Before 1940 The first large-scale production of comics in Belgium started in the second half of the 1920s. Earlier, illustrated youth pages were still very similar to the ''
Images d'Épinal and the Flemish equivalent, the Mannekensbladen. The comics that were available came from France and were mostly available in parts of Belgium where the French language dominated (Wallonia and Brussels). The most popular were La Semaine de Suzette, L'Épatant
and Le bon point illustré''. French authors like
Marijac contributed to Belgian magazines as well. The 1920s saw the formation of many new youth magazines, some independent like the bilingual
Zonneland /
Petits Belges from Catholic publishers
Altiora Averbode or scout magazines like
Le Boy-Scout Belge, where
Hergé (Georges Remi) debuted; others were published as newspaper supplements. The most famous of these was
Le Petit Vingtième, the weekly youth supplement to the Catholic newspaper
Le Vingtième Siècle. Founded in 1928, it employed the young artist Georges Remi as editor-in-chief and main contributor. Remi, better known as
Hergé, launched in January 1929 a new series for the supplement:
The Adventures of Tintin. Initially heavily influenced by the work of French comics authors
Alain Saint-Ogan and Pinchon and the American
George McManus, Hergé soon developed his own style.
Tintin soon became very popular, and sales of the newspaper quadrupled on Thursdays, when the supplement was included. It would become the prototype for many Belgian comics to come, in style (the so-called
ligne claire), appearance rhythm (weekly), use of
speech balloons (whereas comics from other countries like the
Netherlands and
Denmark would keep the text beneath the drawings for decades to come), and the method of using a first appearance in a magazine or newspaper and subsequent albums. While
Tintin was very popular, it would take almost a decade before the next successful comics magazine would appear. In the meantime, an increasing number of youth magazines would publish some pages with comics influenced by
Tintin.
George Van Raemdonck, the first major Flemish comics artist, worked almost exclusively in the
Netherlands until after
World War II. Still, he influenced some of the earliest pre-war Flemish artists like
Jan Waterschoot and
Buth, and as a newspaper artist with a daily comic strip, he paved the way for the typical publishing method of the Flemish comics when compared to the prevalent Walloon magazine publications. More situated in the classic arts than in the mainstream comics publishing was
Frans Masereel, a Flemish wood engraver whose 1926 "Passionate Journey", a wordless story told in 165 woodcuts, is sometimes considered as the first
graphic novel. In the second half of the 1930s, most Walloon youth magazines made room for one or more comics by local artists. Examples are
Jijé in
Le Croisé in 1936 and in
Petits Belges in 1939,
François Gianolla in
Jeunesse Ouvrière, and
Sirius in
Le Patriote Illustré.
Dupuis, a publisher based in
Marcinelle near
Charleroi, was already having success with its two family magazines
Le Moustique and
Bonnes Soirées.
Charles Dupuis, son of the
CEO, decided to start a youth magazine centred around a new hero,
Spirou. It debuted on April 21, 1938. French artist
Robert Velter, a former assistant of
Martin Branner, was asked to create the title series, and the rest of the magazine was filled with popular American comics such as
Superman. 8 months later, in an unusual move, the magazine was published in Dutch under the name
Robbedoes. This would have a profound influence on the development of the Flemish comics and assured that Belgian comics would have a large part of their development in common. In 1939,
Jijé joined the magazine. He worked there until his death in 1980, and was the driving force of the magazine during and directly after the war. He was responsible for its expansion and success in the next decades, and was as the inspirator for the later generation of comics artists in the 1940s and 1950s which is known as the
Marcinelle school. Apart from Hergé, Jijé's main inspiration came from American artists such as
Milton Caniff and
Noel Sickles. Some Flemish magazines started producing more modern local comics as well, with works by established artists like
Frans Van Immerseel in
Zonneland and the
expressionist painter
Frits Van den Berghe in
Bravo, or new names like
Jan Waterschoot in
Zonneland or
Eugeen Hermans (aka Pink) in
Ons Volkske, a weekly newspaper supplement inspired by
Le Petit Vingtième. The most important comics writer for
Bravo and
Zonneland was
John Flanders, who would continue to provide stories for the Flemish magazines until the 1960s.
World War II During the war, many magazines had to stop publication or scale back their activities due to paper shortage and the limitations imposed by the German occupiers.
Le Petit Vingtième was dissolved after the German invasion, and
Hergé started working for the collaborating newspaper
Le Soir, where he had to change from a weekly double page of
Tintin to a daily strip. Paper shortage also forced him to reduce the number of pages per album from the previous 120 to 62. To compensate for this, the editor
Casterman decided to start publishing the albums in colour instead of black and white. This became the post-war standard for all albums by the Walloon and Brussels publishers: From the 1960s on, almost all Flemish comics have been printed in colour. Other magazines tried to continue publication, but had to replace the forbidden American comics with local material. This was an opportunity for new talent to emerge. In
Spirou, Jijé was joined by Sirius and the young illustrator
Maurice Tillieux. The Flemish magazine
Bravo, started in 1936 with almost exclusively American comics, had to change course in 1940, and created a French-language version as well, attracting a number of young Belgian artists like
Edgar P. Jacobs,
Jacques Laudy,
Raymond Reding and the Flemish
Willy Vandersteen, together with the already well-known illustrator
Jean Dratz. Another way out for young artists were a number of small animation studios, created when the popular American animated movies of the 1930s might no longer be shown. In
Antwerp,
Ray Goossens and
Bob de Moor started with
AFIM, and in Brussels,
André Franquin,
Eddy Paape,
Peyo and
Morris worked for
CBA.
1944–1958 The end of
World War II was a second caesure, with again many magazines disappearing or changing hands, while a huge amount of new magazines appeared now that censure and paper shortage were coming to an end.
Spirou, which had disappeared at the end of 1943, reappeared in 1944 with the same authors.
Bravo on the other hand got new owners, and the main contributors searched new publishers. The newspaper
Le Soir replaced its wartime version and all the staff with the pre-wartime owners and staff, and Hergé was left without a publication outlet for nearly two years while allegations of collaboration with the Germans were investigated. In 1946,
Raymond Leblanc wanted to start a youth magazine to expand his small publishing house
Lombard, and decided to use the already very popular
Tintin as the main hero for
Tintin magazine. It started in 1946 with a French and Dutch language version (the latter called
Kuifje), as had become the custom for Belgian comics magazines. A version for
France followed in 1948. The magazine immediately employed mainly Belgian artists, most coming from
Bravo: Jacobs (who already had collaborated with Hergé), Laudy, and the young debutant
Paul Cuvelier. It was an instant success, and soon other names joined, including
Jacques Martin. To get the same success with the Flemish version (where
Tintin was not so well known yet), two of the best new Flemish artists were contacted: Bob de Moor and Willy Vandersteen. De Moor stayed with Hergé and
Tintin until the end of his life, but Vandersteen left the magazine again after 11 years. Many other magazines only survived for a few years, and their best artists then joined either
Spirou or
Tintin. Magazines like
Bimbo,
Story or
Wrill mainly had regional success and lacked a truly popular main series. Tillieux worked for
Bimbo, Martin for
Wrill,
André-Paul Duchâteau started his writing career in the new version of
Bravo.
Petits Belges /
Zonneland continued to be published, but only devoted a few pages to comics. The main artist in these days is
Renaat Demoen, later joined by
François Craenhals. The main competitor for
Tintin and
Spirou in this period was
Heroic-Albums, which had a different publishing method: instead of a number of continuing stories which often appeared continuously with a rhythm of one page a week,
Heroic published one complete long story every week. The main artists were Tillieux,
Fred Funcken,
Tibet,
François Craenhals,
Greg, ... Due to being censored in France, the magazine finally disappeared in 1956. In Flanders, there was a similar boom of new magazines, but the most important artists and comics in the long run worked mainly for the newspapers:
Marc Sleen filled many pages in the magazine ''
't Kapoentje, but his main series Nero appeared in the newspaper Het Volk from 1947 on. Willy Vandersteen worked for a whole series of magazines, both in Dutch and French, but his main series Spike and Suzy appeared in De Standaard'' from 1945 on. These two artists dominated the Flemish comics scene until 1980, but even though
Nero gets translated in French and German, the only success outside Flanders was
Spike and Suzy, which became the most popular comic of the Netherlands and got a sizable audience in Wallonia as well, mainly because of the appearance of seven specially created stories in
Tintin, which are commonly considered to be the best of the series. Due to this success, Vandersteen opened a Studio which produced hundreds of comics and gave many young local artists a steady job. However, contrary to the School of Marcinelle and to a lesser degree the
Studios Hergé, very few artists had a successful independent career after leaving the studio. One of the major series of the Studio was
Bessy, originally made for the Walloon newspaper
La Libre Belgique in 1952, and which would only later find its way to Flanders and finally to a series of more than 1000 comic books in Germany. Meanwhile, many artists who would later become famous debuted on a small scale in the Walloon newspapers:
Peyo,
Greg,
Albert Uderzo,
René Goscinny, ... In the 1950s, the comics scene in Belgium is dominated by three main publishing methods: the main magazines
Tintin and
Spirou, coupled with the albums published afterwards by the editors
Lombard and
Dupuis; the daily newspaper comics in Flanders, with the cheaper black and white albums afterwards by
De Standaard and
Het Volk: and the weekly newspaper supplements of the French language newspapers, which mainly lacked subsequent albums. The number of other magazines slowly decreased, and the independent comic albums publishers without a magazine disappeared with the exception of
Casterman, publisher of the comics by Hergé and a limited number of other comics. In this period, the Belgian comics had their
Golden Age, a period of constant growth and expansion, with the start and continuation of many of the most popular Belgian series.
Spirou expanded from 12 pages of newspaper quality to 52 full colour pages, and the number of American comics, reintroduced after the end of the war, dwindled to near nil in 1950. Their place was taken by
Victor Hubinon and
Jean-Michel Charlier (
Buck Danny),
Maurice Tillieux (
Gil Jourdan),
Eddy Paape,
Will, and most importantly
André Franquin,
Morris, and
Peyo. Their respective series
Gaston Lagaffe,
Lucky Luke and
The Smurfs became international bestsellers. While the first generation learned much of the art while working with Jijé, many younger artists started their professional career in the Studio Peyo before creating their own series, assuring the continuation of the School of Marcinelle. The humour aspect of the magazine was assured by the editor-in-chief
Yvan Delporte, writer for Franquin, Will and Peyo. Together with the main artists of
Tintin, they defined the
Franco-Belgian comics for decades to come.
Tintin had a similar story, with rapid success and expansion. New artists like
Jean Graton (
Michel Vaillant) and
Raymond Macherot reached new audiences. Hergé started his Studio to help him with the work on the
Tintin comics, and it defined the style of many artists like Bob de Moor and
Roger Leloup. The styles of the two magazines were distinctly different, with the
ligne claire and the more serious, didactic tone of
Tintin contrasting with the humorous, more caricatural
Marcinelle school of
Spirou. In Flanders, no local magazine could equal the success of the two translated Walloon magazines, and to survive this period, they disappeared as independent magazines and became weekly newspaper supplements. The most important was ''
't Kapoentje, which published the work of Buth and Rik Clément, but which had no influence outside Flanders. The only new artist to become truly successful in this period was Jef Nys with Jommeke'', which debuted in 1955 and became the third major daily newspaper comic in Flanders. Artists like
Pom,
Bob Mau or
Renaat Demoen were less successful and had only a limited audience, while other Flemish artists started working for the French language magazines, following in the footsteps of Morris in
Spirou and Bob de Moor in
Tintin. The most successful of those in this period was
Berck, who first appeared in this period in
Tintin before moving to
Spirou.
1959–1977 From 1959 on, the dominance of
Spirou and
Tintin slowly disappeared. The first generation of artists could not continue the publication rhythm of the previous decades, and French magazines reached new audiences, helped by the protectionistic censoring by the French authorities. French artists like
René Goscinny and
Albert Uderzo, who previously worked for Belgian magazines and newspapers, started their own magazine
Pilote, and the less restrictive atmosphere there attracted some of their main colleagues from
Spirou like Morris, Jijé, Charlier and Hubinon. Apart from Morris, they all continued working for
Spirou as well, but the decline had started.
Tintin suffered from the lack of new stories by Hergé. Greg became the new editor-in-chief in 1962 and stayed on until 1975, introducing a new, more adult style and content to the magazine, and introducing some major new artists like
Hermann Huppen,
William Vance,
Jean Van Hamme and
Dany. But despite the critical acclaim of these authors, the circulation slowly declined from the record high of 270,000 copies a week in France alone, and the different international editions of
Tintin disappeared over the next decade, but not before launching a last major series with
Thorgal by
Rosinski.
Spirou as well had to introduce new artists and series to fill the pages and keep their readers. It took many of them until around 1970 to become real stars, with the rise of
Raoul Cauvin as the new main writer of the magazine. The biggest new series of the 1960s was
Boule et Bill by Franquin-collaborator
Jean Roba. It became the most popular series of the magazine together with
Gaston Lagaffe after the disappearance of
Lucky Luke in 1967. Around 1970,
Berck (
Sammy),
Lambil (
Les Tuniques Bleues),
François Walthéry (
Natacha), and Leloup (
Yoko Tsuno) were the main new artists and series, with Raoul Cauvin as the most important writer. However, the top circulation of about 280,000 copies a week (France and Belgium combined), was no longer reached after 1966. In Flanders, the situation was very stable, with the limited local publication possibilities all taken by the established authors of the 1940s and 1950s, leaving no room for new talents after the disappearance of most magazines. New artists either started working in the large Studio Vandersteen or tried to get into
Spirou and
Tintin, thereby strengthening the bond between the comics scenes of both language groups. Comics fandom, started in the Netherlands and France in the 1960s, emerged in Flanders in 1966 with the different publications by Jan Smet, who also created the first Flemish comics award in 1972. This developed into the
Bronzen Adhemar, the most important comics award of Flanders, named after the
child prodigy character
Adhemar in
The Adventures of Nero. In Wallonia, it only seriously commenced in 1971, with the first awards (the
Prix Saint-Michel in Brussels) and fanzine (
Ran Tan Plan), both by (1928–2012), and the first specialized shop and republisher of old material, Michel Deligne. The
Institut Saint-Luc in Brussels created a comics department with teachers like
Eddy Paape, and was largely responsible for the new, more adult-oriented authors who came to the fore in the 1980s and 1990s. Expositions with the major artists were organized throughout the country, some by amateur enthusiasts, some endorsed by the government.
1978–present The last decades have shown the further decline of the traditional publication systems of the Belgian comics, and the end of the dominance of the Belgian authors in European comics. Reflecting the shift from the dominance of weekly youth comics to longer adult comics was the demise of
Tintin and the start of
A Suivre in 1978, the more adult oriented monthly magazine of publisher
Casterman. It published longer "chapters" of the main European authors of
graphic novels, with artists like
Hugo Pratt and
Jacques Tardi. Among them, room was still reserved for the best Walloon and Brussels' talents, including
Didier Comès,
Benoît Sokal, and
François Schuiten. The magazine, seen as the more intellectual reply to French magazines like
Métal Hurlant who were more oriented towards graphical innovation, was a big success and had a lot of influence, but turned out to be relatively short-lived. The Dutch language edition, started in 1980, folded in 1989 (the same year
Pilote ceased publication), and in 1997 the French language edition disappeared as well, further demonstrating the demise of the magazine format in a market where most people prefer to immediately buy the albums. In Flanders, a final experiment with a youth comics magazine was started in 1993 with
Suske en Wiske Weekblad by
Standaard Uitgeverij: with a mix of classic comics and new series and carried by the most popular Dutch language series and a sizable promotional campaign, it got a sizable audience at first, but slowly lost momentum and disappeared in 2003. The only comics magazine to survive is
Spirou, but with the end of the Dutch version
Robbedoes in 2005, when the circulation had dropped to only about 3,000 copies, no mass-market comics magazines for the Flemish audience remained, making it harder for young Flemish artists to gain a larger audience.
Spirou, meanwhile, after a decline during the 1970s and 1980s from 280,000 to 160,000 copies, holds on to a quite steady circulation, and is a mix of a showcase for Dupuis and a method to test new artists and series before doing the sizable investment of an album series. After experiments to target a more mature audience in the late 1970s and in the 1980s with the supplement
Le Trombone Illustré and the publication of comics like
XIII and
Jeremiah, the focus is again fixed on humour series and an audience of young teenagers. Now famous artists like
Bernard Hislaire,
Zep,
Tome,
Janry or
Midam debut or still publish in the magazine. But next to the magazine, Dupuis, like all the other editors, targets the older audience as well with a collection of graphic novels. Both Lombard and Dupuis have since been bought by the French media concern
Média Participations, but retain a large degree of independence. In Flanders, this period started with the appearance of two new successful newspaper comics,
Bakelandt by
Hec Leemans and the extremely successful
Kiekeboe by
Merho. But they seemed to be at the same time the final successes of a slowly dying system, and comics in Flanders are increasingly centered around albums as well. Successful series and authors are few and far between, and most, like
Urbanus or
F. C. De Kampioenen, are only a local success. A few peripheral figures like
Ever Meulen, who is mainly an illustrator, or
Kamagurka, who is more of a cartoonist, do become successful in Wallonia, France and the Netherlands, but apart from those exceptions, the main method for Flemish comics artists to become successful is still being published by the three French language publishers. Some of the most successful of these since the 1960s are
William Vance,
Jo-El Azara,
Griffo,
Marvano,
Jean-Pol,
Jan Bosschaert and
Luc Cromheecke. ==Importance==