Blistering barnacles! We are trapped! You can almost hear Captain Haddock shout as he leads Tintin and Snowy down the fire exit of a tall building. As always, they have landed themselves in trouble while trying to solve The Calculus Affair. A few miles away, you find Tintin clinging to the wall outside his hotel in Chicago in a bid to get to the goon’s room. While the scene is from Tintin in America , it is being played at the Zuidstation in Brussels. You also see him perched along with Snowy over a multi-storied building, smiling at passersby, and walking along his entire entourage at an underground station in Stokel.
Tintin can be found everywhere in Brussels — on the walls, at underground stations, along the streets, in the marketplaces, in museums and even inside hotels, which have special Tintin-themed rooms. And why not? Brussels, after all, is home to the world’s favourite reporter in baggy pants.
Tintin was first seen boarding a train to Russia from the Brussels station on January 10, 1929, in his debut strip, in the youth supplement of a weekly. During this time, a young boy dressed as Tintin could be found roaming at the Zuidstation greeting passengers. The antic worked, and the tiny cartoon strip soon metamorphosed into the iconic series we now know as The Adventures of Tintin .
“If you are a fan of comics, Brussels won’t disappoint you. Often called the comic strip capital of the world, Belgium is home to many popular characters like Gaston, The Smurfs, Lucky Luke, and Tintin. All of them are loved in Belgium, but Tintin is popular across the world. There is no better place than Brussels for a Tintin lover,” Françoise Flamente, an elderly lady, tells me as she walks me along the Tintin trail in the Belgian capital.
The starting point of the trail is the Belgian Comic Strip Center. A large prototype of the red-and-white rocket from Explorers on the Moon stands tall in the lobby, ready to take off. You can almost hear Professor Calculus say “That’s amazing! That’s tremendous! That’s incredible!”
It indeed is incredible to see so much of Tintin in one place. Books in multiple languages line the shelves, collectables of all possible characters stand in glass cabinets, life-size posters and exhibits are displayed all over. A series of sketches traces Tintin’s origin from a black-and-white line drawing to the dapper ginger head with the trademark quiff. It also outlines the evolution of Snowy, Tintin’s wire fox terrier, modelled after the dog at Hergé’s favourite café, the loud-mouth Captain Haddock, whose name came from the curses that the creator’s wife often hurled at him, and the famous glass-shattering opera star Bianca Castafiore, who, it is believed, is a dig at the creator’s opera-loving wife.
The imposing grey-and-cream building of The Royal Palace can transport anyone back in time. For a Tintin fan however, it has only one significance: it formed the backdrop of King Ottokar’s Sceptre. You feel like a detective yourself, as you trace Tintin’s footsteps through Brussels Park, to the exact spot where he finds the suitcase that helps him solve the mystery.
A short walk from the Palace leads to Boulevard Adolphe Max, home to Hotel Metropole. The street and the hotel are seen in TheSeven Crystal Balls , when Mark Falconer taxies his way to 26 Labrador Road, Tintin’s home. If you stand across the road with the comic book in hand opened to page 20, you’d almost find yourself inside the book.
The flea market at the Place du Jeu de Balle that features in the opening sequence of The Secret of the Unicorn is a few miles away. The market, where Ivan Sakharine tries to persuade the unicorn off Tintin, turns out just how Hergé had depicted it — an exciting mass of bric-a-brac and antiques laid out on the streets and tables. As you walk through the market, rubbing shoulders with the locals and tourists, you secretly wish to find the unicorn, or perhaps Tintin, trying to guard the unicorn from Sakharine.
On the Tintin trail
A mural of Tintin and Captain Haddock on Rue de l’Etuve from the book The Calculus Affair .
The Comic Strip House on Boulevard de l’Impératrice, depicts the evolution of the characters.
La Monnaie is the theatre that inspired Hergé’s drawings of the opera in The Seven Crystal Balls.
Place du Jeu de Balle flea market featured in The Secret of the Unicorn.
The first publishers of the Tintin books, Les Editions du Lombard, have a giant Tintin and Snowy sign on top of their office building.
La Boutique Tintin at Rue de la Colline 13, right in the centre of town, stocks a host of Tintin products, including figurines, comics, stationery, and apparel.
