Whenever travelling to a new city, I like to ask locals and people who have spent time there for their recommendations. Usually, people are quite excited to tell me of wonderful bakeries, scenic overlooks, and historical churches. However, before my family’s recent trip to Brussels, virtually everyone I asked had very little to suggest. The best many could say was that the fries are excellent and that it is easy to get to Bruges, Paris, or Amsterdam.
However, we found much to recommend Brussels (if not nearly so much as there is to recommend, say, Rome, Lisbon, or Amsterdam). I had some excellent food, my toddler found enriching activities, and there are some simply gorgeous churches. Probably my favorite attraction in the city, though, was the Comics Art Museum, or Belgian Comic Strip Center, which first opened its doors in 1989. The museum reminds visitors that Brussels—and Belgium—has a distinctive artistic heritage that is a gift to the world. While it showcases art from around the world, the bulk of its displays feature works from the Franco-Belgian tradition of bande dessinée such as Tintin, Lucky Luke, and Spirou and Fantasio.
Located in a gorgeous 1905 Art Nouveau building, the Centre belge de la Bande dessinée’s four floors fill the building with the joy of comics. On the first floor there is a restaurant, gift shop, and extensive comic library that is accessible to the public. On the second floor, the museum proper begins, with a welcome desk and permanent exhibitions. The third and fourth floors house temporary exhibitions. From July to the first of October, this includes an exceptional exhibit entitled “Odyssey to the origins of Blake and Mortimer.” Curated by Eric Dubois, this exhibit holds a looking glass up to the earliest works of E.P. Jacobs, the author of Blake and Mortimer, portraying him as a modern-day Homeric storyteller. It is well worth a visit for both fans of Jacobs’ work and newcomers alike.
The U Ray, an overlooked gem
I have previously written about Jacobs’ phenomenal comic, Blake and Mortimer, and there I briefly discussed the artist’s life before his breakthrough work. This exhibit allows visitors to slow down and see how Jacobs went from Herge’s assistant on Tintin to becoming the author of his own decades-long series.
The exhibit begins by introducing Jacobs’ first independent series, a very short-lived continuation of the extremely popular American science fiction comic Flash Gordon by Alex Raymond. The American version of the strip was a casualty of Nazi censorship during the occupation of Belgium. The magazine that had, up to that time, been republishing the popular American comic series in Belgium asked Jacobs to conclude the story, which he did. This historical detail is well-known to Jacobs’ fans, but the actual Flash Gordon comics written by Jacobs are rarely seen. The exhibit displays some alongside the American strips that immediately preceded them, which is a real treat.
The key work that the exhibit focuses on, though, is The U Ray. The comic, which served as a sort of test-run for Jacobs’ later work, was originally published in the magazine Bravo in 1943. Despite its relative obscurity, The U Ray is well worth the attention given to it in this exhibit. Set on an imaginary planet that integrates futuristic technology with ancient ways, the plot follows an expedition for the element uradium, which is needed to make the powerful “u ray” function. The scientist Marduk, the nefarious Captain Dagon, and other characters all play their part. It may be a derivative work, but it is bursting with Jacobs’ imagination and replete with his characteristic style. As the cartoonist Greg puts it in his introduction to the first English edition of the work (recently translated by Cinebook), “Emphatic … Melodramatic … Superficial … Yes! The U Ray can be all of that. The true miracle is that here, these qualifiers become praise, and these flaws turn into virtues.” While this sounds like strange backhanded praise, Greg is hitting on something real here. The U Ray is a genre work, and it is something of a pastiche of Flash Gordon, but it does its work with such panache that even jaded contemporary readers can find themselves drawn into this comic.
The work is also particularly interesting for the historian of comics because it is profoundly informed by American adventure strips while being unequivocally a part of the bande dessinée tradition. Like Jacobs’ later work on Blake and Mortimer, The U Ray has the feeling of an American adventure serial film (something to which the exhibit draws attention, showing clips of King Kong). This influence is felt more acutely because it is Jacobs’ freshman effort, and the result is more compelling than it has any right to be. Recently, The U Ray has been given renewed attention because the inimitable comics legend Jean Van Hamme has penned a sequel (illustrated by Christian Cailleaux and Étienne Schréder), La Flèche Ardente, which will be released in English as The Fiery Arrow by Cinebook this November in the UK and three months later in the U.S.
Entering the exhibit is like entering another world, with charming design that evokes the kind of mid-century science fiction tale that was Jacobs’ bread and butter. Though it takes up a relatively small space in the museum, the exhibit fills every inch with works from Jacobs’ pen, historical background, copies of books by Jacobs, a rarely-seen video interview with the author, and surprisingly philosophical (if at times questionable) reflections on the import of Jacobs’ oeuvre. There is even a toy dinosaur hidden in the ‘forest’ of the exhibit for eagle-eyed visitors to seek out. All in all, despite its seemingly narrow scope, “Odyssey to the origins of Blake and Mortimer” is an absolute triumph. Visitors unfamiliar with Jacobs’ comics have the chance to get to know the early work of this Belgian master, and those who already love Jacobs have the rare chance to contextualize his work within a larger context (and see original drawings to boot). If you find yourself in Brussels this month, be sure to catch this top-notch exhibit at this one-of-a-kind museum.
