Centre Belge de la Bande Dessinee - Belgian Center for Comic Strip Art, Brussels

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The Museum of Comic is called by the Belgian Cébébédé (CBBD) and pays tribute to the passion that Belgium is the comics. The museum hosts more than 6000 tables of original drawings in pencil sketch to final publication, and
also hosts one of the most permanently popular reviews devoted to the most famous Belgian cartoons Smurfs and Tintin. If you love the art nouveau must visit because the museum is in a textile factory in 1906, built in glass and steel by Victor Horta.

El Museo del Cómic es llamado por los belgas Cébébédé (CBBD) y rinde homenaje a la pasión que Bélgica tiene por los tebeos. El museo hospeda más de 6000 tablas de dibujos originales del bosquejo con lápiz hasta la publicación final, y
además hospeda permanentemente una de las más populares reseñas dedicadas a los más famosos cartones belgas los Pitufos and Tintin. Si te apasiona el art noveau deberás visitarlo porque el museo se encuentra en una fábrica textil de 1906, construida en cristal y acero por Victor Horta.

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Belgium has a strong tradition of creating comic strips and some of theirs are famous around the world: Tintin, the Smurfs, Lucky Luke...at the Comic Strip Center you can learn more about what's considered "the 9th art" (the 7th being movies and the 8th television).

The house was designed by Victor Horta. You'll be welcome by Obélix, a smurf, Lucky Luke, Tintin and Captain Haddock while you get in and buy your ticket. We were asked if we understood French, because they have a free guide that you can borrow in English, so that you can read about the history of comic book making: from idea to printing, more or less.

Then there's the second floor, where you can see black and white and colorful strips and pictures, and where you can visit the temporary exhibitions. As of March 2010, there were 2 temporary exhibitions: one about Mumin (or Moomin) and one about comic books throughout history: 1989 to 2009, in honor of the 20 years of the Comic Strip Center.

The Center has also a reading room, where you can read comic books in various languages.

As of March 2010, the entrance for an adult is 7,50 euros, including the reading room. I liked the fact that if you didn't want to visit the museum, the reading room fee is 1,20 euros (adults), a good idea for big groups who don't want to be together all the time.

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The name of this museum is Centre Belge de la Bande Dessinèe. It is housed in a Art Nouveaux building designed by Victor Horta. This museum is dedicated to Cartoons. Here you can learn about the process of creating a comic strip album. There are several three dimensional recreations of strip scenes and other things relevant to the strip art.

With Tintin being one of the few personalities that Belgium seem to be famous for (people always think Poirot is French), he is of course the most famous character at the Centre Belge de Bande Desinée, but he is far from alone since Belgium has a fantastic tradition of cartoons. My personal favourite ever since childhood is Marsupilami - I just love his "hubba hubba" attitude and long tail - but of course I also grew up with the Smurfs and others. The museum is housed in a house designed by famous architect Victor Horta so that is yet another reason for visiting, even if cartoons don't interest you. It was meant to become a department store but for some reason it was not in the end. You can wander around here and look at the Tintin collection or browse the fun but very expensive museum shop full of wonders for all ages. My major disappointment with the museum is that there is much focus on internal Belgian characters which I knew nothing about before moving to Belgium and had no childhood relation to. Tintin gets quite a bit of space but why not more on the other world famous ones? This picture is by the way not of the museum but yet another comic wall - in this case near Manneken Pis.

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If you're a fan of comic books (Tintin, Lucky Luke, The Smurfs, Largo Winch, Jommeke, Nero, Buck Danny, Blake and Mortimer, and so many more) you have to go to this museum. They give a permanent exhibition about the history of comic books and the main Belgian titles and characters, and there are temporary exhibitions also all the time.
If you're totally not interested in comic books, the exhibitions can be a bit boring I think. But still the museum is worth to go have a look, because it's housed in a beautiful art-nouveau building. The famous architect Victor Horta built it in 1905 and originally it was a department store. It's really nice to walk around downstairs a little bit (the ticket entrance for the museum is on the first floor). On the ground floor there's also a nice shop (where you can buy comic books of course but lots of other related stuff also) and a little less nice brasserie/restaurant.

Open every day from 10am to 6pm. Closed on Mondays.

Visit the Belgian Comic Strip Centre. I did not realise that so many cartoons originated in Belgium, and certainly not Tintin and Snowy. You can see all sorts of memorabilia of the heydays of the comic artist.

You can also buy a little guide at the tourst office on the Grand place to the cartoons in the city. There are more than twenty of them decorating the buildings of Brussels and its quite fun to find them. Most are funny, although we did find a sad angel on the side of one building.

Centre Belge de la Bande Dessinee - Museum of Comic Strip Art. Its good value so long as you realise its about francophone/Belgian cartoons (Tintin etc), so don't look for Japanese or US stuff.

The building itself makes it worth the trip - Horta designed art nouveau.

A former warehouse and wholesale showroom originally designed by the iconic Victor Horta. Dedicated to the past, present & future of Belgian comic strips. Most interesting is the story of the phenomeonal building that houses the collection- it almost disappeared. There was quite a struggle to preserve it and open the museum. The bookstore gift shop has the largest selection I've ever seen of this kind of genre. NOT to be confused with the far smaller Centre around the corner from Gare Centrale.

Also known by the local moniker "Centre Belge de la Bande Dessinée", this is ground zero to many of my childhood heroes.

Fans of comic characters such as Tintin & Snowy, Asterix and Obelix - this is our Mecca. (Though in Belgium, they assumed different names. My buddy gave me a blank look when I said I wanted to go meet "Tintin". "Who is the heck is Tintin?" he queried back)

There are 3 floors to the Art Nouveau themed building designed by Victor Horta in 1903. Apologies but to my untrained laymen eyes, the building resembled a well-restored warehouse. Hey, I like the natural light and those funky positions for the staircases but I couldn't tell squawk even if you tell me someone had built some pyramidal secrets into the blueplan. I am here for one thing and one thing only.

The ground floor consists mainly of a small comic gallery and a rather extensive souvenir shop.

The ticket counter is on the 2nd storey along with an extensive gallery of every tools known to mankind that go into the making of a comic strip. The collection includes more than 400 original plates by Hergé (author of Tintin) and his Belgian successors and 25,000 cartoon works. Time to clock in with father time as you take a walk through time about the development of comic strips and its impact on human kind.

The 3rd storey is the most funky, well at least for juvenile old me. There is a special exhibit devoted to Tintin and gang where you could stick your head out of a cardboard and pretend you are Captain Haddock. I found a mural of Tintin, Snowy and Captain Haddock walking towards Marlinspike Hall and pretended to be part of a foursome while my buddy tried his best to snap a picture of me in between rolling his eyes. Really silly me but hey, so much fun!

Walk around the other parts of the floor - there are more explosively colourful galleries showcasing the works of other Belgian comic artists not to be missed.

Cost: EUR6.20.
OPEN: Tues-Sun. 10am-6pm. Close on Mon.

Comic strips have become something like the 7th Art in Belgium !!

At the Comic Strip centre you can discover the history of Belgium's comic strip heroes. One of the most famous is surely TINTIN

At the shop with its many comic strip gadgets so as ties, T-shirts, towles, keyhangers,... you'll sreuly find a nice souvenir.