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Modesty Blaise is a character in a comic strip of the same name created by Peter O'Donnell (writer) and Jim Holdaway (art) in 1962. The strip follows the adventures of Modesty Blaise, an exceptional young woman with many talents and a criminal past, and her trusty sidekick Willie Garvin. It was adapted into a movie in 1966 and a series of novels and short stories beginning also in 1966.
Many critics see the early years of the strip as a classic of adventure comic strips. The novels are regarded by some as being among the classics of adventure fiction.
Spoiler warning: Plot or ending details follow.
In 1945 a nameless girl escaped from a prison camp in Karylos, Greece. She did not remember anything from her short past. She wandered through post-WW2 Mediterranean and Arabia. During these years she learned to survive the hard way. She befriended another wandering refugee, a Hungarian scholar who gave her an education and a name: Modesty Blaise. Eventually she took control of a criminal gang in Tangier and expanded it to international status as "The Network".
During these years she met Willie Garvin. Despite the desperate life he was living, she saw his potential and offered him a job. Inspired by her belief in him, he pulled through and was soon a vital member of The Network and Modesty Blaise's most trusted friend. Their relationship is based on mutual respect with no sexual intentions. He has always called her "Princess", a form of address that only he is allowed to use.
When she felt she'd made enough money, she retired and moved to England; Willie Garvin followed suit. Bored by their new lives among the idle rich, they accepted a request for assistance from Sir Gerald Tarrant, a high-ranking official of the British secret service - and this is where the story really begins.
Many of her adventures are based on "capers" she and Willie Garvin become involved in as a result of their association with Tarrant. However, they may also help perfect strangers or fight various eccentric villains in exotic locations of their own volition if the cause fits their values. Although Modesty and Willie will not hesitate to kill if necessary--and have, on occasion, taken on the roles of judge, jury, and executioner when dealing with particularly unsavory types--they will avoid deadly force whenever possible, often relying upon their extraordinary physical and weapons skills to change a killing blow into a knock-out.
Modesty Blaise debuted in the London Evening Standard on May 13 1963. The strip was syndicated among a large number of newspapers ranging from the Johannesburg Star to the Detroit Free Press, The Bombay Samachar, The Calcutta Telegraph, (Calcutta, India), The West Australian (Perth, Australia) and The Evening Citizen, Glasgow, Scotland.
After Jim Holdaway's death in 1970, the art of the strip was provided by the Spanish artist Romero. Eight years later, Romero quit to make time for his own comics projects, and after short attempts by John Burns and Patrick Wright, Neville Colvin drew the strip until 1982. Then Romero returned to the job and continued until the end of the strip.
The strip's circulation in the United States was erratic, in part because of the occasional nude scenes, which were much less acceptable in the US than elsewhere (a censored version of the strip was circulated as a result). Modesty was fond of a strategem that she called the "Nailer," in which she would appear topless and Willie would incapacitate their foes while they were distracted by her bare breasts.
The final Modesty Blaise strip ran in the Evening Standard on April 11 2001. Some of the newspapers that carried the series, feeling that it had become a tradition for their readers, began running it again from the beginning. O'Donnell, in order to give Romero some additional work, gave the artist permission to adapt one of his short stories as one final comic strip that was published in Scandinavia in 2002, later being reprinted in the US.
Many reprint editions of the comic strip have appeared over the years, of varying quality. Most focus upon the earliest strips, with strips from the 1980s and 1990s being the least-often reprinted. In 2004, Titan Books of England launched a new series of reprint volumes.
After initial popularity, the story was filmed in 1966 as a comedy thriller, directed by Joseph Losey and starring Monica Vitti as Modesty, Terence Stamp as Willie Garvin, and Dirk Bogarde as Gabriel. The movie was not very successful. Peter O'Donnell's screenplay went through a large number of rewrites by other people, and he later commented that the finished movie contained only one line of what he wrote.
Diehard fans find the film quite offensive in the way it eliminates many elements of the comic strip in favor of a laugh. The worst change in the characters, according to fans, is that in the movie, Willie and Modesty fall in love, which is something completely taboo in the books and the comic strip. The two even perform a musical number together!
Peter O'Donnell was invited to write a novel to tie in with the film. The novel, called simply Modesty Blaise and based on his original screenplay for the movie, fared considerably better than the movie itself did. During the following decades, he would write a total of eleven Modesty Blaise novels and two collections of short stories. O'Donnell's final book, Cobra Trap, is his most controversial as he chose to end the book by giving Modesty Blaise and Willie Garvin a definitive end (although the comic strip would last for several more years before it, too, was retired).
In 1982, a pilot was made for a proposed Modesty Blaise television series, starring Ann Turkel as Modesty Blaise and Lewis Van Bergen as Willie Garvin. No series eventuated.
In 1994, DC Comics released a graphic novel adaptation of Modesty Blaise (the novel), with art by Dick Giordano.
In 2002, the then holders of the Modesty Blaise film rights made a film called My Name is Modesty, with Alexandra Staden as Modesty Blaise, based on the story of Modesty Blaise's life before the beginning of the comic strip. The film, made primarily to retain the film rights, has not achieved theatrical release. On October 15 2003, the film was released on DVD in Europe. North American DVD release is scheduled for late September 2004.
Quentin Tarantino has been interested in filming a Modesty Blaise movie for many years, and at one point Neil Gaiman even wrote a script treatment based upon O'Donnell's novel, I, Lucifer. So far, nothing has come of this, although the DVD release of My Name is Modesty carries the "Quentin Tarantino presents ..." label. Nicole Kidman has also gone on record as being interested in making a Modesty Blaise movie.
Modesty Blaise has been the inspiration for a number of similar (but usually inferior) book series, most notably the ultraviolent mid-1970s series
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