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.