Jerry Wardlow wrote to ask…
I've read on a couple of websites that in 1970 or around that time, DC discussed having Jack Kirby do a James Bond comic book and they also apparently discussed it with Alex Toth. You are usually cited as the source of this information so I wonder if you could tell us more about what sounds to me like it could have been a spectacular project. Do any preliminary sketches or plots survive?
No preliminary sketches or plots survive, at least by Kirby or Toth. That's because none were done, at least by those two men. I can't swear DC's head honcho (then) Carmine Infantino didn't have someone else do something before the idea was abandoned…but the talk with Jack and later Alex was just talk and not very much of it. Infantino had some sort of option on doing a 007 comic book as a result of a one-shot comic they did in 1963. I wrote about it here.
Well, now that I think of it, let me add this: Infantino said they had some sort of option. That's a long time for that kind of option. I suspect he found out that they'd had such an option once and it had expired…but knowing about it prompted some discussion about maybe getting it back. Whatever, he asked Jack if he thought it was a good idea and if Jack would like to do it.
Jack loved the Bond films — at least, the ones he'd seen as of 1970. He said he thought it was a good idea but that it shouldn't be a regulation 15-cent comic on cheap newsprint, which was then what DC published. What he described sounded more like what we'd call a graphic novel today. That format would enable them to reach an older audience and also to have the book contain the kind of sex 'n' violence that consumers expected of a Bond novel or movie.
He also wanted to edit it but not draw it…though I assume he could have been persuaded to do the first book. The name of Alex Toth came up but I don't think Jack especially wanted to work with Alex. I have a vague memory that he told Carmine, "Toth would be great but if you've got him, just let him do it on his own. I don't need to get involved with that." Later, Carmine did talk to Alex and maybe others but nothing came of it. I don't think DC would ever have done it in the format Jack wanted and it's possible it would not have worked, no matter who did it, as a 15-center with cheap printing and Comics Code approval.
It especially might not have worked if they didn't have the right to make Bond look like Sean Connery…and that was probably not available. At the time, Diamonds Are Forever was in pre-production and it was widely believed that it would be Connery's last time in the role. Roger Moore had not yet been selected to take it over…so what would Bond look like in a comic book then? It was not to be but it sure is an intriguing "What if?"
