Jim Holdaway

Jim Holdaway (28 May 1927 – 18 February 1970) was a British illustrator, who contributed art for numerous comic strips. His best known work was on 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 did advertising work. 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. 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 ("The Red Rider", 1956). 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.

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.