Those looking for a James Bond fix before next autumn's Bond 24 may just have found their answer. Dynamite Entertainment, prolific publishers of film and TV tie-in comics, have just announced that they've snagged the Bond licence, both for adaptations of existing stories and for new adventures.
"Bond is one of the greatest cultural icons in the world,” says Dynamite's Nick Barrucci in a statement from the New York Comic-Con. "It's one of the most successful film franchises ever, a franchise that reinvents itself to be in tune with each generation. We're excited to build upon Ian Fleming’s source material with new canonical stories, and honoured to be a small part of his legacy, to be able to bring new stories to fans around the world."
Canonical? Whether you agree with that depends on what you consider to be the Bond canon in the first place. Away from Fleming's original books and the movies, Bond has also enjoyed an extended career in print, with long series by John Gardner and Raymond Benson, and recent standalones by Sebastian Faulks, Jeffery Deaver and William Boyd. Are they all canon too? That's up to you...
What's certain is that Bond has been relatively unrepresented in comic form, save the odd film tie-in, some early '90s runs by Marvel/Eclipse and Dark Horse, and a newspaper strip in the Daily Express and, later, the Daily Star.
No creative teams have been announced for the Dynamite series so far, but one thing they have announced is a series set before Bond's first adventure, 1953's Casino Royale, documenting his early years with MI6. Presumably they'll be taking a rather different tack (or picking up Bond later) than Charlie Higson's Young Bond novels.
The new comics will launch next year. The still-untitled Bond 24, directed by Sam Mendes and once again starring Daniel Craig, will hit cinemas on October 23.