Hec Leemans - Dédicace

The Flemish comics artist Hec Leemans is best known as the creator of the historical series 'Bakelandt', and as the author of the 'FC De Kampioenen' comics. Hector Leemans was born in Temse, and got his artistic education at the Academy of Fine Arts in Dendermonde. After his studies, he entered the comics field as the co-worker of Sylvain Polfliet in 1969. Together, they made the espionage strip 'Brian Howell' in the daily newspaper Het Volk, for which Leemans did the backgrounds and some of the scripts. During his military service in 1972, he took over Merho's creation 'Jager Jansens' in the military magazine Shako. On 20 October 1975 he made his real breakthrough when his strip 'Bakelandt' was published in the Belgian newspapers Het Laatste Nieuws and De Nieuwe Gazet. Leemans created the comic in cooperation with Daniel Jansens, with whom he also produced some short stories for Kuifje. When Jansens died in 1979, Leemans continued the popular 'Bakelandt' series on his own, and 96 albums have been published by Standaard Uitgeverij until 2006. In 1977 he came up with his own gag series, 'Circus Maximus'. The series was initially published in the Dutch magazine Eppo, and was later continued in Robbedoes (1984) and Suske en Wiske Weekblad (1994). Text (c) Lambiek