A comparative-study of the reproduction quality of Modesty Blaise dailies, from the various publications

I have already mentioned in my last post on Modesty Blaise that reproduction quality was variable in the two MB series of Titan, and with these, I am also adding Comic Revue's output as the 3rd reference.

I) Panels(ex. 1-2) are taken from the story "The Galley Slaves" (D014/1968):

In the first example, Jim Holdaway's detailed work has been reproduced perfectly in the Old Titan(OT) #3, and you can even notice their subtle facial expressions clearly. Yet, in the same panel from New Titan(NT) #5, you can't visibly find any of those subtle, detailed lines. Rather, everything has been badly smudged and as a result, everything is very unclear. A classic example of two different source materials used by the same publisher!

In the 2nd example, the NT version is heavily smudged while the same panel was reproduced in pristine condition in the older version. And if you check your physical copy, these will look even better than these images.

(Other than the inferior source material, the nature of the page-stock used is responsible for the final outcome. It's a well known fact that old comics, specifically old newspaper strips, reproduced better on the matte paper than on the glossy surface. So it's no surprising fact that matte was used in the OT series, while glossy stock was used in the 2nd series.)

II) Panels(ex. 3) are taken from the story "The Green-Eyed Monster" (D020/1970-71):

As mentioned in the I), you can see the obvious gulf in the quality of reproduction between the same panel from the two different Titan series, in the 3rd example. Reasons are the same as mentioned in the previous example.

III) Panels(ex. 4-6) are taken from the story "La Machine" (D001/1963):

This time, a comparison between CR & OT.

I read this story in CR first and I should admit that I didn't notice those distant high-rises visible through the window of Modesty's penthouse amidst the darkness(ex. 4)! I have noticed them only when I re-read the story in the pristine Old Titan version. Similar things can be observed in the 6th example, while in the 5th, you can notice almost similar quality of reproduction in both versions, barring CR's was little smudged, but negligible. In general, CR's output was better than the Titan's 2nd series, still falling back compared to Old Titan's reproduction, mostly because of their cheap newsprint stock quality, similar to Frew.

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I could have gone on and added multiple examples, but I do believe these comparisons are enough to understand the variable quality of reproductions are present in the different MB series. So for new readers, choose your books carefully.

Comic #133 : The Scorpio Case(D152) - A Rip Kirby adventure from the late '80s

Another Rip daily and this time from the period of Indrajal Comics. This particular strip was the penultimate Kirby adventure published in the Indrajal(Vol. 26 No. 19; 1989 -  titled "The Cunning Scorpion"). Incidentally, Bengali version of this Indrajal - titled Kakra-bicher Hul(কাঁকড়া-বিছের হুল ) - was one of the earliest Indrajals I have purchased when I have had restarted the Indrajal-hunt, some around 20 years ago. Happy memory! :-)

Anyway, back to the story, it was a nice thriller, all was happening around a Caribbean casino. Like most Rip Kirby stories, there were some memorable one-off characters. Like Nina, who helped Rip to nab the frauds, and played as his better-half throughout the story! 

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Basic Information:

Title/Serial No.: The Scorpio Case(D152)

Writer/Artist: John Prentice

Publication Period(strips): 4-25-88 to 7-16-88(72 dailies)

Publication Period/Date(Indrajal Comics): 4-7-89 (Vol. 26 No. 19)

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DOWNLOAD D152

The cover & some inside pages of the Bengali Indrajal issue...

Comic #132 : Big Boy the Fighting Farmer(D159) - A Rip Kirby adventure from 1990

 One more Rip Kirby daily strip from the '90s, another unpublished RK adventure from the post-Indrajal era, and this time you will find Honey Dorian, who became very infrequent in the later RK strips.

As usual, I have to use different source-materials than the already available lot for clearer version(I had to re-construct many strips using multiple versions, just to get the best possible strip we can have at present), plus I have added all missing strips from the earlier version.

PS - I have maintained the title given by the original uploader/blogger years ago(as no RK strips was ever given any official title, so any appropriate title will do very well!).

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Basic Information:

Title/Serial No.: Big Boy the Fighting Farmer(D159)

Writer/Artist: John Prentice

Publication Period: 1-22-1990 to 4-14-1990(72 dailies)

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DOWNLOAD D159(complete)

A brief overview of various Modesty Blaise comic-strips in English

Since her debut in the '60s, Modesty & Willie's adventures were reprinted by several publishers, sometimes parallelly under different series by the same publisher.

Among them, reproduction wise, Titan's first series in the '80s, known as 'Old Titan(OT)', was undoubtedly the best, where most strips were directly shot from the originals(but this series was cancelled after 8 volumes in 1990). And the irony is, one of the lowest quality reproductions are also from another Titan series : their 2nd series from 2004-17. At least the first 20 volumes of total 30-volume series have suffered from very bad source materials. Clearly, they didn't use their original source material and whatever they got, was always below par, except occasional good/decent strips. However, from #21 onwards, the majority of the strips were reproduced from the high-quality material, but by then all major/ground-breaking stories were already told.

After these, Comics Revue(CR) magazine & it's MB quarterly, Ken Pierce's 1st American series - all have mostly decent reproduction, albeit the occasional glitch. (First MB story published in CR was in #26 and after that almost all issues have serialized Modesty strips.)

Then, there was the Pioneer series of Modesty, which was mediocre at the best, in both reproduction & layout wise. Plus, DC's one-off Modesty's 144-page comic-book in full color.

Last but not the least, the single Modesty strip published in Diamond's 'Comic World' magazine (although I have only Bengali version, this series was also published in English & Hindi, plus few other Indian languages).

There were a few more series of MB - all short-lived : Star Books, Spectrum Comics & 3rd MB series by Manuscript Press(other than their CR magazine & MB quarterly), plus, one issue from the Comic Media. I don't have any copy of these series, so whoever has them, please share the related information. specifically the reproduction quality(Thanks In Advance!).

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An appearance-wise series/publication list & total number of issues/books published :

Comic Media (1973) - 1 issue

Star Books (1978) - 2 books

First American series(KP) (1981-1986) - 8 books

1st Titan series : Old Titan(OT) (1985-1990) - 8 books

Spectrum Comics(ToI) (1985–1986) - 4 issues

1st MP series : Comics Revue (1986-2008 & later) - numerous(200+ issues)

Pioneer (1988-89) - 12 issues

2nd MP series : CR Presents MB/MB Quarterly (1994-2001) - 25 issues

DC (1994) - 1 book

Comics World(Diamond) (1999) - 1 issue

3rd MP series : Modesty Blaise (2003) - 2 books

2nd Titan series : New Titan(NT) (2004-2017) - 30 books

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Cover-gallery..

Comic #131 : The Perfect Alibi(D174) - Another Rip Kirby adventure from the '90s

 Another Rip Kirby daily strip from the early '90s, so one more unpublished RK adventure from the post-Indrajal era, when John Prentice was doing both script & art duty, and his story-telling was very refreshing(and probably to handle this dual-duty, sometimes he re-used old plot-lines, plus, occasional strips were completely drawn by some ghost-artists(those without his signature)).

As usual, I have used different source-materials than the already available lot for clearer version(saying this, I had to edit few strips using two versions, just to get the best possible strip we can have at present).

Good news is, if everything goes well, I can have all/majority RK strips till the mid-'90s, in the relatively better condition. The only thing is, it will take little time in culling & then editing them by myself. While my major target is to get as many post-Indrajal RK strips as possible, occasionally I will post few strips already published in the Indrajal & among my favorite stories - so readers can have unedited strip-version of those Indrajal stories.

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Basic Information:

Title/Serial No.: The Perfect Alibi(D174)

Writer/Artist: John Prentice

Publication Period: 8-30-1993 to 11-27-1993(78 dailies)

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DOWNLOAD D174

Comic #130 : The Missing Briefcase(D168) - A Rip Kirby adventure

 A Rip Kirby daily strip from the early '90s. A strip never reprinted anywhere in English.

I have used a different source-material than the already available lot(see the previous post). While we now have all RK strips, most of the later strips are more or less smudged, and this version may be considered as a somewhat clearer version(I have used a few strips from that lot to complete the story & intend to do same in the future - hence a big thanks again for those involved!).

Time to time, I will try to post few more strips whenever possible. 

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Basic Information:

Title/Serial No.: The Missing Briefcase(D168)

Writer/Artist: John Prentice

Publication Period: 5-4-1992 to 7-18-92(66 dailies)

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DOWNLOAD D168

Comic #129 : All 197 Rip Kirby daily-strips in English

 Finally it has been achieved - the availability of all 197 RK strips in English, specifically the last 40 odd strips from the late '80s to late '90s, when this series was cancelled after the sudden demise of John Prentice. While the first 131 strips were already available long time ago, and as strips from D119-153 were reprinted in the Indrajal Comics in English & other regional languages, so only those post-Indrajal strips were left to be tracked down(except few of those were reprinted elsewhere/e-vers posted online). And this has been finally achieved within the last few months, so I thank every person involved in the whole process of finding and sharing these too elusive strips!

You can download all from this fine site, if not already have done.

Now, the quality of the strips, specifically of those later ones, are only 'readable' but that's ok, as it was primarily required to have all RK strips at least, and now that has been done, hopefully better quality strips will be tracked down eventually! The current publisher of the RK strips, IDW has released 11 volumes(D1-103) till now, and still 9 volumes are required to complete the whole run - i.e. total 20 volumes. Few months ago, publisher Dean Mullaney told me via mail that they have no immediate plans for next RK volumes - probably due to the ongoing pandemic situation - and hence we can safely assume that we have to rely on the online strips for the post-Indrajal period(D154-197) for quite sometime, if not forever!

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Few years ago, much before all of these happened, I have had culled out last RK-Indrajal & few post-Indrajal strips(D153-155, 157) from a USA newspaper's archive. I have previously shared these & now re-sharing here. Plus, there was an old blogger who have shared few more(D159 & onwards) from his own newspaper cutting(although majority were incomplete). Quality wise, these are slightly better(and in places, inferior too!) than the above lot, and definitely fall under "readable" quality too, but there is no harm having a 2nd version of these rare strips(plus, you will find few "missing dates" from that lot in this version).

DOWNLOAD D153

DOWNLOAD D154

DOWNLOAD D155

DOWNLOAD D157

DOWNLOAD D159

DOWNLOAD D160

DOWNLOAD D176

DOWNLOAD D196

DOWNLOAD D197(last)