EXTRACTS: The Modesty Blaise Companion Expanded Edition © 2018 The Book Palace (425 PAGES in Full edition)

T H E M O D E S T Y B L A I S E C O M P A N I O N I I PAT WRIGHT Born in 1945 in Abersach, North Wales, the son of David Wright whose strip, “Carol Day”, graced the pages of the Daily Mail during the fifties and sixties. Educated at Barrow’s Hill Prep School and St George’s College, Weybridge, attendance at the latter being abruptly terminated for either misplaced artistic ability or gun running. Early published work combined both facets of the reasons for the curtailment of his education, art and weapons and appeared in the controversial Action , Battle Action and the comparitively staid Commando digest. His foray into the world of Modesty Blaise was brief and not uplifting. It would seem that he failed to win the approval of the Evening Standard management and was simply dropped. The one and a half stories he drew are stylistically very distinctive. The lack of appreciation shown by the Standard did not affect his creative ability and he very quickly produced the wonderful “Walkies” cartoons and followed these with such titles as Affairs of the Heart and A Tale of Two Mothers-in-Law . He has worked since in advertising, publishing and brilliantly in political satire producing the superb 101 uses for a John Major and its two sequels. He currently inhabits the world of bookselling. NEVILLE COLVIN Born in New Zealand in 1918 he originally trained as a teacher. He got his start as an artist in the Second World War working on the New Zealand Expeditionary Force Times, the New Zealand forces newspaper in the Middle East. He created the character “Clueless” for the paper and it became a big hit with the troops. He described Clueless as “the most stupid little sod you could imagine”. After the war he joined the Wellington Evening Post and although encouraged to keep his character going he did not see it working in a peacetime context. His very distinctive work for the Post was mainly on general and sporting topics and he later had considerable success with his political cartoons. In 1956 he moved to London and his work appeared in the News Chronicle, the Daily Telegraph the Daily Express and the Evening Standard among others. He drew his first Modesty strips in 1980 and continued to do so for a further eight years. During that time he illustrated sixteen consecutive Modesty adventures and drew some 1,900 individual strips. He was a lifelong cricket enthusiast and had played at senior level in his home country and served as president of the New Zealand – UK Cricket Club for a number of years. He died in 1991. Pat by Pat Neville in late 1982, two years into his tenure on Modesty Blaise. XIV