At least he lived a very long and productive life:

from http://www.comicmix.com/news/2010/05/04 ... 1920-2010/

Tue May 4, 2010 — by Mike Gold
Peter O'Donnell, 1920 - 2010
Modesty Blaise Creator, Novelist
Peter O'Donnell, one of the greatest of comics writers, died last night at the age of 90. He is best known for his creation Modesty Blaise, which ran in newspapers from 1963 to 2001, initially drawn by Jim Holdaway. He also created Romeo Brown (again, with Holdaway) and for many years authored the classic time-travelling adventure strip Garth. O'Donnell also adapted Ian Fleming's Dr. No to comic strips.

Peter also wrote 11 Modesty Blaise novels and two short story collections, as well as nine gothic romance/adventure novels under the name Madeleine Brent.

I need to check out those Titan collections. The UK did comic strips right - with boobs! And Modesty Blaise was one of the best.

Oh, no. Modesty Blaise is one of my favorite series ever. I have all the books and all of the Titan collections to date. I've enjoyed his forwards to each of the strip stories as his remembers back to his motivations, ideas and trivia tidbits.

He had a wonderful style in the novels. A great elegance and wit. His technical writing on weapons and equipment was precise and the way he described the fight scenes- you could easily imagine the movement in your head. But best of all were the interpersonal relationships, between Modesty and Willie, and all of their friends and lovers. I think Modesty and Willie should rank right up there in literary 'buddies'.

RIP, Mr. O'Donnell. Thank you for countless hours of reading pleasure.