Ever wanted to know what a teenage James Bond looked like? Well now you have your chance to find out. The family of Ian Fleming, creator of 007, has approved of a drawing depicting the sleuth in his schoolboy days. The young Bond is very different from the suave and sophisticated man he grows up to be. The illustration, to be used on the cover of a new set of children’s books about the schoolboy Bond, shows a lanky, adolescent James in baggy pants, sporting a mop of messy hair. Naturally, he is a dashing lad and has no acne, crooked teeth, nor any other teenage horrors. And if you look closely enough, you’ll see the faintest of resemblances to Connery, Moore and co.Illustration by Kev Walker
The young Bond books are written by long time Fleming aficionado Charlie Higson. His first offering,
Silver Fin, was a bestseller the instant it hit the shelves in early April. The novel portrays James as a public schoolboy at Eton. His first mission is to foil the villainous and dastardly deeds of an unsavory American classmate’s evil father. Mr Higson said the illustration of the superspy as a schoolboy greatly helped him develop the youth’s character: “The hardest thing when writing Silver Fin was picturing the young Bond in my mind…Now I know what he looks like. Young Bond and his world have really come alive.”
