BACK ISSUE magazine #26, (the "Spies and Tough Guys" issue) from the fine folks at Twomorrows includes my 3,000 word article on the history of James Bond in Comics.
Priced at a reasonable $6.95 for 100 pages of informative articles and great art, it’s well worth checking out.
If you can’t find a copy in your local store you can order it online here, or even order the PDF version at the reduced price of just $2.95
At the Dark Forces Group get together the other night Rick Klaw casually mentions that in his role as Rare Books maven for Half-Price Books he has obtained a first US edition of Thunderball in excellent condition. Oh that man knows how to tease….
So at lunch time yesterday I casually stroll in to Rick’s sanctum at the back of the store and decide to purchase said tome as scribed by the late Mr. Ian Fleming. Of course I can’t go in that store without looking around, a few minutes later I have paperback editions of For Your Eyes Only and On Her Majesty’s Secret Service in my hand, featuring covers that are not yet part of my Fleming collection. (Yes I’m that sad – I collect multiple copies of the same Bond books just to get different cover art.)
As I drift over to the music section the strangest thing happens. An ethereal voice floats around the store requesting that "If Alan Porter is still in the store can he return to the Rare Books room." – Now that was a first – I’ve never been paged in a book store before.
In the stack of books he was sorting Rick has uncovered Gilt Edged Bonds, a 1961 hardback collection of three Bond novels with an introduction by Paul Gallico. An edition I wasn’t even aware existed until that moment.
And of course I couldn’t miss the chance to stock up on research material for my novel set in Elizabethan England.
Added to the stack of Bond books were: Food & Feast in Tudor England, Francis Bacon – The Temper of A Man, All The Queen’s Men, and Elizabethan London.
That devilish Klaw lured me into his book store knowing that they are evil places designed to part me from my money and give me back strain..