless I scourer Ebay or get them off Amazon UK ($$$$$) I don't think that I'll be getting them. ( Buying 14 books that I already own several copies of is probably out at the moment) But they are sweet. Some examples...

Some Suggested Reading

From The Sweet Jesus I Hate Bill O'Reilly Folks...

http://www.sweetjesusihatebilloreilly.com