Enrique Badia Romero

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Romero
Birth name Enrique Badía Romero
Born April 24, 1930 (1930-04-24) (age 78)
Barcelona, Spain
Nationality Spanish
Area(s) artist
Pseudonym(s) Badia
Notable works Modesty Blaise
AXA
Awards full list

Enrique Badía Romero (who signs his work simply Romero) is a Spanish comics artist, best known to English-speaking audiences for his work on Modesty Blaise. He is also the co-creator of the post-apocalyptic science fiction strip AXA, as well as a substantial body of work in his native Spain.

Contents

[edit] Biography

Romero's career began at the age of 15 when he was taken on as an apprentice of the artist Emilio Freixas.[1] After contributing to the publication Susy in 1949, he went on to produce artwork for several series under the signature "Badia".[2] He launched the magazine Alex in 1953 and two years later founded the publishing firm Ruiz Romero for which he produced the series Cromos, Hombres de Lucha and Historia de la Guerra.[3] In the years that followed Romero did work for Fleetway.

[edit] Modesty Blaise

A Romero original from one of the later Modesty Blaise storylines
A Romero original from one of the later Modesty Blaise storylines

Romero began his association with writer Peter O'Donnell's Modesty Blaise strip in 1970 when he was called in to finish the storyline The War-Lords of Phoenix due to artist Jim Holdaway's unexpected death.[2] Initially, Romero intentionally imitated Holdaway's style in order to make the changeover less noticeable, but soon established his own take on the character of Modesty Blaise, portraying her in a more exotic and voluptuous style than Holdaway did.[1] Romero drew the Modesty Blaise strip until 1978, and while doing episodes of André Chéret's Rahan for the comics magazine Pif gadget from 1976, and beginning in 1978, Romero collaborated with Donne Avenell to create the science-fiction series AXA for the English tabloid newspaper The Sun.[3]

In 1986 Romero returned to Modesty Blaise and remained with the strip until O'Donnell retired in 2001. In 2002, Romero was commissioned to draw a graphic novel adaptation of the Modesty Blaise short story "The Dark Angels"; this work was initially published exclusively in Scandinavia but was later reprinted in a special issue of Comics Revue in the United States. Romero's 1970s work on the Modesty Blaise strip is continually reprinted in an ongoing series of compilation volumes published by the UK company Titan Books since 2005, while Comics Revue has reprinted all of his post-1986 work on the strip.

In most recent years, Romero has worked on Durham Red, and other projects for the magazines 2000 AD and Judge Dredd Megazine.[2]

[edit] Sources

Footnotes
  1. ^ a b Friedrich, Peter. Enrique Romero. Die deutsche Modesty Blaise website.
  2. ^ a b c Dan Dare. Enrique Badia Romero.
  3. ^ a b Lambiek Comiclopedia. E. Badia Romero.

[edit] External links