Romero's Modesty Blaise newspaper strip, The Bluebeard Affair. Detail from an original board.

Enrique Badia Romero was born in Barcelona, Spain in 1930. He first worked on a publication called Susy (1949), and then went on to contribute to Coyote (1950), Hazañas del Oeste (1950), Disco (1951), Héroes Bíblicos (1951), Héroes Bélicos (1951), Cobalto (click here to see an original Cobalto cover), Oeste and Trovador (1951). In his early days Romero signed himself "Badia".

He launched the magazine Alex in 1953. Two years later, he founded his own publishing house Ruiz Romero, for which he created the series Cromos, Hombres de Lucha and Historia de la Guerra. Later Romero started contributing to the English publisher Fleetway, where he worked on the strips Cathy and Wendy, Isometrics and Cassius Clay.

He went on to draw for Look-In (The Freewheelers) a Lady Penelope story (Adventure in Bereznik) as well as a Girl from UNCLE strip for the 1967 Lady Penelope Annual, several Lady Penelope strips for the 1968 Lady Penelope Annual, and a Joe 90 story for the 1969 Joe 90 Annual.

Romero cover for a European compilation of Modesty Blaise. Original board.

In 1970, he took over the spy series Modesty Blaise on the death of Jim Holdaway. Modesty Blaise appeared in the London Evening Standard newspaper, but such is it's popularity that it is syndicated all over the world. He continued the strip until 1978. Starting in 1976, he was also represented in the French market with some episodes of Chéret's Rahan in Pif Gadget, which he eventually took over in 1983. In 1978, Romero teamed up with Avenell to create the science-fiction series Axa, which appeared in The Sun daily newspaper. In 1987, he returned to the Modesty Blaise strip again, and continued with it right up to its final issue in April 2001.

Having established himself as an artist that can draw sexy women, it is not surprising to find that his next project was Durham Red. Durham Red first appeared in 2000AD as a deadly but beautiful vampire mutant, in the series Strontium Dog, and was spun off into her own series. Romero drew one episode (Children of the Night) in the Scarlet Apocrypha series, which was a seven-part series running in the Judge Dredd Megazine (4.15 - Sept. 2002). This series featured a variety of artists that produced stand-alone tales of Durham Red. Others contributing to the series included John M. Burns, Carlos Ezquerra, Mark Harrison, Frazer Irving and Steve Yeowell.

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