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

6 The Interview: Barry Coker Barry Coker’s days running the art agency are full of anecdotes; sometimes funny, sometimes sad, sometimes not even fit for print! What follows are Barry’s tales and feelings about those golden years, when British comics dominated the market, as he reveals in this candid Q&A. IQ: You fell into running the agency almost by accident? Barry Coker: I worked for the Amalgamated Press on Cowboy Picture Library and we were short of artists and one day Jordi Macabich came into the office from Barcelona with his wife to seek work, and we jumped at it because he was a good artist. He started to work for us and he and his wife stayed in London for a while, about 2 months I think. And I got to know them because I spoke some Spanish. I spent the whole day with them and got to know them quite well. They then went back to Barcelona and said, “If you’re ever in Barcelona, look us up.” Which I didn’t think any more about. Then later, maybe a year later, I did go to Barcelona, and that’s how it really began. IQ: Did you like the idea of becoming an agent? BC: Hmm, it just happened! I had the time to do it because I was writing, and then a couple of days a week I would be up here going around the various publishers. The other thing that helped was that I knew people in the syndication department and I managed to get the right to offer their material in Spain. Now, that did help. There is a list somewhere of all the things I sold, and of course I got a commission on those, so that helped keep me going. IQ: When Macabich came over, he was just coming over as an individual; he wasn’t actually working for an agency at the time. BC: I think, actually, he was working through Luis Ferraz. IQ: Oh, right. So that was in ’57? BC: Even before that, Macabich was working in ’56. IQ: And, of course, his wife was an artist as well, she drew a few strips for School Girls Picture Library. And Macabich’s actually a really good artist, but because of Bardon, he rarely ever drew anything! BC: I said that! I spoke to him before Christmas, he’s now 87 [this interview was conducted in 2011, and Macabich passed away in 2015], I said, “Jorge, you know, I think it was a pity, really, in some ways because you’re such a talented artist, and a super sculptor.” IQ: (Showing a list of all the artists Barry has represented) This gives an idea of the scale of things. Now even amongst this list, there are names of people I have barely heard of… BC: They didn’t all work for the British side of it. We had an office in Copenhagen, so they would have patchworked the Scandinavian side of it, or the Dutch side of it maybe. IQ: How did you actually come to Cowboy Picture Library ? Because that’s unusual in itself… BC: I did my National Service, and I came out in September 1955 and the plan was to go up to Queens— and I had a place at Queens College Cambridge. But, FACING PAGE: Some of the various British newspaper strips produced by a variety of the Spanish and British artists working for Bardon. ABOVE: Barry Coker, head of the British section of the Bardon Art agency in a caricature by Peter Richardson.