In 1957 the Daily Express, a newspaper owned by Lord Beaverbrook, approached Ian Fleming to adapt his stories into comic strips. Ian Fleming at the time was reluctant to allow this because he felt the strips would lack the quality of his writing and could potentially hurt his series while he was still authoring them. Regardless, Fleming later agreed and the first strip Casino Royale was published in 1958. Starting in 1958 and continuing to 1983, 007 appeared in 52 comic strips that were syndicated in British newspapers, 7 of which were published abroad. Writers included Anthony Hern, Henry Gammidge, Peter O'Donnell and Jim Lawrence and the series was illustrated initially by John McLusky and later Yaroslav Horak.