Jim Holdaway

Infobox Comics creator
name = Jim Holdaway


imagesize =
caption =
birthname =
birthdate = 1927
location = London
deathdate = 1970
deathplace =
nationality = British
area = artist
alias =
notable works = "Romeo Brown" "Modesty Blaise"
awards =

Jim Holdaway (1927 - 1970) was a British illustrator, who was famous for his illustrations of numerous comic strips. His most famous contributions was to the "Modesty Blaise" comics written by Peter O'Donnell.

Art career

Jim Holdaway was born in 1927 in Barnes Common, London. On completing schooling in New Malden, Surrey, Holdaway attended the Kingston School of Art. 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. Returning to England soon to take care of his widowed mother, Holdaway went to work for Scion Books in Kensington, doing a variety of artwork, book jackets, comic books and advertising.cite web | last = Lambiek | title =Jim Holdaway | url = http://lambiek.net/artists/h/holdaway_jim.htm ] 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 Comic ("Cliff McCoy", 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.

Jim Holdaway died in 1970 from a heart attack, midway through illustrating the "Modesty Blaise" story arc "The Warlords of Phoenix". O'Donnell enlisted Enrique Badia Romero to complete the strip and Romero succeeded Holdaway as the strip's full-time artist. [See Peter O'Donnell's introduction to "The Warlords of Phoenix" in "Modesty Blaise: The Hell Makers" (Titan Books, 2005), no pagination.] 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". [O'Donnell, Peter. "Cobra Trap" (Souvenir Press, 1996)]

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.

ources

* [http://www.sayyide.de/html/jim_holdaway1.html Jim Holdaway page] sayyide.de;Footnotes

External links

* [http://lambiek.net/artists/h/holdaway_jim.htm Jim Holdaway biography] on Lambiek Comiclopedia
* [http://www.illustrationartgallery.com/acatalog/Illustration_Art_Jim_Holdaway_283.html Jim Holdaway artwork] at Illustration Art Gallery