Pop culture historian, comic book writer, and RevSF Editor-at-large Alan J. Porter established his geek bonafides with his first two extraordinary books (The Unauthorized Batman Collector's Guide and Before They Were Beatles), numerous articles for over 25 publications, such as Comic Buyers Guide, Back Issue, Pop Culture, and An Unofficial Companion to the Novels of Terry Pratchett, and the comic God Shop for TokyoPop.

Alan took some time from his busy schedule to sit down with Rick Klaw and discuss his recent releaseJames Bond: The History of the Illustrated 007 and other things Bond.

RICK KLAW: How did James Bond: The History of the Illustrated 007 come about? Did it evolve out of your personal love for the material or was it commissioned by Hermes?

ALAN J. PORTER: I have been a lifelong fan of Bond and had already written a couple of feature articles on the history of Bond in comics for Back Issue magazine, and for a couple of volumes of the Titan Book James Bond newspaper reprint series, and felt that there was enough material for a book length treatment. I originally pitched Hermes on a completely different subject, which for various reasons didn't get picked up. In a phone call Hermes' publisher Daniel Herman said he still wanted to do a project with me, and did I have any other ideas? -- My throwaway line was "How about a book on James Bond?" -- Turns out that Daniel is a big Bond fan and collector of Bond poster art, so that was perhaps the easiest sell I've ever had.

What spawned your intense interest in James Bond?

To quote the first line of my intro; "It started with plastic frogmen." My first exposure to Bond was the old Thunderball board game which a friend had been given for a birthday present and we ended up playing incessantly. Then came a Corgi Aston Martin and a James Bond hardback annual for Christmas. But I was really hooked the first time I saw Bond on the movie screen -- in On Her Majesty's Secret Service. From there I found the Daily Express newspaper comic strips, which I read in my high school library when I was meant to be studying the paper for "current affairs" class, and of course that lead to the source -- Ian Fleming's novels.

The book is lavishly illustrated. Were rights an issue for any of the images, many of which are quite rare?

The rights issue is one we talked about at length before starting the project. As well as being a publisher, Daniel is also an attorney and makes sure that these are well covered. You'll notice that the startling cover image (which has a story all of its own) while invoking the Bond image isn't a likeness of any of the actors, nor contains any of the trademark Bond icons. That was deliberate. (We just went through a similar rights hurdle with CBS for the upcoming Star Trek: A Comics History and have had to take the USS Enterprise off the cover.) All the interior art is from private collections and a lot of people were very generous in giving us permission to use it.

Several times throughout the book you make quality assessments on not just the art but the story itself in comics produced in other languages. How many languages do you read? Did you rely on the help of translators, or other commentators?

Well I read British English, and American English! I also read a little French and German which helped. Thankfully one of the top Bond collectors in Denmark has actually translated a lot of the Swedish stories in to English and was happy to share those with me.

I also read multiple reviews of given issues where possible. The Japanese manga-Bond stories had been translated into English when they were pirated for the Hong Kong market, and many of the ones produced in India were also published in English at the same time as they were published in Hindi and other local languages. You'll notice that in the books the ones with the least commentary are the books produced in Chile, where I managed to track down plot summaries but had no real access to enough of the contents to form any opinions on the quality of the stories themselves.

There are some fascinating conversations with several of the illustrated Bond creators. Were there creators that refused to discuss Bond with you?

The short answer is no. In that nobody gave me a straight refusal. However a few were reluctant to share stories about some of the more controversial aspects of working with such a high profile licensed property. In terms of creator contact the one experience that puzzled me was with German Gabler, the creative force behind the Bond comics produced in Chile during the late 1960s. I managed to find him in Los Angeles where he now works as a screen writer, at first he was very responsive and seemed enthused about the project, and then he just dropped off the radar and stopped replying to e-mails. I'm still not sure what happened there.  Another disappointment was that I never received any response from the Saito studios in Japan, publishers of the manga Bonds, despite repeated emails. Perhaps the strangest aspect of the research was in talking to people at DC Comics, no-one could track down any records or had any knowledge of why DC let the Bond franchise slip past them in the 1960s when they held the rights and Bond mania was at its height. The story told in the book is based on the known facts, but also contains a degree of speculation and conjecture that I wish I could have had verified.

The manga James Bond sounded particularly interesting. With the recent critical and popular acclaim of Chip Kidd's Bat-Manga, do you think we'll see a similar Bond Manga book in the future?

Again that would be great, but the rights issues are even more complicated. The Japanese books were licensed to be be strict adaptations of Fleming novels. They weren't, as Saito added his own story lines and characters to the Fleming storylines. Because of this the license was pulled after just four stories. Saito then went on to develop some of those story ideas and characters into his own "super-spy" property Golgo-13. So who owns what of which part of those manga-Bond is a mess.

What other foreign Bond stories are worthy of reprinting in English? And why haven't they been'

I would really like to see the 59 issue run that was done in Chile during the late 1960s translated and reprinted; the creators seemed to have a good understanding of Bond as a character, and the art has a definite "swinging 60s" vibe to it. They were also the first books to really expand on Fleming's world, for instance they did a three part prequel to Casino Royale focused on LeChriffre's back story. However as the series was killed due to the change in the Chilen political regime in the 1970s, I have no idea where the rights currently reside, and doubt that web will ever be untangled.

How has the response been to the book within the Bond community?

So far its been very well received. The most common reaction has been "Wow I never knew about any of this stuff." Which is exactly what I was trying to do, even die-hard Bond fans seem unaware of this "secret history." The book got me an invitation to join The Ian Fleming Foundation from Bond novelist Raymond Benson -- so I guess they like it.

And from the non-Bond fanatics?

So far reaction has been very positive. It's a very nice looking book that really seems to stand out on the shelf and certainly passes any  "flick test." I've had a few e-mails from people who saw it on the shelf in a store and ended up picking up a copy. It appeals not only to the hardcore Bond and comics fans, but seems to have a genuine appeal to the casual fan who may only know Bond from the movies.

With the popularity of the recent films and long history of Bond in comics, why are there no James Bond comics in production or even planned?

Good question and one I wish I had an answer for. The bottom line is that neither of the property owners; Ian Fleming Publications who hold the rights to the literary Bond, nor Eon Productions, who hold the rights to the cinematic Bond, seem interested in granting a license to do comics. I know of at least one US based publisher who applied a few years ago and was refused. I am working with another US publisher who has a strong track record with high profile licensed properties, to see if we can get something off the ground, but so far have had no response from either license holder.

Believe you me, I would love nothing more than to be writing an ongoing James Bond comic series.

What is your favorite James Bond comic? Favorite Bond artist?

That's like asking what's my favorite Beatles song!  I have a particular affection for the newspaper strips and think that the strip artist Yaslov Horak is one of the best Bond artists of all time -- he did amazing work given the restrictions of the three panel format. In more traditional comics I guess I would favor Mike Grell's "Permission to Die." -- He draws a pretty cool 007 too. But I'd also have to give a passing nod to David Lloyd and Paul Gulacy.

Obviously outside of Ian Fleming's originals, what is your favorite incarnation of the character?  Are there characters from the books that have been better portrayed in other mediums?

You knew I was going to say that the only "real" Bond is Fleming's Bond. So now that you've actually made me think about this, I'd have to say the Bond of the newspaper strips as written by Jim Lawrence. (Who incidentally wrote more Bond stories than anyone else, in any medium.) See, I keep going back to those newspaper strips, which were such an influential part of my discovery of Bond, and of my teenage years.

The one character that springs to mind that came across better in the movies than in the books was Emil Largo, the main onscreen bad-guy in Thunderball.  In the novel he was in effect just Blofeld's man-on-the-spot, but in the movie he became a real sinister character, with pure evil laying just below a thin veener of acting like a "gentleman."

What are you working on and what should we be expecting next from you?

I am writing the Disney/Pixar Cars comic, the first issue of which will be in stores on April 1. There will also be a special Free Comic Book Day edition out on May 2. The first four issue story arc is done, and I'm just about to start work on a second four issue arc. My next book project for Hermes Press is Star Trek: A Comics History which we hope to have in stores around the time the movie debuts.

In the middle of 2009 Hermes will also be releasing a trade-paperback reprinting the old Time Tunnel comics based on the Irwin Allen TV show, and I'm contributing a piece on time-travel themed TV shows to that. There are a few other projects in the pipeline beyond that, but nothing I can talk about just yet.