(1958-1977)
Written by Henry Gammidge from the books by Ian Fleming. Art by John McCluskey, Yaroslav Horak
Wikipedia Entry
James Bond is a media phenomenon, the movies being the longest running series in film history. So it's not surprising that it was successful in other media. In 1958, the UK paper Daily Express noticed the success of his novels, and asked to serialize them. Ian Fleming was skeptical, but finally gave the OK.
The strip dramatized Fleming's novels. starting with his first Bond novel, Casino Royal. It was a straight adaptation of the book: Bond is assigned to bankrupt the Russian agent Le Chiffre by winning at Baccarat.
The strips follow the book quite closely.* Ian Fleming was given writer credit, but did little other than sketch out a drawing of what he thought Bond looked like -- which was promptly ignored.
The strip continued to dramatize the books in the order they were written, allowing for some decent continuity. For instance, when Felix Leiter is badly injured in one book, he retains those injuries from then on.
A new writing and art team took over in 1966 and continued adapting books. After Fleming died, they adapted his short stories and then eventually came up with new material.
The strip never made it to the US.
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