As a teenager, I loved the James Bond novels. I would buy them from the supermarket when they appeared and even drove to the library a couple of towns away to check out the ones I couldn’t find in the supermarket paperback stand. I read them all and later I enjoyed seeing the early movies.
All the movies were fun, I guess, but the later ones became a bit silly. After Sean Connery quit the franchise, I pretty much lost interest in the movies but still saw most of them if only out of habit. As an adult, the James Bond stories, other than the annual movie, faded from my consciousness. A couple of years ago, I reread my childhood favorite, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service and found it a bit boring.
Lately I’ve rekindled my interest in Bond by reading Jeffery Deaver’s Carte Blanche.. Ian Fleming is, of course, long dead but Deaver has, I think, captured his tone well and the story seems as if it could have been written by Fleming.
None of this would be worth writing about were it not for this post from Dariing Fireball. If you’re a Bond movie aficionado, you’ll be aware of the iconic Bond logo formed from “007” in the shape of a gun. Here’s an example. If you’re like me, you probably thought it was sort of cool but never gave it much thought. It turns out, though, that there’s an interesting back story about the logo. The Daring Fireball post is reporting that Joe Caroff, who designed the logo, has died at 103. Take a look at the post to see the story of logo and how Caroff came to design it. It’s an interesting piece of Bond lore.