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The Richie Fahey CBn Interview CBn talks to the artist responsible for bringing Bond back to the 1950s

Excellent interview, and fantastic covers done by Mr. Fahey! They really are perfect.

Yes, nice interview, CBn.

Excellent interview. Nice to hear about the background to the covers...another cool scoop for CBn. Also cool that he acknowledged one of the sources for his research I had an email from Jeff some time ago but had forgotten about it

Great interview Matt! (And a great layout, Mr. Asterix.) Very interesting stuff. I love these covers. I'm encouraged that it was the Fleming Estate who encouraged this "reto" approach, but they also sound like a typical board of "suits." "No nudity!"....then, "Where's the nudity?" LOL.

How cool he used Red's site as reference!

I would love to see his original, full cover for Thunderball. Here's the back cover art he's referring too.



Congrats again Matt. Another terrific CBn Interview.

Very nice job.

I am glad those points were brought up about the Thunderball cover and the On Her Majesty's Secret Service cover font.

Many thanks Matt for a great interview with Richie Fahey.

I was very surprised to hear that Ian Fleming Publications/Estate was disappointed with Fahey's cover design for Casino Royale. It seems that IFP/E objected to the Fahey's 1950's pulp style. Is it possible that IFP/E was taken aback because they felt that the Fleming novels were more sophisticated than typical pulp fiction of the era?

I don't quite understand why IFP/E thinks so highly of the covers of the UK Penguin Modern Classics editions. Although they are clean in design, they seem rather dull to me.

Fahey covers seem to promise more adventure, suspense, danger, and sex and illustrate many of the themes or events in the books. Something that the UK Penguin Moden Classics edition covers don't do.

I'm certainly not very enthusiastic about the abstract photographic images created by Toby McFarlan Pond for the 2002 Penguin paperback editions as well.

Is IFP/E moving the James Bond literary series in the wrong direction trying to make the Fleming books more sophisticated than they really are? Although Fleming is an excellent writer, shouldn't the James Bond books be shelved with the pulp thrillers of the era, instead of the literary classics?

I agree. While I'd still like to collect both versions, the US covers are the ones that I would choose firstly being presented both.

Perhaps Fleming belongs in his own category: Pulp Literature.

(You heard it here first. )

This is seriously a cool interview! I've always loved the artwork on these covers in particular (I may be more engrossed in 007 book cover art than I am what’s inside ) ThanX for snagging this, [dark].

Rather similar to the Signet cover if I recall correctly.

Many thanks for the kind words, folks!

It's always great to get Bond info straight from the horse's mouth, so to speak.

Wonderful images, although I still have my reservations as whether they are too American for a British series. I sort of still prefer the UK editions- very classy and much simpler.