Until the last few years, James Bond’s appearances in comic books are rare. Added all together prior to 2016, they most definitely would not fill an omnibus.
Rights issues are always tricky with this franchise; although Eon Productions —and its merchandising arm, Danjaq — manages film rights, the literary property itself remains controlled by the Ian Fleming Estate.
Which explains why this run at Dark Horse features a James Bond who doesn’t in fact look like any other Bond we’ve seen previously. In fact, here he looks a little bit like — Paul Gulacy.
Regardless, It’s great Gulacy page from a good-looking miniseries; even if this specific example looks like it would be more at home in an Indiana Jones comic book.
James Bond through the years in comics. (The experience was so distasteful for Howard Chaykin on For Your Eyes Only that he left Marvel Comics.)
Sean Connery’s likeness as James Bond has only appeared onceofficially in comic book storytelling. Classics Illustrated adapted Dr. No, the very first Bond film, into a comic book in 1962, and only published in the UK. It was ultimately licensed to DC and appears in the US as Showcase #43.
In 1974, Connery’s Bond makes an unofficial — an absolutely unauthorized — comeback in an Italian comic book series Gli Aristocratici (The Aristocrats) featuring the lounge and cheek gentlemen thieves who play a modern vision of Robin Hood’s merry men, donating their thefts to charity.
In this story, from the second year of the long running strip beautifully illustrated by the late Ferdinando Tacconi, the gang helps out Bond —and foils a familiar-looking villain along the way.
After an 18-month delay, No Time To Die, the fifth — and final— Daniel Craig installment of the franchise, launches this Friday, October 8. And no offense to Mr. Connery — or to my childhood — but at this point, Craig’s version of Bond is my personal favorite.
Batman Adventures #8, May 1993 & Batman Adventures #13, October 1993
Two great pages from the late Mike Parobeck wrap up our 2021 celebration of “Batman Day.”
As I’ve written previously, I was a big fan of Mike’s work; he was terrifically gifted from the start. Most of his art shares the same terrific qualities: Simple. Clear. Clean. Powerful.
He died much, much too early from diabetes at age 31.
September 18 was DC’s annual “Batman Day.” Although not exactly a national holiday, DC and Warner have used the occasion to commemorate the caped crusader and launch and market new products around the event.
So, as in the past two years, we continue to honor the celebration with the rest of the month’s posts devoted to The Dark Knight….
Bob Hall launches the new Millennium with a pretty cool Batman graphic Novel, Batman DOA.
Infected with a lethal virus unleashed by the deadly trio of Joker, Penguin and Two-Face, the rapidly deteriorating Batman has only 24 hours left to live… precious little time (as they say) to find a cure andrescue a kidnapped little girl whose life is on the same timetable. Its over-arching plotline (and title) is borrowed from the classic 1950 film noir “DOA” — albeit (spoiler alert) with a much happier ending.
Bob had already delved into a Frank Miller Sin City art style in the late 90s with his own creation Armed and Dangerous for Acclaim / Valiant/ Armada Comics. Although it was occasionally a bit too derivative for my own tastes, it was definitely evolving, and I would have liked to see more material in this vein. He ultimately did a few more comics before he mostly retired from the industry to focus on playwriting and theatre directing.
Bob Hall’s noir creation Armed and Dangerous borrowed generously from Frank Miller’s Sin City.
Edmond O’Brien in the absolute classic film noir DOA (1950).
Batman / Superman / Wonder Woman: Trinity #2, September 1993
September 18 was DC’s annual “Batman Day.” Although not exactly a national holiday, DC and Warner have used the occasion to commemorate the caped crusader and launch and market new products around the event.
Batman shows off his typically charming personality — to Wonder Woman and Superman — in this iconic bat-panel from Matt Wagner’s Trinity 2004 series.
(And the Amazon princess is not amused.)
The overarching plot of this deluxe three-parter involves Ra’s al Ghul enlisting Bizarro to create… well, chaos.
But the critical (and very entertaining) theme of the title is how DC”s three iconic heroes reconcile their personality and philosophy differences and figure out a way to work together without defeating each other, instead of the bad guys.
Last Saturday (September 18) was DC’s annual “Batman Day.” Although not exactly a national holiday, DC and Warner have used the occasion to commemorate the caped crusader and launch and market new products around the event.
So, as in the past two years, we continue to honor the celebration with the rest of the month’s posts devoted to The Dark Knight….
Here’s a terrific page by the late, great Don Newton, who drew some of my favorite Batman stories of the era.
Newton made turned complex stories into smooth storytelling, and he always accomplished it with quality draftsmanship and artistic flair.
This was yet another early find for me when I came back to original art collecting about 15 years ago.
Newton passed away much too young just shy of fifty, felled by a heart attack in 1984.
This past Saturday (September 18) was DC’s annual “Batman Day.” Although not exactly a national holiday, DC and Warner have used the occasion to commemorate the caped crusader and launch and market new products around the event.
So, as in the past two years, we continue to honor the celebration with the rest of the month’s posts devoted to The Dark Knight….
This Tom Mandrake Batman page was among the first pieces of original art I acquired when I re-entered collecting again about 15 years ago.
In many ways, it’s the perfect Batman page. It’s dark and moody, and Batman is actually “detecting”, something his many writers occasionally forget is actually one of his primary skills.
Mandrake delivers some knockout art in this issue. And Sam Kieth’s terrific cover is the cherry on top.
Detective in the first panel, and Dark Knight mysteriously swooping over the wrecked car in the last. Yes, definitely pretty perfect.
Today, Saturday, September 18, is DC’s annual “Batman Day.” Although not exactly a national holiday, DC and Warner have used the occasion to commemorate the caped crusader and launch and market new products around the event.
So, as in the past two years, we continue to honor the celebration with the rest of the month’s posts devoted to The Dark Knight… and a special doubleheader todayfrom a unique Batman story.
In more than eighty years of Batman stories, there is nothing quite like Paul Dini’s Vertigo graphic novel, based on a brutal mugging that happened to him personally in 1993: Batman and the rogues gallery become imaginary voices helping and hindering Dini’s state of mind as he attempts to physically and emotionally recover from the horrific beating.
Listening to Paul describe the incident in detail on a podcast at the time of the book’s publication was harrowing.
And the art pages, while gorgeous from start to finish, took an initial emotional toll on the Emmy-winning writer. As he told the Hollywood Reporter in 2015:
“When I first downloaded the pages from the attack, I looked at them very quickly once, horrified. Then I put them away for a week,” Dini recalls. “I burst into tears. I couldn’t look at them.”
The two-page sequence here, which I acquired last year, is a critical part of the story. (The pages are even specifically called out on Wikipedia). The “imaginary” Joker taunts Dini’s misery, until Batman shows up in the final panel of the sequence, and dispatching the clown prince of crime, tells Dini to stop feeling sorry himself, and get back to work.
Fortunately, for him (and us), get back to work he did.
As noted previously, DC’s annual “Batman Day” is tomorrow Saturday, September 18. Although not exactly a national holiday, DC and Warner use the occasion to commemorate the caped crusader and launch and market new products.
So, as in the past two years, we continue to honor the celebration with the rest of the month’s posts devoted to The Dark Knight….
Despite its initial appearance, this page is not from a lost Shang-Chi/Batman crossover. (Nor is it Batman in the world of Big Trouble in Little China. But as always, we digress.)
It’s from a pulpy crossover in DC’s annuals back in 1999. A clever editorial idea that produced a handful of fun stories, including this one from Doug Moench, who appropriately, had written an acclaimed eight-years worth of Master of Kung-Fu (Shang-Chi) comics for Marvel.
The key note about this page of course is that’s it’s a terrific looking example from the criminally underrated JH Williams III. (Promethea). I overpaid for it (at least it was a part of a trade) but I don’t focus on that. It’s beautifully rendered, and like much, if not most, of Williams work, Mick Gray, his traditional inking partner, gorgeously embellishes it to boot.
That closeup panel of Batman is pretty much perfect. Who would want to argue with that guy?
Preliminary Art, Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, 10th Anniversary Edition, 1996
The annual Batman Day is this upcoming Saturday, September 18. Although not exactly a national holiday, DC and Warner have used the occasion to commemorate the caped crusader and launch and market new products.
So, as in the past two years, we honor the celebration in our own way with the rest of the month’s posts devoted to The Dark Knight….
Kicking off…. with a prelim sketch of Batman and Robin from The Dark Knight Returns 10thAnniversary edition by the legendary Frank Miller.
In the ”art coincidence” department, I acquired this piece early this year, and apparently, at about the same time, the finished original (see below) also changed hands separately.
There is of course, nothing I can say or add about DKR that hasn’t been covered elsewhere.
I did only discover recently that Dark Knight returns became the catchall for the original series only because it’s the technical title of issue #1. Each issue of the four-issue comic book series has its own “title:”
Issue #1 — The Dark Knight Returns
Issue #2 — Dark Knight Triumphant
Issue #3 — Hunt The Dark Knight
Issue #4 — The Dark Knight Falls
Given its influence on the Batman mythos in all media, The Dark Knight Forever is most definitely not hyperbole.
Back here on Friday.
(Wikipedia has a ton of good DKR trivia assembled in one place here.)
Frank Miller created new art for the 10th Anniversary edition of The Dark Knight Returns, and some of it has made its way into other collections as well. Directly above is Frank’s finished original art.
