Jim Holdaway

The Look of Love: The Rise and Fall of the Photo-Realistic Newspaper Strip, 1946-1970

According to The World Encyclopedia of Comics and O'Donnell's introduction to Titan's Mister Sun, James Holdaway's thumbnail biography goes like this:

He was born in London in 1927 and like many artists of this generation, showed an aptitude for art early on. At 14 he attended the Kingston School of Art, left at 18 for his compulsory military service overseas in Italy, Austria and Greece between 1945-1948, then returned to art school on a serviceman's scholarship.

He found his first professional work in France making illustrations for shoe boxes, returned to England and did much the same for a while before moving into print illustration and eventually freelance for a variety of publishing firms and venues. In 1951 he began work for Scion Books and his early work in comics followed the next year with, among others, Gallant Detective, Inspector Hayden, and Lex Knight

The only picture I've ever seen of Jim Holdaway, probably early '69, dressed to impress, a year before his death. The completed strip, #1868, ran sometime in March 1969. The unfinished daily, from the layout of the panels, was the day before, #1867. We know O'Donnell gave Holdaway the complete script and Holdaway would complete one week at a time, one story arc plus well in advance of publication (perhaps 15-16 weeks ahead in the beginning but only 5-9 weeks at the end). Holdaway penciled on tracing paper then transferred the panels to illustration board, a technique Williamson and Prentice also followed. Perhaps the tracing paper roughs still exist in the hands of his family. I understand two strips unfinished at the time of his death in Feb 1970 are included in Titan #4, "The Warlords of Phoenix." [Thanks to Steven Ng and Diane Wirth of <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/modestyblaise> for providing me with information from their extensive collections.]

Many different titles followed in the early 50s, including Captain Vigor (with Syd Jordan, the artist for Jeff Hawke, an outstanding S/F strip in the mold of Sky Masters and Twin Earths), Steve Sampson, Dick Hercules, "Cal McCord" in Comic Cuts, Cliff McCoy (1955), "Red Rider"in Swift (1956), a full color, full page "Davey Crockett" in Mickey's Weekly (1956).

In 1957 Holdaway replaces on Romeo Brown the cartoontist Alfred Mazure--along with Norman Pett and Arthur Ferrier a member of the first wave of notable "girlie artists" in Britain--who left to do his own character, Carmen and Co, for a rival paper.

On its own merits: Romeo is a well-intentioned detective who solves cases by indirection and indecision, despite his best efforts to be a serious gumshoe. The strip is really meant to show as many alluring women--who seem to find Romeo irresistible--as possible. Romeo is a 50s version of Tom Jones, a handsome innocent trying to make his way in a very wicked world.

In comparison with Mike Hubbard's Jane of roughly the same period, where nudity abounds, Romeo is quite chaste. Except for the brazen advances of the women, most of the suggestiveness comes from the generous scoops of cleavage displayed or perhaps a see-through frilly nightgown. This period for Holdaway has been compared to Will Eisner's The Spirit because of the cartoon appearance of the lead character and the double-take antics and slapstick gait of all the characters. I think a little Al Capp and Lil Abner (or Bob Lubbers and Long Sam) wouldn't be far off the mark either. Everyone and everything was broadly done, with big strokes, big hair, large eyes, a lot of tint and a loose brush.

As precursor to Modesty: Yet, what stands out in these early stories is that the fine-line pen technique Holdaway will someday use on Modesty lurks, albeit somewhat muted. Romeo is meant to be a sex farce, yet backgrounds, cars, homes, will sometimes be rendered with enormous care and surprising realism. When Holdaway draws a woman full figure in the panel, she is lanky and long limbed, as Modesty will be.

The strip was popular from the beginning, first with Mazure at the drawing board, then Holdaway between 1957-1962. In 1958, perhaps a year after the stories appeared on the paper, the Daily Mirror put out a Garth and Romeo Brown two-in-one book, all three stories, Garth's long "The Last Goddess" and Romeo's "Romeo the Ruthless" and "The Girl and the Ghoul," of course, written by O'Donnell. Most European surveys include sections on Romeo Brown, fondly remembered. Several publishers overseas have reprinted portions of the run, including a French two-volume set that covered Holdaway's last four years on the strip through nine complete stories. Here in the US, the Menomonee Falls Guardian, an early 70s weekly tabloid of humor strips, reprinted roughly the same period.

O'Donnell has said the strip was "abruptly killed" because the Chairman of the Mirror group "couldn't understand it." He also said he found out later to his horror that all the originals had been destroyed.

A selection of strips from the reprints mentioned in Sources. Note the ur-Modesty upper right, an Asian character named Jade, circa 1960. The character has the tiered top-knot dark hair, the full, half-opened mouth, the elaborate butterfly wings as eyelashes, and the flyaway eyebrows Holdaway would later bestow on Modesty, lacking only the strong jaw and Modesty's distinctive nose The 60s saw Holdaway move away from the pure comic constructions of Mazure toward a still exaggerated but fine line realistic style. Romeo even looked like a real human being on occasion and the backgrounds were as carefully rendered as those soon to appear behind Modesty and Willie.

Modesty has the most unusual profile ever to appear in a realistic strip for a young female lead. Holdaway would eventually soften her look, make her face fuller and her nose less of a prow, but in the early strips, her face is geometric, acute angles and improbable slopes. In keeping with O'Donnell's backstory of a mysterious woman of indeterminate origin (as well as distance her from Honor Blackman's Cathy Gale), Holdaway may have found a suitable exotic model locally. John Singer Sargent's unfinished oil copy of his famous "Madame X" resides in all her haughty splendor in London's Tate Gallery, a painting Holdaway certainly could have seen and maybe even sketched at some point. (The Tate also holds some of Sargent's pencil studies of his sitter's profile which bear even a greater resemblance to Modesty.) About 80% of the time the first two years, if Modesty is shown in profile, it's from the right side, in the immediate foreground so that most of her gathered hair is hidden, with almost closed eyes peering inscrutably ahead.

Modesty 1: Madame X

Modesty 2: Romeo, Romeo

Modesty 3: Page 3