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The Museum of la Bande Dessinée
by Willem De Graeve
Willem De Graeve. A Master of Romance Linguistics and
Literature (Ghent University) and of Business Intelligence
and Communication (Ghent University), Willem De Graeve
(1975) has been working at the Belgian Comic Strip Center
since 1999. Today, he is a director and communication manager. He has written several articles about comics, including
a literary analysis of an album by Jacques Martin. He also
regularly gives lectures on the history of Belgian comic
strips, at home and abroad (including at MIT in Boston).

Located in the heart of Brussels, the Belgian Comics
Art Museum is a museum that couldn’t be more typical for the city in which it’s housed. The main reason
is that the museum symbolizes the junction of two art
forms that have been thriving in the capital of both
Belgium and Europe: Art Nouveau and comic strips.
The temple of the ninth art
With more than 700 comic strip authors, Belgium has
more comic strip artists per square kilometre than any
other country in the world! It is here that the comic strip
has grown from a popular medium into an art in its own
right. Nowhere else comics are so strongly rooted in
reality and in peoples’ imaginations. Morris, the Belgian
creator of the famous comic strip cowboy Luky Luke,
was the first to use the term Ninth Art. The title couldn’t
have been chosen better, because comics are definitely
part of the heritage of the Belgians. All Belgians have
read comics, they have at home a collection – small or
huge – and, most importantly, they are proud of it.
The Belgian Comic Strip Center has enhanced its
prestigious, splendid Art Nouveau store designed
by architect Victor Horta. The building, inaugurated
in 1906, originally served as a warehouse to textile
baron Charles Waucquez. This period (late nineteenth - early twentieth century) coincides with the
beginnings of modern comic strips.
The non-profit organization “Belgian Comic Strip
Center” was created in 1984. It is a private initiative,
composed of French-speaking and Dutch-speaking
members. Half of the members originate from the
comic strips world or from professional associations
of comic strip artists. The Belgian Comic Strip Center’s aims are twofold: to promote the comic strip
as a valuable cultural medium, and to maintain the
architectural masterpiece in which it is housed.

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In 1975 architect Jean Delhaye, a student of Horta’s,
succeeded in bringing the Waucquez warehouse,
which had become an endangered masterpiece, to the
attention of the state. The building was listed. Now all
that was left was to find a worthy new role… and the
financial means to restore the building. In 1983, urged
by a couple of enthusiasts for urban development
(Jean Breydel) and comic strips (Guy Dessicy), the Belgian Secretary for Public Works bought Waucquez
Warehouse from the owners’ heirs with the express
intention of securing the building in order to dedicate
it to the promotion of comic strips.
In 1984 the “Belgian Comic Strip Center” was founded
as a non-profit organization. Its first chairman was
Bob De Moor, Hergé’s well-known assistant, who had
supported the project from the very beginning. The
organization’s aims were simple: to promote comic
strips and to maintain the architectural masterpiece
that housed the project. On 24 April 1986, the launch
of the project was celebrated in the presence of the
entire Belgian comic strip community… in a building
that was still very much a ruin.
Some intensive lobbying took place, including
a sumptuous lunch at the Royal Palace with
twenty major comic strip artists and a soirée
with the entire Belgian comic strip community,
the Belgian Comic Strip Center’s founders and