February 20, 2015

Modesty Anniversaries

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This year is the 50th anniversary of the first Modesty Blaise novel! 

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Published in 1965, the first in the series of Modesty novels and short story collections was a novelisation of a screenplay that Peter O'Donnell wrote based upon the character, and the novel ended up being published a year before the film was released. The filmed version of the screenplay bore little resemblance to O'Donnell's original; the one happy outcome of the 1966 Joseph Losey-directed (travesty of a) film was that it was the seed that germinated the novels! Previously ignored by those who did not read comics, Modesty became accessible to a wider audience.

There are some additional anniversaries this year, too:
April marks 11 years since Titan Books started their latest reprint series, with no signs of stopping. And January 2015 was the 30th anniversary of the start of Titan's first set of reprint volumes.
Next year will mark the 35th anniversary of the start of the Ken Pierce First American Series reprints.
Anniversaries galore!

 


Thanks to AF-H for the reminder!

2 comments:

Unknown said...

50 Years? That is amazing. This will be a great year to re-read all of the novels again, in order.

Tony Walker - an Englishman in Arizona said...

Now it's the time for all Modesty Blaise fans to start agitating for the publisher of the books to produce them in ebook format.

One way is to go to amazon and find 'Modesty Blaise books'. Pick the titles and hit the "I'd like to see this in kindle" button. If enough of us do this, perhaps Souvenir Press, who I think are the current copyright holders, will allow us to read the books on our Kindle, Kobo, or iPad.

Start pressing that button!