The Flemish comics blog Strip Turnhout just announced that the Smurfs will be present at the coming World Fair 2010 in Shanghai, China. The little blue men will be the official mascots of the Belgian-European pavillion, which will open on May 15th. They were selected because of their Belgian roots (they were created by Belgian cartoonist Peyo), because they are well-known around the world and particularly popular in China.
(a jolly Smurf gets his passport and visa stamped for China, (c) Peyo)
In his books Peyo continually stressed the value of a life in balance with nature: modern technology typically leads to disaster and a lesson learned. This fits niceley with the theme of the Expo, “Better City, Better Life”. Additionally, in the Belgian pavillion, portraits will be shown of thirty great Belgians, such as Hergé, the creator of Tintin. Meantime, for no other reason than we can, via the magic of the web, showing the international nature of the Smurfs here they are in Hungarian! (vid link via Andrea Kis’ Twitter)
Wim Lockefeer lives in Belgium and suspects the closest he will get to this is watching The Lady From Shanghai on DVD; you can read more of his comics musings on The Ephemerist blog
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May 29th, 2010 at 3:44 pm
[...] I mentioned earlier on the Forbidden Planet Blog, the hosts of the Belgian pavillion at the current World Expo in Shanghai, China are the Smurfs. [...]