Belgian Comic Strip Center, Brussels

Belgian Comics Strip Center
Rue des Sables 20
1000 Brussels
Tel.: + 32 (0)2 219 19 80
Fax: + 32 (0)2 219 23 76
visit(arrobe)comicscenter.net

The Marriage of the Ninth Art and Art Nouveau

The Belgian Comic Strip Center is located in the very heart of Brussels. It is housed in a magnificent Art Nouveau temple (architect Victor Horta, 1906) and opened its doors to the public on 6 October 1989. In no time this impressive museum has become one of Brussels major tourist draws. Every year more than 200,000 visitors come here to explore 4,200 m² worth of permanent and temporary exhibitions.

Temporary and permanent exhibitions have made sure that this Ninth Art gem has not become a dead place. It is a dynamic and exciting place where everything is done to help promote comic strips in the best possible way (there's the annual issue of comic strip stamps and the comic strip route, for example). Apart from acting as a cultural ambassador for Belgium's regions and communities, the Belgian Comic Strip Center has become the number one reference for comic strip lovers. It is also a modern research centre which boasts more than 40,000 titles (albums and theoretical works) in more than 20 languages.

The Belgian Comic Strip Center is a non-profit organization which manages to finance its original cultural project largely thanks to its numerous visitors and the hundred or so events which take place there every year (the part of the budget financed by state support is no more than 10%!). The The Belgian Comic Strip Center’s aim, which was laid down in its statutes, is twofold: to maintain the building's integrity and to promote the comic strip as a valuable cultural medium.

A Dream of Stone and Paper

In October 1989 the Belgian Comic Strip Center took up residence in the old Waucquez warehouse, a remarkable building designed by famous architect Victor Horta in 1906. Since then it has grown into a regular shrine to the Ninth Art.

The The Belgian Comic Strip Center is located in the heart of one of Brussels' oldest quarters, two paces from St Hubert Galleries, Grand Place and the Royal Palace. Every year more than 200,000 visitors come here to enjoy the building's architectural splendour as well as the communicative power of comics.

On more than four thousand m² the Centre assembles everything on the subject of European comic strips, from their prestigious beginnings to recent developments.

Mission of the Belgian Comic Strip Center

The non-profit organization “Belgian Comic Strip Center” was created in 1984. It is a private initiative, composed of French-speaking and Dutch-speaking members. Half of the members originate from the comic strips world or from professional associations of comic strip artists. The Belgian Comic Strip Center’s presidents have been, in chronological order, Bob De Moor (1984-1992), Jean Van Hamme (1992-2000), then Guy Dessicy, who was the founder of the association too. Comic strip author Ferry Van Vosselen is its vice-president. The Belgian Comic Strip Center's aims are simple: to promote the comic strip as a valuable cultural medium and to maintain the architectural masterpiece which it is housed in.

The Kingdom of Comics

With more than 700 comic strip authors, Belgium has more comic strip artists per square kilometre than any other country in the world! It is here that the comic strip has grown from a popular medium into an art in its own right. Nowhere else comics are so strongly rooted in reality and in people's imagination.

If you come to visit the Belgian Comic Strip Center, you will witness the unusual marriage of the Ninth Art and Art Nouveau, two artistic forms of expression which have always been particularly cherished in Brussels. This kingdom of the imagination is home to some of Belgium's best-known comic strip heroes: Tintin, Spirou, Bob and Bobette, the Smurfs, Lucky Luke, Blake and Mortimer, Marsupilami, etc. They are one big happy family of paper heroes. We can safely say that the heart of European comic strips beats in Brussels.