Mister 8

Today, I’m sending out links to several people whose sites you see listed in the sidebar, in hopes of publicizing the site. The test period over the last month seemed to go pretty well, so from here on out, I plan regular updates on most days. In fact, I have a planned schedule with fancy category titles:

• Monday Masterpieces – Illustrated secret agent stuff, like comics, or childrens’ books (see today), or magazine illos, or posters, etc. etc.
• Tablature Tuesday – Guitar tablature for spy themes and incidental music. I can’t promise they’ll always be totally accurate, but I’ll do my best.
• Whatever Wednesdays – The anything-goes day, where I’ll post about whatever comes to mind.
• Themed Thursdays – Posts addressing a monthly theme. Might be drawings, might be reviews, might be essays.
• Friday Filmclip – A weekly YouTube posting highlighting some bit of the espionage genre that I find interesting.
• Saturdays – No post. Rest!
• Sunday Sequentials – Will one day be the weekly release time for the Mister 8 web comic. Until then, Sunday Sketches may have to suffice.

Thoughts? Questions? Corrections? Offers to help? Email Armstrong Sabian – mister8@mister8.com.

Presented without much commentary on the actual content, the 1985 James Bond children’s book, Blackclaw’s Doomsday Plot, written by John Albano, illustrated by Rudy Nebres, cover art by Howard Bender and Sal Trapani, colors by Judith Fast. I begged my mother to buy me this at a Big Lots circa, probably, 1989 or so, and dug it up again when I was home for the holidays.

Albano was a comic writer, achieving the most fame for co-creating the cowboy anti-hero Jonah Hex. He passed away in 2005. Nebres is a Filipino artist who made a name for himself at Marvel Comics and through his Conan-related fantasy art. More info on Nebres can be found at his official site. Howard Bender is a cartoonist and comic artist who also has his own official site. Trapani was a journeyman inker, having worked for most comic companies, including my favorite, Charlton, and passed away in 1999. He also worked on the Get Smart comic, allegedly with art by Steve Ditko. I can’t dig up any info on Judith Fast — anyone have a background for her?

As far as I know, only one other of these was made…I believe Stormbringer. I’ll check with Bender and Nebres to see if they have further information. For now, enjoy: Blackclaw’s Doomsday Plot!

Blackclaw's Doomsday Plot Cover

Title Page

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The Best of James Bond 30th Anniversary Collection

Music by Monty Norman, arranged by John Barry

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[See the full tablature]

There are probably hundreds of tablature versions of the James Bond theme on the internet. So why bother putting up a new one? There are two reasons:

Because many, if not most, of the tabs aren’t even close to sounding like the Bond theme, or only feature little bits, or get wrong the EmM79 (thanks to Spy-Fi for the correct name! see comments below) chord at the end. This one at least sounds mostly right.

And because, though it’s overplayed, overexposed, and perhaps overhyped, it was the original. Through all the imitators, the James Bond Theme remains one of the best, most memorable pieces of film music ever.

For detailed information on the lawsuit over who actually created the song, check out the John Barry Resource.

McGoohan as Number Six

From AMC, in advance of their upcoming remake, fans and future fans can watch the Prisoner online at AMC’s website.

In addition, there’s a tournament for viewers to vote on the best Number 2 (current leader, and I agree, is Georgina Cookson, from my favorite episode Many Happy Returns), and some appreciations from prominent Priz fans.

Perhaps the most interesting thing about the site is that AMC has given voice to both the “official” fan club, Six of One, and their excommunicated members at the Unmutual. For more information on very un-Number-Six-like behavior, and for an interesting look at fan dynamics, check out the allegations presented by the Unmutuals at Six of One Info. I’d like to disclaim that I’m not a member of any Prisoner fan club, but do study fan activities as part of my doctoral studies. I don’t take any side in this particular debate, but…like I said…the conflict is certainly interesting.

The Zapper

I was going back and forth on what the first theme of the month should be here at Mister 8, when I started thinking about the first spy comic I ever drew. I was in the first grade, and was hanging around with a kid who liked spy video games. He and I collaborated on a spy comic that adapted the plots of some of the games he liked. I didn’t have a Nintendo of my own, and so I never played the games I was adapting until much later, and…well, let’s just say that the words “loosely based” might apply here.

…So I want to cover some of the classic spy NES / arcade games this month, starting with the two that I definitely remember drawing.

…And to be honest, once I thought of the headline, I couldn’t resist.

1. Elevator Action

According to the wikipedia entry on Elevator Action, the player takes on the role of Agent 17, alias Otto, and has to retrieve secret documents from a building full of enemy agents, using a tricky system of elevators and escalators to navigate floors, before reaching his awaiting ride in the basement. This one is fondly remembered by many of my friends, and was recently ported to the Wii via the Virtual Console. The game started as an arcade machine, with pretty awesome art.  Here’s a video run through of level one of the NES version:

And you can play yourself through a java-based emulator at vNES.

My first-grade comic version of Elevator Action featured a fedora’d nameless spy who took on villains who looked like Dr. Robotnik, though they preceded him by years, and culminated in a Spy v. Spy-type joke in which the hero spy slams one door so hard that it slams all other doors in the building, crushing the heads of the villains in the process. Top class stuff.

2. Spy Hunter

This is one of those games, like Contra or Galaga, that seemingly everyone has played and has fond memories of. Another that was originally an arcade game, Spy Hunter came in both stand-up and sit-down versions (though I never played the latter, I imagine it was something like the set-up for Outrun). The music was allegedly originally the James Bond Theme, but was replaced with the Peter Gunn Theme when rights could not be negotiated.

The goal of Spy Hunter seemed to be to rid the roadways of other secret agents, driving cars with guns, hub spikes, and helicopters that dropped bombs. At the beginning of the level, and after each life lost, a new car (the G-6155 Interceptor) would be delivered from the back of a tractor-trailer. Throughout each level, the player would get opportunities to drive up road ramps into the back of other trucks to receive an upgrade.

Here’s a video that demonstrates both game play and the minimalist version of Peter Gunn:

There have been sequels, most recently Spy Hunter: Nowhere to Run, starring Dwayne “Rock” Johnson. This was meant to be a tie-in to a film directed by John Woo, but that production hit some bumps and is now being helmed by Paul W.S. Anderson. Here’s a trailer for this latest game, that covers the history of the Spy Hunter franchise (including an interview with Spy Hunter creator George Gomez):

As with Elevator Action, there’s a playable java version online at vNES.

I don’t know much about this short film, other than that it was a sort of thesis project for three students in the French school supérieure d’informatique de communication, or SupInfoCom. I’m hoping that the students, Laurent Gillot, Aurélia Verhnes and Clement Bolla, got good grades, because it’s beautiful--tied for first with two others as my favorite animated short ever. Similar in visual style to Pixar’s The Incredibles, Zoudov tells the story of a spy on a sabotage mission, who encounters some complications along the way.

This video got lots of play in the animation and design communities, but I think fans of Bond / spy fiction would also get a kick out of it. The references to 007 are numerous, from the John Barry score, to the resemblance between the heroine and actress Daniela Bianchi, aka Tatiana Romanova in From Russia With Love:

Daniela Bianchi

I’ve emailed the creators to see if I can get some more information on the project, their influences or possible continuations of the storyline for next week….

(Not spy, but Muppet-related: one of my other favorites also came from SupInfoCom: Over Time)

Soon, very soon, we’ll be writing about other secret agents, but here’s another Bond bit, a commission by comic artist Tim Sale. This one’s from the collection of Bill Nolan, who shared the art on ComicArtFans.com. According to Nolan’s write-up, this was an anniversary present for his wife, the “Jen” noted at the bottom.

Tim Sale is, of course, the famed comic artist and often partner of writer Jeph Loeb, together responsible for acclaimed comic series like Batman: The Long Halloween and A Superman For All Seasons. What’s great about this piece is that Nolan also supplies an in-process pic of the pencils, so we can see the behind-the-scenes of how Sale creates the pin-up.

Pencils by Tim Sale

Finished Tim Sale Art

Dr. No Soundtrack

(Ignore the fact that yesterday I said we’d be moving on from James Bond, and bear with me one more day!)

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[See the full tablature to "Dr. No's Fantasy"]

[See the full tablature to "The James Bond Theme"]

One of my guilty spy soundtrack pleasures is Monty Norman’s score for Dr. No. Though most of what is heard on the soundtrack appears only there and not in the film itself, I enjoy the Carribean style flair that Norman provides for the first James Bond adventure. Norman tells his version of the creation of the James Bond theme on his website, and this includes how he came to work for the Bond producers. Long story short, Cubby Broccoli was a producer on a musical called Belle, or The Ballad of Dr. Crippen, for which Norman had provided the music and lyrics. The production failed, but Broccoli admired Norman’s work, and so hired him on to produce the soundtrack for the first film made from the recently acquired James Bond rights.

And so, in Jamaica, surrounded by tropical atmosphere, Norman composed most of the score for Dr. No, including the song Underneath the Mango Tree, sung by both Ursula Andress and Sean Connery in the film. But the James Bond film still needed a theme. The legend, from Norman’s viewpoint at least, goes that, working with a young orchestrator named John Barry, Norman turned a song from an abandoned V.S. Naipaul musical into the classic Bond theme.

But the legend also goes that this wasn’t his first attempt. There on the soundtrack is a song called “The James Bond Theme” that is not the familiar tune.

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According to defense attorneys for the Sunday Times, during the infamous libel lawsuit filed by Norman, the song titled “Dr. No’s Fantasy,” was the original submitted theme for 007. Norman dismisses this as a myth, saying that he considered, but rejected this song without submitting to producers, and that he had nothing to do with the titles used for the final album. However, “Dr. No’s Fantasy” was cited by Norman and his attorneys as influencing the middle section of the final Bond theme.

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In any case, the riff appears multiple times on the album, in the two songs above and in the well-known “Twistin’ With James,” which is in the same key as “Dr. No’s Fantasy,” with intense sax solos that…well, I didn’t feel like figuring them out. If you want to play “Twistin’ With James,” then improvise!

In case you haven’t heard the news from multiple sources, Patrick McGoohan, aka John Drake, aka Number Six, has passed away at the age of 80. He was a source of inspiration to us here at Mister 8, and we wish him well in whatever afterlife might exist. Here’s hoping it’s not the Village.

Here are a series of enlightening interviews with McGoohan on the subject of The Prisoner:

The Prisoner for the Apple IIe

The theme for this month’s Themed Thursdays was spy-themed Nintendo games, but I don’t want to stop talking about Patrick McGoohan-related things just yet. So I’m going to expand the topic to video games in general and discuss what was one of the first video games based on an already-existing secret agent property: The Prisoner for the Apple IIe, and its sequel, The Prisoner 2.

Prior to today, I’d never played this games, but I am a fan of text adventures in general. This one’s a bit different, and in many ways, the connection to the Prisoner is tenuous, but still a fun look at what early computer games were about.

In the game, the player takes on the role of a retired spy named “#”. At the beginning of gameplay, the player is shown the code that contains the top secret information behind the player’s resignation. When the player wakes up on The Island, s/he first has to navigate the invisible maze to leave the cottage, and then has to navigate a confusing assortment of buildings, including a library and a carnival.

I’ve not made it all the way through the game, but have encountered a number of interesting puzzles and tricks that the computer uses to try to get you to reveal your resignation code (including an instance of using your resignation code in a real-looking error prompt). It’s an ingenious structure designed by Edu-Ware, primarily designer David Mullich, that regularly breaks the “fourth wall.”

There are a handful of interesting apocryphal trivia items passed around about this game, including that it was used in training by the Central Intelligence Agency. One item that turned out to be true was the fact that the game, though it bears the Prisoner name and logo, was unlicensed! Says Mullich in an interview with Tea Leaves:

My idea was to create a game that was merely inspired by The Prisoner television series, and so I renamed The Village as The Island, No. 2 as The Caretaker, and so on to avoid copyright infringement. However, when Edu-Ware told me that they planned to call the game The Prisoner and use the television series’ title font, I asked them to get permission from the show’s copyright holder, ITC Entertainment. I later found out that all they did was call ITC and ask if they minded if they created a Prisoner-themed restaurant, and when they replied that they didn’t care, Edu-Ware took that to mean that they could get away with releasing the game without acquiring the copyright. Nobody outside the game industry paid much attention to computer games in those early days.

Apple IIe Prisoner 2 Cover

The game led to a sequel, The Prisoner 2, that incorporated graphics, and changed a few of the puzzles around. A review in Analog Magazine declared the following:

Prisoner II is a superb package (I dare not call it a “game”) that should provide weeks of entertainment. It goes far beyond the traditional “collect the right combination of treasures” adventure, and includes some diabolical arcade-like sequences to frus- trate you even more. I’m told that it is possible to escape from the Island. If you succeed, you will never forget it.

In the end, the solution to the game involves imagining the Island as a metaphor, just as the solution to McGoohan’s original vision for the TV show involved approaching the Village as metaphor.

SPOILERS FOLLOW:

The title, even the cover art seen for The Prisoner 2, point you to the idea that the Apple IIe itself is your prison. As Mullich told Tea Leaves:

While [Edu-Ware] realized that it was a groundbreaking game, there were concerned that I had designed it so that you could win the game from the beginning if you knew what to do: visit the Caretaker and tell him “The Island is just a computer game.” I argued that it was thematically imperative that you could win the game from the beginning, since your “imprisonment” was entirely due to the fact that you were freely choosing to spend your time playing this computer game. We argued all night about it, and I threatened to quit if it was changed, and so the game was released intact.

If you’re interested in playing the games, there are options available. A disk image of The Prisoner is available on VintageGaming.org, which also offers a design manual authored by Mullich for The Prisoner 2. The disk image can be opened using an Apple IIe emulator, which are available in abundance via a simple Google search. The sequel is available for play on the Virtual Apple 2 website.