Modesty Blaise was a newspaper strip featuring a multi-talented spy, created by writer Peter O'Donnell and artist Jim Holdaway (Frank Hampson tried out for the strip, but his drawings were considered not sexy enough) in 1963, originally in the London Evening Standard, later syndicated to newspapers all over the world. After Holdaway died in 1970, the strip was drawn by Enrique Badía Romero for eight years, then briefly by John M. Burns and Patrick Wright, then by Neville Colvin until 1986, and finally by Romero again until the strip ended in 2001. Romero adapted one of O'Donnell's short stories as a graphic novel in 2002, which was initially published in the European magazine Agent X9, followed by a reprint in the American publication, Comics Revue.
It was adapted into films made in 1966, 1982, and 2003 and a series of 13 novels and short story collections (all written by O'Donnell) between 1965 and 1996. None of the films were successful and all deviated from the comic strip: the 1966 film was a surreal camp comedy-musical that introduced romance between Modesty and Willie (a forbidden topic in the comic strip); 1983 saw a failed attempt at launching an American TV series with Modesty reimaged as an American; the 2003 film, titled My Name is Modesty, was a prequel to the comic strip series and lacked the character of Willie Garvin altogether.
Despite the failure of the 1966 film, O'Donnell's novelization of his original script for the film (largely abandoned by the production) formed the basis for the first Modesty Blaise novel that begat the series. That book predated the film and was published in 1965; further novels and a short story collection were published up to 1986, with a final short story collection following in 1996 before O'Donnell retired the novels to focus on a final few years writing the strip.
Although the novels and comic strip share some supporting characters, they exist in separate continuities, although Modesty's origin remained mostly consistent between the two series:
In 1945, a nameless girl escaped from a refugee camp in Greece. She was befriended by a Hungarian Jewish refugee called Lob, who named her Modesty (she added the Blaise, after Merlin's tutor from the Arthurian legends) herself. Lob died when she was 12. In 1953 she took control of a criminal gang in Tangier and expanded it internationally. During this time she met Willie Garvin, who became her right hand man. There was no sexual element to their relationship, but Modesty's many lovers were jealous of his closeness to her. She obtained British nationality by marrying and divorcing an Englishman, and when she had made enough money she and Garvin retired to England, where they were recruited by the British Secret Service. This is where the strip started, and led to many adventures fighting eccentric villains in exotic locales. As is the case with other long-running strips, Modesty and Willie remained "ageless" and remained young to the end of the strip, which likewise updated itself as time went on (as did the novels, with were implied to have taken place over only a few years, with only the very final short story in 1996 featuring Modesty in middle-age).
Star Books published two mass-market paperbacks reprinting several early stories in the late 1970s, albeit heavily reformatted for the style of book. Between 1981 and 1986, the American publisher Ken Pierce Books produced eight volumes of reprints covering stories drawn by Holdaway in the 1960s and Colvin in the 1980s (First American Edition series). Between 1984 and 1988, Titan Books published eight volumes of reprints of strips featuring art by Holdaway and Romero, covering the period 1963 to 1974. Another American publisher, Manuscript Press, later began reprinting the strips in its magazines Comics Revue and Modesty Blaise Quarterly, as well as two standalone graphic novels in 2003; these books featured strips from later in the run.
Beginning in March 2004, Titan launched a new series of reprint volumes. These new versions used larger images and reportedly come from better source material than the earlier editions. As well as an introduction to each story by Peter O'Donnell for books 1 to 16, and by Lawrence Blackmore for books 17 onwards, most books include articles about the series. The reprint series lasted until 2017, a total of 30 volumes covering the entire run of the comic strip (including those reprinted by Ken Pierce), although omitting the follow-up graphic novel, "The Dark Angels," which was published by Ken Pierce as a special edition of Comics Revue.
In addition, O'Donnell's first Modesty Blaise novel (which was itself based on an early draft of the script for the 1966 film) was adapted by DC Comics for a graphic novel published in 1994, featuring art by Dan Spiegle and Dick Giordano. For this version, the comic strip's original character designs were retained.
Notwithstanding the DC Comics graphic novel (which was based on an O'Donnell story), as of 2023 there have been no other official published attempts by any other author or artist to revive Modesty Blaise after O'Donnell's death, nor have any attempts to make another film been made. Quentin Tarantino, a fan of the series who showed John Travolta's character reading the first novel several times in his film, Pulp Fiction, expressed interest in directing a Modesty Blaise film, however aside from "sponsoring" the North American DVD release of the 2004 prequel film My Name is Modesty (under the "Quentin Tarantino Presents" banner), as of 2023 no such project has eventuated.
