Another Way To Breathe

Here’s my writer notes for my Bond issue.

Oddly, I did have a few thoughts after writing this, and actually guided by some of the reviews - this one by Pop Break precipitated it  - was that how much my Bond leans towards Roger Moore’s version. That’s an observation that simultaneously wasn’t aware of, but undeniably true. I’m doing a cool-to-cold modern version of that unflappable Britishness, but that’s still distinctly what I’m doing. 

I shouldn’t be surprised - Moore was the Bond of my formative years, and that gets deep in you, and almost inevitably, when you play with an icon, that stuff is embedded so deeply you can’t get it out. Hell, you wouldn’t want to - it’s why you care - but ideally you find a way to take what appealed to you, and renovate into something that’s modern, something that doesn’t just recapitulates but recreates. For me, that’s always part of Work For Hire, at least on properties I have an emotional fondness for - not to just Do The Thing That Made You Care but Do A Thing That Makes Someone Else Care Like You Once Did. 

In terms of WFH, the former is stuff I tend to despise, and the latter is what I love. Perhaps unsurprising for anyone who’s ever read Phonogram, I clearly have a problem with Retromancery.

Anyway - I ramble. Lots more thoughts in the link above. I just wanted to write something which touched on how much Moore got to me in the week he passed. Chris Weston was one of the first people I saw tweeting about it, here. He said “he was MY James Bond.” That’s true of me too.