I have a confession to make, and an apology. For years now, I have been promoting the Brussels Comics Centre, or Centre De La Bande Dessinée / Centrum Voor Het Beeldverhaal, as it is known in our bilingual capital. Even on this self-same blog, in one of my earliest contributions, I urged you all to come to Brussels, visit the Comics Capital of Europe and pay a visit to the Waucquez house and its wonderful exhibitions. Well, not anymore.
First, the confession: I hadn’t visited the Centre since I left the University. The last time was for a Tintin in Congo exhibit, which I wanted to review for an Art Criticism course (which I passed with honours, thank you very much). Since then – nada. I talked about going, planned visits, but never actually went. And in the meantime I kept on applauding it as if it was the best thing since word balloons.
Secondly, the apology: I really shouldn’t have done that. Hear me out, please. Last Sunday, we took the kids to visit the Princess Elisabeth Antarctic Research Centre, a new type of settlement which is supposed to be completely self-sufficient in terms of waste and energy management, and which was built in a dress-rehearsal way in the Tour Et Taxis complex in Brussels (it will be erected properly on the Antarctic somewhere in 2008). That was very interesting, but it didn’t really kill the day. So, we decided to treat the kids to a visit to the Comics Museum, as they called it.
(exterior of the Centre De La Bande Dessinée in Brussels, borrowed from the Wikipedia entry)
The building is very impressive – one of the most beautifully restored Art Nouveau buildings I’ve ever seen. The entrance is very promising as well, with a nice lunar rocket from Tintin On The Moon, and the famous Tintin bust that Hergé was photographed with so many times. But then…
To put it bluntly, the complete museum is filled with photocopies of art from comics. Some of them are organised thematically such as the temporary exhibition on how Europeans of different nationalities are portrayed in the comics. Others focus on a particular cartoonist, magazine or title. Sure, there are some very nice 3D exhibits, such as Gaston Lagaffe’s office, or a fragment of the deck from Buck Danny’s aircraft carrier, but it’s all arranged in a very haphazard way, without any real story.
(advert for the exhibition of how different European nationalities are portrayed in comics form)
The best part in my opinion is the separate exhibit dedicated to Hergé, who in the meantime seems to have become no less than Belgium’s comics God. Here some typical elements from the Tintin books have been recreated, such as the Thompson Twins’ several bowler hats, or the portrait of his ancestor that Captain Haddock smashes in the Secret of the Unicorn. But here as well the bulk of the exhibit are reproductions from the comics, copies of art. It’s not worse than the travelling exhibit on Hergé that was on show in Angoulême earlier in the year, but no better either.
And then it suddenly dawned on me, what irritated me the most about the whole museum (except the lack of any real exclusive material besides the “vault”, but more on that later): I couldn’t find any title, genre or biographical element anywhere that dated from after 1992. People who were born in 1960, such as Warnauts and Raives, are still 32. Yann Le Pelletier, the bad boy of comics who became to be the saviour of Spirou, has written many books, except, indeed, Spirou. Cities of the Fantastic, the ground breaking series by Schuiten and Peeters in which architecture plays the main role, counts only six titles. Manga, small press, ego comics? Never heard of them! Bailly, Lapiere, Parrondo? Connais pas!
Beyond the archetypal “nouvelle vague” of the 1980′s, nothing new has happened. It’s official now, since our National Comics Authority seems to say so: nothing new since A Suivre.
The same goes for the “vault”, the separate set of exhibition cases with samples of original art. All very nice and dandy, with lots of examples from Tintin and Spirou’s golden age, but nothing new, not one page that’s not done in ink on paper – no colour, no gouache, nothing. And on the other hand, nothing by the insanely great either. If there were pages by Hergé, Jacobs, Morris and Vandersteen (really), then they were very well hidden.
So, no, this was not an uplifting experience. We even went to see Manneken Pis to shake off the frustration. Again, I’m very sorry.
September 13th, 2007 at 2:39 pm
I totally agree with Wim. I went about 8 years ago – sad to sound like it hasn’t improved – with a girlfriend who was a cartoonist herself – she totally excited at seeing some original Herge and other things we imagined would be there. Both of us were incredibly underwhelmed. The building is lovely from the outside but kinda feeling run down inside (or was then) and the original art and shop etc were really way below what one would expect from a Mueseum of Comic Art. It isn’t a patch on the Museum of Comics Art in Angouleme and last time I was there that was looking down at heel itself – it least it had a good shop and come Angouleme comics festival some stellar exhibits of original works. I’d go as far as to say you would get more pleasure from a walk round Lambiek, Forbidden Planet or someplace that looks like it still considers comics in all its forms as a still viable, vibrant, medium.
September 13th, 2007 at 7:54 pm
Kenny: I think it’s funny that you put Forbidden Planet and Lambiek in the same sentence as if those two shops were on a par. The old, original FP in Denmark Street was a gem of a shop (I even managed to score a couple of issues of Les Cahiers de la Bande Dessinée there). Sadly, the current incarnation is more like a toy shop.
September 13th, 2007 at 9:31 pm
Hm. Last time I was there (about 2 years ago) there were lots of originals by Hergé, Jacobs, Morris and Vandersteen, and even more Franquin, although the Franquin work was a separate and temporary exhibition. And lots of coloured stuff in the vault as well. I wonder what might have happened there. Apart from that I agree – absolutely nothing really *new* there, but I still enjoyed the visit.
September 14th, 2007 at 9:46 am
Hi Brad – I understand where you are coming from on that but I do think it depends which FP you go to. I haven’t been to the London one for a while but last time I was it was pretty well stocked downstairs on all comics and graphics that were English Language. I know the Glasgow FP carries just about everything – including just about all indies – a number of the FP International shops have been carrying some UK small press for a while. And of course our blog tends to treat comics as central to what we do. Admittedly there are a lot of toys in the stores – which grew out of the fact we were never a comics store only as we always had a Sci-Fi element which burgeoned into film and TV and then toys. My preference would have been that we remained comics stores predominantly but the downside of the upside of having reasonably prominent high street locations is that we have large rents to pay that cannot be paid by comics alone. For years people were saying the industry can’t move forward until there are nice looking shops on high streets that women and children would go into – something we more than anyone else embraced – that it has meant a compromise on stock mix is inveitable but I still think FP as a whole cares about comics more than you think. OK there isn’t much, if any, foreign language stuff in FP but that is a factor of years of trying it and ending up marking it down below cost to sell it. We do on our website carry a couple of German publishers and one Dutch – we have the books in stock in our warehouse – response has been underwhelming even for major Euro artists like Anke Feuchtenberger and award nominated books like Oliver Schrauwen’s ‘My Boy’ – people like to talk about them – not many seem to want to buy them. I’m sure we would all like shops who would stock everything for us to look through but in the end someone has to buy the stuff. I think actually look hard in some of the bigger FP’s and you will see more than you thought. I do think fans are also a little blind concerning stores like Lambiek. It has a great name historically – I was there 6 months ago and still like a browse there myself – but it isn’t the store it was 15 years ago – and it certainly hasn’t tried for a high street position to widen the market – I was even a little disappointed about the stock mix – of course there was loads of what are in effect the current graphic novels from Europe there – these being kinda the equivelant of FP stocking Fun Home, Maus and even all the Marvel and DC boks – which of course we do. There were some quirky small press titles around the till point and a table or 3 of the best of import (mostly American books) centre of room. I got the feeling this was really the equivelant for the most part of what we would in fact stock – and given that almost all the Dutch have good enough English to read titles in that language we aren’t judging like for like. What I didn’t find was much evidence of reaching out to comics edge – like full range of the Dernier Cri books etc that you might have imagined to be there (perhaps they were and I missed them – it was a short visit). Lambiek IS a great shop and their exhibition space through the back makes it a great place for comics events and displays. I do think sometimes tho’ the comics customer can’t see the woods for the trees with FP – look past the toys and there is still as much there in comics in many of the stores as you will find in the UK with the possible exceptions of Page 45 and Gosh – and we still buy comics to actually put on shelves not just into standing orders. Intresting debate tho’ – sure we could discuss it for ages.
September 14th, 2007 at 1:01 pm
Hey Kenny, as a Belgian comics creator myself, I would like to say that the Brussels Comics Centre in itself is a relic of a bygone age. For Belgian artists, it has lost value as a place of worship a long time ago. Which is sad but it has stagnated in a time where comics are so much more than Nero or Spirou.
Friendly greetings,
Bart
Staff writer
http://WWW.BROKENFRONTIER.COM