This week we caught up with Richard Schenkman, of ‘Bondage‘ magazine – the original Bond fan publication, which ran until 1989. Schenkman brought behind the scenes news and details to American Bond fans – the first of it’s kind – which began as one or two sides of a sheet of mimeograph paper, and grew…
This week we welcome Craig Arthur in from the cold, all the way from his native New Zealand. Craig is a spy writer and Bond fan of nearly 30 years. 1. What is your favorite Chopping cover and why? Probably ‘Thunderball‘. The detail of the playing card is incredible, along with the sense of menace…
While working for The Sunday Times, Ian Fleming came up with the idea to have a variety of esteemed writers to write about The Seven Deadly Sins, with each choosing the sin of their choice. This never materialized while Fleming was working there, but in 1962 the idea flowered and The Seven Deadly Sins was published featuring contributions…
This week we welcome Jonathan Hopson from the V & A Museum in London, in from the cold, to submit his Field Report. What is your favourite Chopping cover and why? It’s a difficult choice, but For Your Eyes Only is exceptional. I admire the contrasting textures of paper, wood, metal and flesh. Chopping obviously enjoyed painting…
The legacy of the ‘Bond continuation novel’ began in 1968 with Kingsley Amis‘ ‘Colonel Sun’, published by Jonathan Cape on this day – March 28th. Kingsley had been a Bond fan “ever since he discovered the first paperback, ‘Casino Royale’, on a railway bookstall” (The Times Educational Supplement) and had already written the seminal The James Bond Dossier, and…
We are thrilled to unveil new branding today with the help from a fellow agent in the field, Mr. Gary Cook from Honeypot Designs. Calling up the spirits of Richard Chopping and Ian Fleming, Gary has conjured up sufficient quantities of ‘beauty and death’. Don’t forget to check out all his wonderful designs on Facebook,…
We are delighted to invite artist Freyja Dean to answer some questions about her stunning work on the book bench for the National Literacy Trust’s ‘Books About Town’ project. The campaign raised money for their charity supporting children’s literacy in collaboration with Wild in Art. Freyja was asked by the Ian Fleming estate to illustrate…
The Fourth of June is the first novel by David Benedictus. This title was reviewed upon publication by Ian Fleming, who was an Old Etonian with David. In Fleming’s Sunday Times review he described it as ‘One of the most brilliantly written books since the war.‘ Fleming’s review of the book was complimentary of the writer but admittedly seemed out of…
Article by Ben Williams “For me, this is all the world. There is beauty, there is ugliness, and there is death.” – Stromberg, The Spy Who Loved Me. Whilst Stromberg himself was not a Fleming creation, these words sum up the visceral appeal of the dust covers commissioned by him and executed with panache by…
Francis Bacon provides an interesting footnote into how Richard Chopping ended up creating the James Bond dust jackets for Ian Fleming; it was at one of Bacon’s art exhibitions that Ann Fleming, a close friend of Bacon, made the introduction. Chopping recalled: “He [Bacon] took her [Ann Fleming] upstairs to see mine, which was very good of him,…
Here is a poem that Chopping contributed to the Grasshopper in 1931: O DRAGON-FLY, you lovely thing, I love to see you on the wing; Oh, when I hear you whirring by, I raise an aching, weary eye From off my tiring, awful task, To gaze upon your lovely mask, Your slender legs, your rainbow…
Chopping’s love of nature was evident in Butterflies in Britain (1943) and his Butterflies book was a best seller, in print for many years. Best known for his jackets for Ian Fleming’s James Bond books he also illustrated a number of children’s books for Noel Carrington. Typically concise was his description of the Painted Lady, which:…
Ian Fleming had a lifelong fascination with flowers and this motif would permeate many of his books and corresponding artwork for years to come. His first and only poetry collection, privately printed in 1928, was titled The Black Daffodil (unfortunately no copies exist today). His good friend Ivar Bryce remarked on reading The Black Daffodil: “He read me…
After Ian Fleming‘s death in 1964, Richard Chopping published – on Angus Wilson’s recommendation – The Fly. This flits between an office’s variously embroiled staff, including widowed caretaker Mrs Macklin, “a woman of warthog sensibility” whose feckless elder children consider, at the outset, inflating an abandoned condom near a pixie-hatted sibling. “Tears squeeze out of…
The cover of From Russia, with Love (1957) was similarly in trompe l’oeil style, the imagery of rose and dew drop being specified by Fleming, the Smith & Wesson revolver lent by the author. Fleming asked Geoffrey Boothroyd, a firearms expert, if he could lend his illustrator, Richard Chopping, one of his guns to be painted for the…
These Pan Books dust jackets, all borrow elements from the Richard Chopping style of design. The flat design, assorted paraphernalia, danger, death, love, flies, flora and fauna. Pan Books produced some entertaining covers, which quite literally look thrown together, rather like a car boot sale. They do capture the spirit of Bond’s world though and…
Between 2004 and 2008, the scriptwriter and League of Gentlemen actor Mark Gatiss produced his Lucifer Box trilogy. Mark Thomas’s art for Black Butterfly adroitly Chopping’s style, right down to the “wood” backdrop common to all his Bond covers. The dustjacket explicitly references the late Richard Chopping’s his jacket for The Spy Who Loved Me (1962) courtesy of designer Ben Willsher. There’s also a…
The Saturday Book was an annual miscellany, published 1941-1975, reaching 34 volumes. A final compilation entitled The Best of the Saturday Book was published in 1981. The publisher throughout was Hutchinson. The Saturday Book provided literary and artistic commentary about life in Great Britain during the Second World War and ensuing decades. It covered a…
Richard Chopping’s work on the On Her Majesty’s Secret Service dust jacket proved to be troublesome for the artist, because he felt that perspective was not his strong suit. The cover did not feature the usual juxtaposition of beauty, danger and death, which, especially considering the content of this particular novel, is unusual. Instead, this…
In 1979 Glidrose Publications (now Ian Fleming Publications) approached John Gardner and asked him to revive Ian Fleming’s James Bond series of novels. Between 1981 and 1996, Gardner wrote fourteen James Bond novels, and the novelizations of two Bond films. Gardner stated that he wanted “to bring Mr Bond into the 1980s”, although he retained the ages of the characters as they…
Artistic Licence Renewed 