Warren Ellis Offers Ian' Fleming's Original Brutal, Damaged James Bond In New Comic Book Series

Alison Flood at the British newspaper the Guardian offers a piece on the upcoming James Bond comic series.

Warren Ellis is promising to deliver the “original, brutal, damaged” James Bond of Ian Fleming’s novels in a new comic book series out later this year, the first in more than two decades.

Launching in November with a six-issue story arc called VARGR, the series will see 007 back in London after a “mission of vengeance” in Helsinki, where he takes on the workload of a fallen agent. “But something evil is moving through the back streets of the city, and sinister plans are being laid for Bond in Berlin,” said publisher Dynamite.

Ellis, acclaimed author of the novel Gun Machine and the graphic novel Red, was announced as the writer of the James Bond 007 comic book series on Monday. With artwork by Jason Masters, who has worked on Batman Incorporated and Guardians of the Galaxy, the series will be published by Dynamite, in partnership with the Fleming family company Ian Fleming Publications.

Ellis called Fleming’s Bond “an icon”, and said that it was “a delight to tell visual narratives with the original, brutal, damaged Bond of the books”. The author has long been a fan of Fleming’s novels: comics website Bleeding Cool pointed to his comments in 2002, when the author wrote that the spy would be one of the only existing characters he would be interested in taking on.

... “He is England’s blunt instrument of international assault – the spiteful, vicious bastard of a faded empire that still wants the world to do as it’s bloody well told.”

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jul/07/james-bond-comics-warren-ellis-brutal-dynamite-jason-masters 

You can also read my Crime Beat column on a James Bond graphic novel via the below link:

http://www.pauldavisoncrime.com/2010/05/on-crime-thrillers-ian-fleming-and.html 

Dynamite To Publish James Bond Comics And Graphic Novels

Ian Fleming Publications' web site, www.ianfleming.com, released the below information:

We are very proud to announce our new partnership with Dynamite Entertainment, a leading publisher of English language comic books and graphic novels, who have worldwide rights to produce comic books, digital comics and graphic novels starring James Bond.

007 will re-live the exploits that have thrilled and captivated fans for over half a century in fresh visual adaptations of Fleming’s classic Bond stories, the first of which will be launched in 2015.

Moreover, Dynamite plans to create a series of brand new adventures unveiling the defining – and largely undocumented – early years of Bond’s career. These new stories will draw inspiration from the Fleming canon to explore Bond’s ‘origins’: his raw early years before he gambled with his life in the first novel, Casino Royale.

Some other familiar faces from the expansive 007 mythos will also make appearances in this series – criminal masterminds, hired henchmen, glamorous Bond Girls and secret service allies – alongside all-new characters.

Corinne Turner, Managing Director of Ian Fleming Publications said “It’s over sixty years since the publication of Casino Royale, and now more than ever it’s an exciting time to be a Bond fan. We’re thrilled that 007 will be revisiting the world of comics, as Fleming’s novels have a long and successful history in this medium, ever since they began to be published as newspaper comic strips in the late fifties. Dynamite are the perfect partners to take on the challenge of continuing this legacy, and we are very much looking forward to working with them.”

The original Bond comic strips, first printed in the Express newspaper in 1958, have been republished by Titan in six Omnibus editions, available from their website.

Note: You can also read my Crime Beat column on Titan's James Bond Omnibus via the below link:

http://www.pauldavisoncrime.com/2010/05/on-crime-thrillers-ian-fleming-and.html