Modesty Blaise: Deadly and Delicious

I fell in love with a feisty, ass-kicking, intelligent, sexy, honourable, fearless woman when I was 10.

She’s got her own thing. She is Miss Independent. ( sorry Ne-Yo!) . She is loyal to her friends and would give her life for them. She knows a trick or two when it comes to crime, having run a successful criminal organisation called ‘ The Network’ herself. It operated across continents, was very organised and successful. When she did stop her acivities, she made sure the band were all well looked after. She was an honourable thief. Never took from the needy. Never dealt in drugs or vice. She did like diamonds, but then which girl doesn’t.

She is drop dead gorgeous, with dark dusky looks, a mane of thick black hair. It is hard to place her nationality – what with her dark almost almond eyes, her physique and that hair. And that name, where does she get that name from?

She looks equally great in a black cocktail dress, in combat fatigues, or just with a towel wrapped around her ( sigh!). She speaks several languages like a native. She can ride surf, swim, climb, dive, fight, fence, shoot an arrow but she is not fond of guns. She is much better at unarmed close quarters combat as she has been fighting since she was a little girl. She learnt her craft in the back alleys and dusty streets in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. She is fit, boy she is fit. She can fight like a tigress. She can knock a man dead at 50 paces. She can out-Croft Lara anytime.

She has no known relatives. She cannot remember her parents. She remembers Lob, her Hungarian mentor, who taught her many things. Survival skills, culture, etiquette , honour and languages. He died in the deserts of Africa, where she buried him. But she never mopes. She is as cold and flinty as the epee she sometimes wields while fencing. She carries a strange stick, called the kongo or the yawara stick, that looks like a miniature dumbell, sometimes in her bouffant hair do and it is just small enough to be held in the grip of a hand and deadly enough to paralyse nerve centres. So be careful if you try to get close and fresh.

She has properties in London, Tangier, Paris, and in rural Wiltishire apart from other places. She has got some money stashed away from her past, for a rainy day. She has immunity from British Government for she sometimes helps them deal with messy situations on the quiet, where official channels are powerless. And she always delivers.

I fell in love with her when I was 10 and I have never stopped loving her.

Her name, My friends, is Modesty Blaise.

I get jealous of the blond Casanova who hangs with her most times. Willie Garvin. She assures me their relationship is platonic and he is her closest friend and confidante. He keeps calling her ‘Princess’ and she calls him ‘Willie’. ( Everyone else seems to call her Mam’selle –from her Network days) He is as cockney as they come but I have heard him change his accent to suit the place, sounding as posh or as rough as they come to suit one of his many disguises. He can throw a knife like a circus act and can make any girl swoon at 50 paces.

He says she saved his life and his soul. He will give his life for her. Sometimes she spends time in the country pub he runs, called ‘ The Treadmill’. They work out and train together, pushing themselves to limits of endurance.

He is always quoting psalms, that Willie. At most inappropriate moments. It seems the only book he had when he did time in some a jail in Calcutta ( among his many jailterms in the past) was a Psalter! He says the ‘Princess’ rescued him from a prison in Saigon and although he is 8 years older then him, he treats her with such reverence and enormous gratitude.

And then there is that elderly gent with a trilby and a black umbrella who comes to her flat in London. His visit always means that someone somewhere is in trouble or something’s amiss. She ends up leaving town soon after, off with her friend Willie, off on a mission. I think I have seen his pictures in paper, he is called Sir Gerald Tarrant.

He is always accompanied by that bumbling fellow called Fraser, who seems like a mild mannered civil servant. But behind his thick glasses I have noticed keen intelligence, a sharp mind and years of experience in the field. He doesn’t fool me with his bumbling routine.

And what about that Indo-chinese houseboy Weng? He does the chores but I know he has done three years at an University in Hong Kong and plays bridge 3 times a week. He often gets involved at some level in the capers of Modesty and Willie. He is very loyal to Modesty and will do anything for her.

But then so would I. She is that kind of a gal.

Modesty Blaise debuted as a comic strip in the London Evening Standard in 1963. She was created by the British Writer Peter O’Donnell and artist Jim Holdaway. She was an instant hit with the readers and as indicated widely across the world, including Germany, Sweden, Africa , Australia and India.

Peter O’Donnell has had previous success as a writer of strips such as Romeo Brown and Garth. His stories were classic espionage adventures, always gripping . They were ahead of their time, portraying a feisty femme fatale who battles for the good guys. The art was exquisite, each panel rendered with such panache and freshness. Modesty herself was drawn as a chic, sexy pen and ink incarnation often wearing high fashion and sometimes nothing much – the latter aspect resulted in the strip being heavily censored in some sections of the world and resulted in the erratic distribution and syndication in the US.The ‘capers’ were full of twists and turns and launched Peter O’Donnell as a writer par excellence.

The Modesty Blaise character and the comic strips have the unique feature that every one of the stories have been written by the same author over nearly a 40 year period. this is an unique achevement and has kep consistently good quality of gripping narrative. Peter O'Donnell sadly died in 2010 at the age of 90 and it remains to be seen whether the growing popularity will result in any new stories being comissioned by his estate.

Peter's unique ability to craft gripping narratives and tightly woven plots will be hard to replicate.

The strips continued on from 1963 till 2001- no mean feat for a comic srip. Sadly Jim Holdaway died in 1970 and the art was taken over by Enrique Badia Romero, a Spanish artist of some repute. He continued the spirit of Modesty with Peter’s writing skills and was very successful. Romero quit after 8 years to pursue his own projects and the strips were variously drawn by Jim Burns and Patrick Wright briefly, followed by Neville Colvin who drew Modesty until 1986.

Romero then returned to take over artist duties in 1986 and continued until its conclusion in 2001. As a special commission to him, O’Donnell let him adapt one of the print short stories ( the Dark Angels) for a Scandinavian publication as a one off in 2002. There have been a total of around 96 story lines and they have been reprinted in graphic novel format many times in many versions and have remained highly collectible.

Due to enormous popularity of Modesty Blaise the strips from Evening Standard have been reprinted by several publishers over the years to varying quality and quantity across the world.

Ken Pierce Inc. from America reprinted several strips from the early years and from the 80s as 'First Amercian Edition' series in 8 volumes between 1981 and 1986. They were received well but did suffer from readability issues due to lighter printing and making some panels hard to read.

Titan books from UK published eight volumes between 1984 and 1988 covering the strips from 1963 to 1974 ( the Holdaway and Romero years) in good quality large format paperbacks. Titan has since returned to publishing a whole series of Modesty strips chronologically since 2004. These are handsomely mounted and available from online and print book stores.

Manuscript press has published and serialised Modesty stories through its Comics Revue magazine.

DC published an adaptation of the first novel, Modesty Blaise, with art by Dick Giordano.

Elsewhere in Sweden and Norway Modesty has enjoyed popularity in the form of a monthly Magazine (Agent X-9) continuously since 1969 after merging an existing magazine Agent that had featured Modesty since 1967 with another comics mag X-9

In South India, Modesty first surfaced in 1975 (Muthu comics) and then revived in the 80s by Lion Comics and Rani Comics that had continued to publish several strips much to the delight of the local comics fans.

Modesty Blaise has inspired and is inspiring many fashion revivals and many artists have wanted to draw her unique looks. Although there are several examples of fan art ( mostly featuring nudes of Modesty, I must add!) , my favourites remain artist Robert McGinnis's interpretation of the character.

McGinnis is a hugely popular and collectible artist who was enormously talented. He did the covers for over 1200 paperbacks in the US including Carter Brown, Matt Helm, Perry Mason.

Both Jim Holdaway and Enrique Romero have drawn and painted some collectible prints of Modesty.

Peter O’ Donnell penned a novel to accompany a film version in 1965 The book ( Modesty Blaise) was far more successful than the film and launched Peter as a thriller writer. In the subsequent years

Peter would deliver 11 novels and two collections of short stories that the public would devour with enthusiasm and garnered plenty of accolades. They were slick well crafted thrillers, spanning the globe, featuring exciting set-pieces, full of verve and humour. The novels enjoyed reprints all over the world and were translated into many languages.

These deserve a hub of their own right.

The genius of Peter O'Donnell and the stunning talents of Holdaway, Romero, Colvin and others have produced a canon of comic strips that are a delight to read by any gender at any age. These are adoringly crafted stories with artwork to die for.

So come discover the world of Modesty. She won't disappoint you. I promise.

She may be a bewitching blend of pen, ink and words. But she will captivate you with her charm, her guts and her unique personality. There have been others who have tried to steal her throne to rival 007. But if there was ever anyone who is a true contender to James Bond's mantle , it is Modesty Blaise.

And don't blame me if you fall in love with this dark haired temptress.

Thank you for your time, and do leave some comments and feedback.

Copy right © Mohan Kumar, 2011

There are  comprehensive tribute sites across the world that contain excellent information on the Strips, the chronology and concordance. I have included some below.