Tintin’s legacy in Brussels
Tintin is loved the world over, but nowhere more so than in Brussels, where the comic hero created by Hergé is everywhere. In nearby Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium, a museum is devoted to Tintin’s creator, Georges Prosper Remi, better known by his comic book nom de plume, Hergé. The museum itself is decorated with a gigantic full-color frame from the Tintin strip. (Susan Spano / For The Times)
A causeway leads inside the Hergé Museum in suburban Brussels, where visitors claim audio tours or cellphone apps to guide them through displays on seemingly every aspect of the artist’s life and work, from his creation of Totor, a proto-Tintin, for a Boy Scout magazine in the 1920s, to his midlife crisis in the late 1950s. (Susan Spano/For The Times)
Cartoons by Hergé and other Belgian artists are a cherished part of the culture in Brussels. An official Comic Strip Trail in the city takes aficionados past 30 murals of famous Belgian cartoon characters, including this one featuring missionary Odilon Verjus. (Susan Spano/For The Times)
The boy hero Tintin and his faithful pup Snowy watch the world from atop the Lombard Building in Brussels. (Susan Spano/For The Times)
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Hergé is remembered in Wolvendael Park in suburban Uccle, Belgium. (Susan Spano/For The Times)
Awaiting Tintin at the Belgian Comic Strip Center in Brussels is a model of the space capsule he took to the moon -- 16 years before Apollo 11. (Susan Spano/For The Times)
Tintin gift tins and books are featured in Neuhaus chocolate shops around Brussels, and there’s a Tintin boutique just off the Grand-Place downtown. (Susan Spano/For The Times)
A bust of Tintin has pride of place next to a photo of the national cartoon hero and his creator, Hergé, at the Belgian Comic Strip Center in Brussels. (Susan Spano/For The Times)
