Comics & Characters

Belgium invented the modern European comic. Tintin, the Smurfs, Lucky Luke, Marsupilami, and the meme afterlife of all of them.

Part of Belgium

25 moments in this segment.

1. 1929-01-01 - Tintin (Hergé). Hergé’s boy reporter (1929), the founding work of the Belgian "ligne claire" comic tradition.
2. 1929-01-01 - Snowy (Milou). Tintin’s loyal wire fox terrier, one of the most famous dogs in fiction.
3. 1930-01-01 - Quick & Flupke. Hergé’s mischievous Brussels street kids, the cheeky counterpart to Tintin.
4. 1938-01-01 - Spirou & Fantasio. The bellboy-hero of Belgian comics (1938) and his magazine that launched half the country’s cartoonists.
5. 1941-01-01 - Captain Haddock. Tintin’s whisky-loving sidekick and his immortal curses, "Billions of blue blistering barnacles!"
6. 1945-01-01 - Suske en Wiske. Willy Vandersteen’s Flemish adventure duo (1945), the most-read comic in Dutch.
7. 1945-01-01 - Suske en Wiske - Willy Vandersteen. The Flemish comic empire of Willy Vandersteen, adventures beloved across generations.
8. 1946-01-01 - Blake & Mortimer. Edgar P. Jacobs’ ligne-claire adventure series (1946), British heroes, very Belgian craft.
9. 1946-01-01 - Lucky Luke. Morris’ cowboy "who shoots faster than his shadow" (1946), a Franco-Belgian comics pillar.
10. 1947-01-01 - Nero (Marc Sleen). Marc Sleen’s satirical comic strip (1947), in the Guinness book as longest-running by a single author.
11. 1952-01-01 - Marsupilami. Franquin’s yellow-spotted "houba houba" jungle creature (1952), the most meme-able sound in Franco-Belgian comics.
12. 1953-01-01 - Tintin - The Moon Rocket. Hergé’s red-and-white checkered moon rocket (1953), predicting the Moon landing by 16 years.
13. 1955-01-01 - Jommeke. Jef Nys’ blond Flemish boy-hero (1955), a staple of Dutch-language childhoods.
14. 1957-01-01 - Gaston Lagaffe. Franquin’s lazy office anti-hero (1957), the patron saint of Belgian workplace gags.
15. 1958-01-01 - The Smurfs (Les Schtroumpfs). Peyo’s little blue creatures (1958), a global franchise and a bottomless meme well ("smurf" as universal verb).
16. 1959-01-01 - Boule et Bill. Roba’s boy-and-cocker-spaniel strip (1959), gentle Franco-Belgian family comedy.
17. 1970-01-01 - Yoko Tsuno. Roger Leloup’s pioneering electronics-engineer heroine (1970), a rare female lead in the Franco-Belgian canon.
18. 1977-01-01 - Thorgal. Rosiński & Van Hamme’s Viking-fantasy epic (1977), a Franco-Belgian comics landmark.
19. 1977-01-01 - De Kiekeboes. Merho’s gag-a-page Flemish family comic (1977), sharp, topical and hugely popular.
20. 1989-01-01 - The Comics Art Museum. Brussels’ Art-Nouveau temple to the ninth art, in a Horta-designed building, Belgium’s comics shrine.
21. 1989-01-01 - The Comic Strip Center. Brussels’ Belgian Comic Strip Center in a Horta-designed building, a temple to the Ninth Art.
22. 1990-01-01 - Largo Winch. Van Hamme’s billionaire-adventurer thriller comic (1990), later films and TV.
23. 1991-01-01 - Brussels Comic Book Route. The giant comic murals across Brussels, the city as an open-air bande-dessinée museum.
24. 1991-01-01 - The Comic Book Route. Giant comic murals across Brussels turn the whole city into an open-air gallery of Belgian comics.
25. 2000-01-01 - Comic Statues of Brussels. Bronze comic-character statues dot Brussels, a city that wears its Ninth Art on its streets.