What is Chez Cuckoo about?
Chez Cuckoo is a comic about very different people managing to live together somehow. It’s a comic about friendship, feminism, alcohol, gender, religion, metal music, everyday disasters, and general screw-ups.
The cast
There are plenty of Characters in Chez Cuckoo, and here is a presentation of the most important of them. Reading this will help you to fully understand the comic:
Ronny
A Black Metal musician in his band Blacktööth, with his friends Svein and Metal-Egil. He is a major womanizer who drinks too much and parties too often and has very religious Christian parents. He is the most popular character, and if you like, you can buy him a beer here!
Mounir
A very, very liberal Muslim who works as a Warehouse Manager and has a fetish for women’s underwear. He used to have trouble getting positive attention from women until he met Agatha. Has a father who lives with Osama bin Laden (the real one, not the one they claimed to kill in Pakistan).
Greta
Big and lesbian, and proud of the latter. Her frustration about her weight is usually taken out on anyone within her reach, especially men. She comes from a rural area and has foul language.
Emma
Greta’s fiancé, and a master of the obscure martial art, Pung-Fu. She is not as angry at men as Greta but does not hesitate to make men who pay too much attention to her body regret it. Painfully.
Toby
Once a born-again Christian, always a true-born Bob Dylan fan. Has a big collection of vinyl, comics, and other stuff. He tries to make a living by writing texts almost nobody wants to print.
Kathy
Ronny’s ex-girlfriend and mother to their son, Balder. She is smart but naive and is constantly looking for a handsome man to date. She is trying to raise her son to not be like his father.
Balder
Ronny and Kathy’s son. Have few but good friends, like Liza and Mortimer. He is a boy who looks up to his father, and who has a lively imagination. Someone might call him a little brat…or worse.
Agatha
Mounir’s girlfriend since 2018. She loves horror movies, spicy food, traveling, and shoes. She’s maybe a bit kinky. She is the latest character to arrive in the comic.
Madlyn
For many years she was Mounir’s secretary at work and a pain in the ass in private. A romantic, passionate, and totally insane woman.
Ina
Toby’s ex-girlfriend. She left Toby in 2017 and has been out of the comic since then.
The story behind the comic
Chez Cuckoo started back in January 2000 as a guest strip in the Norwegian Gary Larson’s Far Side Gallery comic magazine. The Norwegian title is “Kollektivet”. In Norway, Chez Cuckoo has been published in several major newspapers, magazines, books, and softcover albums for different publishers over the years.
In 2018 I began publishing Chez Cuckoo for the first time in English. Bulls Press syndicates the comic in Norway and internationally.
You find the Official Norwegian Website here: Kollektivet.no
The artist
My name is Torbjørn Lien, and I’m a nerd and a full-time cartoonist. Growing up in an industrial town in the northern parts of Norway my escapism was mainly making and reading comics. I guess I was afraid of girls, but somehow, as an adult, I got four kids and now live on an island with the woman of my dreams. It’s hope for everyone!
