Hugely popular in Belgium, Tintin and friends race down a wall in Brussels’ Rue de l’Etuve.
© Joyce McGreevy

Where Comic Books Are
a Cultural Tradition

Remember watching Saturday morning cartoons and reading Sunday’s comic strips? Settling in to reread stockpiled comic books? And how your parents—those draconian disciplinarians—made you go outside to play?

In Brussels, you can have your comics and play outside, too. Just follow the Comic Book Route.

Léonard, a zany caricature of da Vinci by cartoonist “Turk,”
paints Brussels’ Palais de Justice.
© Joyce McGreevy

Launched in 1991, this citywide project turns buildings into comic-book panels to celebrate one of Belgium’s most popular cultural traditions—l’art de la bande dessinée, the art of the comic strip.

Meticulous cartoonist Francis Carin, creator of spy hero Victor Sackville,
is known as Belgium’s “tour guide to history.”
© Joyce McGreevy

Picturing Brussels

Brussels features 55 murals and counting. Centering your sightseeing around comics is a wonderful way to explore the city.

In Frank Pé’s “Broussaille,” even background details (inset) get star treatment.
© Joyce McGreevy

The Ninth Art

Belgium boasts more comic strip artists per square kilometer than anywhere else in Europe. It’s here that the comic strip grew from a popular medium into le neuvème art, “the ninth art.”

“In most Belgian homes, you will find a collection of comics or even an entire library dedicated to comic strips. More than half of the books published or produced in Belgium are comics.” So says Jean Auquier, director of the Belgian Comic Strip Center, Centre Belge de la Bande Dessinée.

There’s a comic book museum? Actually, there are several.  “Nowhere else are comics so strongly rooted in reality and in people’s imagination.”

The Belgian Comic Strip Center is housed in Art Nouveau architecture.
© www.visitbrussels.be and Daniel Fouss

Belgium’s Comic-Book Legacy

Some Belgian comic-book characters are famous worldwide. As a kid, you likely spent Saturdays with Les Schtroumpfs, as Franco-Belgians call them, De Smurfen in Flemish. That’s “Smurfs” to you and me. Cartoonist Peyo (Pierre Culliford) invented the little blue characters after coining the word schtroumpf as a joke and sprinkling variations of it into conversations.

What, no comic book for the Smurf?
© www.visitbrussels.be and Daniel Fouss

Belgium’s Boy Wonder

First, however, came Tintin, globe-trotting reporter, faithful dog Milou (“Snowy”) and brash Captain Haddock—he of tongue-twisting epithets like “Blistering blue barnacles!” and “Ten thousand thundering typhoons!”

Created by Hergé (Georges Remi), whose tumultuous life merits its own graphic novel, Tintin comics (1920s–1980s) influenced generations of cartoonists with their lignes claires (“clear lines”) and innovative use of speech balloons—previously, cartoonists kept text beneath the drawings.

The Adventures of Tintin (Kuifje in Flemish) have been
translated into 80 languages.
© Joyce McGreevy

Beyond Europe, Hergé influenced artists like Andy Warhol and Roy Liechtenstein and filmmaker Steven Spielberg. He was also honored by the Dalai Lama for his 1960 work, Tintin in Tibet.

Paper Heroes

Brussels Comic Book Route will inspire you to get to know other Belgian héros de papier, too.

The adventures of Hergé’s “other sons,” characters Quick and Flupke,
take place in the Marolles, where Hergé grew up.
© Joyce McGreevy

Where to Begin?

Because you’re never far from public transportation, I recommend starting wherever you are. Use the museum’s interactive online map to locate clusters of nearby murals.

Yves Chaland’s comic-book character, Le Jeune Albert,
is himself deeply engrossed in a comic book.
© Joyce McGreevy

My base is L’Art de la Fugue, in the St. Gilles neighborhood, an inexpensive B&B with—aptly—visually dazzling rooms, each unique. Like a cartoon detective, I begin my mystery tour by seeking out the proverbial Fat Cat:

Philippe Geluck’s “Le Chat” series delights in perplexing readers.
© Joyce McGreevy

The trail winds through the heart of the Marolles, one of the city’s oldest neighborhoods, where streets are lined with vintage shops. Like comic-book panels, the neighborhood reveals itself one fascinating window at a time.

A window on Rue Blaes reflects a spirited image of Brussels.
© Joyce McGreevy

Likewise, everyday sights seem to imitate comic art, evoking the seductions of a great story.

A street scene in Brussels (above) inspires comic-book daydreams (below). 
© Joyce McGreevy

© Joyce McGreevy

Walking Through Pictures

By moseying from one mural to another, I cover a wide swath of Brussels on foot. The search for comic-book murals reveals other urban pleasures, too. Like comic-book motion lines, the aromas of coffee and fresh-baked bread lead to wonderful cafés, places filled with locals, where visitors find a warm welcome.

There’s visual inspiration on every corner.
© Joyce McGreevy

Turning a corner becomes like turning a page. Mural by mural, I’m guided from one facet of the city to another—peaceful gardens, bustling market squares, centers of cutting-edge design, and places of gilded baroque magnificence.

At one point, I encounter a glass elevator that lifts me high above red-tiled rooftops to panoramic views from the Palais de Justice.

A couple stands beside François Schuiten and Benoît Peeters’ “The Passage,”  
unaware of their cartoon shadows (inset).
© Joyce McGreevy

All day I follow the visual narrative. The passing hours play with the autumn sunlight like a cartoonist experimenting with background colors: slate grey dawn becomes morning’s pale gold, then afternoon’s bonus blue. With so many comic-book heroes watching over Brussels, can sunset be anything but rosy?

Finally, as darkness inks in the sky, the city’s windows begin to glow, like panels in a graphic novel.

When life imitates Belgian comic-book art…
© Joyce McGreevy

Oh, I see: In the comic-book city, where the cartoonist’s art is a cultural tradition, Brussels has ever more stories to tell.

View a map of Brussels’ Comic Book Route here and see a mural being created here. See more street art in London here, on top of gum globs here, and at the Tour 13 project in Paris here.

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