Original Vintage Cartoon Criminal Robber Poster Malik William Tai comic cartoon gun police target illustration 1992 print wall art 1990s

1992 Police Judiciaire de Liege. Printed in Belgium
For Law Enforcement Only
Artwork by Malik

Dimensions: 35 in x 25 in (89 cm x 64 cm)

In the early 1980s, an officer of the Judicial Police of Belgian city Liège, Francis Dorao, began seeking a cost-effective method for providing more realistic simulations of high-risk situations for police target training, claiming that the traditional black silhouette targets did not adequately prepare officers to face actual human opponents or to make the split-second decisions necessary when distinguishing between an armed threat and an innocent bystander.

A comic book fan, Dorao began contacting artists from the fertile Belgian comics scene to solicit artwork for the new kinds of targets he imagined. Comics illustrators including François Walthéry, Arthur Piroton, Gilbert Gascard (Tibet), Herman Huppe (author of post-apocalyptic comic Jeremiah), and William Vance provided artwork for Dorao’s targets, with several of the more striking images being drawn by William Tai, also know as Malik, who is perhaps best known for Cupidon, his long-running comic about the misadventures of Cupid (he was also well-known for his erotic comics drawn under the pseudonym Phénix).

The targets were an immediate success, becoming popular outside of Belgium and leading to a paradoxical circle of causality whereby police officers were trained using images created by artists who often specialized in producing spectacularized versions of the exploits of police officers for consumption through comics. Dorao—whose company, PJL Targets, still supplies “realistic” training targets—became friends with several of the artists he hired and contributed a script, 1986’s Neige Poudreuse à Liège (Powder Snow in Liège), to Franco-Belgian police comic series Jess Long, illustrated by Arthur Piroton.

When framed these colourful and detailed posters, with vibrant colours can become a centre piece for any room, to remind us of a simpler time.

These posters are sent as unframed. They will be sent in a cardboard tube for protection.

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