I read Steig Larsson's trilogy, then a book about the trilogy which made a comparison with Modesty Blaise, a character of whom I had heard but never read. Googling Modesty reveals that Peter O'Donnell wrote:
a Modesty Blaise comic strip;
a screenplay based on the comic strip;
a novel based on the screen play;
ten further novels;
two short story collections, basing some stories on comic strips and vice versa.
The unsuccessful 1966 film, rewritten by others and released after O'Donnell's more successful novelization of his original screenplay, was promoted as a female James Bond, although clearly Modesty Blaise has a life of her own, with a fascinating interplay between three media, the prose fiction coming not first but last.
2 comments:
The novels are excellent; I like the comics too, but that's not my preferred form. They're cleanly written and the action sequences are much less likely to 'jump the shark' than most equivalents. As a sentimental gesture, there's an obscure reference in my "Dies the Fire" that indicates Modesty Blaise actually existed in that timeline.
Obscure? I will find it, though.
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