The Modesty Blaise Fan Group

In March 2008, a survey was circulated among the members of the Modesty Blaise mailing list group, and below are some quotes from it.

If you'd like to participate in the survey, please email me with answers to the following questions:

  • Name
  • Country
  • How long you've been an MB fan
  • How you discovered Modesty Blaise
  • Favourite Modesty Blaise book, story, and/or comic
  • Favourite MB comic strip artist
  • Favourite book cover (one only!)
  • Connection to MB (bookseller, publisher, website owner, avid collector, etc)
  • Why does Modesty Blaise mean so much to you?

...and let me know if it's OK to post any excerpts from your answers on this page.
Thanks!

Countries

The group consists of members from the USA, Canada, UK, Australia, Germany, Croatia, Austria, Sweden, and India.

How long have you been a Modesty Blaise fan?

The average number of years was 27, with four members being fans for 40 or more years!

Favourite Book

Most respondents claimed not to have a favourite! Of those who did, A Taste for Death came out the front-runner.

How did you first come across the Modesty Blaise books or comics?


The first time I met Modesty Blaise was in 1972 in Waterloo Station, London. I was sixteen, had just come back from Scotland, and was feeling very adventurous traveling through Europe on my own for the first time. Fortunately, I had missed my connecting train and several hours left to idle away. So I went to a bookstore, and A Taste for Death jumped off the shelf. I flipped itself open and from then on I was in a kind of trance and couldn't put it down again until my train arrived in Nuremberg about 12 hours later. I've often wondered why I rather bought A Taste for Death then instead of something by an author I knew. No idea, but I was hooked right from the start.

Needless to say, I read every new MB novel as soon as it came out (or had been translated, because it wasn't so easy to buy English books in Germany at the time; in any case it was expensive). A few years later I happened upon the comics (the first MB edition by Carlsen in Germany, bundled together with Li'l Abner and other stuff like that). But it wasn't until the early 1990s and the Internet that I found out about Madeleine Brent and that the comics were still being published on a daily basis. For a while my brother used to send me clippings from the West Australian Newspaper, but then I started to seriously hunt down everything POD had ever published, even the elusive Mr. Fothergill's Murder. And spent much too much money on eBay...

I first discovered a battered paperback on the bookshelf at home, I must have been, oh, probably five. I doubt I understood the nuances of it all, but it sure kept me enthralled. (I was a little bit precocious.) Then I discovered there were *comics* (my mother told me such a thing), and well, that was that. I have had a full collection of novels, given them away (spreading the love) and built it up again more times than I can remember. Although this time I am keeping them. :)

I first heard the name when the 1982 Ann Turkel telefilm was broadcast in North America. I liked it but didn't think much more of it. Circa 1984, I started finding the novels and I remember liking them. One of these was actually a condensed version of the first novel (for young readers!) that I found a copy of. What turned me into a real fan was John Thaw's recording of I Had a Date With Lady Janet which I purchased and listened to for the first time during the summer of 1985. My interest continued when Dead Man’s Handle appeared in paperback a year later. I never saw the comic strip until Titan starting putting out their first books in the late 80s and a friend of mine in West Yorkshire mailed me a couple.

I was living in Paris and taking some courses at the British Institute, which had a very small lending library. I was desperate for some English material to read, and stumbled across two MB books (I, Lucifer and Night of Morningstar). I read them and loved them; then I forgot about them for some time. Years later, I could still remember the characters and story, and wanted to reread the books, but couldn’t recall the titles or author. Then, lo and behold, some 7-8 years after that first read, I was examining the bookshelves in a friend’s flat, and there they were… the complete series! I promptly read the whole series and have been a die-hard fan ever since.

The books were all still out of print at the time, so it took a fair bit of work to build up the collection: second-hand bookstores, until Ebay and Abebooks came along, and then it got easier… but with the added ‘problem’ that I now had a choice of editions, covers, etc. And collecting becomes very addictive… after building up the full set, I then wanted hardcovers, first editions, etc.

I’m (obviously) intrigued by book covers, and was puzzled by how little information there was on out there on the MB ones, given how many reprintings there have been. So it then became my mission to track down all the covers… hence this website! I stumbled across the MB Mailing List through a link on someone else’s site, put out a call for cover graphics, and they came flooding in. I was also delighted to know how many die-hard MB fans there are out there!

This site has grown with all the contributions that people have sent in - artwork, audio and vidio files, and new gems of info that still keep coming up.

I spotted one of the Mysterious Press books -- Modesty Blaise -- in a book store, and was struck by its cover. I bought it and then went back and bought all of the other books they had as well as the entire series of Titan books and Ken Pierce Books. I then subscribed to Comics Revue when it began running the Modesty Blaise comic strips. I have every book and every strip in my collection, as well as VHS tapes of the TV Movie and the 1960's movie. I'm a true fan! Even was lucky enough to meet Peter O'Donnell when I visited London in 1987!

I was in London for 2 weeks in August 1987, and I knew roughly where Peter O'Donnell's studio was located, thanks to an interview he gave which appeared in one of the Ken Pierce Modesty collections. It was somewhere off Fleet Street, I think. I popped by the studio and found it occupied by a cartoonist named Peter Maddocks, who told me that Peter O'Donnell no longer worked from the studio but that he came to London periodically. Mr. Maddocks told me that if Mr. O'Donnell came to London during the week I was there, he would call me to let me know. He asked that I leave my copy of Pieces of Modesty with him in case I missed Peter O'Donnell's visit, so he could get it signed for me. I did as he asked and a few days later, I got a call from Mr. Maddocks at my hotel that Peter O'Donnell would be in London the next day and was eager to meet a fan from America.

I went by his studio at the appointed time and got to spend about 30 minutes with him talking about London, America, comic books like Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns (which sold for $40+ US in England at the time) and Modesty Blaise. He then signed the book for me as follows: "To Robert, with my best wishes on his first visit to England. Peter O'Donnell August 1987."

When I returned to the USA, I bought two copies of The Dark Knight Returns and mailed them to Mr. Maddocks -- one for him and one for Peter O'Donnell. A few weeks later, Mr. O'Donnell sent me a letter, which I still have, thanking me for the book and expressing a few other thoughts about our meeting.

It's a memory I will always treasure. Below is the letter he sent:

 

Thank you for your letter, also for the copy of "The Dark Knight Returns", which I'm very pleased to have. It was most kind of you to send it, and I'm sure Peter Maddocks will be equally pleased with his copy.

I don't think I can name a favourite book or strip story; there are various scenes in different books and strips that I might particularly like, but I would find it hard to give an overall preference. Certainly the titles you mention would come pretty high.

It so happens that my wife and I will be seeing the Jeffrey Archer play in two days' time at the Theatre Royal here, just before it opens in London. I expect the critics to pan it regardless, they tend not to like Archer's kind of success.

Curious that you read the stories in a different way after meeting me. Hope it didn't spoil them for you -- I always feel that's a possibility when an author ceases to be a shapeless anonymity.

Wishing you all the best in your career.

Yours sincerely,

Peter O'Donnell

  

I was born in Bosnia and have grown up with MB comics. In fact, the very first thing I ever read aloud was MB, although I can't remember which one any more - my older brother patiently waited for me to finish (it took some time, though). MB was huge in Bosnia (in all parts of former Yugoslavia really - you can still buy second hand strips and most people my age (born in '73) or older will know MB. They were translated to srpsko-hrvatski (Serbo-Croat), which was the name of the language before the war. However, all the graphics and the titles were original.

It wasn't until I came to London that I realised there were novels as well - I have only ever seen comics before - imagine my delight! So for the last several years, my Christmas and birthday pressies have always included a new novel (they are treats for me so I try to savour them).

What was very interesting and disappointing to me when I arrived in London in '92 was that most of English people that I came across did not know MB. To me, that was very strange... although another strange thing was that most people in England did not know who Fitzroy Hew MacLean was (even though he was friends with Ian Fleming and Bond was loosely based on him) - he was a hero in Yugoslavia as well... there was hardly a mention of him when he died a few years ago.

I now have comics in both languages waiting for my son to come of age...

I'm a MB fan since 1968.I was 13 years old then and had a flu and to cheer me up a friend of mine gave me the first MB novel to read. Since then I was hooked and bought every book first the "English Original" and when the German edition was out these ones too. To get hold of the comics was a different story; like someone previously mentioned, there where the Carlsen comics in German. They were very similar to the Titan books but just covered the Holdaway strips, then the first edition of the Titan books but that was it more or less. This somewhat changed dramatically when in 1996 I discovered the MB mailing list, and was so very happy that Peter O'Donnell was still alive (the last novel was published in 1986) and active, and that there were so many other people around the world who were also enthusiastic about MB! And of course this list was a bonanza for obtaining the strips thanks to Rick Norwood and Ken Pierce. So I can proudly say that I have a complete collection of the novels, including the Madeleine Brent books and of the strips.

I found a few German comics (Carlsen) in the library in Erlangen (Germany as well). Then I found a reference on one that there are books and hunted them down in the English and German book section of the same library. After a while I started buying all available books (not much then). When I was traveling through London a while back (~1999?) looked around the London second hand books shops and did find two. Around that time, I also discovered the MB mailing list and joined up. I also ordered quite a few books and comics from the Internet and then found out about Comics Revue -- back-ordered everything MB, and subscribed for years until MB stuff ran out and a few other stories I liked also were replaced by other strips. Through the MB list, I also heard about the Madeleine Brent books and found most of them in the second hand books in London and via second- hand, online stores.

It's interesting that this is a multinational group. When I first read Modesty Blaise I thought it was just a British thing and nobody else would have heard of her. That was before I got into the Internet.
I don't know quite when I 'discovered' MB. I was vaguely aware of the 60's movie but I never saw it. I was in my teens at the time. I think I picked up one of the books secondhand in the 1980's and then I pursued them through whatever means necessary.
    -- Paul Kerry

I grew up in Sweden, and the magazine that featured Modesty Blaise called X9 is pretty popular. I think I have all "X9" magazines that feature Modesty Blaise....I started reading X9 when I was about 15 years old.

MB was recommended to me years earlier but I didn't pick up my first, A Taste for Death, until '82. It was recommended by the owner of The Other Change of Hobbit in Berkeley, CA… and who later became an editor at Tor!

A former boyfriend introduced me to the comic and gifted me with all the books :-) I still look on him kindly all these years later, as you might imagine!

This is about, hmm, six years ago? So, 2002. Okay, I was bored ― I was in a part of the east end of London, a little away from where I live, with my wife. We were waiting for some work to be done on our car; cheap car ― cheap garage ― cheap part of town ― I'm not being rude that's all the truth! We had to wait a while, so we wandered up the road and found a book sale ― really a room with tables of books. I looked and decided they were all cheap books and (sniff!) perhaps nothing much would interest me so I set myself a challenge: to find myself the cheesiest book in the sale.

Well, I spent quite a while looking but eventually I decided that yes, it was the book featuring the woman in a swimsuit wrestling a (sabre-tooth?) tiger. You will know it as Sabre-Tooth, Pan 1977! Yes, this just had to be the cheesiest thing on offer: I think I paid 49p for it. And so I took it home expecting some terrible writing with unnnecessarily titillating descriptions of the woman in the black swimsuit as she whips the hide of the poor sabre-tooth tiger (I am a bit concerned about what this is revealing about me now, but too late).

Well, what do you know, once I started reading it, I discovered the writing was great, yes there was action, but the characters were real and complex and likeable and believeable. And no tigers! (hides disappointment ) I ordered the first MB book and read that too. I decided to read the lot. I learnt from the internet that a comics book was being printed ― but I looked down my long nose at that [sniff!] comics! ― no doubt with bad drawings and rushed scripts ― probably a hatchet-job based on, and probably unworthy, of the novels I had discovered. Or so I thought at the time. Okay, I know better now. But that's where I had got to ― only a little way in to discovering this stuff ― when, having caught onto the MB list, I found out that Peter O'Donnell was going to be doing a signing in a London bookshop. And I was going to be very nearby on the day.

So, I strolled along, and there was Peter. I had only read two of his books, hadn't laid eyes on his comics, and had never heard of Madeleine Brent! But I did know the two books I had read were excellent, and I knew his comics had run for years and years. I don't think I said much. I remember muttering something about him having "given a lot of people a lot of pleasure over the years" ― a cliché ― even then, I didn't know how much more was in store for me!

So, I have read all the books now (well, I have saved a couple of Pieces of Modesty) and most of the comics ― the artwork is amazing ― all the artists are good ― but Jim Holdaway is beyond imagination. I have overcome all my preconceptions (I always think that) about comics or books with sensational covers and I have discovered what is surely a life-long pleasure. Only today, I was feeling coldy and fluey and faintly fed up to be honest, but half an hour in a quiet room reading the Inca Trail has me smiling and ready to face the world again.

I think back to that younger version of me who was not only lucky enough to find an MB paperback for next-to-nothing in a cheap booksale, but was also lucky enough to buy it without even knowing what it was! Like thinking you are buying a fake diamond and being sold a real one. If you ever read this, Mr O'Donnell, then let me add to the preliminary comments I made when we met ― Let me say your stories are terrific ― your understanding of human nature and human relationships is deep and profound and... fun dammit! You have given me, and continue to give me, huge and long-lasting pleasure. Thank you very much indeed!

I discovered Modesty Blaise almost by accident. I saw the movie with my parents at a drive-in theatre, and even at the age of 13 I knew it was a stinker, incoherent and just plain bizarre. But not longer afterward I saw a paperback of the first novel and was grabbed by the cover (which I learned many years later was done by the brilliant Bob McGinnis). On the strength of the cover I bought the book, read the book and was hooked once and for all (but not before wondering "How the hell did they get that crappy movie out of something as good as this?" before I knew the history of the novel).

Other writers have written adventure stories that are as good, or almost as good, and perhaps a trifle more believable.but Modesty and Willie are two of the most fully-rounded fictional characters I have ever encountered or ever hope to encounter. Perhaps more to the point, they have worked hard to be the best people they can be, not only honing their natural talents to the maximum but acquiring skills and knowledge for which they had no particular innate aptitude. They know how to live as few if any of us do; they embody humanity at its finest.