Sources of inspiration

Castle of Skeuvre (Champignac)
© OPT / JL Flemal

But there’s more to this identification. Artists have always put their surroundings into their work. Sometimes a story is built on the bloody history of a region, like Waterloo or Bastogne; sometimes it’s the castles, from Bouillon to Skeuvre (Hamois), whose silhouette Franquin used to create Champignac.


And whereas Francorchamps is truly life-like in Michel Vaillant’s adventures, at other times, it’s our spiritual heritage that’s highlighted. Don’t the Joyeux Turlurons dear to Tintin and Hergé bear a resemblance to the Blancs Moussis of Stavelot and the Chinels of Fosses-la-Ville? That taste for masks anchored in our folklore can also be seen elsewhere, even more fearsome, in the work of Comès and Servais, among others. With Hausman, they go deep into the Ardennes, a place conducive to fantasy. Without the ruins of Montaigle and Reinhardstein, Johan et Pirlouit (Peyo) and the Tours de Bois-Maury (Hermann) might not exist, nor would the work of Walthéry, in his village of Cheratte, overlooking Liège.

By becoming hyphens between the imagination of a region and their many readers, the comic strip creators became ambassadors and their work a full-fledged part of Wallonia’s heritage.

Fresco Servais
© OPT / JP Remy

Wallonia owes its authors a great deal thanks to Tintin, the Smurfs, Lucky Luke, Spirou et Fantasio, Gaston Lagaffe, Achille Talon and their innumerable fictional cousins. Their work has gone around the world and has become a reflection of our art of living. (© Jean Auquier, Belgian Comic Strip Centre.)