Jim Holdaway (1927–1970) was a British illustrator, who contributed art for numerous

comic strip A comic strip is a sequence of drawings, often cartoons, arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions. Traditionally, throughout the 20th and into the 21st ...

s. His best known work was on the ''

Modesty Blaise ''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 talent ...

'' comics written by

Peter O'Donnell Peter O'Donnell (11 April 1920 – 3 May 2010) was an English writer of mysteries and of comic strips, best known as the creator of ''Modesty Blaise'', an action heroine/undercover trouble-shooter. He was also an award-winning gothic hi ...

Art career

Jim Holdaway was born in 1927 in Barnes Common, London. On completing schooling in New Malden, Surrey, Holdaway attended the

Kingston School of Art The Kingston School of Art (KSA) is an art school in Kingston upon Thames, part of Kingston University London. It was first established in 1899 as the Kingston School of Science and Art. In 1930 it was established as a separate school and has be ...

. After spending two years of

National Service National service is the system of voluntary government service, usually military service. Conscription is mandatory national service. The term ''national service'' comes from the United Kingdom's National Service (Armed Forces) Act 1939. The l ...

from 1945 with the East Surrey Regiment, Holdaway went to Italy, Austria and Greece before returning to art school on an ex-Serviceman's grant. Jim Holdaway eventually left to work in France where he secured numerous advertising opportunities. Returning to England soon to take care of his widowed mother, Holdaway went to work for Scion Books in Kensington, doing a variety of artwork, book jackets, comic books and advertising. He then became freelance, working from home. He was drawing for Odhams and Farringdon Press doing 64-page comics including: Captain Vigour, The Football Comic, Steve Samson, Dick Hercules,

Reveille "Reveille" ( , ), called in French "Le Réveil" is a bugle call, trumpet call, drum, fife-and-drum or pipes call most often associated with the military; it is chiefly used to wake military personnel at sunrise. The name comes from (or ), th ...

Tit-Bits ''Tit-Bits from all the interesting Books and Newspapers of the World'', more commonly known as ''Tit-Bits'', was a British weekly magazine founded by George Newnes, a founding figure in popular journalism, on 22 October 1881. History In 1886 ...

Comic Cuts ''Comic Cuts'' was a British comic magazine. It was published from 1890 to 1953, lasting for 3006 issues. It was created by the reporter Alfred Harmsworth through his company Amalgamated Press (AP). In its early days, it inspired other publishe ...

, Junior Express (''The Red Rider'' and ''Joanna of Bitter Creek'', 1955), Mickey's Weekly (''Davy Crockett'', 1956), and ''

Swift Swift or SWIFT most commonly refers to: * SWIFT, an international organization facilitating transactions between banks ** SWIFT code * Swift (programming language) * Swift (bird), a family of birds It may also refer to: Organizations * SWIFT, ...

'' ("The Red Rider", 1956). In 1957, Holdaway replaced the artist

Alfred Mazure Alfred Leonardus Mazure (8 September 1914 – 16 February 1974) was a Dutch comics artist, novelist and film director, best known for his detective comic '' Dick Bos'', which was one of the most popular comics series in the Netherlands during the 1 ...

on the strip ''

Romeo Brown ''Romeo Brown'' was a British comic strip published in the ''Daily Mirror'' from 1954 to 1962. It was originally written and illustrated by Alfred Mazure; Mazure was replaced in 1957 by writer Peter O'Donnell and illustrator Jim Holdaway. It feat ...

'', leading to the key association of his career with writer Peter O'Donnell. The two were a perfect match and in 1963 Holdaway started drawing for O'Donnell's ''Modesty Blaise'' comics strips. Jim Holdaway died in 1970 from a heart attack midway through illustrating the ''Modesty Blaise'' story "The Warlords of Phoenix", leaving a wife, Audrey and a daughter, Joanna. O'Donnell enlisted

Enrique Badia Romero Enrique () is the Spanish variant of the given name Heinrich of Germanic origin. Equivalents in other languages are Henry (English), Enric (Catalan), Enrico (Italian), Henrik (Swedish, Danish, and Norwegian), Heinrich (German), Hendrik, Henk ...

to complete the strip and Romero succeeded Holdaway as the strip's full-time artist. Years later, a painting of Modesty Blaise by Holdaway was used as the cover art for O'Donnell's final Modesty Blaise literary collection, ''

Cobra Trap ''Cobra Trap'' is the title of a short story collection by Peter O'Donnell featuring his action/adventure heroine Modesty Blaise. The book was published in 1996, and is the thirteenth, and final book in the ''Modesty Blaise'' series which began i ...

''.O'Donnell, Peter. ''Cobra Trap'' (Souvenir Press, 1996) Holdaway's work on the ''Modesty Blaise'' strip has been reprinted on many occasions, most recently between 2003 and 2005 in reprint volumes published by

Titan Books Titan Publishing Group is the publishing division of Titan Entertainment Group, which was established in 1981. The books division has two main areas of publishing: film and television tie-ins and cinema reference books; and graphic novels and co ...

References

Jim Holdaway page
sayyide.de

External links

on Lambiek Comiclopedia

at Illustration Art Gallery 1927 births 1970 deaths British comics artists {{UK-comics-creator-stub