Daniel Craig is James Bond.
Really. That’s all I care about. Daniel Craig IS James Bond and I feel like a kid again. But wait, this is a webcomic review so I’d better get to the grim task at hand and get my hands dirty reviewing. When I come across a webcomic like this several thoughts come to mind. My, this took a lot of work to put together. Goodness, what precise cartooning. Lord, why isn’t this the least little bit funny! I tried many many times to pick a starting point to commence reading but each time I was beaten back by something I can’t quite put my finger on. I’m a volunteer you know, you can’t force me to read this stuff. There’s books to read and films to watch and interesting stuff to review … and comics.
Despite not being able to bring myself to actually read much of it the site is actually quite astonishing for a Luddite like me. Blog. RSS feeds. Comments. Log-in. It’s WordPress’d to the max. Extra pages of explanation too. Wow, they’re really sucking the air out of the room with this comic. Whatever happened to just plain reading something for the simple enjoyment of what it is. Do I really have to immerse myself in the full experience? If this were one strip after another with no explanation at all I think I may have managed some progress but the distractions are so many and so suffocating that really I just lost the will to live.
The most obvious question I’m left with is – is a spy spoof really called for? Hasn’t this been done to death already? There’s a time for all things, but wasn’t the time for all this thirty years ago? Is this spoofing ideas from the fifties for the young or the very very old? Even I’m not old enough to have read From Russia With Love or Goldfinger when they first came out!
The effort that has gone into constructing and maintaining the conceit is frightening and it’s made me realise I don’t actually like ‘webcomics’ any more. There’s always been something gnawing away at the back of my mind and it’s that lack of distinction between cartoons and comics on the web. You don’t find that blurring between the two forms off the web in print so I don’t see why I should have to put up with it online. I’m a reader of comics. This is a cartoon. I have no interest in cartoons in this context. Perhaps in the middle of a newspaper. Perhaps as rendered by a genius. Perhaps with some greater depth of meaning or indeed any depth of meaning. Perhaps with some social or historical context. But this superficial pounding of half an idea until it’s dead. No. This stuff makes me ill.
I apologise to the creators. I shouldn’t be reviewing this at all probably. It’s just one of those uncomfortable accidents that could do with some cleaning up. Sounds like a job for Ninja Dan! If I’ve completely misunderstood this strip it wouldn’t surprise me in the least and I look forward to the sensible and measured views of the other reviewers. Dear reader, you should know enough to make your own mind up. Give it a go and educate me later if you so desire.
Anyhow, Daniel Craig IS James Bond and I feel like a kid again. I just was never the kind of kid to watch many empty cartoons of a Saturday morning. Plenty of empty comics. But no empty cartoons. Sorry! Three stars for the sheer force of will.
Rating: 
Eben07
http://www.eben07.com/
by … I’m sorry. I’d tell you but then I’d have to kill you.
review by Mike Perridge
(7 votes, average: 3.57 out of 5)
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October 17th, 2008 at 12:18 pm
Personally, I use the word cartoons to refer to animated shows on television. In this case, though, the comic sort of reads like a cartoon storyboard (without the in-betweens and segues.) The linework reminds me of PVP so
It’s certainly has a different feel than most comics. I wonder if it has something to do with the coloring?
October 17th, 2008 at 1:02 pm
Hi mike,
I just wanted to thank you for the review and hope that we didn’t drive you too mad.
In terms of the cartoony aspect -The cartoon feel you are getting is absolutely intentional. At first, when the I.C.A. was mandated to declassify records, I suggested we make a cartoon, however, due to budgeting and production costs - it wasn’t a realistic endeavor. So I think you are entirely right in saying it has cartoon and as Delos points out a storyboard feel to it. We are ::hoping:: and I can’t stress hope enough, that at some point we’ll be able to convert some of these comics into animated shorts - and do both comic and animation - but that is still far far down the road.
At any rate, I hope that if you take a second look, maybe you’ll see some of the merits and we won’t drive you to “not actually liking webcomics anymore”.
Thank you again for taking the time to do the review. It is always a pleasure to read about somebody’s experience with our comic and the I.C.A. and I know the staff appreciates it!
October 17th, 2008 at 2:19 pm
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October 18th, 2008 at 2:34 am
Huh. I gave it the benefit of the doubt that the reference jokes might actually be funny (haven’t seen Bond, really, so any references there were to that would have fluttered by like…something that is invisible). Guess I was wrong, huh?
October 18th, 2008 at 7:41 am
I don’t think that there is a gag or a pun left in the James Bond canon that hasn’t already been mined and processed and sold on. Isn’t there some old rule that you can’t spoof a spoof.
As an aside I’m a huge fan of the books - a product of the fifties, not so much the movies - a product of the sixties. It’s only a few years but a huge cultural gulf. A spoof like Austin Powers relies on the movies but can’t even get close to the books. And it one of the reasons I love Daniel Craig in the role. He really captures the obsessive suicidal bitter unreconstructed thug that Bond is (was).
October 18th, 2008 at 3:16 pm
Oh, there are books? I guess I should have known that. I haven’t seen Austin Powers either. I think I can sum up my Bond exposure with… I saw Get Smart, Again! when I was a kid…twice, I think as my parents had it on video, but I don’t think I knew about Bond then; in Catch Me if You Can, Leonardo DeCaprio impersonates Sean Connery in the role of Bond for a one-liner; the common room my first year of college had an N64 on which a few of the guys played Goldfinger when no one else was playing Mario Cart; and, uhm, Oh! I did see Casino Royale, which mostly struck me as silly. Everyone I know swears Daniel Craig’s the best Bond and I’m happy to take everyone’s word for it.
Now, Bond is culturally significant enough that even someone who’s been living under a spy thriller rock like I have knows that his agent number is 007, he’s a British secret agent with a license to kill, he likes martinis and sex, and his stories are set in the Cold War. At least, this is what I’ve gathered.
Now, I have seen all the Indiana Jones films (although Temple of Doom sucked, okay? It just…sucked). But I’m also a sucker for Harrison Ford’s lopsided smile.
You can spoof a spoof, I think, otherwise why would it be so popular to do so? At least, I’m used to seeing it because my br–I mean, those guys I know seem to think it’s hilarious.
I also understand what you mean by “cartoon” not “comic,” and I will attempt to explain to Delos:
History! “Cartoon” originally meant nothing like what it means today. It originally meant “low-quality drawing.” It’s a step up from a sketch. A sketch is an incomplete idea, while the cartoon is the full idea, waiting to be transferred into the final medium (fresco, oil painting, tapestry, etc). They were called “cartoons” because of the kind of paper they were drawn on (Italian: “cartone”). With the onset of modern printing, cartoon drawings became a lot more prevalent as a finished artform, and often appeared in magazines and newspapers as gag-strips, usually political (we still call them Editorial Cartoons). Early animation and early comic strips were drawn in a similar style, and both were called “cartoons”. Creators of comic strips are still called “cartoonists”. As both forms developed, Americans, as we are want to do, wanted different terms for each form and started calling the animation “cartoon” and the static strip form “comic”. In the UK, however, I believe there is still no distinction. Both are “cartoons” and “comic” refers to “comic book.” As I understand it, at least.
October 18th, 2008 at 7:22 pm
I’m always having to argue for that rule. But I maintain it in the sense that it is much easier to successfully spoof something serious. The Bond-like super-spy is so devalued as a serious idea that it makes spoofing rather pointless. I maintain the same effect occurs with Superman/Spiderman - difficult to spoof because any possible joke is already acknowleged in the original work. The jokes in Bond exist perhaps only in a modern reading, but it’s still difficult to make them much funnier than they already are in the original. I laugh at the books all the time because the humour is in them is often unintentional. They are pulp after all - not great works of fiction. Bond is often referred to as occasionally feeling gay in the books - different times, different meanings. Read the end of ‘Diamonds Are Forever’ - it’s hard to believe it wasn’t written by Chuck Jones. Hilarious!
October 19th, 2008 at 7:48 pm
Interesting information on the history of the word cartoon, Sly. It explains some things to me that I’ve always been curious about. It explains why we’re still stuck with the negative connotations of that word cartooning, for example. It’s not real art until it’s done in some ‘accepted media’ like paint on a canvas. (I find that ridiculously short-sighted. Sigh. I’ll rant about that forever, I suspect.)