Background
Jim Holdaway was born in 1927 in Barnes Common, London.
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Jim Holdaway
Edit ProfileEducation
On completing schooling in New Malden, Surrey, Holdaway attended the Kingston School of Artist
Career
His most famous contributions was to the Modesty Blaise comics written by Peter O"Donnell. After spending two years of National Service from 1945 with the East Surrey Regiment, Holdaway went to Italy, Austria and Greece before returning to art school on an ex-Serviceman"s grant. Jim Holdaway eventually left to work in France where he secured numerous advertising opportunities.
He then became freelance, working from home.
He was drawing for Odhams and Farringdon Press doing 64-page comics including: Captain Vigour, The Football Comic, Steve Samson, Dick Hercules, Reveille, Tit-Bits, Comic Cuts, Junior Express (The Red Rider and Joanna of Bitter Creek, 1955), Mickey"s Weekly (Davy Crockett, 1956), and Swift ("The Red Rider", 1956). In 1957, Holdaway replaced the artist Alfred Mazure on the strip Romeo Brown, leading to the key association of his career with writer Peter O"Donnell.
The two were a perfect match and in 1963 Holdaway started drawing for O"Donnell"s Modesty Blaise comics strips. O"Donnell enlisted Enrique Badia Romero to complete the strip and Romero succeeded Holdaway as the strip"s full-time artist.
Years later, a painting of Modesty Blaise by Holdaway was used as the cover art for O"Donnell"s final Modesty Blaise literary collection, Cobra Trap.
Holdaway"s work on the Modesty Blaise strip has been reprinted on many occasions, most recently between 2003 and 2005 in reprint volumes published by Titan Books.
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Born
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Died
February 18, 1970 (aged 43) -
Nationality
United Kingdom