Young Bond Graphic Novel Out Today

Today marks the long, long-awaited return of James Bond to the medium of comics. While he made an unofficial (and altogether unflattering) appearance last year in Alan Moore's spectacular League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Black Dossier (drawn by Kevin O'Neill), Bond makes his first official comic book appearance since Topps' ill-fated GoldenEye adaptation way back in 1995. Although Topps had announced an ongoing 007 series following GoldenEye, they didn't even make it to issue 2 of their movie adaptation before cancelling it, thanks to their delayed schedule. Bond's last complete comic book appearance was a two issue miniseries at Dark Horse called Shattered Helix. Dark Horse also had their share of unfinished Bond stories, including the promising A Silent Armageddon and the serialized short story "Minute of Midnight." (But they had their share of successes, too, the best being Doug Moench and Paul Gulacy's Serpent's Tooth.) I'm not sure why James Bond has had so much trouble in the comics medium in America; he seems like a natural fit. Alan J. Porter will provide a few answers in his definitive book on the subject of Bond in comics due out any day, James Bond: The Illustrated History of 007.

But back to the news at hand: today sees the UK release of the first new licensed Bond comic in over a decade, a 160-page graphic novel adaptation of Charlie Higson's first Young Bond novel, SilverFin, illustrated by Kev Walker. As usual, the Young Bond Dossier has all the details--including a signing opportunity for lucky UK fans! I can't wait to dive into my own copy--whenever it finally arrives from Amazon.co.uk.

Young Bond, of course, is not the first teenage spy to make the leap from Young Adult novels into comics. There have been two graphic novel adaptations of Anthony Horowitz's Alex Rider novels so far, with a third due out this winter.