Holdaway, Jim

Jim Holdaway (1927 - 1970) was not only the first comic trip artist to draw Modesty Blaise. He was also by far the greatest. Nothing compares to his work on the strip. His run on Modesty Blaise is probably nothing less than the world's best comic strip ever. Born in Barnes, London, Jim Holdaway became a freelance illustrator in 1950. He worked on all types of artwork, adverts, cartoons, book illustrations and covers. His first full-length stories were for Gallant Detective in 1952, and then went on to strips for Comic Cuts, and Swift. His first newspaper strip was Romeo Brown in the Daily Mirror. Sadly none of the original art for this strip has survived. This association with Peter O'Donnell led to the creation of Modesty Blaise, which he drew from 1963 until his untimely death in 1970. All the circa 2100 Modesty Blaise strips by Jim Holdaway has survived. Sadly, recently his personal archives, containing loads of unpublished material, were lost after the death of his widow. A cleaning company emptied her apartment and disposed of his archives. A goldmine of art was lost forever - and the speciality art you see in this gallery is probably the majority of non-strip art which has survived by this great british artist.