JAMES BOND 007 MAGAZINE | 007 MAGAZINE ARCHIVE FEATURES

After the departure of John McLusky in 1966, the Daily Express hired Yaroslav Horak (1927-2020) to illustrate the James Bond comic strip. When the remaining Ian Fleming material had been exhausted, American writer James ‘Jim’ Lawrence (1918-1994) was given permission by the author's estate to originate his own stories. A prolific writer, Lawrence continued for a further 34 new adventures, involving Bond in many weird and way-out situations. The weekday strip came to an end in the Daily Express on Saturday January 22, 1977, and then published in the Sunday Express in a three-strip format for one more story, which ran over 18 weeks before being discontinued in the newspaper. A further four stories written by James Lawrence and drawn by Yaroslav Horak were only syndicated outside the UK.

On Monday February 2, 1981 Express Newspapers Group resurrected the James Bond comic strip, but this time in the Daily Star - a tabloid newspaper originally launched in 1978 to utilise printing presses that had been running under capacity due to falling Daily Express circulation. After one disappointing original story illustrated by MAD Magazine artist Harry North, John McLusky returned to the James Bond comic strip after a 15-year absence to illustrate five more stories once again written by James Lawrence. The fourth story Polestar, ended after just eight weeks in the Daily Star, this time with no explanation or final concluding strip. John McLusky did complete the artwork for the story which included a further 46 strips that were later syndicated outside the UK. The final story illustrated by John McLusky was The Scent of Danger, which was only syndicated outside the UK in 1983 (although later appeared in several anthologies published by Titan Books). Yaroslav Horak returned for two final stories that were also syndicated outside the UK in 1983-84.

ABOVE: (top & top left) John McLusky photographed at work in his studio by Graham Rye in 1981. (1) *Contact sheet from the negatives originally shot by Graham Rye in October 1981 at John McLusky’s studio in the garden of his house in Datchworth, Hertfordshire, England. All the images pictured here were first made public when published in Graham Rye’s exclusive ground-breaking article, ‘The Illustrated James Bond’, in 007 MAGAZINE Issue #10, April 1982. (2) John in full swing at the 1982 James Bond British Fan Club convention. (3) Detail from strip #928 of FROM A VIEW TO A KILL published in the Daily Express on July 3, 1961. (4) Detail from strip #535 of FROM RUSSIA, WITH LOVE published in the Daily Express on March 26, 1960. (5 & 6) Flittermouse strips #583 & #604 serialised in the Daily Star in 1983. BOTTOM: John McLusky's reference work bench 1981.

*Also included on the contact sheet are 14 shots of a television screen taken during the broadcast of An Unearthly Child: The Forest of Fear, shown on BBC2 on November 4, 1981. The third episode of the very first Doctor Who story was screened as part of a season of repeats titled The Five Faces of Doctor Who. The season comprised five four-part stories from the first four Doctors, including Tom Baker's final story Logopolis, as it featured the first on-screen appearance of Peter Davison's Fifth Doctor, and therefore justified the title The Five Faces of Doctor Who.

Graham Rye's unprecedented access to the Daily Express archives opened up a new chapter in the history of the James Bond comic strip, and artist John McLusky then gave a fascinating talk about his time working on the strip to 200 fans at The James Bond British Fan Club Convention held at the Wembley Conference centre on the weekend of 24th/25th April, 1982. Graham Rye was also instrumental in getting much of John McLusky's original artwork returned to the artist who continued to revise some of his strips to his own satisfaction for the rest of his life, although they were never again published in this format.

A panel from strip #143 of LIVE AND LET DIE as it was printed in the Daily Express on Friday December 19, 1958, and John McLusky's original revised artwork after it had been returned to him in the early 1980s

ABOVE: (left) A panel from strip #143 of LIVE AND LET DIE as it was printed in the Daily Express on Friday December 19, 1958, and (right) the original artwork with the face of James Bond revised by John McLusky after it was returned to him in the early 1980s. McLusky also re-inked the background behind Felix Leiter. The revised version was was never published in this format.

John McLusky (1923-2006)

John McLusky would frequently re-draw James Bond in panels from the early stories, so that his facial features now resembled the version seen in ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE and YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE. New artwork would be pasted over sections of the original panels, and several of these ad hoc revised strips were subsequently sold by his estate following the artist's death in 2006. In 1987 British publisher Titan Books began to issue paperback anthologies of the Daily Express James Bond comic strips, although the first three collections featured the work of Yaroslav Horak. It was not until 1990 when Titan collected CASINO ROYALE and LIVE AND LET DIE, that John McLusky's work began to be widely seen again. The first public exhibition of John McLusky's James Bond comic strips was held at The Barbican Centre in London and ran from November 25, 1995 to January 9, 1996 - coinciding with the release of Pierce Brosnan's debut film as 007 in GoldenEye. John McLusky attended the opening accompanied by Graham Rye. To celebrate the UK release of Pierce Brosnan's third James Bond film The World Is Not Enough on November 22, 1999, the Daily Express reprinted CASINO ROYALE in weekday instalments - 41 years since it had debuted in the newspaper as the first John McLusky drawn comic strip.

Titan Books continued to publish all of John McLusky's original Daily Express strips throughout 2004/05; and later republished the stories that originally appeared in the Daily Star in the early 1980s in two anthologies in 2008. CASINO ROYALE was reprinted again in the Sunday Express from September 26, 2021 to coincide with the release of No Time To Die, Daniel Craig's final film as James Bond.

2015 Illustration Cupboard Gallery exhibition

ABOVE: 2015 ‘The Original James Bond’ - an exhibition at The Illustration Cupboard gallery in London. (top) John McLusky's son Sean poses in front of a large Street Banner designed in collaboration with British shirt-makers Turnbull & Asser. In 1962 Turnbull & Asser began to outfit the cinematic James Bond as first portrayed by Sean Connery, whose dress shirts had turnback cuffs fastened with buttons as opposed to cufflinks. Ironically the two strips from THUNDERBALL chosen to advertise the 2015 exhibition of John McLusky's work never actually appeared in the original Daily Express presentation of the story which ended prematurely in February 1962. They were actually two of the six strips drawn by the artist in 1965 in order that the story could be concluded and syndicated overseas. (bottom left) The ‘Face of James Bond’ used to promote the exhibition was also a portrait drawn by John McLusky in 1965, and used as a generic image for the comic strip ever since. (bottom right) 007 MAGAZINE Editor & Publisher Graham Rye at the private press launch event for the exhibition which ran from 28 October - 14 November 2015.
BELOW: (left) All the original John McLusky artwork on show was also offered for sale. (right) Also attending ‘The Original James Bond’ exhibition was actress Martine Beswicke [centre between Graham Rye and Sean McLusky] who played gypsy fighting girl Zora in From Russia With Love (1963), and Paula in Thunderball (1965).

There was a major exhibition and sale of John McLusky's James Bond comic strips at The Illustration Cupboard gallery in London from 28 October - 14 November 2015. This was a rare opportunity to see the work before a lot of it was sold off. John McLusky's prolific career as the first Daily Express James Bond comic strip artist spanned 18 James Bond adventures, for which the artist produced an amazing 2,250 strips between 1958 and 1983. A further exhibition and sale of John McLusky's original James Bond comic strip artwork was hosted by Abbott and Holder Ltd. (below left) at their gallery and shop in London's Bloomsbury from 30 September - 30 October 2021. The most recent exhibition and sale of original John McLusky drawings was held at the EXPO Gallery at 2&4 Vintage, 2-4 Southgate Road, London from 27 May - 10 June 2023 (below right).

Abbott and Holder Ltd 2021 & EXPO Gallery 2023 exhibitions

In 2024 Fraser Scott of the London-based A Gallery offered 12 original John McLusky James Bond comic strips to the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles. The ‘Oscars’ Museum houses more than 13 million artefacts. Fraser Scott said: “The Academy Museum is the major authority on cinematic history, so in coordination with Sean McLusky, I offered the museum a full set of the Bond drawings and they immediately accepted them. The Academy's mission is to preserve and present the history of cinema so obviously this very rare set of 12 drawings, one from each of Ian Fleming's books that John McLusky illustrated, belong there.” In reality the strips offered to the Museum are not full sets as many individual strips from all of the John McLusky illustrated stories have been sold off over the years. The strips offered therefore represent examples of John McLusky's work from 12 of the novels and short stories he illustrated, not the ten novels and three short stories he actually drew between 1958 and 1966.

A double-page report appeared in the July 6, 2024 edition of the Daily Express which allowed the newspaper to recycle their apocryphal story that it was the James Bond cartoon [sic] that inspired Sean Connery's casting as 007 in 1961. One would think that the newspaper that ran the strip from 1958-1962, and then from 1964 to 1977 would get the facts correct... but as with most newspaper reports relating to James Bond, this is rarely the case. The report states that the strip was curtailed two months into the publication of THUNDERBALL in 1962, and resumed the publication on Fleming's other works in 1964. The report then claims that the serialisation ended in the Daily Express in 1966 but later picked up by the Daily Star who ran more strips drawn by John McLusky in 1981-83. In reality the James Bond comic strip continued in the Daily Express from 1966 until 1977, but was then illustrated by Yaroslav Horak.