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thecartoonmuseum · 7 years ago

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Modesty Blaise

By MAWalker

In 1963 one of the most enduring characters of British cartoon strips came to life by the hand of writer Peter O’Donnell and artist Jim Holdaway. The name, Modesty Blaise. The profession, fearless and incredibly smart adventurer.

The road to publication was not an easy one for this suave and cynical character. In 1962, Bill Aitken, the editor of the strip cartoon for the Daily Express contacted O’Donnell to commission a strip for his newspaper. In response to the question, “what kind?” O’Donnell received the dreamed answer, “The kind of strip you want to write.” O’Donnell requested artist Jim Holdaway to join the project and Aitken agreed. Everything was set, but the creative juices had to be stirred before the central character came to life.

O’Donnell then remember one of those decisive moments in real life that left an indelible mark. It happened in 1945 during his wartime service in the Middle East. His unit had a chance meeting with a very young refugee girl whom they encountered in the Persian desert, miles away from anywhere. Little did he know at that moment that this meeting would become the seed of inspiration for his new character: a young woman without a name or a past who wandered the post-WWII Mediterranean basin learning to fend for herself and who eventually became the leader of a criminal organization called the Network. Soon enough Modesty was joined by his sidekick, or right-hand man, Willie Garvin, and he became her most trusted friend--yes, they were only friends! Theirs was a very platonic relationship, kind of like Mulder and Scully if you get the reference. In time both of them became so rich that they left the Network and settled in London, where new adventures awaited them some of them even done in the service of Queen and country!

The characters and the stage were set after a year of hard work on the project. O’Donnell and Holdaway were ready to finish the preliminary story to introduce the characters when the unexpected happened. O’Donnell learned that the chairman of the the Daily Express, Max Aitken, considered the criminal past of Modesty Blaise a liability for the family-oriented newspaper and refused to publish it. Thankfully, Bill Aitken did not give up on the project and asked if he could submit the comic strip to the Evening Standard. Charles Wintour, the editor of that newspaper, saw its potential and snatched it. The first strip of Modesty Blaise was published on the 13th of May,1963, and it ran almost uninterruptedly until strip number 10,183 on Wednesday the 11th of April, 2001. Each story ran for between 18 and 20 weeks.

Jim Holdaway produced seventeen complete stories, plus the introductory one from 1963 to 1970. His sudden death at the age of 43 was a tragedy for the industry. His artistic style and vision gave life not only to Modesty and Willie, but also to Sir Gerald Tarrant, Fraser, Weng and their archnemesis Gabriel. His original comic strips were widely admired, and even now they are still avidly sought by collectors.

Filling the shoes of Jim Holdaway was not going to be easy. O’Donnell turned then to Enric Badia Romero, a Spanish artist based in Barcelona whose English was almost non-existent. Luckily, his style was one that O’Donnell approved of, and in a very short time they developed a very active and mutually beneficial working relationship, even though Romero needed to have the scripts translated into Spanish before he could draw them. From 1970 to 1978, Romero drew Modesty through twenty two different stories demonstrating along the way his fine artistry and strong empathy to the characters. Sadly, other work related commitments made Romero drop Modesty in 1978. This meant that a new artist had to take the reins of the adventures of Modesty and Willie.

Barry Coker, Romero’s agent, suggested that John M. Burns be brought on board, and that’s how the widely experienced Burns became the third artist to take on Modesty Blaise. From November 1978 to September 1979, Burns created two full stories and he was in the middle of a third one when he was suddenly dismissed. What prompted the editor of the Evening Standard, Charles Wintour, to fire him is still a mystery even today. Gerald Lip, the Cartoon Editor for the Newspaper and the lettering artist of Modesty Blaise, was the one that had to give Burns the sad news. Furthermore, it was up to him to find a replacement in record time. Lip turned to the agent Barry Coker once more, who suggested Pat Wright. Wright took the mantle then until May 1980. After drawing 198 strips he was also dismissed. His artistic style did not sit well with the character and his did not seem to be a very inspiring tenure.

The next artist to work on Modesty Blaise was the New Zealander Neville Colvin, who was not too sure about drawing a woman. Regardless of his misgivings, he was in charge of the visual storytelling from May 1980 until 1986. After drawing over one thousand one hundred strips of our intrepid heroine’s story, he decided to retire.

And who did Gerald Lip turned to then? He went back to Enric Badia Romero. Romero’s previous commitments had ended and he was then quite free to take on Modesty Blaise once more. The successful partnership between Romero and O’Donnell resumed, and he stayed on board until Modesty Blaise retired from the Evening Standard on the 11th of April, 2001. It was the 81st birthday of O’Donnell.

Modesty Blaise was syndicated after it appeared in the Evening Standard. Soon after the last panel in the last strip was published, many newspapers began to run her story from the beginning.

Interesting enough, starting in 1965 and until 1996 Modesty Blaise jumped into the pages of eleven novels, two short-story collections, and three movies (1966, 1983, and 2003)--all of them quite horrible, by the way.

Peter O'Donnell passed away on the 3rd of May, 2010, a couple of weeks after celebrating his 90th birthday. His creation, Modesty Blaise, will continue to live on and through her his thrilling stories.

The Daily Funnies: An Exhibition of Strip Cartoons is currently showing two of the original strips by Jim Holdaway and John Burns. The exhibition will run until the 5th of November, 2017, at the Cartoon Museum.