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JAMES BOND
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JAMES BOND
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When The Wizard Awakes was the only James Bond comic strip published in the Sunday Express in a three-strip format from January 30th to May 22nd 1977. The strips were identified by a serial number [#1-#17] in the first panel, which also included Yaroslav Horak's drawing credit - although the story was written by James Bond comic strip regular James Lawrence, he received no credit on any of the strips. |
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It is evident that the last three strips of When The Wizard Awakes published in the Sunday Express on May 22, 1977 were not drawn by Yaroslav Horak (although his credit remained on the title block). It is likely that these were drawn by Neville Colvin, who also drew additional strips to complete Ape of Diamonds (originally published in the Daily Express) in order that the story could be syndicated overseas. The sudden change of artist remains a mystery, although When The Wizard Awakes is likely to have been completed by Colvin due to time constraints on Horak; the prolific artist had previously produced artwork for the ‘Tony Jacklin Golf Strip’, which ran on Saturdays in the Daily Express from March 28, 1970 to February 22, 1975; and ‘Danny Blanchflower's Soccerstrip’, which was published in the Sunday Express from May 7, 1972 to January 21, 1973. By 1977 Yaroslav Horak had been producing six strips a week for the James Bond series for the past 10 years, plus artwork for the instructional cartoon strip ‘Jeremy Flint's Bridge Class’ also published in the Sunday Express from March 24, 1968 to June 4, 1978. Neville Colvin was not credited on any of the James Bond strips he contributed to for Daily and Sunday Express, and is only identified as the artist who completed Ape of Diamonds when Titan Books released the story as part of their Nightbird anthology in 2010. For the later syndicated version of When The Wizard Awakes, Horak drew alternate versions of the three strips seen in the final instalment of the Sunday Express presentation [#18 pictured above] now numbered #49-#51, and an additional three strips [#52-#54], which concluded the story. Horak's new strips replaced those drawn by Neville Colvin, ensuring that the syndicated version of When The Wizard Awakes was all Horak's own work. |
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The corresponding strip #48 [pictured above] is identical in both presentations apart from the addition of the credit block, and shading missing from the syndicated version. The final six strips [pictured below] in the syndicated version of When The Wizard Awakes contain artwork/text not seen in the original 1977 Sunday Express presentation. |
