Born in Liège, Nicolas Broca attended the Academy of Fine Arts, and subsequently worked in various occupations. He turned to animation and in 1959 found employment as assistant-decorator at the Belvision Studios in Brussels. He worked on the animation of the film 'Pinocchio dans l'Espace' (1965), directed by Ray Goossens. Afterwards he worked on animated advertising shorts for several years.
He returned to Belvision in 1966 and participated in the firm's big projects like 'Astérix le Gaulois' (1967), 'Astérix et Cléopâtre' (1968), 'Daisy Town' (1971), 'Tintin et le Lac aux Requins' ('Tintin and the Lake of Sharks', 1972), 'Gulliver' and 'La Flûte à Six Schtroumpfs' ('The Flute and the Six Smurfs', 1976). Broca was also hired by Studio Idéfix in Paris to work on 'Les Douze Travaux d'Astérix' ('The 12 Tasks of Astérix', 1976) and 'La Ballade des Dalton' (1978). For SEPP, the animation department of Dupuis, he designed 'Les Snorky' in 1982, little underwater creatures eventually animated by Hanna-Barbera in the USA as 'The Snorks'.
He developed famous cartoon series like 'Ovide' and 'Les Snorky'. In 1980, Broca teamed up with scriptwriter Raoul Cauvin to create new stories with 'Spirou et Fantasio' in Spirou, alternating with Yves Chaland and Tome and Janry. After one trilogy, published in albums by Dupuis, Broca returned to animation for good. He joined the Kid Cartoons studios, where he realized 65 episodes of 'La Bande à Ovide' in cooperation with Godi. One of his final collaborations was on 'Les Tifous', an animation series based on characters created by André Franquin.
