EXTRACTS: Illustrators issue 22 © 2018 The Book Palace (96 PAGES in Full edition)

18 favourite artists? I mean you’re not representing people, so you can be honest. BC: Well, of the British artists, John Burns was the favourite. Of the Spaniards, I suppose [Juan] González [Alacreu] was one, I appreciated [José] Ortiz, although I didn’t like him as a person, but that’s, you know, nothing to do with it. He’s such an awkward person to deal with, you know? We got him that script—‘Caroline Baker QC’—which could have been all right. He was invited over for a week, all expenses paid, but he just… Really, we had Fenton Bresler who was there. He was the Daily Express ’ legal guy, he was a QC as well, who looked after us, showed us all round the temple and the courts and everything. And yet it did go, but Ortiz didn’t have his heart in it, which was a bloody nuisance. IQ: How did you become involved in Modesty Blaise ? Because that’s been a big success for you. BC: Yes, well it’s a big success for [Peter] O’Donnell [the writer, creator of the series]. I remember perfectly that point, it was sad. I mean, Pat [Wright, one of the artists], I think, found it a struggle, a struggle to keep up, but yeah it was sad. I really don’t know why they— IQ: There were no communications, I gather, suddenly there were no more scripts coming. BC: Yeah, well it came down from the editor and the writer. They weren’t happy with [Pat’s work], and, erm, that was that. IQ: But they weren’t happy with Burns either, who you would have thought would be natural. I mean, I loved the way it looked. BC: How did we go? I forget how we went with that. First of all, Jim Holdaway died. They called me in, “have we got anybody that can do it?” I thought Pat was the closest—did he come next? IQ: No, it was Romero, and I’ll tell you who he beat; it was Frank Bellamy. Frank Bellamy was up for it. ABOVE: Friday Foster daily proof, corresponding to the first week of February 1970. Friday Foster was the first American newspaper strip to feature a coloured person as the lead character. This would have been instead of him doing Garth , which was pretty similar. Would have been 1970. So, presumably they put the word out to several agencies. And Romero got the job. It could have been any of your artists, couldn’t it? BC: No. IQ: Did you just show them everything you had? BC: No, I think I showed them—No, wait! I know what it was, I know how it worked out. Romero had done a strip called…I’ll never remember the name, ‘aerobics’ or something – ‘isometrics’. It was a very short thing for the Express sometime before, and somehow that must have clicked with them, and they said, “Well, yeah, is he available?” and I said, “yeah.” IQ: So they would have seen him as a strip artist? BC: Yeah, yeah. So, he got that, but then he came up with this idea for Axa , and Axa was the love of his life, so I took Axa to The Sun , not thinking… I mean he came up with a series of drawings that were very pretty, but, you know, it was ridiculous. So, I said to Donne [Avennell] “could you put a story around it” and Donne did, and I took it to The Sun , and they said “yeah” because it was a half-naked girl. [ Laughter ] And that went on for quite a long time, I don’t know how many stories; quite a few, 9 or 10 stories. IQ: Are there any artists you would’ve loved to have got, but that just escaped? BC: [Rafael] Méndez, the Madrid artist. He didn’t do much for me. Also people like Tacconi, or D’Antonio, or De Gaspari. ●