AgentX9 Modesty Blaise Covers

Artist Loopy Dave, who this year created a new 'Bad Suki' cover for Swedish comic Agent X9, has created another Modesty Blaise cover  - The War Lords of Phoenix.

So far, his Bad Suki cover is the favourite of this year's (as voted on in their online poll); head to the Agent X9 blog to vote for your favourite!

Agent X9 magazine has undertaken a massive project to source as many Holdaway original frames as possible for their latest reprint run. From the magazine's producers:

"We've had some problems getting all available originals scanned in time to include them in the later Holdaway episodes, but I believe, without doing the math properly, that we've managed to scan ca 50% of Holdaway's ca 2000 dailies and in the early episodes, all of these were used. The reason for this is simply that a large portion of the original artwork is still in the hands of only three collectors, who have all helped us with material. The Vikings in particular, a classic example of [poor] reproduction, has never looked better. In some stories we have more than half of the strips in new scanned and high quality files; in most episodes it's about 1/3."

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"We've also retranslated Holdaway's entire run for this reprint to match the original dialogue as closely as possible. Willie's cockney is of course essentially untranslatable, but we at least tried to bring out his apparent roughness (to those who don't know him) in the way he speaks."

A fitting tribute to Peter O'Donnell that the Modesty Blaise strip reproductions keep getting better and better!
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More Modesty Merchandise

More cool Modesty swag from Scandinavia... this time, a laptop case.

As well, a pair of Modesty earrings found on Ebay:

I find it a bit strange that all the Modesty merchandise I've ever seen is based on Romero artwork, and none on Holdaway's... clearly there is a sub-niche market waiting to be filled!
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Spy Film Exhibit

KISS KISS KILL KILL: THE GRAPHIC ART AND FORGOTTEN SPY FILMS OF COLD WAR EUROPE
10 SEPTEMBER – 16 OCTOBER 2010
Art and Design Gallery, Hatfield, U.K.
A major exhibition of spy film posters from Belgium, Czechoslovakia, France, Italy, Poland, Romania, Spain, the U.S.S.R, West Germany and the UK.

"From September 10 – October 16, 2010, the University of Hertfordshire Galleries (UH Galleries) and the Hertfordshire Film Consortium are delighted to present Kiss Kiss Kill Kill, an exhibition, symposium and a series of film screenings celebrating the unique graphic art and forgotten spy films of Cold War Europe.

Centred on the kitsch designs produced across Europe during the Cold War, Kiss Kiss Kill Kill is the first exhibition of a collection of newly restored posters from Belgium, Czechoslovakia, France, Italy, Poland, Romania, Spain, the U.S.S.R, West Germany and the UK. The different graphic styles in the East and West provide an expansive portrait of European taste, national identity and politics of the period with the brash super kitsch of Italian cinema posters juxtaposed compellingly with the lo-tech golden age of non commercial Czech film poster design.

The posters relate to an entire legacy of films tarnished by state control in Eastern Europe and overkill of the Spy Genre in the West. The exhibition will include both leaden communist propaganda and the epically trashy fruits of European co-production."

You can read the full announcement here.

The KKKK Archive : Home of Cold War Spy Cinema

“The Kiss Kiss Kill Kill archive is dedicated to preserving spy cinema artifacts from the Cold War. This includes 16mm films, a poster and stills collection numbering some 3000 pieces and an extensive DVD and music library. There are also examples of Cold War games for children.

The website is designed to be a resource for the overlooked spy film genre offering reviews and images of little known films.”

The website is excellent, in particular the impressive gallery of film posters (which does include Modesty Blaise).

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Bob Peak - MB Film Poster

There is a wonderful website dedicated to Bob Peak, illustrator of many film posters including the 1966 Modesty Blaise film.
(I wish the film had lived up to the quality of the poster!)

The site is well worth a look - it includes many other film posters you'll recognize.

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Modesty Blaise T-shirts

A new Modesty Blaise T-shirt is available for sale on this Spanish site:

It's not clear from the description who the Modesty image is: the description mentions both Holdaway and the Joseph Losey film, but this doesn't appear to be either. If you know, please share the info!
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