Comics in Brussels

Changing gears from the usual articles/reviews to a travelogue entry now, I thought I’d give a little run down on a trip to Brussels I had recently.  Why?  COMICS! (Humour me. I don’t leave the house much, let alone go anywhere interesting!)

I went to Paris a couple of years ago and thought the comic supply was plentiful enough… I knew nothing.  Brussels is truly the city of comics where they are regarded as a respected and celebrated art form.  Dedicated shops are numerous and themed murals decorate the sides of buildings throughout the capital.  Bring a decent amount of spending money, a strong bag and a French dictionary and there will be much to tempt you from the usual superheroes and manga, to more Franco-Belgian-specific titles.  You’re not on home turf, so it makes sense to get into the local culture.  Off to the Belgian Comic Strip Centre with you!

A giant version of Spirou's hat.

Dat rocket.

It might be worth doing a little research before visiting a place like this.  I’m no expert by any stretch, but I felt being able to recognise the likes of Lucky Luke, Gaston and Spirou on sight helped keep my bearings in a land where virtually everything else is being seen for the first time.  The Centre’s art nouveau building (designed by Victor Horta, architect fans!) is free to enter on the ground floor and holds a comic shop and small restaurant.  There is also a substantial reading library that requires a small fee for access.  Guarding the middle stairs is Tintin’s space rocket, up which is the entrance to the main attraction.

Lucky Luke's shadow.

The Belgian Comic Strip Centre is a museum that describes the history of comics, how they are made, and celebrates its continuing evolution.  A large range of original artwork is on display and is divided between writing, pencilling, inking and colouring.  Styles in this area range from the cartoony to the realistic and both classic and recent work is covered.  Other areas on this level provide showcases for more famous Belgian titles like Spirou, Marsupilami, The Smurfs and Lucky Luke (it’s perhaps worth noting that a French title like Asterix is conspicuously absent).  Tintin of course gets a special mention and has a major dedicated section.  The higher tiers of the museum are for temporary exhibits, providing more detailed focus on a particular series or artist (at the time of writing there are two.  One for Olivier Grenson and the other American artist Will Eisner).

Porco Rosso for no reason.

The Centre is a great place to get a good idea of how bandes desinées are regarded.  It’s also good for getting ideas on what kinds of titles you may want to check out for yourself once you hit the high street afterwards.  Tourist site reviews may complain that they didn’t know any of the characters on display, but to be honest if you’re going to an educational facility and don’t try to learn something new, you’re frankly doing it wrong.  If you have an attraction to the medium and what to discover something new, this place is a good way to go.

A few other general notes/observations on comic-related things in Brussels:

•  Comic shops are pretty easy to find.  If there are humans and shops about, keep your eyes peeled for your next random encounter.  Mainstream bookshops and newsagents should also stock several major titles.
•  Most comic shops will be selling the latest releases at discounts that rival online prices.  Older titles seemed to be at full price and availability of specific volumes is a bit more hit and miss.
•  All shops seem to adopt a different method for organising their stock, which makes looking for particular titles very difficult.  They could be arranged by title, publisher, genre or writer/artist depending on where you’re at.  Be ready to either browse deep or unleash your mad language skillz and ask for help.  You can descend to using English in a pinch, but attempting French initially will allow local shop workers to warm to your plight.
•  If you really don’t want to leave your safe zone small English-language sections can often found in larger book and comics shops (you will find Cinebook ranges that shame most UK shops).
•  There often seems to be something going on in terms of conventions, signings or limited edition prints.  For a taste on this kind of info try visiting: http://www.multibd.com and http://www.brusel.com/
• Many comic shops have dedicated second-hand sections with titles at reduced prices but still good condition.  Some shops are completely second-hand.  Bargains are to be found!
• Don’t go too nuts when shopping. BDs are large, hardback and heavy.  This is a major consideration particularly if you’re flying, but if you’re travelling via Eurostar your only limit is your physical power!  Take your time and get something that’s really good.  Impulse-buy sparingly or risk regretting it later (my poor back…). 
• Check out the manga section.  The range and quality of work that’s translated into French but isn’t available in English will break your soul. 
• Specialist figurines are in good supply, and prices vary to extremes.  To be honest I have no idea in this field.  I’d stick to obviously mainstream stores for risk of paying 300+ Euros on some poorly moulded tat. 

Smurf statue found outside the Moof museum.

That’s a very basic roundup of comics in Brussels.  It’s a must for any comic fan in the UK who wants to see something new, but America and Japan seem too far away.  It’s also a cool place to do touristy things.  Someday I would like to return!

Lucky Luke - Billy the Kid

Everyone’s heard of Asterix, and most likely Tintin, but for most people that’s a far as it goes when it comes to knowledge on Franco-Belgian comics.  It seems strange that Lucky Luke has somehow slipped under the radar in English speaking territories.  It enjoys phenomenal success around the rest of the world, pulling in the kinds of sales figures that only the top manga artists could hope to measure up against (how does 300 million sound?), and while there have been sporadic attempts over the years to get Lucky Luke printed in English it’s only relatively recently that Cinebook have made some real headway into the 75+ volume catalogue.

For those new to the character, Lucky Luke is ‘The man who shoots faster than his own shadow’.  A quick-draw deadeye of a cowboy who can easily outshoot anyone, he travels on his trusty steed, Jolly Jumper, and travels from place to place righting the wrongs of thieves, bandits and anyone else up to no good.

‘Billy the Kid’ is originally the 20^th Lucky Luke album from 1962, skipping the comic’s formative years and heading right into the classic stuff from when creator Morris was collaborating with René Goscinny (a name that might ring bells as the writer of Asterix).  Lucky Luke comics are stand-alone affairs however so any concerns about losing the chronology aren’t necessary.  As for the plot Billy the Kid has his entire home town cowering in fear at his gunmanship.  Everyone is too intimidated to press charges against him and he can essentially do as he likes and enforce his own sensibilities on the people.  The arrival of Lucky Luke in town upsets the balance as he doesn’t bow to Kid’s intimidation, and will plainly scold the misbehaviour like the child he is.

Events unfold and escalate as the gap between Luke and  The Kid widens, but the tone is ever light and it’s pretty clear no one’s really going to get hurt.  Instead of escalations in aggression, it’s creativity and clever mind games that win the day.  Light entertainment in hand with friendly artwork equals a work that virtually anyone could read and enjoy.  Its decades of success aren’t unjustified, and if Lucky Luke had been available to me as a child I’d definitely already have a bunch of them.  I’ve got some catching up to do…

The Chimpanzee Complex - Paradox

The Apollo 11 was a spaceflight that first allowed man to walk on the moon, a fact that has been disputed amongst conspiracy theorists virtually every day since. Chimpanzee Complex doesn’t question whether man made it there or not but instead poses to the reader that perhaps not everything that happened on the moon’s surface matches the history books.

Set in the not-too-distant future of 2035, an unknown object crashes into the Indian Ocean. The American military rushes to secure the item only to discover it is a fragment of Apollo 11 and contains two living beings claiming to be none other than Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin. Having just had her mission to Mars cancelled, Helen Freeman is summoned to try and discover the truth to this new situation. Who are these individuals, and who was it that came to Earth in the original landing? With nary a chance to check in on her wanting daughter (as the father’s since done a runner), Helen is off on a lunar mission to find out exactly what happened in 1969.

Chimpanzee Complex is a sci-fi that provides an intriguing mystery with very few clues as to its true nature. We don’t know if we’re headed for a scenario involving aliens, time-travel, parallel worlds or something else entirely. There’s a lot to think about as the plot thickens nicely throughout the volume with a rapid succession of twists that really set you up nicely for the next book. The added layer of Helen’s fractured relationship with her daughter is not immediately relevant to the proceedings, but I assume future volumes will see their relationship develop further.

The artwork is well-developed with a grim colour selection that depicts quite a bleak world despite using settings such as sunny Florida. Perspectives and ‘camera’ angles prove to be a real selling point with the backgrounds and spacecraft being particularly impressive. The characters themselves are highly realistic and softly toned, although personally I felt a few of the expressions looked a little stilted at key moments. It’s very much got an accomplished filmic that I hope it will grow even stronger as the series progresses.

For those curious to the book’s title, the only explanation we are given is about a psychological condition observed from chimpanzees being forcibly put through scientific testing. As with many of the features displayed in this volume, it could either be a clue or a complete misdirection. For now though the concept is interesting and event are leading into interesting areas. This promises to be a rewarding read.

Darwin's Diaries - The Eye of the Celts

For a while now Cinebook has been forging its own path as a publisher of translated French and Belgian comics in English-speaking territories, and has rapidly gained a solid reputation for its wide range of quality titles. While much of it output has consisted of classic titles for an audience who never had a chance to read them before (much in a similar way to how English-speaking audiences are only now really discovering Osamu Tezuka’s manga), it’s good to see them also putting out more recent titles such as Darwin’s Diaries.

It’s the mid-Victorian era and an unknown something in the night is out tearing people to shreds. With a rising number of incidents and only a handful of witnesses, the rumours start to fly. Having published his work On the Origin of Species the previous year, Darwin’s is called in by the prime minister to determine what unidentified creature is committing these violent atrocities. As if his theory of evolution wasn’t already controversial enough, dabbling in potential areas of folklore and myth threaten to jeopardise his scientific legitimacy and social standing.

It’s an interesting concept to take a popular scientific theory and make a horror story out of it. Depicting a dark and truly grim England with a dingy palette and grisly violence, Darwin’s Diaries is less a world of scientific discovery than it is a broken one. Darwin himself gets into drunken fights and sets about screwing whores once he’s out of sight of his wife and kids. Whether it’s a commentary on a man defying the teachings of his world, or just an attempt to ensnare its readers into its flawed protagonist, there are a lot of ingredients thrown into this comic for the reader to take as the mystery continues to deepen and intrigue. To be honest I could’ve done without the misjudged attempts feminism, presented in form of Darwin’s smirkingly patronising sidekick, but otherwise this is a solid mystery story that is high on gore and low on answers. Basically everything I need to be interested in reading the next volume!

Blacksad

I’m going to stretch a bit outside of my safe zone and check out some comics to time that are not manga-related at all. It’s in keeping with the Japanese definition of manga at least (comics, right?), and if that explanation doesn’t gel then fine it’s my blog so I can write about whatever I fancy! ^_^

In terms of American comics I’ll be honest and say most mainstream superhero comics bore me. There have been shockingly few new significant characters introduced over the last couple of decades, and the old ones are so ingrained that no one dares change anything about them, which kind of kills any attempt at credibility in the drama as you know you’re pretty much guaranteed a predictable happy ending each time. Manga’s a bit more risky and suits my taste, but every so often I still get a little worn out with that too start to crave something… different. And so I turn my eyes to the mainland…

Known locally as bandes dessinées, or simply BD, the French and Belgian comic industry is well-established with comic volumes regularly selling in the hundreds of thousands. Not as big as Japan, but I’d hazard bigger than the US and certainly more so than in the pitiful UK. A standard volume is around 50-odd pages, A4-ish in size, hardback and therefore quite expensive. They’re premium goods with titles seemingly holding their value several years after their initial release. Aside from the anomalies such as Asterix and Tintin, most BDs are inexplicably ignored and unknown in English-language territories, but thankfully the walls are slowly bringing broken down.

John Blacksad is a private investigator cat who works in a world where corruption, sleaze and crime run rife throughout society. This is pulp territory of crime fiction with an animal twist. Mammals and reptiles mix as well as black horses and white wolves in this tense 50s-style world where prejudice only barely runs under the surface. The animal designs create archetypes that enhance characterisations rather than distracting from the plot or making it look silly. There’s a strong style to this substance, and the sublime watercolours brim every page with a finesse that is very rarely seen in comics of any sort.

Dark Horse released a volume that compiles the first three comics into one solid hardback. It’s lovely stuff and serves as a real showcase to the work. A fourth volume did come out in France last year, but as yet there’s no sign of a translated release and as years go by between individual releases, it might be quite a long while before a second triple-volume book is feasible (assuming it would even be considered). All the same Blacksad is an amazing comic, and well worth risking regardless of your normal taste in comics.