'Brown Sugar'.
Wally van Looy is a Flemish graphic artist, who has mainly worked as a background designer and graphic artist for the movie industry. Early in his career, he made the weekly photo comic ''t Alvermanneke' (1966-1967). From 1970 on, he was a member of the Antwerp-based underground comix and alternative art collective ERCOLA.
Self-portrait in 'Les Risques du Métier'.
Early life and career
Walter van Looy was born in the German city of Mainz, but eventually settled in Antwerp. There, he attended the S.I.S.A. Municipal Institute for Decorative Arts and Crafts, as well as the local Academy, where he was trained as an advertising painter. Inspired by the magazine Hara-Kiri and American underground comix, particularly the work of Fred, Jean-Marc Reiser and Robert Crumb, he wanted to make underground comix himself.
For De Weekbode, he worked on the comic strip ''t Alvermanneke' (1966-1967), based on the popular Flemish children's TV series "Johan en de Alverman" (starring Jef Cassiers, 1965-1966). The comic was a photo comic in which stills of Cassiers as the Alverman were combined with drawn backgrounds by Van Looy. The public network B.R.T. (nowadays the V.R.T.) registered a complaint, because, in their opinion, Van Looy's strip was copyright infringement of their TV series. However, Cassiers could prove that the term "alverman" had been part of Dutch vocabulary for a "good-natured gnome" long before the TV series aired.
ERCOLA
In October 1971, Van Looy joined the Antwerp-based alternative art collective ERCOLA, short for "Experimental Research Center of Liberal Arts". ERCOLA was founded in November 1968 by the artists Jean-Claude Block and Jean-Claude Buytaert, author Dominique Donnet and photographer Piet Verbist, all former students from the Antwerp Fine Arts Academy. In the following year, the team was reinforced by Luk Carlens and George Smits. During the 1970s, more artists joined the collective, besides Van Looy also Suzzy Bailleux and Werner Goelen (Griffo). In late 1972, the collective moved into an historical block of buildings in the Wolstraat. Van Looy regularly contributed to the group's own magazine Spruit (six issues in 1971-1972), participated in group productions and made solo comic stories like 'Brown Sugar' (based on the Rolling Stones song of the same name) and 'En Whaer De Sterre Bleef Stille Staen'.
Artwork by Wally van Looy additionally appeared in the magazines Tarzan, De Fluwelen Kater and Mornix. His artwork also appeared in mainstream magazines. In 1973, he created four news-of-the-day related pages for the Belgian edition of Pilote (issues #692, #733, #734 and #737). He was also present in Tintin and its Dutch-language edition Kuifje with the gag strip 'Croqueminou'/'Snoby' (1974-1975), about a Tarzan-like man living in the "mysterious jungle" with a cultivated creature called the Croqueminou. The feature was created in collaboration with Michel Noirret.
'Snoby', from Kuifje #46, 12 November 1974.
Later career
Later in his career, Van Looy has been mainly active as a set and costume designer for films by Robbe De Hert ('An Old Story', 1964), Patrick Lebon ('Salut En De Kost', 1974), Luc Monheim ('Deus Lo Volt', 1978), 'Verloren Maandag' (1974), Harry Kümel ('Het Verloren Paradijs', 1978) and Roland Verhavert ('Rubens, Schilder en Diplomaat', 1977). During the 1980s and 1980s, he continued to work in the ERCOLA atelier in Antwerp's Wolstraat, designing sets for Belgian TV and theater productions together with Jean-Claude Block and Frank Daniels under the name "Het Decor Atelier Ercola". This has included designs and sets for the Belgian broadcasting company BRT with Bert de Leeuw, and for the E.W.T. theater in Deurne.
'Le Cauchemar de Charlie B.'