[PREV - WOMAN_HUNT] [TOP]
BLAZING
August 9, 2003
Rev: August 15, 2004
Rev: August 13, 2006
As is typical with me, I want
to lavish attention on the
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
in the early days with the superb to draw extreme detail,
artwork by Jim Holdaway. *combined* with a sense of
composition which is the
Few action serial comic point his later imitators
strips are produced these missed: they inflicted
days, and none of them get many a messy blur of busy,
any where near the level of irrelevant lines.
the 1960s Modesty
Blaise... arguably It also doesn't hurt that
none ever did, not even Holdaway could do human
in the hey day of such Except for expressions and likenesses.
things (Steve Roper, Corto Maltese
Mike Canyon, Flash of course. The later artists had
Gordon, The Phantom). odd problems with this:
characters' faces changed
shape in weird ways.
As is often the case They go cross-eyed when
in the world of pulp looking serious; their
fiction, the cheeks puff far out when
creativity involved laughing... and perhaps
here is strictly worse, Modesty Blaise
iterative: it is not I originally is often drawn doing
at all hard to see thought that contorted cheesecake
Modesty Blaise and Peter O'Donnell fashion model poses
her side kick Willie wasn't quite for no apparent reason.
Garvin as relatives honest in his
of Emma Peel and John denials of
Steed. Modesty's roots
in the Avengers.
There are two
main differences (In today's legal
between Modesty climate you can't
Blaise and the go around admitting
Avengers: what you were But: Modesty Blaise
really thinking began in 1963! In the
(1) John Steed was an about.) middle of the *first
elegant gentleman, but season* of the Avengers.
Willie Garvin is a The angry blond Honor
roughneck cockney. This Blackman was the hit,
might be an intentional not the dark haired
application of the rule exotic Diana Rigg.
of reversals, RULE_OF_REVERSALS
It's entirely possible
(2) O'Donnell managed to that the influence went
contrive a history for his both ways: the look of
characters that makes them Modesty Blaise suggested
seem plausible. Emma casting Diana Rigg.
Peels and Modesty Blaises
are clearly exceptional THE_VENUS_SMITH
characters, and you can't
expect them to spring from A point ignored in
nowhere. the Remington Steele
style of fantasy.
His team of super-spies
are retired criminals, I sometimes think of
essentially gangsters it as "Stephanie Zimbalist
who ran a legendary Syndrome": a standard actress
organization called The pressed into service as an
Network. adventure hero, even though
(or maybe because) she's
Both characters are completely unconvincing in
low born: they were the role.
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 What amazing
concentration camp extraordinary it is. people. Damn
in Greece. She they must be good.
joins forces with a (2) The back story
destitute old man is only sketched
who begins tutoring in, it is told only
her. in retrospect.
Everyone presses
for more detail,
but our heroes are
too modest to
indulge them.
The source of this image
in O'Donnell's mind is
interesting: while in the
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 little 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.
--------
[NEXT - THE_VENUS_SMITH]