John McLusky: The illustrator who helped Sean Connery land James Bond role
When Ian Fleming had his first James Bond novel, Casino Royale, published in 1952, little did he know his creative embers would work their way into an immortal inferno. His literary canon offered 12 James Bond novels and two additional short stories, but it was the film adaptions that kick-started the cultural phenomenon.
Producers Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman purchased the filming rights to Fleming’s novels in 1961 and made haste to create the first film adaption for 007, 1962’s Dr. No. Over the 1960s, Scottish actor Sean Connery starred in the first five James Bond films, bringing the franchise into full stride approaching the 1970s and beyond.
For those like myself, born in the 1980s or ‘90s, Pierce Brosnan was the ingrained countenance of Bond, intensified by a potent presence on the GoldenEye and Nightfire video games. However, the true face of Bond was that of Connery, the first actor to take the post. He appeared in a total of seven movies, the same tally as Roger Moore.
In 1957, the Daily Express approached Fleming, requesting his permission for them to adapt his stories into comic strips. Initially, the author was reluctant, citing diminished artistic value and detail typical of such adaptations. He understandably believed the strips could damage the reputation of his books.
“The Express are desperately anxious to turn James Bond into a strip cartoon. I have grave doubts about the desirability of this,” Fleming wrote of his doubts in 1957. “Unless the standard of these books is maintained, they will lose their point, and, I think, there I am in grave danger that inflation will spoil not only the readership but also become something of a death-watch beetle inside the author. A tendency to write still further down might result. The author would see this happening, and disgust with the operation might creep in.”
Edward Pickering, the editor of the Express at the time, persuaded Fleming that the comic strips would be a high-brow serial adapted by Anthony Herne, an esteemed contributor who had previously repurposed Fleming’s short stories for the Express. Pickering also pledged that the paper would allow Fleming to review the strips before publication.
With this consolation, Fleming duly agreed to the terms, and the comic strip series began production with John McLusky commissioned to create the illustrations. The first strip, Casino Royale, arrived in the daily paper on July 7th 1958, and with it, the first depiction of Agent 007.
McLusky’s first publicly seen face of James Bond, seen below, shows dark slicked hair, squinted eyes and dimpled cheeks set over a solid jaw. This depiction guided the casting process in the early ‘60s when Broccoli and Saltzman sought an actor to face Joseph Wiseman’s titular antagonist in Dr. No.
The London-based art dealership ‘A Gallery’ is currently offering the 900 original storyboards by John McLusky to a willing philanthropist for $1.2 million to place in a museum for public enjoyment for many years to come.
