11/04 Belgian Comic Strip Center

We decided to leave the girls at home and give them a break from being tourists. They are happily surfing the web and sneaking Easter candy as we head out the door to Brussels. The destination for jerry, Danny and I is the Begian Comic Strip Centre! 

The Belgian Comic Strip Center chronicles the history of Belgian Comics. Housed in a former department store, the Magasins Waucquez, built in 1906 in the business district, it exhibits examples of comic strips in French, Dutch and English. The museum opened in 1989. The full range of comic art is covered, including science fiction, Wild West, crime and politics, as well as children's comics such as The Smurfs and of course, Belgiums own Herge! 

The museum opened in 1989. I read on trip advisor that in spite of its name, it is not for children because it really involves a great deal of reading. Now who is that perfect for?! We three spent a very happy four hours there, learning about the earliest "comics" Egyptian hyroglyphs, past the populate newspaper published political cartoons in Napoleans day, to the modern graphic novels of today. 

We learned about the techniques for drawing the strips and for printing them. All the while housed in a very architecturally unique building. The special exhibit was on the life work of Grzegorz Rosinski an amazingly prolific artist who is best known for the Thorgal comic books, first published in TinTin magazine. Thorgal is  an epic family saga tinged with fantasy. This comic strip was to become tremendously successful – so much so that it spawned three spin-off series, Kriss de Valnor, Louve and La Jeunesse de Thorgal. Besides original works by Grzegorz Rosinski, who drew the strips directly in colour from the 2000’s, we also saw impressive drawings by Giulio De Vita and Roman Surzhenko, who were very much inspired by the exceptionally talented scenario writers: Jean Van Hamme, Yves Sente and Yann. They nearly named him Ragnar but the name had already been taken. Thorgal Aegirsson came into being in 1977, his creators, comic strip artist Grzegorz Rosinski and his script-writer, Jean Van Hamme, had only just met one year before. Grzegorz Rosinski lived in Poland where he was already working as an illustrator, and hardly spoke a word of French. Jean Van Hamme lived in Brussels and was trying to establish himself as writer. Readers were first introduced to Thorgal in a short story entitled La Magicienne trahie (The Sorceress Betrayed). Thorgal is a young Viking, who falls victim to the hatred of Gandalf the Mad, who is not only the leader of his clan but also his future father-in-law. Already on page two, we see Gandalf slicing Thorgal’s cheek with his sword. The scar will always remain visible despite the character undergoing multiple transformations. I am not a big comic book reader, but these displays were so amazing I can't wait to read the books. Of course Danny was mad for it and we know that Jake, the Viking in our family, will be too! 

Sadly , the shop is out of number 1, so it's to Amazon we go. I found out that the English translation is actually set up differently, with number seven in French, which explained Thorgal's birth being presented as number one in English...we like things more linear I guess! Just a fantastic stop, we all loved it! Since we are in the center of the city we walk down through the central square and out to our favourite Turkish place for lunch..Life is good!