This past weekend I went back home to NYC. Aside from a much-needed refill of city life, the trip was an opportunity to see family and friends, and to attend the NY Comic Con. I was attending the show as a publishing professional — using the opportunity to scout artists for Adamant’s various transmedia efforts — and had a great time. The best part of the trip, from a business standpoint, was ICV2’s Conference on Comics and Digital, held the day before the show opened, which featured a white paper presentation on the state of the comics industry presented by Milton Griepp, followed by three breakout panel discussions with industry figures representing retail, creative and publishing.
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Tour de Bond: Dr. No (1958)
A slight change in schedule for this week — I was away on a business trip to the NYCC. I’ve realized that missing the usual upload day results in a week’s delay, and that sort of delay is contributing to my “blogfade” — I’m not writing on this thing as much as I want to be. So, I’ve decided that I’m going to make a shift to posting daily content– and what better way to begin than with the latest installment of the Tour de Bond, whether it’s Monday or not.
I love this week’s novel. Not only is it part of what I consider the best stretch of quality in the series (for those wondering, that would be the run from 1957 through 1961– From Russia With Love through Thunderball), but it’s Fleming’s tribute to Sax Rhomer’s Fu Manchu novels (my love of which I mentioned in the entry on Live and Let Die). Above and beyond that, though, it represents Fleming’s embrace of the series– in many ways marking the turning point from the occasional novel that he’d write during his stays in Jamaica, into a full-fledged series that became his focus.
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Tour de Bond: From Russia With Love (1957)
After a week’s hiatus, we’re back, and just in time for one of the best books in the series. From Russia With Love was the book that skyrocketed Bond into pop-culture stardom, thanks largely to a LIFE magazine interview where President John F. Kennedy listed it as one of his favorite books in 1961. Aside from finally achieving world-wide popularity, though, this book is one of the best-plotted in the canon, with a tense, cold-war premise and Fleming stepping outside of the formula he established with the previous novels.
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