Apr 7, 2008

New Titan Cover Art

This may be old news, but I just noticed it. New cover images have appeared on Amazon.co.uk for the next volumes in Titan's James Bond and Modesty Blaise series of comic strip reprints. Yellowstone Booty features artwork in its titular story (plus rare sketches!) by the great John Burns, who only drew a couple of Modesty adventures, but whose spy oeuvre went on to include 007 and, more recently, Marvel's Silver Sable. Unfortunately, all of his spy works have gone unfinished. Dark Horse cancelled the promising James Bond: A Silent Armageddon after only two of its four issues were published (supposedly due to Burns' lateness with the art--though I've heard that at least pencils exist somewhere for the unreleased issues) and Marvel shrunk the Sable & Fortune series from six issues to four (if memory serves), only three of which were completed by Burns. (Again, rumors of tardiness swirled around the project.) His third and final Modesty strip (presumably set for the next volume), "Eve and Adam," was finished by Pat Wright. I don't know if Burns is cursed or if he brings it upon himself, but it's a shame because his work is fantastic. His Bond is one of my favorites, his Felix Leiter is dead-on, and he even draws a mean Aston Martin Vantage.

Another one of my favorite Bond artists, John McClusky, returns to 007 with the stories in The Paradise Plot. True, late era McClusky is quite different from his astonishing Fifties and Sixties work, but isn't that a great cover? It's great to see his Bond front and center on a Titan volume again!

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