Recent Blog Chatter

There's a lot happening around the web right now, spy-wise!

Spy Vibe Contests

Jason Whiton over at the Spy Vibe blog is celebrating his birthday by giving away presents rather than collecting them! He's running a series of contests, offering some excellent spy prizes to the lucky winners. So far up for grabs are a copy of Network's Prisoner soundtrack (that one ends June 1, so hurry!), a Thunderbirds DVD set featuring the episode "The Man From M.I.5" (which Jason wrote a very tantalizing piece about that can be found here), a Golgo 13 comic book and a Man From U.N.C.L.E. novel! Head on over to Spy Vibe to enter them all! One winner will be announced each week.

Open Channel Spy-Fi

I've always enjoyed comic book writer Christopher Mills' posts about spy things on his terrific blog Atomic Pulp, and now he's started a new blog devoted to just that subject matter. Furthermore, he's already collected all of his old spy-related pieces on the new Spy-Fi Channel, so you can read them all in one convenient place! Highlights so far include his review of the new DVD release of the Eurospy classic Lightning Bolt, episode reviews of the Robert Conrad spy series A Man Called Sloane, and a look at Mills' own (sadly aborted) spy comic book, Knight and Gale. The Spy-Fi Channel looks set to be a very worthy addition to the C.O.B.R.A.S. league of spy bloggers.

Quantum of Bond

Quantum of Bond is a very cool, copiously illustrated new French James Bond blog. It's got a unique take and manages to cover things that aren't just more of the same. Recent topics include a retrospective of Bond promotions at the Cannes Film Festival (with a great picture I'd never seen before of Roger Moore and Barbara Bach promoting The Spy Who Loved Me), an eye-opening, shot-by-shot comparison of car stunt coordinator Rémy Julienne's chase sequences in Goldeneye and the unbelievably forgettable 1974 Michael Caine spy caper The Marseille Contract, examinations of popular actors from other series or genres in Bond movies and my personal favorite, an ongoing series exploring the myriad connections between the Bond movies and the OSS 117 movies. (I had no idea how many OSS 117 actors had turned up in Moonraker alone! Nor had I made the connection that the main Nazi from OSS 117: Cairo Nest of Spies was Gettler in Casino Royale.) This is a very cool blog worth browsing even if you can't read French.

Cinebeats Revamped

Cinebeats, Kimberly Lindbergs' excellent blog devoted to Sixties and Seventies cinema, has undergone a recent facelift. It's got a cool new feel and the same great content with the usual top-notch writing. Kimberly hasn't had many spy-related posts lately, but chances are that era of film will be of interest to most people who read this blog nonetheless. My favorite recent posts have been a series on the gorgeous Marianne Faithfull film Girl On a Motorcycle, including a fantastic gallery of the film's advertising from around the world. Check it out.