Close-up: Jim Holdaway

Modesty Blaise #1769.
Enjoy!

Who is this guy?

A few years ago these photos of Jim Holdaway appeared in a Swedish Modesty Blaise collection.

Now, the question is: Who is the guy in the photo to the right?
I doubt it's Holdaway. The editor told me that the photo came from the syndicate, so I guess it's another comic artist/writer?
Modesty Blaise related in any way? Just curious. :)

/Joakim.

PS.
Here's a photo of Jim for comparison:

Modesty Blaise un-edited

In the latest issue of Swedish Agent X9 comic book you'll find an unedited Modesty Blaise panel by Jim Holdaway that never has seen print before!

The strip we are talking about here is #1021 from "The Head Girls", and the panel is the last one in that strip.
This is what the strip usually looks like. (Sans text, since it's taken from co-production files.)

But when we looked at the original art, we saw that there was something "wrong" with he last panel.


Apparently Holdaway must have felt the composition in the panel was wrong. He then made a stat to enlarge the woman and pasted it on the original art.(You can see traces of the edge of the stat on the published strip. Right in front of the womans face.) The stat then fell off at one point or another, and left us with the original image.

What we should have done was probably to restore the image to Holdaways intended version, but it was forgotten.
Anyway, we hope you don't mind us bringing you a previously unseen version of a Holdaway panel instead. ;)

To make it easier for you to compare here are the two panels side by side. Enjoy!


It should be noted that the original art was provided by Peter Hartung. If you want to own your own piece of original Jim Holdaway Modesty Blaise art, please check out his online gallery: www.comicart.dk
He's got some really nice ones for sale.

Edit: In fact, he's got this very strip up for grabs at the moment!

Holdaway #1665

Here's the latest piece of junk I added to my collection of original artwork. :)
Another piece of Jim Holdaway artwork from his run on Modesty Blaise. This one is from "The Galley Slaves".

Well, I actually made a trade with my friend Germund. He bought this for me from Roger Clark, so that he could get MB strip #1652 from me instead.



Something not related to comics at all: Something sweet. Ecological chocolate pralines! Found them at a discount price over at the local Coop store.

Ought to taste nice! But, hey! What are they filled with?
What does the label say? Let's zoom in.

Kött! That's Swedish for "Meat"...

Holdaway and voting

As reported before, the Swedish edition of Agent X9 now runs Holdaway's Modesty Blaise, with strips mostly scanned straight from original art. On the Swedish X9 blog editor Johan Kimrin recently added a few samples of how the syndicate proofs looks (top) and what the strip looks like when scanned from original art (bottom). Here's a sample from the recently released issue featuring "The Vikings" by Jim Holdaway. (Click to enlarge. Remember that this is just a low rez jpg. Quality in print is even better.)

For more click HERE!

There's also voting going on. Wich Agent X9 cover from 2009 do you like the best?
It's still possible to vote a few more days. So if you want to help the editor when it comes to the direction of future covers please vote! Even if you are living outside Sweden your input will be appreciated!
To vote just click HERE.
(Click the white dot next to the number and then click the button below all the covers that says Rösta/Vote. The you'll see the results so far. )

Modesty Blaise 992 needed!

[Edit: Thanks to Finnish Modesty Blaise fan Väinö Rinne we have now secured a far better version of this strip! Thanks Väinö!]

Here at Egmont in Sweden we are currently preparing the Modesty Blaise story "The Vikings" for publication, and have located a fair number of originals and other good sources that will assure that this version will be stunning.
However, we lack any acceptable proof of the final strip #992.
Does anyone have access to a better version than this?

If you do and would like to help us please mail johan dot kimrin at egmont dot se
Thanks!

Jim Holdaway's Fashion Plate

Ever wanted to know wich board Jim Holdaway used when he drew his Modesty Blaise strips? Most of the original art has been ripped of the original board so that only the thin surface with the artwork remains. But a few unharmed board remains! And if you flip the artwork over you'll find this. Enjoy!

Calling all Modesty Blaise collectors

The editor of the Swedish Agent X9 comic book, Johan Kimrin, is looking for help. Modesty Blaise is currently beeing reprinted from the very beginning and to make the reprints the best possible he is looking for collectors willing to share their original Modesty artwork.

As many of you know the proofs available aren't always the best and much of Jim Holdaways delicate line work has been lost.
Thanks to collectors like Roger Clark and Tommy Trask he's been able to put together a large part of the first two adventures straight from the original art. And the printed result is fantastic. Just click on the panel below to see how good it can look when you work with good source material.

Now we are looking for artwork from the fourth adventure and later ones. (Strip #355 and onwards.)
So if you have Jim Holdaway artwork that you want to share please get in touch with Johan. His mail address is
johan dot kimrin at egmont dot se
Every one that contributes will be mentioned in the comic book if so desired. The scans should be 600 dpi gray scale or color. Jpeg files works fine.

I hope that as many as possible out there will want to join this project. :)