The book introduces Bond at the titular French casino, on a mission to bankrupt a cash-strapped criminal and spy called Le Chiffre at the baccarat table, with assistance from the CIA’s Felix Leiter and the ambiguous British agent Vesper Lynd. “It’s a relatively bleak, fairly slow-moving examination of someone who’s seen the horrors of WWII, survived and entered a new world that’s kind of dangerous and broken.” “The gadgets, the action set pieces, the femme fatales, the quips and puns, the novel has pretty much none of that,” Jensen says. “There’s barely a connection beyond the name James Bond.”Īlongside Dennis Calero’s artwork, Jensen strove to retain the seedy cynicism of Fleming’s original book, which bears few traces of the film series’ escapist spectacle. “You can’t get much more different than a Roger Moore Bond film like Octopussy and the novel Casino Royale,” he says. He acknowledges that Ian Fleming’s Casino Royale, which introduced the Bond character in 1953 and which Jensen has adapted into a new graphic novel, is a strikingly different work. Growing up in the middle of nowhere, I found them so colorful, so over the top, so absurd it was a pure escapism that really resonated.” Atlanta-based comics writer Van Jensen says he’s been a James Bond fan ever since he came across the films while growing up in Nebraska. “My cousin and I decided to track down all the Bond movies and watch them in order,” Jensen says. Growing up in Western Nebraska, he became interested in the film series as a 13-year-old when GoldenEye was released in 1995. Ian Fleming wrote 14 Bond books, and 007 has been played by no fewer than seven actors in 25 films, in addition to appearing in countless satires, follow-up books by various authors, video games and now - a graphic novel.Ītlanta-based comics writer Van Jensen views the many different sides of Bond with an expert eye.

The title You Only Live Twice actually underestimates the number of James Bond’s many lives.

Casino royale graphic novel