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

22 Bardon in Spain didn’t only handle artists, but script- writers as well. In 1960 they added humour cartoonists to their large roster of collaborators. “We did the humourous strips for the magazine Buster, featuring Andy Capp ’s son, with stories drawn by Angel Nadal, among others,” according to Macabich. Not only did Bardon provide artists for the British comic magazines, but for some British newspaper strips as well, as with Caroline Baker, Barrister at Law drawn by José Ortiz, the sexy liberated couple strip George & Lynne created by Conrad Frost and drawn by Josep Gual, and the extremely popular Modesty Blaise created by Peter O’Donnell and drawn by Enrique Badía Romero when the original British artist Jim Holdaway passed on. Nevertheless, one of Bardon’s greatest coups was providing the first Spanish artist to ever draw an American newspaper strip when Catalan Jordi Longarón took the illustrative duties on the first comic strip to feature a black character: Friday Foster . Nonetheless the work the Spaniards did for the British market didn’t come without its rather hilarious inconveniences. As Josep Bea, an artist working through one of the many Spanish agencies related: “We didn’t know anything about London or England. To me there was always fog in London, so every panel I drew was filled with fog, even if they were inside a room. I mean, if you opened the windows, fog would get inside the house, so there was fog everywhere, in the dining room, bedrooms, etc. Not to mention the electrical sockets, which we did in the shape of a pear, as they are in Spain. Those British teenage girls who read our strips must’ve wondered what the hell we were drawing.” And to this he added: “On another occasion one of the British editors asked us what were all those black ABOVE: Typical work Macabich did in the early ’50s in Spain. Macabich specialized in western series, which he also did for the British market until becoming an agent. RIGHT: Barry Coker and Jordi Macabich partners for the art agency in a caricature done by Macabich.