SPECIAL EVENTS

FROM STRIP TO SCREEN - BELGIAN COMICS AND ANIMATION

The famous mother lode of Belgian comic book, the French Community in Belgium has for four decades boasted its outstanding filmmakers and animators. Countless and ordinary connections between a comic book and animation are frequently forgotten. For instance, Franquin, Morris and Peyo first made a name for themselves in film animation, to become known only later as the authors of the comic book Spirou.

Celebrating Hergé’s 100th birthday, simply remember the puppet-film The Crab with the Golden Claws by Claude Misonne, based on the eponymous comic book album Tin Tin – it was made exactly 60 years ago, while this film was the first in a long series of silver screen comic book adaptations. In the 1950s, the publishers Le Lombard and Dupuis founded their animation studios, Belvision and TVA-Dupuis, respectively. In addition to pilot shows, in the next two decades Belvision created several one hundred per cent Belgian feature animations, such as The Castle of Tin Tin based on Hergé, The Smurfs and the Magic Flute based on Peyo’s comic book and Daisy Town, a Lucky Luke adventure under Morris’s aegis. Associations such as Odec Kid Cartoons or Graphoui will later adapt comics for television. One of such examples is an adaptation of Hergé’s comic Quick and Flupke by Graphoui.

Even though today great Belgian publishers have been absorbed by foreign companies, whose audio-visual departments use their comic book catalogues for TV shows, a new generation of authors active in both media take charge and create personal and original works. Benôit Feroumont or Vincent Patar and Stéphane Aubier duo, for instance, are preparing their transition towards feature film, whereas others, like William Henne, Thierry Van Hasselt or Eric Blésin, transcend the boundaries of comic book and animation and operate on the verge of drama and visual art. The adventure from strip to the screen continues...

The exhibition was originally displayed in June 2007. Wallonie - Bruxelles International (WBI) and the Embassy of the Republic of Croatia in Brussels generously assisted in hosting it in Zagreb.