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106-453: Modesty Blaise is a British comic strip featuring a fictional character of the same name, created by author Peter O'Donnell and illustrator Jim Holdaway in 1963. The strip follows Modesty Blaise, an exceptional young woman with many talents and a criminal past, and her trusty sidekick Willie Garvin . It was adapted into films in 1966, 1982, and 2003, and from 1965 onwards, 11 novels and two short-story collections were written. In 1945,

212-480: A Pan Books paperback, the books were originally issued in hardback (by Souvenir Press ) and have subsequently gone through numerous paperback editions, with Pan the primary paperback publisher in the U.K. until the late 1970s. O'Donnell's final book, Cobra Trap , is a short story collection. Intended by O'Donnell to be his literary finale, the final story depicts the deaths of Modesty and Willie (with an implied afterlife). O'Donnell, however, would continue to write

318-465: A graphic novel adaptation of Modesty Blaise (the novel), with art by Dan Spiegle and Dick Giordano ( ISBN   1-56389-178-6 ). Manuscript Press published two volumes of late-1980s Romero strips in 2003 ( Live Bait and Lady in the Dark ); it also published all of the stories not reprinted elsewhere in serialised form in its magazine publications Comics Revue and Modesty Blaise Quarterly ,

424-552: A syndicate hires people to write and draw a strip and then distributes it to many newspapers for a fee. Some newspaper strips begin or remain exclusive to one newspaper. For example, the Pogo comic strip by Walt Kelly originally appeared only in the New York Star in 1948 and was not picked up for syndication until the following year. Newspaper comic strips come in two different types: daily strips and Sunday strips . In

530-428: A "standard" size", with strips running the entire width of a page or having more than one tier. By the 1920s, strips often covered six of the eight columns occupied by a traditional broadsheet paper. During the 1940s, strips were reduced to four columns wide (with a "transition" width of five columns). As newspapers became narrower beginning in the 1970s, strips have gotten even smaller, often being just three columns wide,

636-409: A Star PD .45 auto pistol. Willie's preferred weapon is the throwing knife , of which he usually carries two. Many other strange weapons (such as the quarterstaff , épée , blowgun , and sling ) and unexpected fighting techniques are also featured. In keeping with the " floating timeline " spirit of other long-running comic strip and literary characters, Modesty and Willie generally do not age over

742-537: A better genre -neutral name. Comic strips have appeared inside American magazines such as Liberty and Boys' Life , but also on the front covers, such as the Flossy Frills series on The American Weekly Sunday newspaper supplement . In the UK and the rest of Europe, comic strips are also serialized in comic book magazines , with a strip's story sometimes continuing over three pages. Storytelling using

848-498: A crime boss; as such, the character of Willie Garvin is omitted. Quentin Tarantino has been interested in directing a Modesty Blaise film for many years, and at one point Neil Gaiman wrote a script treatment based upon O'Donnell's novel, I, Lucifer . So far, nothing has come of these plans. Tarantino "sponsored" the release of My Name Is Modesty by allowing it to be released under the label "Quentin Tarantino presents ..." In

954-584: A first name: Modesty. Sometime later, Modesty chooses her last name, Blaise , after Merlin 's tutor from the Arthurian legends . When Lob dies is unclear, other than it being prior to her going to Tangier. "The Xanadu Talisman" mentions that Modesty has left Lob at a village to recover from a wound; she goes alone to sell a car tyre. In 1953, she takes control of a criminal gang in Tangier from Henri Louche and expands it into an international organization called

1060-587: A flock of geese (without anybody mourning their demise). Max and Moritz provided an inspiration for German immigrant Rudolph Dirks , who created the Katzenjammer Kids in 1897—a strip starring two German-American boys visually modelled on Max and Moritz . Familiar comic-strip iconography such as stars for pain, sawing logs for snoring, speech balloons, and thought balloons originated in Dirks' strip. Hugely popular, Katzenjammer Kids occasioned one of

1166-570: A form of address only he is allowed to use. Other members of the Network call Modesty "Mam'selle" (as in the French term "Mademoiselle" or "Miss"). Though their relationship has no sexual element, Modesty's various lovers invariably treat Willie with frustrated envy, as he is the only man who remains vital to her life, while lovers come and go. By the same token, some of Willie's girlfriends are initially jealous of Modesty, but later come to understand how

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1272-430: A full page, and daily strips were generally the width of the page. The competition between papers for having more cartoons than the rest from the mid-1920s, the growth of large-scale newspaper advertising during most of the thirties, paper rationing during World War II , the decline on news readership (as television newscasts began to be more common) and inflation (which has caused higher printing costs) beginning during

1378-515: A nameless girl escapes from a displaced person (DP) camp in Kalyros, Greece . She remembers nothing from her short past and wanders through post- World War II Mediterranean , the Middle East , and regions of North Africa , where she learns to survive the hard way. She befriends Lob, another wandering refugee, who is a Jewish Hungarian scholar from Budapest . He gives her an education and

1484-488: A secondary strip by the same artist as the main strip. No matter whether it appeared above or below a main strip, the extra strip was known as the topper , such as The Squirrel Cage which ran along with Room and Board , both drawn by Gene Ahern . During the 1930s, the original art for a Sunday strip was usually drawn quite large. For example, in 1930, Russ Westover drew his Tillie the Toiler Sunday page at

1590-547: A sequence of pictures has existed through history. One medieval European example in textile form is the Bayeux Tapestry . Printed examples emerged in 19th-century Germany and in mid 18th-century England, where some of the first satirical or humorous sequential narrative drawings were produced. William Hogarth 's 18th-century English caricature include both narrative sequences, such as A Rake's Progress , and single panels. The Biblia pauperum ("Paupers' Bible"),

1696-493: A similar width to the one most daily panels occupied before the 1940s. In an issue related to size limitations, Sunday comics are often bound to rigid formats that allow their panels to be rearranged in several different ways while remaining readable. Such formats usually include throwaway panels at the beginning, which some newspapers will omit for space. As a result, cartoonists have less incentive to put great efforts into these panels. Garfield and Mutts were known during

1802-506: A single panel with a single gag, as seen occasionally in Mike Peters ' Mother Goose and Grimm . Early daily strips were large, often running the entire width of the newspaper, and were sometimes three or more inches high. Initially, a newspaper page included only a single daily strip, usually either at the top or the bottom of the page. By the 1920s, many newspapers had a comics page on which many strips were collected together. During

1908-574: A size of 17" × 37". In 1937, the cartoonist Dudley Fisher launched the innovative Right Around Home , drawn as a huge single panel filling an entire Sunday page. Full-page strips were eventually replaced by strips half that size. Strips such as The Phantom and Terry and the Pirates began appearing in a format of two strips to a page in full-size newspapers, such as the New Orleans Times Picayune , or with one strip on

2014-496: A tabloid page, as in the Chicago Sun-Times . When Sunday strips began to appear in more than one format, it became necessary for the cartoonist to allow for rearranged, cropped or dropped panels. During World War II , because of paper shortages, the size of Sunday strips began to shrink. After the war, strips continued to get smaller and smaller because of increased paper and printing costs. The last full-page comic strip

2120-518: A tradition of picture Bibles beginning in the Late Middle Ages , sometimes depicted Biblical events with words spoken by the figures in the miniatures written on scrolls coming out of their mouths—which makes them to some extent ancestors of the modern cartoon strips. In China, with its traditions of block printing and of the incorporation of text with image, experiments with what became lianhuanhua date back to 1884. The origin of

2226-554: A two-tier daily strip, Star Hawks , but after a few years, Star Hawks dropped down to a single tier. In Flanders , the two-tier strip is the standard publication style of most daily strips like Spike and Suzy and Nero . They appear Monday through Saturday; until 2003 there were no Sunday papers in Flanders. In the last decades, they have switched from black and white to color. Single panels usually, but not always, are not broken up and lack continuity. The daily Peanuts

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2332-556: A villa in Tangier and a cottage two miles from Benildon, Wiltshire . She is 5 feet 6 inches (168 cm) tall and weighs 120 lb (54 kg) as revealed in La Machine . Many of her adventures are based on capers in which Willie Garvin and she become involved 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

2438-507: A wide range of colors. Printing plates were created with four or more colors—traditionally, the CMYK color model : cyan, magenta, yellow and "K" for black. With a screen of tiny dots on each printing plate, the dots allowed an image to be printed in a halftone that appears to the eye in different gradations. The semi-opaque property of ink allows halftone dots of different colors to create an optical effect of full-color imagery. The decade of

2544-460: Is a prequel depicting Modesty in her late teens. Having conceived the idea after a chance meeting with a girl during his wartime service in the Middle East, O'Donnell elected to work with Jim Holdaway, with whom he had worked on the strip Romeo Brown , after a trial period of collaboration with Frank Hampson , creator of Dan Dare , left O'Donnell dissatisfied. Modesty Blaise debuted in

2650-508: Is a strip, and the daily Dennis the Menace is a single panel. J. R. Williams ' long-run Out Our Way continued as a daily panel even after it expanded into a Sunday strip, Out Our Way with the Willets . Jimmy Hatlo 's They'll Do It Every Time was often displayed in a two-panel format with the first panel showing some deceptive, pretentious, unwitting or scheming human behavior and

2756-407: Is given in the strip, with the marriage taking place in 1960 and him dying in 1961; in the novel he is unnamed and the marriage took place in 1962. The novels also include a more overt fantasy element than the strip, with characters demonstrating clairvoyant abilities in several novels (including Willie's trademark ability to predict trouble when he feels his ears prickling, a trait also demonstrated in

2862-563: Is often just supplementing the previous strip. The first A-strip was 194A and was published during Christmas 1963 in Scottish newspapers. Since December 1974, The Evening Standard has not been published on Saturdays. So, since then, and the story "Cry Wolf", a sixth of the strips have been A-strips and have not had their premiere in The Evening Standard . A single strip is numbered with an X suffix, strip number 3641X, and

2968-637: Is similar to the A-strips. Many reprint editions of the comic strip have appeared over the years, of varying quality. Most reprint the earliest strips, with strips from the 1980s and 1990s being the least often reprinted. In Sweden the strip has been in continuous distribution since 1971 in a monthly comic adventure magazine called Agent X9 (previously, Modesty had her own comic magazine Agent Modesty Blaise in Sweden from 1967 to 1970). Many of O'Donnell's stories premiered here (translated into Swedish ), and

3074-626: The Lansing State Journal in two sheets, printed much larger than the final version and ready to be cut apart and fitted into the local comics page." Comic strip historian Allan Holtz described how strips were provided as mats (the plastic or cardboard trays in which molten metal is poured to make plates) or even plates ready to be put directly on the printing press. He also notes that with electronic means of distribution becoming more prevalent printed sheets "are definitely on their way out." NEA Syndicate experimented briefly with

3180-484: The ABC Network to positive reviews, but no series resulted. This was a slightly more serious version of the stories than the campy 1966 comedy version. In this pilot the setting is moved from London to Hollywood, and both Willie and Tarrant are portrayed as Americans; Modesty's nationality is left unrevealed but Turkel also plays her with an American accent. In 2003, a direct-to-video film titled My Name Is Modesty

3286-848: The Agent X9 magazine for many years. In India Modesty has acquired a huge fan base and the stories have been published in various magazines starting in 1971. Modesty was featured in Kalki Magazine (1971), Kumudam Magazine (1972), Muthu Comics (1975), Lion Comics (1984 to date), Rani Comics (1990–2002) & Comic World (1998) in the Tamil language . They were also published in English in Spectrum Comics (1985–1986). Though other magazines stopped/ceased publishing Modesty Blaise, Lion Comics continues to publish her stories regularly. Considering

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3392-561: The Evening Standard on 11 April 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, to give Romero some additional work, gave the artist permission to adapt one of his short stories (" The Dark Angels ") as a comic that was published in the Scandinavian anthology magazine Agent X9 in 2002, later being reprinted in

3498-549: The Internet . Many are exclusively published online, but the majority of traditional newspaper comic strips have some Internet presence. King Features Syndicate and other syndicates often provide archives of recent strips on their websites. Some, such as Scott Adams , creator of Dilbert , include an email address in each strip. Most comic strip characters do not age throughout the strip's life, but in some strips, like Lynn Johnston 's award-winning For Better or For Worse ,

3604-546: The editorial or op-ed page rather than the comics page because of their regular political commentary. For example, the August 12, 1974 Doonesbury strip was awarded a 1975 Pulitzer Prize for its depiction of the Watergate scandal . Dilbert is sometimes found in the business section of a newspaper instead of the comics page because of the strip's commentary about office politics , and Tank McNamara often appears on

3710-536: The newspaper war (1887 onwards) between Pulitzer and Hearst . The Little Bears (1893–96) was the first American comic strip with recurring characters, while the first color comic supplement was published by the Chicago Inter-Ocean sometime in the latter half of 1892, followed by the New York Journal ' s first color Sunday comic pages in 1897. On January 31, 1912, Hearst introduced

3816-441: The 1920s the medium became wildly popular. While radio, and later, television surpassed newspapers as a means of entertainment, most comic strip characters were widely recognizable until the 1980s, and the "funny pages" were often arranged in a way they appeared at the front of Sunday editions. In 1931, George Gallup's first poll had the comic section as the most important part of the newspaper, with additional surveys pointing out that

3922-458: The 1930s, the original art for a daily strip could be drawn as large as 25 inches wide by six inches high. Over decades, the size of daily strips became smaller and smaller, until by 2000, four standard daily strips could fit in an area once occupied by a single daily strip. As strips have become smaller, the number of panels have been reduced. Proof sheets were the means by which syndicates provided newspapers with black-and-white line art for

4028-1055: The 1960s saw the rise of underground newspapers , which often carried comic strips, such as Fritz the Cat and The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers . Zippy the Pinhead initially appeared in underground publications in the 1970s before being syndicated. Bloom County and Doonesbury began as strips in college newspapers under different titles, and later moved to national syndication. Underground comic strips covered subjects that are usually taboo in newspaper strips, such as sex and drugs. Many underground artists, notably Vaughn Bode , Dan O'Neill , Gilbert Shelton , and Art Spiegelman went on to draw comic strips for magazines such as Playboy , National Lampoon , and Pete Millar's CARtoons . Jay Lynch graduated from undergrounds to alternative weekly newspapers to Mad and children's books. Webcomics , also known as online comics and internet comics , are comics that are available to read on

4134-413: The 1970s had been waning as an entertainment form. From 1903 to 1905 Gustave Verbeek , wrote his comic series "The UpsideDowns of Old Man Muffaroo and Little Lady Lovekins". These comics were made in such a way that one could read the 6 panel comic, flip the book and keep reading. He made 64 such comics in total. The longest-running American comic strips are: Most newspaper comic strips are syndicated;

4240-474: The 1997 Switcheroonie was a one-time publicity stunt, an artist taking over a feature from its originator is an old tradition in newspaper cartooning (as it is in the comic book industry). In fact, the practice has made possible the longevity of the genre's more popular strips. Examples include Little Orphan Annie (drawn and plotted by Harold Gray from 1924 to 1944 and thereafter by a succession of artists including Leonard Starr and Andrew Pepoy ), and Terry and

4346-491: The 2007 Titan Books reprint volume Death Trap , which illustrated two segments of the story arc, "The Junk Men" that were censored by the Detroit Free Press when it published the strip in 1977; in both cases a screen was drawn over scantily clad images of Willie and Modesty. Reportedly, O'Donnell did not approve of the changes, although they were made by the artist, Romero. The final Modesty Blaise strip ran in

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4452-460: The Beginning" and "The Killing Ground" and the two comic-book stories "Modesty Blaise" and "The Dark Angels". Outside the ordinary numbering is also a quantity of A-strips. An A-strip has the same number as the previous strip, but followed by an A. They were used on days when not all the newspapers running Modesty Blaise were published. An A-strip is not vital for the continuity of the story and

4558-481: The British magazine Judy by writer and fledgling artist Charles H. Ross in 1867, Ally Sloper is one of the earliest comic strip characters and he is regarded as the first recurring character in comics. The highly popular character was spun off into his own comic, Ally Sloper's Half Holiday , in 1884. While in the early 20th century comic strips were a frequent target for detractors of "yellow journalism", by

4664-440: The Dark , Manuscript Press), MB ( Comics Revue Presents Modesty Blaise ), S# (Star Books paperback reprints, 1978), OT# (Titan Books, old series (1984–90)), T# ( Titan Books , new series (2004–2017)). Although the books generally reflect the characters previously established in the comic strip, there are a number of detail differences. One example of this is how Modesty is initially recruited to work for Sir Gerald Tarrant – although

4770-804: The Life of Buonaparte . His contemporary Thomas Rowlandson used strips as early as 1784 for example in The Loves of the Fox and the Badger . Rowlandson may also be credited with inventing the first internationally recognized comic strip character: Doctor Syntax whose picaresque journeys through England were told through a series of comic etchings, accompanied by verse. Original published in parts between 1809 and 1811 in Rudolf Ackermann 's Poetical Magazine , in book form The Tour of Doctor Syntax in search of

4876-732: The London Evening Standard on 13 May 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 Telegraph ( Calcutta , India), The Star (Malaysia) , The West Australian ( Perth ), The Evening Citizen ( Glasgow , Scotland) and the Birmingham Evening Mail ( Birmingham , England). After Jim Holdaway's sudden death in 1970,

4982-621: The Modesty Blaise comic strip and all its printed forms over almost forty years, and every story was written solely by Peter O'Donnell . The strips and comic books were drawn by Jim Holdaway (JH), Enrique Badia Romero (ER), John M. Burns (JB), Patrick Wright (PW), Neville Colvin (NC), Dan Spiegle (DS) and Dick Giordano (DG). Sources: A ( Comics Revue Annual ), C ( Comics Revue ), CM ( Comic Media Vol 2, No. 2 ), CS ( Comics Revue Special ), F# (First American Edition Series, Ken Pierce), LB ( Live Bait , Manuscript Press), LD ( Lady in

5088-859: The NCS, enthusiastically promote the medium, which since the 1970s (and particularly the 1990s) has been considered to be in decline due to numerous factors such as changing tastes in humor and entertainment, the waning relevance of newspapers in general and the loss of most foreign markets outside English-speaking countries. One particularly humorous example of such promotional efforts is the Great Comic Strip Switcheroonie , held in 1997 on April Fool's Day, an event in which dozens of prominent artists took over each other's strips. Garfield ' s Jim Davis, for example, switched with Blondie ' s Stan Drake, while Scott Adams ( Dilbert ) traded strips with Bil Keane ( The Family Circus ). While

5194-411: The Network. During the years that she runs the Network, she meets Willie Garvin. Despite his desperate lifestyle, she sees his potential and offers him a job. Inspired by her belief in him, he pulls through as her right-hand man in the Network and becomes Modesty's most trusted friend. Theirs is a strictly platonic relationship, based on mutual respect and shared interests. He always calls her "Princess",

5300-490: The Pirates , started by Milton Caniff in 1934 and picked up by George Wunder . A business-driven variation has sometimes led to the same feature continuing under a different name. In one case, in the early 1940s, Don Flowers ' Modest Maidens was so admired by William Randolph Hearst that he lured Flowers away from the Associated Press and to King Features Syndicate by doubling the cartoonist's salary, and renamed

5406-422: The Tarantino film Pulp Fiction , Vincent Vega is seen reading a copy of Modesty Blaise . Nicole Kidman has also gone on record as being interested in making a Modesty Blaise film, and Jennifer Lopez was reported to be pitching for the part in 2003. O'Donnell was invited to write a novelization of the 1966 film. The novel , released a year before the film itself and based on his original screenplay for

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5512-466: The US in a special issue of Comics Revue . From 1 December 2008, the Evening Standard , which had stopped including comic strips for some time, republished La Machine , using the original artwork. Following a change of ownership of the paper, they did not continue with subsequent stories. The ordinary strips are consecutive numbered from 1 to 10183. Outside this numbering are the two newspaper stories "In

5618-490: The United States, a daily strip appears in newspapers on weekdays, Monday through Saturday, as contrasted with a Sunday strip, which typically only appears on Sundays. Daily strips usually are printed in black and white, and Sunday strips are usually in color. However, a few newspapers have published daily strips in color, and some newspapers have published Sunday strips in black and white. Making his first appearance in

5724-565: The United States, in conjunction with Eclipse Comics , published eight volumes of comic book-sized reprints dubbed the First American Edition series. The first four books featured Holdaway-illustrated stories from the 1960s, while the last four featured strips from the early 1980s as illustrated by Neville Colvin. These books also suffered from reproduction problems that resulted in many panels being reprinted too light, making them difficult to read. In 1994, DC Comics released

5830-561: The World ), some have verbal thoughts but are not understood by humans, ( Garfield , Snoopy in Peanuts ), and some can converse with humans ( Bloom County , Calvin and Hobbes , Mutts , Citizen Dog , Buckles , Get Fuzzy , Pearls Before Swine , and Pooch Cafe ). Other strips are centered entirely on animals, as in Pogo and Donald Duck . Gary Larson 's The Far Side

5936-685: The adventures of Winnie Winkle , Moon Mullins and Dondi , and waited each fall to see how Lucy would manage to trick Charlie Brown into trying to kick that football. (After I left for college, my father would clip out that strip each year and send it to me just to make sure I didn't miss it.)" The two conventional formats for newspaper comics are strips and single gag panels. The strips are usually displayed horizontally, wider than they are tall. Single panels are square, circular or taller than they are wide. Strips usually, but not always, are broken up into several smaller panels with continuity from panel to panel. A horizontal strip can also be used for

6042-406: The art of the strip was provided by Spanish artist Enrique Badía 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 1986. 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

6148-507: The artists Jim Holdaway (JH), Enrique Badia Romero (ER), John M. Burns (JB), Patrick Wright (PW), Neville Colvin (NC). It published 25 issues between 1995 and 2000. With issue 23, all the MB stories had been reprinted in either Comics Revue presents Modesty Blaise or Comics Revue , so the contents of the last two issues was decided by reader vote. Issue 24 carried "The Galley Slaves" and 25 reprinted "Butch Cassidy Rides Again". After

6254-495: The author, a tribute to Modesty Blaise. Last Day in Limbo was adapted as a BBC World Service six-part radio drama in 1978 with Barbara Kellerman as Modesty, James Bolam as Willie and Richard Vernon as Tarrant. I Had a Date with Lady Janet (the short story from Pieces of Modesty ) was published as an audio tape reading by Pickwick Talking Books in the early 1980s, featuring John Thaw as Willie (the story, uniquely to

6360-730: The canon, is a first-person tale told from Willie Garvin's point of view). BBC Radio 4 has broadcast adaptations of three of the books in their "15 Minute Drama" slot, each in five fifteen-minute episodes, adapted by Stef Penney and produced/directed by Kate McAll , starring Daphne Alexander as Modesty, with music by Will Gregory , arranged by Ian Gardiner. A Taste for Death was originally broadcast from 17 to 21 December 2012, featuring Carl Prekopp as Willie and Alun Armstrong as Tarrant, with Sam Dale (Simon Delicata), Geoffrey Streatfeild (Steve Collier), Samantha Dakin (Dinah Pilgrim), Alex Fearns (McWhirter), Jeff Mash (Skeet Lowery) and Nigel Anthony (Sir Howard Presteign). Modesty Blaise

6466-510: The cause fits their values; "ghosts" from their Network past also emerge to haunt them from time to time. Although Modesty and Willie do not hesitate to kill if necessary, they avoid deadly force whenever possible, often relying upon their extraordinary physical combat and weapons skills. There are many occasions in the comic strip and novels where the two decide ahead of time - with the final say up to Modesty - whether to use deadly force ("for keeps") or less-lethal methods ("for sleeps") depending on

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6572-623: The characters age as the years pass. The first strip to feature aging characters was Gasoline Alley . The history of comic strips also includes series that are not humorous, but tell an ongoing dramatic story. Examples include The Phantom , Prince Valiant , Dick Tracy , Mary Worth , Modesty Blaise , Little Orphan Annie , Flash Gordon , and Tarzan . Sometimes these are spin-offs from comic books , for example Superman , Batman , and The Amazing Spider-Man . A number of strips have featured animals as main characters. Some are non-verbal ( Marmaduke , The Angriest Dog in

6678-466: The characters. Hearst promptly hired Harold Knerr to draw his own version of the strip. Dirks renamed his version Hans and Fritz (later, The Captain and the Kids ). Thus, two versions distributed by rival syndicates graced the comics pages for decades. Dirks' version, eventually distributed by United Feature Syndicate , ran until 1979. In the United States, the great popularity of comics sprang from

6784-425: The comic strip for several more years, and chose to end it on a more optimistic note, though the comic strip's finale does not contradict the prose version. Beginning in the early 2000s (decade), Souvenir Press began a series of paperback reprints of the Modesty Blaise book series, using the first edition hardback covers, and originally concluding with a reprint of Cobra Trap in 2006. Souvenir subsequently gained

6890-594: The comic strips were the second most popular feature after the picture page. During the 1930s, many comic sections had between 12 and 16 pages, although in some cases, these had up to 24 pages. The popularity and accessibility of strips meant they were often clipped and saved; authors including John Updike and Ray Bradbury have written about their childhood collections of clipped strips. Often posted on bulletin boards , clipped strips had an ancillary form of distribution when they were faxed, photocopied or mailed. The Baltimore Sun ' s Linda White recalled, "I followed

6996-551: The comic), and a later story referencing the afterlife. There are also cases where characters first appear in the books and then subsequently appear in the comic strip – Steve Collier first appears in I, Lucifer (1967) and his future wife Dinah in A Taste for Death (1969) but they do not appear in the strip until Lady in the Dark (1989). Comics Revue presents Modesty Blaise was a small press magazine sized comic book published by Manuscript Press which reprinted Modesty Blaise comic strip stories by O'Donnell and illustrated by

7102-422: The decades, with Modesty always being depicted as being in her late 20s and Willie eight years older. The only exceptions to this rule occur in the comic strip origin story, "In the Beginning"; the 1996 short-story collection Cobra Trap , the final Modesty Blaise book, which contains five stories that take place where Modesty's age moves from 20 to 52 (approximately); and the 2003 film My Name Is Modesty , which

7208-491: The dynamic between them works (as in the case of Lady Janet). She obtains British nationality by marrying for convenience and divorcing an Englishman in Beirut ; the husband (James Turner) dies a year later of alcoholism. Having made a point of not dealing in secrets belonging to H.M. government, when she feels she has made enough money, she retires and moves to England and Willie Garvin follows suit. Bored by their new lives among

7314-449: The editions published between 1984 and 1990. As well as an introduction to each story by Peter O'Donnell (books 1 to 16), Lawrence Blackmore (books 17 to 24), Simon Ward (book 25), Rick Norwood (book 26), Rebecca Chance (book 28), and Daphne Alexander and Kate McAll (book 30), most books include articles about the series. The individual story introductions are absent from books 27 and 29. In October 2017, Titan completed its reprints of

7420-416: The entire newspaper strip run with the final stories from Romero's second tenure. It is not yet known if the company has the rights to reprint "The Dark Angels", a graphic novel-length story that was published in a European magazine after the retirement of the original strip, or the 1994 graphic novel adaptation of the first Modesty Blaise novel published by DC Comics . There were 99 storylines produced for

7526-525: The feature Glamor Girls to avoid legal action by the AP. The latter continued to publish Modest Maidens , drawn by Jay Allen in Flowers' style. As newspapers have declined , the changes have affected comic strips. Jeff Reece, lifestyle editor of The Florida Times-Union , wrote, "Comics are sort of the ' third rail ' of the newspaper." In the early decades of the 20th century, all Sunday comics received

7632-402: The fifties and sixties led to Sunday strips being published on smaller and more diverse formats. As newspapers have reduced the page count of Sunday comic sections since the late 1990s (by the 2010s, most sections have only four pages, with the back page not always being destined for comics) has also led to further downsizes. Daily strips have suffered as well. Before the mid-1910s, there was not

7738-502: The film establishes that the Modesty Blaise comic strip exists within the fictional universe of the film and is based upon the exploits of Vitti's character, who is seen dressing up as the illustrated version of herself. The film was unsuccessful. In 1982, a one-hour pilot was made for a proposed Modesty Blaise television series, starring Ann Turkel as Modesty Blaise and Lewis Van Bergen as Willie Garvin. The film aired on

7844-400: The first comic-strip copyright ownership suits in the history of the medium. When Dirks left William Randolph Hearst for the promise of a better salary under Joseph Pulitzer , it was an unusual move, since cartoonists regularly deserted Pulitzer for Hearst. In a highly unusual court decision, Hearst retained the rights to the name "Katzenjammer Kids", while creator Dirks retained the rights to

7950-449: The first draft of the screenplay for the film, but the script was heavily revised by others before shooting began, and the finished film bore very little resemblance to O'Donnell's vision in tone, theme, or characterisation. For example, a romance is established between Willie and Modesty, even though the comic strip firmly established only a platonic relationship between them. The film also incorporated several musical numbers. One sequence of

8056-411: The former of which, as noted above, also published The Dark Angels for the first (and, to date, only) time in English. Comics Revue is continuing to reprint Modesty Blaise strips as of 2015, although a planned reprint of The Dark Angels in autumn 2014 was cancelled just before publication when the copyright holders withdrew permission. The American magazine Comics Revue also continues to reprint

8162-571: The history of London. The Reuben , named for cartoonist Rube Goldberg , is the most prestigious award for U.S. comic strip artists. Reuben awards are presented annually by the National Cartoonists Society (NCS). In 1995, the United States Postal Service issued a series of commemorative stamps, Comic Strip Classics , marking the comic-strip centennial. Today's strip artists, with the help of

8268-540: The idle rich, they accept a request for assistance from Sir Gerald Tarrant, a high-ranking official of the British Secret Service. This is where the story really begins, although it is treated differently in the first comic strip and the first book. Modesty's fortune is estimated at £500,000 as of 1963 (over £8.84 million in 2020). She lives in a penthouse in London overlooking Hyde Park , and also owns

8374-422: The initial popularity of the comic strip British Lion Films announced a Modesty Blaise film to be written by Sidney Gilliat that was never made. A film titled Modesty Blaise , loosely based on the comic strip, was filmed in 1966 as a comedy thriller. It was directed by Joseph Losey and starred Monica Vitti as Modesty, Terence Stamp as Willie Garvin, and Dirk Bogarde as Gabriel. Peter O'Donnell wrote

8480-523: The late 1920s, comic strips expanded from their mirthful origins to feature adventure stories , as seen in Popeye , Captain Easy , Buck Rogers , Tarzan , and Terry and the Pirates . In the 1940s, soap-opera -continuity strips such as Judge Parker and Mary Worth gained popularity. Because "comic" strips are not always funny, cartoonist Will Eisner has suggested that sequential art would be

8586-401: The late 1960s, it became a mouthpiece for Capp's repudiation of the counterculture. Pogo used animals to particularly devastating effect, caricaturing many prominent politicians of the day as animal denizens of Pogo's Okeefenokee Swamp. In a fearless move, Pogo's creator Walt Kelly took on Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s, caricaturing him as a bobcat named Simple J. Malarkey, a megalomaniac who

8692-403: The late 19th century. The Yellow Kid is usually credited as one of the first newspaper strips . However, the art form combining words and pictures developed gradually and there are many examples which led up to the comic strip. The Glasgow Looking Glass was the first mass-produced publication to tell stories using illustrations and is regarded as the world's first comic strip. It satirised

8798-494: The level of the perceived threat. In Willie and Modesty's fights, great emphasis is placed on unarmed combat and unusual weapons. Modesty's weapon of choice is a kongo or yawara stick (which she often disguises either tied up in her hair or as a detachable clasp on her handbag), and as for firearms she begins by preferring the Colt .32 revolver and Mab Brevete .32 ACP auto pistol, although in later books, she switches to carrying

8904-487: The magazine continues to run a Modesty Blaise story every month, from the archives. When the daily strip was discontinued, artist Romero was given permission by O'Donnell to do a final Modesty Blaise story directly for Agent X9 magazine. The two-parter was published in 2002 and based on an unused script by O'Donnell entitled The Dark Angels , which O'Donnell had previously adapted for the short story collection Cobra Trap . Romero also contributed original painted covers for

9010-576: The medium, certain images from the stories were edited to make them suitable for child readers. One of the earliest reprints in book form occurred in 1978 when Star Books—an imprint of WH Allen Limited—published two paperback-sized compilations of the Holdaway-era stories: 1) "In the Beginning", "The Black Pearl", and "The Vikings", and 2) "La Machine" and "The Long Lever". These reprints suffered from poor reproduction that rendered many panels illegible. Between 1981 and 1986, Ken Pierce Books Inc. of

9116-505: The members with his drawings and the force of his personality. The comic strip was safe for satire. During the early 20th century, comic strips were widely associated with publisher William Randolph Hearst , whose papers had the largest circulation of strips in the United States. Hearst was notorious for his practice of yellow journalism , and he was frowned on by readers of The New York Times and other newspapers which featured few or no comic strips. Hearst's critics often assumed that all

9222-622: The modern English language comic strip can be traced to the efflorescence of caricature in late 18th century London. English caricaturists such as Richard Newton and George Woodward developed sophisticated caricature styles using strips of expressive comic figures with captions that could be read left to right to cumulative effect, as well as business models for advertising and selling cheap comic illustration on regular subscription. Other leading British caricaturists produced strips as well; for example James Gillray in Democracy;-or-a Sketch of

9328-399: The movie, fared considerably better than the film. During the following decades he would write a total of eleven Modesty Blaise novels and two collections of short stories. Several of the short stories either adapt comic strip stories, or would later be adapted into comic strip stories themselves. Characters cross over between the two media. Except for Pieces of Modesty , initially published as

9434-462: The nation's first full daily comic page in his New York Evening Journal . The history of this newspaper rivalry and the rapid appearance of comic strips in most major American newspapers is discussed by Ian Gordon . Numerous events in newspaper comic strips have reverberated throughout society at large, though few of these events occurred in recent years, owing mainly to the declining use of continuous storylines on newspaper comic strips, which since

9540-401: The occasional nude scenes, which were much less acceptable in the US than elsewhere, resulting in a censored version of the strip being circulated. (Modesty occasionally used a tactic that she called the "Nailer," in which she appeared topless, distracting the bad guys long enough to give Willie or herself a chance to incapacitate them.) An example of this censorship appears in the introduction to

9646-632: The picturesque ran to 9 editions between 1812 and 1819, spun off two sequels, a prequel, numerous pirate imitations and copies including French, German, Danish and translations. His image was available on pottery, textiles wallpaper and other merchandise. The Caricature Magazine or Hudibrastic Mirror , an influential English comic series published in London between 1807 and 1819 by Thomas Tegg included some satirical stories in comic strip format such as The Adventures of Johnny Newcome . The first newspaper comic strips appeared in North America in

9752-567: The political and social life of Scotland in the 1820s. It was conceived and illustrated by William Heath. Swiss author and caricature artist Rodolphe Töpffer (Geneva, 1799–1846) is considered the father of the modern comic strips. His illustrated stories such as Histoire de Mr. Vieux Bois (1827), first published in the US in 1842 as The Adventures of Obadiah Oldbuck or Histoire de Monsieur Jabot (1831), inspired subsequent generations of German and American comic artists. In 1865, German painter, author, and caricaturist Wilhelm Busch created

9858-439: The reproduction of strips (which they arranged to have colored in the case of Sunday strips). Michigan State University Comic Art Collection librarian Randy Scott describes these as "large sheets of paper on which newspaper comics have traditionally been distributed to subscribing newspapers. Typically each sheet will have either six daily strips of a given title or one Sunday strip. Thus, a week of Beetle Bailey would arrive at

9964-588: The rights to the short story collection Pieces of Modesty and issued their reprint of that book in March 2010, with a new cover design based on the original hardback cover from the first Modesty novel, at which point all the Blaise books fell under the same UK publisher for the first time. In 2008, Penguin Books of India reprinted the full series. The 2012 Charles Stross book The Apocalypse Codex is, according to

10070-413: The second panel revealing the truth of the situation. Sunday newspapers traditionally included a special color section. Early Sunday strips (known colloquially as "the funny papers", shortened to "the funnies"), such as Thimble Theatre and Little Orphan Annie , filled an entire newspaper page, a format known to collectors as full page . Sunday pages during the 1930s and into the 1940s often carried

10176-504: The sports page because of its subject matter. Lynn Johnston 's For Better or For Worse created an uproar when Lawrence, one of the strip's supporting characters, came out of the closet. The world's longest comic strip is 88.9-metre (292 ft) long and on display at Trafalgar Square as part of the London Comedy Festival. The London Cartoon Strip was created by 15 of Britain's best known cartoonists and depicts

10282-468: The strip Max and Moritz , about two trouble-making boys, which had a direct influence on the American comic strip. Max and Moritz was a series of seven severely moralistic tales in the vein of German children's stories such as Struwwelpeter ("Shockheaded Peter"). In the story's final act, the boys, after perpetrating some mischief, are tossed into a sack of grain, run through a mill, and consumed by

10388-432: The strip story La Machine (1963) and the book story Modesty Blaise (1965) have similarities, and in both Tarrant achieves his aim by putting her under an obligation, in the strip story this relates to the validity of her marriage (and therefore her right to British nationality and residence) while in the book he provides her with information that enables her to rescue Willie Garvin and save his life. The name of her husband

10494-501: The strip, and remains to date the only publisher to have released an English-language version of The Dark Angels . Between 1984 and 1990, Titan Books of England published eight volumes of reprints of strips featuring art by Holdaway and Romero, covering the period 1963 to 1974. All of the covers were drawn by John M. Burns. Beginning in March 2004, Titan launched a new series of reprint volumes. These new versions use larger images and reportedly come from better source material than

10600-451: The strips in his papers were fronts for his own political and social views. Hearst did occasionally work with or pitch ideas to cartoonists, most notably his continued support of George Herriman 's Krazy Kat . An inspiration for Bill Watterson and other cartoonists, Krazy Kat gained a considerable following among intellectuals during the 1920s and 1930s. Some comic strips, such as Doonesbury and Mallard Fillmore , may be printed on

10706-505: The way for some of these strips, as its human characters were manifest in diverse forms—as animals, vegetables, and minerals. The comics have long held a distorted mirror to contemporary society, and almost from the beginning have been used for political or social commentary. This ranged from the conservative slant of Harold Gray's Little Orphan Annie to the unabashed liberalism of Garry Trudeau's Doonesbury . Al Capp's Li'l Abner espoused liberal opinions for most of its run, but by

10812-525: Was bent on taking over the characters' birdwatching club and rooting out all undesirables. Kelly also defended the medium against possible government regulation in the McCarthy era . At a time when comic books were coming under fire for supposed sexual, violent, and subversive content, Kelly feared the same would happen to comic strips. Going before the Congressional subcommittee, he proceeded to charm

10918-517: Was originally broadcast from 16 to 20 June 2014, featuring Neil Maskell as Willie and Alun Armstrong as Tarrant, with Ewan Bailey (Gabriel), Alex Fearns (McWhirter), Matthew Gravelle , John Hollingworth and Hannah Pakeman. Comic strip Most strips are written and drawn by a comics artist, known as a cartoonist . As the word "comic" implies, strips are frequently humorous. Examples of these gag-a-day strips are Blondie , Bringing Up Father , Marmaduke , and Pearls Before Swine . In

11024-506: Was released under the " Quentin Tarantino Presents..." banner. The film was directed by Scott Spiegel and starred English actress Alexandra Staden as Modesty Blaise (to date the only British actress to play the role on screen). Although promoted as the first of a series, no others were made. One immediately noticeable difference between the film and the source material is that it is a prequel to Modesty's established backstory as

11130-722: Was the Prince Valiant strip for 11 April 1971. Comic strips have also been published in Sunday newspaper magazines. Russell Patterson and Carolyn Wells' New Adventures of Flossy Frills was a continuing strip series seen on Sunday magazine covers. Beginning January 26, 1941, it ran on the front covers of Hearst's American Weekly newspaper magazine supplement, continuing until March 30 of that year. Between 1939 and 1943, four different stories featuring Flossy appeared on American Weekly covers. Sunday comics sections employed offset color printing with multiple print runs imitating

11236-561: Was unusual, as there were no central characters. Instead The Far Side used a wide variety of characters including humans, monsters, aliens , chickens, cows, worms , amoebas , and more. John McPherson's Close to Home also uses this theme, though the characters are mostly restricted to humans and real-life situations. Wiley Miller not only mixes human, animal, and fantasy characters, but also does several different comic strip continuities under one umbrella title, Non Sequitur . Bob Thaves 's Frank & Ernest began in 1972 and paved

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