A stunned farewell to Rich Buckler. Rich was the first artist that I ever did major work on, illustrating the four part “Death of Jean DeWolff” that ran back in Spectacular Spider-Man #107-#110. He was routinely accused of being an art thief, using the work of others as trace reference for his own art. Nevertheless I can’t think too poorly of him, if for no other reason than that he helped me launch my comic book career.
We must also say good-bye to Roger Moore, which means that for the first time we have lost a movie James Bond (if we don’t count David Niven.). Moore’s Bond had a lot of fans, although he wasn’t my favorite. I totally believed him as a romance machine but didn’t buy that he was a merciless killer. (As opposed to his successor, Timothy Dalton, who I believed as a killer but had trouble with the love aspect.). Honestly, my favorite Moore performance was in Cannonball Run, in which he plays a Jewish guy who believes he’s Roger Moore. His scene with his scolding mother, played by Yiddish legend Molly Picon, is hilarious. You can find it here at around the 2:50 mark.
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Moore was my first Bond, so for a long time he WAS Bond to me, but in retrospect I understand the difficulty with seeing him as a killer. But I think he was the classiest and most charming of all the Bonds.
And actually, I saw Cannonball Run before I ever saw a Bond movie, and was baffled by this character who called himself “Roger Moore.” He ruined my life a little bit, too, because he tricked six-year-old me into thinking that ejector seats were a standard feature in cars, and thus I was tricked twice, by two different people on two separate occasions, into believing that the emergency light switch was the ejector seat button.
A small bit of trivia: Back in 1954, on an anthology series called “Climax!” Barry Nelson played American agent James (sometimes Jimmy) Bond in the first ever adaptation of Casino Royale.” Nelson passed away in 2007 at age 89, making him the first Bond after David Niven to leave us.
I actually knew that, Kim. And Peter Lorre played Le Chiffre. That’s why I specifically said “movie Bond,” so I wouldn’t have to belabor it.
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I’m sorry, I missed the word “movie.” I was at Motor City Comic Con this weekend and I still haven’t recovered.
Swiping aside, he still had a good run on Fantastic Four. Speaking of F4 David, will you write them when they return?
He’s the ideal choice for it. FF needs a certain mix action/adventure and light hearted comedy that Mr. David has always excelled at.
Agreed, he nailed the team dynamic and mentality with X-Factor (Twice!), nailed the scientific know-how with Incredible Hulk, and already dabbled with the F4 with 1602: Fantastick Four.
Roger Moore was my first Bond too. My first Bond film was “For Your Eyes Only” and because I’m extremely nostalgia-driven, that remains my favorite Bond film. I do think of all the ones he did, that one probably best supports the idea of him being a merciless killer, though still not in comparison with the others who came before and after him.
And yeah, he was hilarious in Cannonball Run.
“Seymour! Put that away!”
Heidi von Beltz, who had no real stunt experience, was persuaded by her then-fiance, Bobby Bass and director Hal Needham to fill in for a stuntwoman who had a family emergency as a passenger in the Aston-Martin.
The car had no safety belts, and was hit by another vehicle that missed its mark. von Beltz wound up a quadriplegic.</a
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Never cared for the Moore Bonds. Couldn’t take him seriously in the role. Connery/Craig, that’s Bond.
Which isn’t to say I didn’t like Moore. Loved him as Simon ‘The Saint’ Templar in the British TV series. Was that ever broadcast in the US? We had it in Canada in the early-mid-60s.
I just keep waiting for a tv/movie spy to have to deal with an unfortunate rash, so the doctor can prescribe “Bond. Gold Bond.”
And last week, we also lost Chris Cornell, the singer for “You Know My Name”, the song for Casino Royale ’06. That, and the bombing in Manchester (bášŧárdš !) made for a pretty crappy two weeks.
Making matters worse in that latter, you’ve got the media once again trumpeting the name of the psycho responsible. Apparently they are too dim to grasp the concept that giving them this sort of fame and notoriety is just the sort of thing to inspire others to do the same. All we need know is “the Islamic fundamentalist nut job(s) believed to be responsible was/were found but shot resisting arrest. Case closed.” Let them be buried in richly deserved obscurity.
Wonder how many people who ragged on Buckler for swipes consider Wally Wood a minor god of comics art – Wally Wood whose philosophy was “Don’t draw it if you can swipe it. Don’t swipe it if you can trace it. Don’t trace it if you can cut it out and paste it in.”
Of course, i remember spotting a panel from the 1940s daily run of “The Spirit” in the middle of a story about (as i recall) vampires in a bordello in New Orleans that Buckler drew for Marvel…