'Spirou et Fantasio'. Dutch-language version.
Born in 1932 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.
Broca returned to Belvision in 1966 and participated in the firm's big projects like 'Astérix le Gaulois' ('Asterix the Gaul', 1967), 'Astérix et Cléopâtre' ('Asterix and Cleopatra', 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' ('The Ballad of the Daltons', 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'. Another well-known animated TV series developed by Broca was 'Ovide and the Gang'.
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 the animated TV series 'La Bande à Ovide' ('Ovide and the Gang') in cooperation with Godi. One of his final collaboration was 'Les Tifous', an animated series based on characters created by André Franquin. Nic Broca passed away in 1993.
'Spirou et Fantasio'.