Who is Malik?

William Tai (b.1948 d.2020), professionally known as Malik, was a cartoonist who lived near Belgium from 1986, until his death in 2020.

He was best known for two bodies of illustrative work for Cupidon (Cupid) between 1990 and 2007, a Belgian comic series detailing the hapless adventures of Cupid, written by Raoul Cauvin for the comic magazine Spirou.

The other, a hard-hitting action comic Archie Cash was published between 1973 to 1988, also a Belgian comic series which he cartooned for Spirou.

Amongst his other work were his shooting range posters, which were used by law enforcement officers. It is said that the characters depicted in the targets are based on actual officers from the Police Judiciaire fédérale Liège (PJL) and were commissioned by PJL as they felt more realistic characterisations would provide better training aids than the traditional black and white silhouette outlines.

With their strong colours, large size (they are shooting range targets after all) and cartoonish characteristics, they are very popular decorative items and are great conversation pieces.

As you may imagine, being shooting range targets by a deceased artist, these are becoming harder to come by and their popularity has increased since Drew Pritchard found a set during filming of an episode of Salvage Hunters.

We have just a handful of Malik’s last examples, which are available to buy from our posters section on our website. To use the old cliché, once they are gone, they are gone.