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Via Titan Books, a reminder that Peter O”Donnell, the creator of superspy Modesty Blaise, is turning 90 this year and fans can email him birthday wishes directly at [email protected] or via post at Titan Books, 144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP, UK. A prolific author of short stories, novels, articles, plays and film, O’Donnell’s best known character is Blaise, who debuted in 1963 as a comic strip drawn by Jim Holdaway, before going on to star in several film and novel adaptations. New strips stopped appearing in 2001, but reprint volumes of her adventures with sidekick Willie Garvin are readily available via Titan.

O’Donnell celebrated his birthday on 11 April,

5 COMMENTS

  1. Oh, thanks so much for posting this — I’ve become a huge O’Donnell fan in the past couple years, currently having read my way through the first 15 years’ worth of Modesty strips and novels. I’ve toyed with the idea of sending a bit of fan mail to Titan, but you never know if it’ll reach the guy, or, frankly, how much an 89-year-old in retirement wants to be bothered with fannish correspondence.

    (I now resist the urge to babble paragraphs about how hard it is to write an adventure strip the way he did, as well as he did, every damned day for nearly 40 years.)

  2. Modesty Blaise is one of the most important British comic strips of the post war years. It’s great that Titan are sticking with the reprint project, and it’s wonderful that the great man himself is still around to see the Blaise strips return to print after so long.

  3. I just read the news and I can´t believe it: it´s a very, very sad Tuesday.
    All my condolences to his family, friends and for all his fans.
    Thank you, Peter for giving us such a character!

    Tons of kisses from Madrid,
    Mar

  4. Same here. I was going to send him a happy birthday note via snail mail (I guessed at his age he’d appreciate it more than an e-mail) and now I’ve learnt he’s died. He will be sorely missed.

  5. I was very sad to hear that Peter O’Donnel passed away recently. I first read his Modesty Blaise novels when I was a young woman of twenty, and became addicted
    to his wonderful inventive writing, and of course to Modesty herself. Many years later, in my forties I read his books again, and also his comic strips. My enjoyment of his work
    has not diminished at all; in fact rediscovering Modesty was the best thing ever! I refuse to see the awful film which was made sometime ago, but wish someone would write a
    new script and make a fantastic film of Modesty and Willie, in order to keep them alive, and place them at the top with the James Bonds of this world, a place they surely deserve to be in.
    El

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