Jane Bond

Jane Bond is a British comic character who has appeared in the strip "Jane Bond - Secret Agent", published by Fleetway Publications and IPC Magazines. The character, a globetrotting secret agent, first appeared in the girls' anthology title Tina on 25 February 1967, drawn by Mike Hubbard. After Tina was cancelled "Jane Bond - Secret Agent" continued in the merged Princess Tina until 1970. Despite the character's name, Jane Bond has no affiliation with either James Bond or Jane. Creation When Fleetway Publications was created by the Mirror Group's acquisition of Amalgamated Press they acquired several girls' comics, and new management added Princess. Fleetway's main rival DC Thomson also had several successful titles, and launched the more adventurous Mandy in January 1967 to strong sales. Fleetway policy at the time was to respond to competitors' titles with a similar themed version of their own, and work was started on an answer to Mandy in the form of Tina. While still retaining some of the staples of the genre, Tina based a greater emphasis on action-adventure material, and among the line-up of the anthology was "Jane Bond - Secret Agent", designed to cash in on the popularity of the spy genre - as well as the successful James Bond films, Emma Peel of The Avengers had become a hugely popular figure. Artist Michael Hubbard was assigned to the strip. He was well known at the time for his work on the Daily Mirror strip heroine Jane, having been assistant to the character's creator Norman Pett before taking over as artist himself in 1948. After "Jane" ended in 1959, Hubbard was one of a declining number of Fleetway artists who worked on both boys' and girls' comics as the company's departments became more entrenched. Having worked on the likes of Knockout, Comet and Sun (specialising in literary and film adaptations) as well as Schoolgirl's Library and June. Due to Fleetway's policy of not crediting contributors at the time and many of the company's records having not survived, as of 2023 the writer of "Jane Bond" has not been identified.