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Modesty Blaise Story Strips #15
The Lady Killers
The dark underworld of espionage and crime is lit up by the fatal charms of the gorgeous Modesty Blaise €” high priestess of pulp crime and goddess of cult thrillers! Adventurer, spy, smuggler, racketeer and all-round bad girl, Modesty is as stylish as she is smart, as lethal and beautiful as a Japanese fighting sword! This latest volume features three classic hard-to-find €˜Dossier on Pluto€™, €˜The Lady Killers€™ & €˜Garvin€™s Travels€™... all wrapped up in a spectacular collector€™s library edition!Featuring new story introductions by creator Peter O€™Donnell, plus a host of special features and behind the scenes material €” this latest addition to the Modesty Blaise library is not to be missed!
104 pages, Paperback
First published April 7, 2009
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About the author
Peter O'Donnell
378 books119 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.
Peter O'Donnell also wrote as Madeleine Brent.
http://www.cs.umu.se/~kenth/modesty.html
is an excellent resource on this author.
To help keep the novels and the adventure strip collections separate, here's some info about the Modesty Blaise works.
In 1963, O'Donnell began his 38-year run as writer of the Modesty Blaise adventure story strip, which appeared six days a week in English and Scottish newspapers. He retired the strip in 2001.
Each strip story took 18-20 weeks to complete. Several publishers over the years have attempted to collect these stories in large softcovers. Titan Publishing is currently in the process of bringing them all out in large-format softcover, with 2-3 stories in each books. These are called "graphic novels" in the Goodreads title.
Meanwhile, during those 38 years, O'Donnell also wrote 13 books about Modesty Blaise: 11 novels and 2 short story/novella collections. These stories are not related to the strip stories; they are not novelizations of strip stories. They are entirely new, though the characters and "lives" are the same. These have been labeled "series #0".
There is a large article on Peter O'Donnell on Wikipedia, with a complete bibliography.
Peter O'Donnell also wrote as Madeleine Brent.
http://www.cs.umu.se/~kenth/modesty.html
is an excellent resource on this author.
To help keep the novels and the adventure strip collections separate, here's some info about the Modesty Blaise works.
In 1963, O'Donnell began his 38-year run as writer of the Modesty Blaise adventure story strip, which appeared six days a week in English and Scottish newspapers. He retired the strip in 2001.
Each strip story took 18-20 weeks to complete. Several publishers over the years have attempted to collect these stories in large softcovers. Titan Publishing is currently in the process of bringing them all out in large-format softcover, with 2-3 stories in each books. These are called "graphic novels" in the Goodreads title.
Meanwhile, during those 38 years, O'Donnell also wrote 13 books about Modesty Blaise: 11 novels and 2 short story/novella collections. These stories are not related to the strip stories; they are not novelizations of strip stories. They are entirely new, though the characters and "lives" are the same. These have been labeled "series #0".
There is a large article on Peter O'Donnell on Wikipedia, with a complete bibliography.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
July 26, 2020
A reprint of the Modesty Blaise comic strips 45, 46, and 47.
The first story, "Dossier on Pluto", is set in the Caribbeans. Modesty is meeting with her old friend Steve Taylor who is a former CIA agent. But now that he's left the agency, he's become a dolphin trainer. He has five dolphins who are all named after Greek gods, Pluto is one of them. However, shady people are also interested in how much they can make money with the dolphins. They decide to break to Taylor's place and take his info. Meanwhile, Willie is vacationing with a new girl and Sir Gerard Tarrant. They're fishing at sea, not too far from the Caribbeans.
This one has pretty straightforward plot, except for the dolphins. Modesty really cares for them and doing any violence on them angers her. Still the story has some comedic elements, as usual. Interestingly enough, the Finnish translation calls the dolphins with the human pronoun rather than "it".
"The Lady Killers" starts as a lighthearted romp but an unexpected twist turns it darker. Modesty and Willie are vacationing in Tangiers, where she ran her criminal Network. In fact, the story starts with a brief glimpse of Modesty ten years previously when she was a nightclub owner and ran the Network. A Danish ship captain saved her life and they've been friends ever since. Now, the sea captain's girlfriend, who runs a nightclub of her own, is in trouble. A hardened criminal Da Silva wrings protection money of her and she can barely pay him any longer. Modesty finds Da Silva distasteful and agrees to simply kidnap him and send him a way for six months; during that time his organization should collapse. The scheme works, but then Modesty and Willie find out that Da Silva had been mixed up with something which could cost an innocent life. And they feel obliged to help.
This was a good, fun adventure. Although, it has some sexism. When Willie is pitted against female terrorists, he finds it hard to hurt them. And the women terrorists are more a joke than a serious threat. For some reason Colvin draws them quite a lot less attractive than Modesty or Maude in the next strip.
I liked the last story best. "Garvin’s Travels" starts with Willie and Maude Tiller starting a vacation in a luxurious big house which is owned by one of Modesty's millionaire friends. However, they can't even get to bed before men attack them. Whey they fend off the attack, they're still kidnapped.
Meanwhile, CIA has contacted Tarrant who needs to pull Maude back to duty. But Modesty is determined to let the two lovebirds have nice time and she takes the mission herself. She goes undercover to a "health university" for wealthy people."
This was a more lighthearted adventure than the previous one. Maude is a one of the spies in British Intelligence and I quite like her. She has appeared in previous stories. She's a capable agent, loyal, and eager to learn. She's not as good a fighter as Willie or Modesty but she's learning. This story has quite a few comedic elements and there aren't any civilians in danger.
This are Neville Colvin's first MB strips. Some readers don't think that he as good an artist as Romero or Holdaway but I think he's good enough.
I didn't remember that the last two stories have a couple of scenes with bare-breasted women. While the women are drawn in very sexy positions and often with cleavages, I'm a bit surprised that the sensors at the time allowed these scenes. Both scenes are relevant to the plot although of course O'Donnell could've written them differently.
Otherwise, these are pretty good MB adventures. I quite enjoyed this collection, too.
The first story, "Dossier on Pluto", is set in the Caribbeans. Modesty is meeting with her old friend Steve Taylor who is a former CIA agent. But now that he's left the agency, he's become a dolphin trainer. He has five dolphins who are all named after Greek gods, Pluto is one of them. However, shady people are also interested in how much they can make money with the dolphins. They decide to break to Taylor's place and take his info. Meanwhile, Willie is vacationing with a new girl and Sir Gerard Tarrant. They're fishing at sea, not too far from the Caribbeans.
This one has pretty straightforward plot, except for the dolphins. Modesty really cares for them and doing any violence on them angers her. Still the story has some comedic elements, as usual. Interestingly enough, the Finnish translation calls the dolphins with the human pronoun rather than "it".
"The Lady Killers" starts as a lighthearted romp but an unexpected twist turns it darker. Modesty and Willie are vacationing in Tangiers, where she ran her criminal Network. In fact, the story starts with a brief glimpse of Modesty ten years previously when she was a nightclub owner and ran the Network. A Danish ship captain saved her life and they've been friends ever since. Now, the sea captain's girlfriend, who runs a nightclub of her own, is in trouble. A hardened criminal Da Silva wrings protection money of her and she can barely pay him any longer. Modesty finds Da Silva distasteful and agrees to simply kidnap him and send him a way for six months; during that time his organization should collapse. The scheme works, but then Modesty and Willie find out that Da Silva had been mixed up with something which could cost an innocent life. And they feel obliged to help.
This was a good, fun adventure. Although, it has some sexism. When Willie is pitted against female terrorists, he finds it hard to hurt them. And the women terrorists are more a joke than a serious threat. For some reason Colvin draws them quite a lot less attractive than Modesty or Maude in the next strip.
I liked the last story best. "Garvin’s Travels" starts with Willie and Maude Tiller starting a vacation in a luxurious big house which is owned by one of Modesty's millionaire friends. However, they can't even get to bed before men attack them. Whey they fend off the attack, they're still kidnapped.
Meanwhile, CIA has contacted Tarrant who needs to pull Maude back to duty. But Modesty is determined to let the two lovebirds have nice time and she takes the mission herself. She goes undercover to a "health university" for wealthy people."
This was a more lighthearted adventure than the previous one. Maude is a one of the spies in British Intelligence and I quite like her. She has appeared in previous stories. She's a capable agent, loyal, and eager to learn. She's not as good a fighter as Willie or Modesty but she's learning. This story has quite a few comedic elements and there aren't any civilians in danger.
This are Neville Colvin's first MB strips. Some readers don't think that he as good an artist as Romero or Holdaway but I think he's good enough.
I didn't remember that the last two stories have a couple of scenes with bare-breasted women. While the women are drawn in very sexy positions and often with cleavages, I'm a bit surprised that the sensors at the time allowed these scenes. Both scenes are relevant to the plot although of course O'Donnell could've written them differently.
Otherwise, these are pretty good MB adventures. I quite enjoyed this collection, too.
January 1, 2013
Modesty Blaise began serialised publication in the Evening Standard in May 1963 and ran until 2001. The initial intention appears to have been to publish the stories simultaneously in both London and Glasgow newspapers, but for a number of reasons this policy had to be readdressed. This volume contains Dossiers on Pluto, The Lady Killers and Garvin's Travels.
February 26, 2016
Dolphin smuggling in the Caribbean, kidnapping in Morocco, and mind-control cons a-la Jonathan Swift in the Indian Ocean. This is one of the weaker compilations, not helped by the subbing artwork from Neville Colvin, not as good as Holdaway, not a fraction as good as Romero. But this is still O'Donnell and this is still Blaise. It's awesome. 9/10
March 25, 2012
As always, BCL obliges me. 3 stories - Dossier on Pluto, The Lady Killers, Gravin's Travels. The Pluto in the story is hardly the planet rather Modesty's pet dolphins. Book also has some rare clips - last of those drawn by Jim Holdaway - published only once in Glasgow Evening Citizen.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews