Artist Enrique Badia Romero offers rare original “Axa” art at auction

Artist Enrique Badia Romero regularly offers artworks by auction on the Catawiki site, but his latest – an original comic page for Axa comic, first published in 1988, may be of interest to fans of the post apocalypse strip that ran in The Sun newspaper for many years.

Axa by Enrique Badia Romero (Eclipse Comics, 1988)

The page on offer is from one of just two issues of the Axa comic published by American company Eclipse Comics in the 1980s, a series written by Chuck Dixon, its production schedule stymied by Romero’s work on Modesty Blaise, which knocked the book off schedule.

“There are very few original pages of Axa left in comic book format,” says Enrique of this signed pencil and ink art.

The Axa newspaper strip centres on an often-scantily-clad, indeed often unclad, female rebel, and is set in a post-apocalyptic Earth in the year 2080. It has been syndicated globally, including to Australia, Denmark, Finland, France (appearing in the magazine Charlie), Holland, India Italy, Germany, Hong Kong, Spain, Sweden (in Agent X9 and Magnum, the latter featuring a new story written by Pidde Andersson), with over 2000 strips published.

The first Axa strip by Enrique Badia Romero
The first Axa strip by Enrique Badia Romero

“In 1959, I began my contacts with the foreign market,” the artist notes of the origins of Axa, who’s worked for a variety of international publishers for many years. “After many collaborations, England, the United States, France, Italy, Germany, they published my works in various publications.

“In 1970, I had the fortune to get into the character of Modesty Blaise, which I first drew until 1978. Due to overwork, I had to leave the series, since I had also created another character, Axa, also destined for an English newspaper.

“Undoubtedly influenced by the success of Modesty, the idea of ​​creating a new newspaper strip character began to dominate me,” he continues. “I had always been attracted to the fantastic subject, and I did a study on the basis of a possible Holocaust. It was The Sun who became interested in my project, and thus, in July 1978, the greatest project of my life began.

“I achieved the dream of many a professional: a newspaper strip, with a heroine to my liking and total freedom to develop their adventures.

“Axa has been and will be my favourite character, since I have invested in her all my experiences and knowledge gained in the fabulous world of comics.”

The first Axa strip, written by Donne Avenell, appeared in the 14th July 1978 edition of The Sun, and ran daily Monday to Saturday until the newspaper abruptly cancelled the strip midway through the story, “The Betrayed”, on 16th November 1985. The storyline was eventually concluded in the album Los Traicionados in 2012, published in Spain, a 200 copy, limited edition book by Romero.

After The Sun cancelled the daily version of Axa, Romero returned to draw Modesty Blaise.

Fans of the strip, long in development as a movie, often battle for Axa rarities. Back in 2019, the first Axa strip sold for $6,600.

Check out this Axa page here on Catawiki

• Enrique Badia Romero – Official Web Site

• The Axa newspaper strip is syndicated by Knight Features

• There’s a great guide to the history of Axa and her various appearances around the world here

The Book Palace has the original art for some episodes of Axa for sale

• Comics and Graphic Novels on AmazonUK (Affiliate Link)

• AXA The Movie Official Site: www.axathemovie.com | Saturn Harvest: www.saturnharvest.com

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Categories: Art and Illustration, Auctions, British Comics, British Comics - Newspaper Strips, Comic Art, Comics, downthetubes Comics News, downthetubes News, Other Worlds

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