Brussels
More Than The Pee Boy
When following tours of the capital of Belgium, they will take you to familiar places like the street corner where Manneken Pis – the boy peeing – is located. It’s also interesting. But Brussels has another attractive tourist product for people aged 7 to 77: comic books.
As soon as we stepped out of the Midi Brussels train station, a gigantic mural of Hergé’s giant Tintin greeted us. A delightful surprise!
When I was young, in Da Nang, a friend’s house was full of Tintin and Lucky Luke comics. Almost every weekend, I would visit that friend to read along, immersing myself in the adventures of Morris’s cowboy in the American Wild West. Or with Tintin, the journalist-who-doesn’t-write, created by Hergé, traveling the world.
My friend treasures books; he never lends them to anyone!
So that day in Brussels, I met again the person I once loved and continue to love.
Tintin, back when I read it, consists of 24 volumes. The main character is Tintin, a young Belgian journalist and explorer, with his loyal dog Milou. Alongside them are the sarcastic Captain Haddock, the clever Professor Calculus, the not-so-skilled detectives Dupont and Dupond, and the genuine operatic singer Bianca Castafiore.
Later, I discovered the reason why I and countless others are fascinated by Tintin. Because I was drawn to the distinctive style of the artist-writer Hergé, characterized by clear and highly expressive lines; the plots, always thoroughly researched, belong to the action-adventure and mystery genres. From the Congo, Africa – wiping out a gang trying to control diamond production – through Chicago, the United States – encountering the notorious gangster Al Capone and surviving – to the Himalayas, the mountain range with the highest peak on the planet in Tibet – tracking down and discovering the identity of a friend.
Since it’s a comic, this series is also full of humorous and funny moments. Reading it is not boring.
Stepping out of the Midi Brussels train station, you immediately encounter Tintin.
Leaving the station, we rushed off to find the character Lucky Luke. Not difficult, as we had researched beforehand. And immediately found the large mural – 180 square meters, occupying almost the entire wall of a house at the intersection of Buanderie Street and T’’Kint Street. Since 1993, “the cowboy who shoots faster than his own shadow” along with his beloved dog Rantanplan has been residing on the wall, below which is the gang of the Dalton brothers.
Lucky Luke, when I was young, I read nearly 30 volumes. The villains and other ordinary characters are always based on real people living in the American Wild West from the mid to late 19th century, such as the Dalton gang. Through a gunfight, Lucky Luke took down the entire gang.
It seems that was the rare scene of death in the Lucky Luke series created by the artist-writer Morris. Because then we never see this cowboy shoot anyone dead anymore, but only fire his gun so that the bullets hit and knock the opponent’s weapons away. At the end of the stories, Lucky Luke always rides his horse Jolly Jumper into the sunset and sings: “I am a lonely poor cowboy, with a long way to go home…”
Brussels is the cradle of the ninth art, that is, comic art with many characters. Besides Tintin and Lucky Luke, there are also Astérix and Obélix, Blake and Mortimer, Bob Morane, the Castors team, Gaston Lagaffe, Spirou, and the little Schtroumpfs… That was just a brief mention of the famous characters that have captivated many children and adults around the world. There is even more than that!
Most of the most famous comic works have been translated into Vietnamese – Tintin, Lucky Luke, of course, and also Astérix and Obélix, Spirou, and the little Schtroumpfs.
