*Collected Editions: Two iconic characters from British newspaper strips grace our listings today. Modesty Blaise is the creation of Peter O’Donnell and Jim Holdaway; a classy reformed criminal with a crusading streak, Miss Blaise (and her platonic life-partner Willie Garvin) roam the world righting wrong and sometimes doing very bad things – but for very good reasons! Described by the lazy as ‘A female James Bond’, Modesty’s adventures have a sight more warmth, wit and humour than Ian Fleming’s famous creation. This collection, The Gabriel Set-Up, dates from the late 1980s and collects Modesty’s earliest adventures in paperback form, VG £8. By way of considerable contrast Andy Capp, Reg Smythe’s epic Geordie slacker (no, American fans, he’s not a Cockney; there are regions of the UK outside London, you know…) is paradoxically the world’s most beloved chain-smoking, heavy-drinking layabout on record. Gracing the Daily Mirror since 1957, this is a collection of his strips from 1967 FN £5.