Luc Cromheecke

Luc Cromheecke has been active in several artistic fields, but he is best known as the creator of absurd humorous comics like 'Taco Zip', 'Tom Carbon' and 'Roboboy'. Cromheecke's first comic pages, which he signed with Maf, were published in Robbedoes ('Bob Burk', 1978) and Blondie ('Zap'). In the early eighties, he studied at the Royal Academie for Fine Arts in Antwerp, in the section painting, graphics and publicity.

He abandoned his studies, because he wanted to draw silly stories with his pal, Laurent Letzer, for the alternative magazine Flan Imperial. Later on, they created the character Tom Carbon which they got published in the weekly magazine Spirou in 1985. Tom Carbon started as an "uncle" who told weird and funny fables and stories, but later he got involved in hilarious adventures himself. 'Tom Carbon' also starred in the long stories 'Luna Toys' and 'Tannenbaum', but eventually became a one-page gag strip on demand of the publisher. Éditions Dupuis collected the series in four albums until 1994.

Together with Fritzgerald, Cromheecke created the more absurd 'Taco Zip'. This strip initially appeared in the mail section of Robbedoes, and later continued on a daily base in newspaper De Volkskrant. 'Taco Zip' also appeared in the Flemish newspaper De Morgen, Het Gazet van Antwerpen and Het Belang van Limburg and eventually returned to the pages of Spirou. The character also appeared on the cover of the final issue of Robbedoes in 2006. Several albums of the strip were released by Dutch publishers Oog en Blik and BeeDee.

For the French magazine Astrapi (Bayard Presse), Cromheecke and Letzer created 'Ben, le Forestier' ('Ben de Boswachter') in 1996. This strip also appeared in Suske en Wiske Weekblad. With Willy Linthout, he created 'Roboboy', which appeared in Taptoe, Suske en Wiske Weekblad and Spirou. The 'Taco Zip' side character 'Plunk!' got its own strip in 2006.

In 2005 there was a big exposition of Taco Zip in Turnhout, Belgium. Thereafter, the expo is travelling through Europe, starting here at Galerie Lambiek in February 2006.