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BLAZING
August 9, 2003
As is typical with me, I want Rev: August 15, 2004
to lavish attention on the Rev: August 13, 2006
negative, but let's lead off
with the positive:
The Modesty Blaise comic strip:
a British strip written by Peter Note: the strip
O'Donnell from the 1960s on began in May of 1963.
through the 90s.
This is one of the world's great
comic strips, particularly back Holdaway had a willingness to draw
in the early days with the superb extreme detail, *combined* with a
artwork by Jim Holdaway. sense of composition-- an ability his
later imitators lacked: they
Few action serial comic inflicted many a messy blur of busy,
strips are produced these irrelevant lines.
days, and none of them get
any where near the level It also didn't hurt that
of the 1960s Modesty Holdaway could do human
Blaise... arguably none expressions and likenesses.
ever did, not even at
their peak: Steve Roper, The later artists had
Mike Canyon, Flash Gordon, Except for odd problems with this:
The Phantom... Corto Maltese characters' faces changed
of course. shape in weird ways.
They go cross-eyed when
THE_CASE_OF_CORTO_MALTESE looking serious; their
cheeks puff far out when
As is often the case laughing... and perhaps
in the world of pulp worse, Modesty Blaise
fiction, the is often drawn doing
creativity involved contorted cheesecake
here is strictly I originally fashion model poses
iterative: it is not thought that for no apparent reason.
at all hard to see Peter O'Donnell
Modesty Blaise and wasn't quite
her side kick Willie honest in his
Garvin as relatives denials of
of Emma Peel and John Modesty's roots
Steed. in the Avengers.
There are two (In today's legal
main differences climate you can't
between Modesty go around admitting
Blaise and the what you were But: Modesty Blaise began
Avengers: really thinking in 1963, back when The
about.) angry blond Honor Blackman
(1) John Steed was an was the hit, not the dark
elegant gentleman, but haired, exotic Diana Rigg.
Willie Garvin is a
roughneck cockney. This It's entirely possible
might be an intentional that the influence went
application of the rule But maybe going both ways: the look of
of reversals... the other way: Modesty Blaise suggested
Steed's Bowler Hat casting Diana Rigg.
caricature was
still evolving. THE_VENUS_SMITH
RULE_OF_REVERSALS
(2) O'Donnell managed to
contrive a history for his
characters that makes them
seem plausible. Emma
Peels and Modesty Blaises
are clearly exceptional
characters, and you can't
expect them to spring from A point ignored in
nowhere. the Remington Steele
style of fantasy.
His pair of super-spies
are retired criminals, I sometimes think of it as "Stephanie
essentially gangsters Zimbalist Syndrome": a standard actress
who ran a legendary pressed into service as an adventure hero,
organization called The even though (or maybe because) she's
Network. completely unconvincing in the role.
Both characters are
low born: they were
both poor children
struggling to survive
on their own, who
somehow managed to
acquire informal
educations and a And looking at that summary,
sense of ethics, it seems pretty unlikely,
along with detailed doesn't it?
knowledge of the
underworld and some O'Donnell puts this
pretty extreme combat over using two simple
skills. tricks:
The Modesty Blaise (1) He doesn't hide
story begins with the fact that it's
her as a child, unlikely, and
wandering the Middle constantly has
East on her own secondary characters
after escaping a comment on how
concentration camp extraordinary it is. What amazing people.
in Greece. She Damn they must be good.
joins forces with a (2) The back story is
destitute old man only sketched in, it
who begins tutoring is told only in
her. retrospect. Everyone
presses for more
The source of this image detail, but our
in O'Donnell's mind is heroes are too modest
interesting: while in the to indulge them.
military, O'Donnell was
stationed in the middle
east, and he gave some
food to a near feral
little girl.
Modesty Blaise, then, is a
happy ending he imagined
for that girl.
And actually, I guess we can add a third thing
to O'Donnell's innovations. "The Avengers" was
unusual in that the female lead was effectively
an equal of the male, but if you pay attention,
it's clear that she's the junior member of the
team.
With Blaise and Garvin, it's clear
that Blaise is the boss: Garvin is This is not bad going
capable, but prefers to defer to for mid-sixties fiction
her judgment. by an otherwise relatively
conservative author.
No one I've shown these comic strips
to hasn't liked them quite a bit: One of O'Donnell's
every woman I've shown them to has advantages here is his
been completely enthralled. Brit background:
Periodically someone will bring out Garvin is a courtier
collections of them in book form, but to his "princess";
they never seem to be terribly he's a faithful,
successful. loyal servant.
Every thirteen year old Servants that
girl in America should have love their masters:
a hardcover collection of a staple of British
the early Modesty Blaise fiction.
strips sitting under the (The ones
Xmas Tree. who don't
celebrate Xmas (Modesty in
The fact that should get a fact has an
they don't is tree anyway immensely
a testament to just for the loyal "houseboy"
the marketing occasion.) named Weng,
incompetence who steadfastly
of the comics refuses to
industry. follow her
suggestions to
continue his
education and
make something
There, now that we've got that annoying of himself.)
"positive" stuff out of the way, let us
discuss the badness that is O'Donnell's
Modesty Blaise prose fiction...
The Modesty Blaise novels are readable
(certainly I've read them multiple times)
but problems abound.
The plots are THE_ILIAD_AND_THE_PROTESTANT
continually tricked
out with coincidence:
In the first Modesty Blaise novel (1965),
all the characters, no matter who, all
seem to know each other before the story
begins. Sometimes this is comprehensible,
but often it's mere coincidence.
There's a joke that O'Donnell uses
twice: Tarrant (of Brit intelligence)
tries to introduce Modesty to someone,
but Modesty already knows him.
The first time it's the eccentric
Arab sheik from Mallarduck (or
whatever). While it's pushing
it, this is at least a somewhat
funny bit.
The second time, it's Tarrant's
agent in France, who turns out to O'Donnell's head
be an old flame of hers. totally runs in a
groove: Once he's
And this novel is not even one had an idea, he has
of the more extreme ones. The it again and again...
later novels were even worse
blends of absurdities.
In one of them O'Donnell tries to
cover it by having Willie Garvin
babble about how coincidences are
never really coincidences but the CHANCES_ARE
result of "the flux" (i.e. It
Must Be Fate).
O'Donnell is evidently fascinated
by "psychic phenomena", and as the
series progresses an increasing
number of unlikely magic powers The author of series fiction
are accumulated by the various must make certain choices.
characters. Willie has "spider
sense": his ears prickle when (1) Do the characters age
trouble is near. Modesty has near in real time, or do they
absolute location: she almost remain impossibly fixed in
always knows where she is, even if time?
brought there unconscious.
Secondary characters show up who (2) Do the fantastic premises
are experts in dowsing, or who of each story accumulate, or
have limited precognition... are they abandoned at the close
of the story that features them?
O'Donnell makes the same choices
that are made in super-hero
comics: Modesty is perpetually
in her late-20s, in a 1967 that
never seems to end... and every
weird character introduced in
the series accumulates, so that
the later novels start to look "Last Day in
like the X-Men... Limbo"
O'Donnell can not do character change.
His main characters are static, hence
he has to fill the story with pages VILLAINY
and pages of the villains twisting
their mustaches. They're typically
vile sadists with some sort of sexual A prime example of
kinks that O'Donnell revels in as he attraction-repulsion
reviles them. syndrome.
A repeated request from fans A common device:
of these books was to see more white-washing the
of Modesty Blaise and Willie in salacious material
the old days when they were still by attaching it to
running a gangster network. villains that are
slated to come to
O'Donnell essentially refused: bad ends.
he continued to write tales to
a fixed formula, but just to keep One of the driving
everyone happy, he started beginning forces of pulp fiction
the novels with flashbacks to the is cowardice about
old days. facing your own demons.
In one, the tale of Willie's VILLAINOUS_MASK
character transformation at
Modesty's hands is told, and
it's a complete Dickensian
flip. The switch is thrown,
and Old Willie becomes New Willie.
No wonder O'Donnell had to stick
to his formula: he knew his limitations.
You might ask the same
question about O'Donnell
that I've wondered about
Conan Doyle: how did these
weak, formulaic writers
succeed in coming up with
these great characters?
The formula:
Blaise & Garvin have retired, but
periodically they get involved
with a "caper" (Because they're
"trouble prone". Alternately: Early on they
they're generous, they like to were doing it
rescue friends, some of whom are for fun:
highly placed in British and they're danger RISK
French intelligence and have nasty addicts.
enemies.).
This was
At some point during the "caper", evidently
Blaise & Garvin will make some too weird,
god-awful stupid mistake, and get and O'Donnell
captured by the bad guys. dropped it.
Alternately: they get captured on
purpose to get the bad guys to Only the
show their hand. villains
are allowed
The bad guys have a secret base, where to be
they will force Blaise & Garvin to twisted.
engage in some form of ritual arena
combat with some invincible bad guy,
who they will then vince.
They break out their escape artist
act, and break out.
The bad guys all get killed,
sometimes by Blaise & Garvin.
But our heroes almost never kill Often the villains
anyone "in cold blood" -- in kill each other after
extreme cases they challenge a falling out
people to duels, wild west style, instigated -- however
so as to have an excuse to kill indirectly -- by
them. Blaise & Garvin.
There are a few examples of
straight assassination, however.
TASTE_FOR_DEATH
When the crisis is over, if
Mr. Big is too big for the law
to touch him, they're quite
willing to just do a hit.
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