Risico
| Publisher: |
Daily Express |
| Released: |
3rd April 1961 to
24th June 1961 |
| Serial: |
#850 to #921 |
| Artist: |
John McLusky |
| Writer: |
Ian Fleming, Henry Gammidge |
Data Stream
| Villains: |
Kristatos |
| Bond Girls: |
Lisl Baum |
| Allies: |
Enrico Colombo, M |
| Locations: |
London, UK; Rome, Italy; Alberoni, Italy |
|
|
Above: James Bond realises that Kristatos
is a double agent - and the real target he should be eliminating.
|
Capsule Synopsis
Bond is sent to Rome to investigate drugs smuggling, and his contact
Kristatos tells 007 of Enrico Colombo. Bond gets close to Colombo’s
mistress by posing as a researching author, but then is captured
by Colombo, who explains to Bond that Kristatos is the actual
villain and is smuggling drugs for the Soviet Union to undermine
the West. Bond and Colombo raid Kristatos’s warehouse, and
Bond kills Kristatos in the process.
Above: The opening panel of "Risico" |
Above: The dockyard battle scenes are
thrillingly depicted by John McLusky. |
|
Source To Strip
Risico, the fourth of five short stories in Ian Fleming's
"For Your Eyes Only" collection (but the first
to be translated to comic strip form), is adapted faithfully
by writer Henry Gammidge. The short story format proves
perfect for the syndicated newspaper run, with relatively
brief runs (only twelve weeks), and no real need to cut
swathes of Fleming prose from the adventure.
John McLusky shows better consistency and improvement of
his action scenes compared to the previous strip Goldfinger,
and a lot of the graphical elements used in Risico would
remain common devices of future strips.
|
With Risico, McLusky and Gammidge produced a down-to-earth James
Bond adventure, and would continue in this vein with the next
two installments: From A View To A Kill and For Your Eyes Only.
Best Line
Colombo: "At what range was that Albanian last week?"
Henchman: "Twenty yards, padrone. The harpoon went right
through him..."
Colombo: "And HE was a fat man - perhaps twice as thick as
this one!"
Trivia
The battle between the smugglers in Santa Maria is almost a storyboard
sequence for the action in "For Your Eyes Only" - a
film made exactly 20 years after the comic strip. Risico formed
the basis of the 1981 Roger Moore movie.
MI6 Rating
 |
|
Available Now!
Publisher: Titan Books
Released: 25th February 2005
Titles Included: "Goldfinger", "Risico",
"From A View To A Kill", "For Your Eyes Only",
"Thunderball"
"Goldfinger" by Titan
Books
|
Related Articles
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Images courtesy Titan Books and Amazon Associates.
