The topic of this sixth part of the first article in the SPECIAL PROJECT MODESTY BLAISE is a brief analysis of the Princess’s appearances in Italian periodicals.
Initially, within a few years of its creation, publication of the comic was sporadic and irregular, but later the complete publication of its adventures was finally seen, made by multiple publishers. The novels, however, are largely unpublished, and only a few have been translated into Italian.
Regarding the previous parts of this article, the topics covered to introduce the character of Modesty and her publishing history were:
- the first part focused primarily on her creator, Peter O’Donnell, how and why he received the assignment, what inspired him, and how the character’s publishing life and career evolved;
- the second part focused on Modesty herself, describing her early history and the psychological characteristics that make her such a compelling and three-dimensional character;
- part three described Willie Garvin, Modesty’s fellow adventurer and best friend, and how deep and special their relationship is, like that of two brothers who are very in tune and close;
- part four discussed the practicalities of the adventure, such as Modesty’s combat uniform, and her and Willie’s favorite weapons;
- part five introduced the five artists who drew the Princess’s comic book adventures.
Happy reading, and see you next week.
Mario Benenati and Daniele Tomasi, editors of the SPECIAL PROJECT MODESTY BLAISE
Note: this Special Project, like all others on this digital magazine, is non-profit and just for informative purposes, as the images used which are © of the rights holders.
The Italian association FUMETTOMANIA FACTORY – APS, which has been operating nationwide since 1991—while never neglecting the activities carried out within its headquarters in Barcellona Pozzo di Gotto (Messina, Sicily)—has the aim of promoting, disseminating, and enhancing themes related to the language of comics.
Fumettomania’s mission is to attract young people of all ages by promoting projects dedicated to them, addressing current and engaging topics, using comics, which emerge as an autonomous art form that embodies the linguistic code of literature (words), its modes of consumption, but also the sequentiality of cinema and the figurative focus of traditional visual arts.
The Association’s commitment—35 years after its foundation (on May 14, 2026)—is to continue spreading comics culture and to continue its cultural and social projects in the area with workshops for young enthusiasts and schools, solo and group exhibitions dedicated to comics, illustration, and related fields, comic book presentations, and meetings with authors.
MODESTY BLAISE, THE PRINCESS – part 6: the artists
– by Joe7 –
COMICS
Thanks to the 1966 Modesty Blaise film starring Monica Vitti, the character’s comic strips were published in Italy for the first time, in the magazine Intrepido (in 1967-68), then in Eureka, published by Editoriale Corno, starting with issue no. 6 (1969).
In the 1970s Modesty Blaise was published in several editions (a sign of the character’s popularity): in Corrado Tedeschi’s comics, which published the magazine TED, in L’Avventuroso, in Dardo Pocket1, in Gialli Mondadori a fumetti, in Il Mago (1980), in Stampa, and so on. They were often small-format and poorly translated.
There are also some rather valuable editions: his adventure “The Red Griffin” was published in the beautiful and rare “Almanacco veneziano” published by Ennio Ciscato Editore in 1974.
Furthermore, Imago Libri published two of his episodes, “The Lords of War” and “Willie the Genius,” in large format in 1976.
Great credit goes to Camillo Conti Editore2, which published Modesty Blaise in chronological order and regularly for the first time, in album format: a feature that allowed the exceptional drawings by Holdaway, a true master of black and white, to be clearly seen
Subsequently, the Eura publishing house republished all of her adventures in “Skorpio” from 1980 to 1999, with a painstaking process of re-editing the vignettes, which had originally been created for the comic strip format. These stories were later collected by Eura in the series “I giganti dell’avventura“.
NOVELS
Garzanti published only a portion of Modesty Blaise’s novels:
“Modesty Blaise“, “Modesty Blaise e il giorno della tigre“, “Modesty Blaise e la vergine impossibile“, “La dea d’argento“.
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- Dardo Pocket was a series by Edizioni Dardo, founded in the 1940s by Gino Casarotti. This publishing house became famous for its comics featuring “Capitan Miki“, “Kinowa“, and “Il grande Blek”. It also produced “Jonny Logan“, an imitation of “Alan Ford“. Dardo Pocket was an anthology series that mimicked Editoriale Corno‘s Eureka Pocket. The series was short-lived, but it stood out for its selection of interesting comic series of various genres (in addition to Modesty Blaise, it also published Garth, The seekers, Vito Nervio, etc.), with excellent editorial care and in-depth editorial features. ↩︎
- Camillo Conti Editore was a publishing house in the 1970s, famous among comic book enthusiasts. It was founded by a Roman publisher who named it after himself. It published many titles, initially for the ANAF club (National Association of Friends of Comics, now ANAFI). Later, it set out on its own, producing several chronological reprints of famous comic book characters, demonstrating extraordinary integrity and reliability. It carefully chose its field, avoiding any possible overlap with other publishers. For this reason, it specialized in high-quality English syndicated comics (Jeff Hawke, Garth, Modesty Blaise, Matt Marriott, James Bond, The seekers, etc.) and in reprints of some of the great Italian masters (Jacovitti and others), as well as in the reprinting (of exceptional quality, by the way) of several prestigious titles: “I tre porcellini” for example, the eponymous series of comic books, and then the non-Disney “Albi d’oro” of the postwar period. His masterpiece, however, is the series of volumes, all in color, containing the complete edition of Prince Valiant by Harold Foster. ↩︎
[to be continued in part 7]
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Modesty Blaise © Modesty Blaise Ltd.
All images are used for informational purposes only and are © their respective owners.
The opinions expressed in the article by the author do not necessarily reflect those of the Fumettomania Association, which aims to offer a platform that always guarantees the right to free expression through its website.
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NOTE:
To access the index and links to all the articles in the SPECIAL PROJECT MODESTY BLAISE, visit this page with the introductory article::
– Italian version: https://www.fumettomaniafactory.net/progetti-di-fumettomania/contenuti-web-extra-dal-2012-in-poi/modesty-blaise-la-principessa-delle-spie/
– English version: https://www.fumettomaniafactory.net/fumettomania-presents-the-special-project-modesty-blaise/
EXTRA
DANIELE TOMASI is a multifaceted creative in the field of ComicArt, acting as artist, letterer, colorist, editor.
With the DTE brand, “the smallest publishing house in the world”, he edited and published three volumes of the “DebbieDillinger” series (where he is even the artist), the first number of “TetroTeatro” magazine (author of texts and drawings), the digital magazine “Continua…” (a free-distribution magazine with comics of various genres and authors, seven issues so far) and three issues of the magazine “Gli Archivi del Fumetto” (new issues and large-format volumes are planned).
He has created comics and illustrations for various Italian publishers (Tunuè, ProGlo, ComixCommunity, UndergroundPress, BotteroEdizioni, Pegasus/Comicus, Antani, Apache, AltaFedeltà).
He has worked as graphic designer for Italian publishers ProGloEdizioni, GreencomService, Shockdom, Palabanda Edizioni and Chimbe.
He has made lettering for Black Velvet and RW Edizioni.
He organizes courses about the Language of Comics.
In Internet you can see some of his artworks on the website danieletomasi.altervista.org , see other works and read some of his thoughts and opinions on the blog danieletomasi.blogspot.com , read for free some of the DTE publications in issuu.com/dteditore, read for free a fake storyboard of the “Spider-man” movie by James Cameron downloading the pdf (screen or print resolution) from the site spidercameron.altervista.org , write to him at the e-mails danieletomasi@gmail.com and dteditore@gmail.com
