Chez Poje
Louis-Michel Carpentier was born in Uccle. After his education at the Academy of Fine Arts in Brussels, he initially focused on animation, and found employment with the Belvision studios of Éditions Lombard in 1967. He was an inbetweener on the films 'Astérix et Cléopâtre' (1968) and 'Tintin et le Temple du Soleil',(1969) and chief animator for 'Tintin et le lac aux requins' (1972), the 'Lucky Luke' film 'Daisy Town' (1971) and 'La flûte à six schtroumpfs' (1976). By 1975, Carpentier adapted a few novels by the Countess of Ségur to comic stories for the women's magazine Femmes d'aujourd'hui. Casterman collected them in ten books between 1975 and 1984.
Les Toyottes
Carpentier has worked extensively with scenario writer Raoul Cauvin since the 1980s. Their first collaboration was the post-apocalyptic series 'Les Toyottes', of which the first story was published in Pistil, and of which Casterman and Lombard published six books until 1989. Carpentier also made game pages with the characters for the magazine Jouez avec Quick et Flupke. Carpentier and Cauvin then made a short-lived toyline tie-in comic called 'De Biepjes', and began an association with the educational publisher Artis-Historia and its magazine Artiscope in 1985.
Their best-known collaboration is however the series about the pub owner Poje, initially called 'L'Année de la Bière' and published by Archers in 1986 and 1987. The series also knew a couple of successful editions in local dialects, and was eventually published under the title 'Du Côté de Chez Poje' by Dupuis between 1990 and 2009.
On 30 November 2006 'Du Côté de Chez Poje' received its own comic book wall in the Rue de l'Ecuyer/ Schildknaapstraat 55 in Brussels, as part of the local Brussels' Comic Book Route.
Le Jour le Plus Con
Also for Archers, Carpentier created 'Humour en Tranch(é)es', a comical series about the First World War, with Claude Armant in 1985. Carpentier continued this series on his own under the title 'Le Jour le Plus Con' for his own publishing house Top Game between 1989 and 1997. He also assembled his fellow artists Malik, Kox and Jidéhem to create the saucy album series 'Chansons Cochonnes', published by Top Game in 1990-1992.
Since 2007, Carpentier is affiliated with Joker Éditions, starting with three books of the medieval series 'Embrouilles à Mortecouille'. He also relaunched the 'Poje' comic with this publisher in 2012. The comic now appears under the title 'Les potes à Poje', both written and drawn by Carpentier. His son Laurent Carpentier is his regular colorist.
Embrouilles à Mortecouille