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History of SPECTRE logo and ring?

shamanimalshamanimal
in General Discussion Posts: 623
I have a few queries on the SPECTRE logo that kind of span the books and the movies.
I was wondering about the SPECTRE Octopus, does it have its roots in the Fleming books? I have a T-shirt with the logo, and I was just looking in Thunderball (US Centinary edition paperback) to see mention of it, and I can't find any. I could have sworn the ring was mentioned in the casino scene in the Thuderball novel, but it isn't. Perhaps I was thinking of the movie where you can clearly see Largo's ring.

SPectre-Logo.jpg

So is the SPECTRE ring and logo an invention of the movies only? And why an Octopus?

And the logo on the T-shirt above is quite iconic, but they re-invented it for the last Craig film. Do we know who designed the original? The face is like our post-seventies idea of an alien, I can see why they dropped that.

Comments

  • NickTwentyTwoNickTwentyTwo Vancouver, BC, Canada
    edited March 2020 Posts: 7,554
    It really messes with me; surely the original logo must have been a ghost, not an octopus? Because of the name Spectre?
    From FRWL, I mean. Why did they take the octopus going forward, and what does an octopus have to do with ghosts/Spectre?

    I can’t remember exactly but does the letter MI6 receives from Spectre in TB mention a logo at all?
  • shamanimalshamanimal
    Posts: 623
    NickTwentyTwo wrote: »
    It really messes with me; surely the original logo must have been a ghost, not an octopus? Because of the name Spectre?

    I'd never even considered that, but by golly you're right!
  • MakeshiftPythonMakeshiftPython “Baja?!”
    Posts: 8,188
    I figure it became an octopus because it’s metaphorical of SPECTRE having their hand (or tentacle) on a lot of operations, to show how much of a grasp they have.
  • shamanimalshamanimal
    Posts: 623
    Yea, fingers in lots of pies. "They have people everywhere".

    Was it Fleming that imagined the SPECTRE Octopus, or EON, I wonder? I've read the Blofeld Trilogy a couple of times at least, but I don't remember the Octopus logo being in there.
  • MakeshiftPythonMakeshiftPython “Baja?!”
    edited March 2020 Posts: 8,188
    I think the Octopus is an EON thing. When the FRWL video game couldn’t use SPECTRE due to rights issues they renamed them OCTOPUS.
  • NickTwentyTwoNickTwentyTwo Vancouver, BC, Canada
    edited March 2020 Posts: 7,554
    MakeshiftPython wrote: »
    I figure it became an octopus because it’s metaphorical of SPECTRE having their hand (or tentacle) on a lot of operations, to show how much of a grasp they have.

    I can't help but feel like any octopus metaphor would have just been shoehorned in, once they evolved what was very likely a ghost symbol, mistakenly into an octopus symbol.

    When you look at the FRWL logo, it looks like it could either be a ghost or an octopus, and then with the name "Spectre", logically it would be a ghost; but in evolving the symbol they went the octopus route by accident.

    For reference:
    7248303_0.jpg
    This looks like an octopus/squid, but I guarantee it was meant to look like a ghost.

    Any octopus metaphors we can think of now ("evil organization has "tentacles" in many operations", etc.) I feel are likely because we're just used to Spectre's symbol being an octopus now, when that was never the original intention.
  • MakeshiftPythonMakeshiftPython “Baja?!”
    Posts: 8,188
    How do you know they didn't mean to make it a ghostly octopus?
  • NickTwentyTwoNickTwentyTwo Vancouver, BC, Canada
    Posts: 7,554
    MakeshiftPython wrote: »
    How do you know they didn't mean to make it a ghostly octopus?

    Just because an octopus has nothing to do with anything. It doesn’t make any sense logically.
  • MakeshiftPythonMakeshiftPython “Baja?!”
    Posts: 8,188
    I was just being funny, should have put a smilie wink.

    I get what you mean though. That said, the original logo frankly looks goofier than the octopus.
  • mtmmtm United Kingdom
    Posts: 16,431
    That’s a pretty weird ghost though. I think it was an octopus from the start, and by Thunderball it had suckers on its tentacles.
  • MakeshiftPythonMakeshiftPython “Baja?!”
    Posts: 8,188
    Like I said, a ghostly ocotopus! Two birds one stone!
  • shamanimalshamanimal
    Posts: 623
    If you tried to make the picture Nicktwentytwo put up, look more like a ghost and less like an Octopus, it would end up looking like a jellyfish.
    It's an octoghost!
  • NickTwentyTwoNickTwentyTwo Vancouver, BC, Canada
    Posts: 7,554
    MakeshiftPython wrote: »
    I was just being funny, should have put a smilie wink.

    I get what you mean though. That said, the original logo frankly looks goofier than the octopus.

    Hah sorry, I kind of figured, I’m too passionate about the subject. :P

    The modern octopus does look better than the FRWL ghostopus. I’m working on a project now and I have a redesigned modern Spectre logo and it’s much more ghostly.
  • M_BaljeM_Balje Amsterdam, Netherlands
    edited March 2020 Posts: 4,521
    There choose Octopus because of his arms and there don't to go for a Spider. Sound to much like Spy. If you whant you can even see his has inkt made you see nothing.

    I like symbol of that very much in Mr White words in QOS and showed in Spectre maintitle when Octopus takes the gun. In my opnion a symbol of you are married with us til death do us part and a symbol to Bond soon we will have you too. I believe i have said that before.
  • NickTwentyTwoNickTwentyTwo Vancouver, BC, Canada
    Posts: 7,554
    They turned the octopus metaphor into something serviceable, but I still say it was an error to use octopus iconography at all when the original symbol, IMO was a ghost.
  • QBranchQBranch Always have an escape plan. Mine is watching James Bond films.
    Posts: 14,601
    The ghost octopus (or as I've been calling it, 'Ectopus') - unseen and far-reaching.

    Theory: Blofeld officially introduced SPECTRE to MI6 in TB, therefore no longer a 'ghost'. Hence the logo's first update.

    2013-12-10-56319440.png

    Further forum reading:

    https://www.mi6community.com/discussion/11639/the-new-spectre-logo/p1
  • NickTwentyTwoNickTwentyTwo Vancouver, BC, Canada
    Posts: 7,554
    Hey, I posted there in 2015! Tempus fugit.
    Also, "Ectopus" = brilliant. Knocks my "ghostopus" out of the park, lol.
    I like the theory, @QBranch, where are those octopus images from?
  • QBranchQBranch Always have an escape plan. Mine is watching James Bond films.
    edited March 2020 Posts: 14,601
    Apparently the left image is the "real mission patch for a rocket carrying spy satellites heading into space":

    https://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2013/12/05/u-s-spy-rocket-launching-today-has-octopus-themed-nothing-is-beyond-our-reach-logo-seriously/#1975df886869

    Apparent source of the right sketch, "Know Your Communist Enemy": on page 3 in Robert B. Watts, "Our Freedom Documents" (1977), The Supreme Council, Washington

    https://vigilantcitizen.com/latestnews/new-u-s-spy-satellite-logo-octopus-engulfing-world-words-nothing-beyond-reach-underneath/

    The concept of the engulfing octopus precedes Bond. This one with Hitler from 1939 is interesting:

    https://storage.googleapis.com/hipcomic/p/f598cace057287677604c9c0fcee9f39.jpg
  • mtmmtm United Kingdom
    Posts: 16,431
    NickTwentyTwo wrote: »
    They turned the octopus metaphor into something serviceable, but I still say it was an error to use octopus iconography at all when the original symbol, IMO was a ghost.

    I’ve never seen anyone draw a ghost like that though: I don’t really buy it.
  • w2bondw2bond is indeed a very rare breed
    Posts: 2,252
    Their new mascot perhaps
    687Malamar.png
  • RogueAgentRogueAgent
    Posts: 12,526
    I think it is just as an iconic logo as the 007 one.
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