Modesty Blaise: The Gabriel Set-Up: Gabriel Set-up Bk. 1 [Paperback]

She is recruited as a freelance collaborator with the British secret service only through a combination of her ennui, her sense of justice, and a bit of very subtle almost-blackmail. Once sucked into the murky waters of spies and international intrigue Modesty and her trusty sidekick Willie Garvin can’t row back. A new and fabulously entertaining career (for the reader) is underway. Not so entertaining for our intrepid pair. Modesty & Willie use their (amazing) brains as much as their (impossibly honed) fighting skills to survive a series of brutal, excitingly life-threatening “capers” that have kept fans like me on the edge of our seats for decades

Possibly coincidentally, Quentin Tarantino's production company has just released director Scott Spiegel's 2003 Blaise movie, My Name Is Modesty. It’s available (with English-language version) on a French Region 2 DVD only. (Worth tracking down at Amazon France if you're feeling brave. I got one easily enough, using my usual password etc.)

Hot on the film's heels comes this expanded edition of the Titan book which launched their successful run of Blaise comic strip reprints in 1985. The daily newspaper comic was Modesty's original home, from 1963, preceding the novels which started in 1965. The first novel was creator Peter O'Donnell's adaptation of his script for Joseph Losey's disastrous movie version. The film as released (1966) went through numerous re-writes, and its only good point was that the line of books may never have happened without it. Spiegel's modest flick is far more respectful of its source material.

In this excellent Titan volume you will find much of that material, though the new film tells only Modesty's origin story, up to the crisis point which launches her career as a criminal millionaire. The movie’s storyline takes place before Modesty meets Willie Garvin. An odd choice, but it may be a deliberately low-budget opening gambit in a longer game. Tarantino has spoken of his desire to film Modesty ever since a copy of the first book was prominently seen in his mega-hit, Pulp Fiction.

The Gabriel Set-Up contains the first three comic strip stories, Garvin well to the fore alongside Modesty, plus a brief flash-back origin strip. The origin story, intended for use in papers which picked up the strip later in its run, was never seen in an English paper.

All Modesty’s stories in comics or prose have been written by Peter O’Donnell, and until his early death in 1970, all the comic strips were drawn by the brilliant Jim Holdaway. Despite resembling the work of Alex Raymond (who drew Flash Gordon and Rip Kirby before his own untimely death in 1956), Holdaway’s art is almost in a class of its own. If he was unequalled on the Blaise strip by those who came after him, it should be little surprise, as he is virtually unequalled anywhere, any time in the daily comics field. Though he sometimes verges on the photo-realist, Holdaway is too full of the joys of the sketched line, and too concerned with the vibrant use of black areas, “spotted in” for dramatic effect, to be a slave to the photographic approach. Here his art is presented about as well as it ever has been, and better than it often has, though digital reproduction (I suspect) has given the line-work just a tad less clarity than it had in the 1985 edition.

As for O’Donnell’s stories — this man is master spinner of yarns. His plots are exciting and, no matter how far-fetched, he (nearly) always convinces you they are credible for the duration of the reading. His characters and scripts have far more emotional resonance than you might expect from a comic strip. In particular, the relationship between Willie and Modesty, famously not a sexual one (more like a legendary knight and his queen, but don’t think Lancelot) is really well delineated. Though it may take the novels to bring out the subtler complexities, the strips are a very satisfying way to make the acquaintance of O’Donnell’s heroes, villains and supporting cast. Because you care about his characters, when O’Donnell puts them in peril there is real tension. There is also emotional engagement with their making of tough decisions, and especially with their rage against the injustices perpetrated by the truly nasty villains who populate their tales.

The end result, though Holdaway’s art style makes for a cool surface look, is a series of pretty hot stories, with a warm touch of personal involvement that I have rarely found in other action strips. Though radically different in approach, I would cite the work of Alan Moore as one of the few areas of the comics field where this quality of writing, and team-work with an artist, might be found.

In this new edition, very nicely designed by A. N. Onymous, you also get a revealing essay by Peter O’Donnell about the real-life inspiration behind Modesty, well illustrated, plus brief introductions by him to each of the three main stories. An overview piece and a “complete” checklist of strips (frustratingly only up to 1986; the strip ran until 2001) round out this package. It is fantastic value for money and should be on the bookshelf of everyone who ever fell in love with Modesty Blaise, Willie Garvin, or the comic strip medium itself. Or anyone else who just likes a rattling good yarn.