The Cast, the Comic, and it's Creator

There are plenty of characters in Chez Cuckoo. Here’s an introduction to the most important ones, a short introduction to the comic, and a few words about the guy behind it all.

Ronny
A Black Metal musician in the band Blacktööth, with his friends Svein and Metal-Egil. He’s a major womanizer who drinks too much and parties too often. His parents are very religious Christians. He’s the most popular character, and if you’d like, you can buy him a beer here!

Kathy
Ronny’s ex-girlfriend and mother to their son, Balder. She’s smart but naive and constantly looking for a handsome man to date. She’s trying to raise her son to not be like his father.

Mounir
A very liberal Muslim who works as a Warehouse Manager. He has a fetish for women’s underwear. He used to have trouble getting positive attention from women until he met Agatha. His father lives with Osama bin Laden (the real one, not the one they claimed to kill in Pakistan).

Balder
Ronny and Kathy’s son. A smart kid with a few good friends, like Liza and Mortimer. He looks up to his father and has a lively imagination. Some might call him a little brat… or worse.

Greta
Big, lesbian, and proud of it. She usually takes out her frustration about her weight on anyone within her reach, especially men. She comes from a rural area and uses foul language.

Agatha
Mounir’s girlfriend since 2018. She loves horror movies, spicy food, traveling, and shoes. She’s maybe a bit kinky and is often the voice of reason in the comic.

Emma
Greta’s girlfriend for many years. A master of the obscure martial art Pung-Fu. She’s not as angry at men as Greta but doesn’t hesitate to make men who pay too much attention to her body regret it. Painfully.

Madlyn
Mounir’s secretary for many years and a pain in the ass in private. She’s a romantic, passionate, and totally insane woman.

Toby
Once a born-again Christian, always a true Bob Dylan fan. He has a big collection of vinyl, comics, and other stuff. He tries to make a living by writing texts almost nobody wants to print.

Ina
Toby’s ex-girlfriend. She left Toby in 2017 and has been out of the comic since then.

The beginning of Chez Cuckoo

The comic 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 national and local newspapers and magazines, 14 hardcover comic collections, and 50 softcover comic albums for different publishers over the years. The comic also had its monthly magazine for 10 years.

In 2018, I began publishing Chez Cuckoo in English for the first time.

English website: ChezCuckoo.com

Norwegian website: Kollektivet.no

The Creator

My name is Torbjørn Lien, and I’ve been a professional comic artist for more than 20 years. Chez Cuckoo is my main work, but I also dabble in other genres like science fiction. After working for various publishers for most of my career, I went fully independent in January 2023.

I grew up in a small industrial town in Northern Norway. The lack of friends as a kid gave me a rich imagination that brought me much joy and inspired my comic-making later in life.

I’m the proud father of four young adults. After living 30 years among the mighty fjords in Western Norway, I moved back up north a couple of years ago. I now live on an idyllic island with my partner.

Creating and selling comics is my main source of income. If you want to support me please buy my comic books, or join my Patreon. Thank you!