Comic strips today

European comic strips began to emancipate themselves from their Belgian origins in the 1960s. Readers grew up and their tastes and means expanded. However, it was thanks to A Suivre, another magazine created in Wallonia and published by Casterman in Tournai (1978) that European comic strips truly became the Ninth Art, both a literary genre and graphic art. It gave the best European comic strip artists a place of honour. Among them were Comès and Jean-Claude Servais, both from the Ardennes region.

Le complexe du chimpanzé by Marazano & Ponzio
© Dargaud

Today, French-language comic strips are still making their way in the world. Hergé, Jijé and Franquin remain the models for most European artists. Comic strip art is taught in Liège, Tournai, Mons, and Châtelet. In the footsteps of the Belgian comic strip giants, contemporary comic strips are forging new paths for an art which, over the decades, has become completely identified with the society in which it blossomed. From the “Country of Hills” to the Gaume region, from the banks of the Meuse to those of the Escaut, from Liège to Charleroi, all of Wallonia is reflected in European comic strips.

Belgian Comic Strip Centre
© OPT / Ricardo de la Riva

While a fresco on the walls of the parish church in Corbion-sur-Semois reminds us that the young Joseph Gillain (Jijé) already had a great deal of talent, a sphinx watches over the final resting place of E.P. Jacobs (Blake et Mortimer) at the entrance to the little cemetery in Lasne. In Florenville, a bronze Tendre Violette (JC Servais) welcomes visitors to Gaume. Charleroi has put up statues of some of the heroes created for the Dupuis publishing house (Spirou and Fantasio, the Marsupilami, Boule and Bill, Lucky Luke). Limal, in Brabant, pays homage to the father of Cubitus (Dupa) and the town of Bousval has named the street where Tintin’s creator once lived, “Hergé street”. New markers dedicated to this popular art blossom in Wallonia every year. (© Jean Auquier, Belgian Comic Strip Centre)