Strip study: Flemish comics come under the microscope
A grant has been awarded to Strip Turnhout to gather information about comic strip heritage and archives in Flanders and Brussels – before it’s too late
Saving history
The subsidy will allow Strip Turnhout, which publishes the twice-yearly Stripgids (Comics Guide), to hire a part-time researcher. According to Strip Turnhout co-ordinator Roel Daenen, the researcher’s work will include taking an inventory of what patrimony already exists in the regions and looking at other countries’ methods of organising their own strip heritage.
Four years ago, just when Faro was carrying out the strip survey, news emerged that famous Brussels cartoonist François Schuiten had just gifted all of his original drawings from De duistere steden – published as Cities of the Fantastic in English – to the King Baudouin Foundation.
“It’s a very famous graphic novel series,” says Daenen, “and we thought, how did he come to donate it to the foundation instead of the to the Belgian Comic Strip Centre, for instance?”
What’s more, he continues, “very few cartoonists and graphic artists today even keep their original drawings and sketches. Or they sell them to collectors. It doesn’t take much Googling to realise that the economic situation for cartoonists is pretty dire.”
Lost on the market
Galleries are also selling original work as art to private collectors. “If you walk around the Zavel in Brussels you’ll see that there are strip galleries that sell old work – Hergé, Jacobs, Franquin, Vandersteen – from the golden age of Belgian strips.”
And when private collectors buy original drawings, it’s likely no one else will ever see them again. Even original plates of Tintin cartoons drawn by groundbreaking illustrator Edgar P Jacobs recently wound up on the open market.
“We have a problem,” says Daenen. “Everyone says, oh Flanders, Brussels, Belgium – it’s the land of the strip, it’s all in hand. But if Flanders doesn’t want to lose its chance of a comics heritage collection, then it’s high time that something was done about it.”
In the old issues of Stripgids, I find it super interesting to read what the pioneers of the strip sector had to say
Strip in the context of heritage means everything from comic strip albums to cartoon illustrations to graphic novels. And, while the Belgian Comic Strip Center in central Brussels is popular, its collection isn’t growing, explains Daenen. Flanders’ strips are spread all over the country, and it will be the new researcher’s task to hunt them down.
Once that’s done and other archives in Europe are consulted, Strip Turnhout can assess what kind of policies it can recommend to the government of Flanders. One would be: Who is responsible for preserving this history? Because creating strips, as Daenen points out, is a very diverse sector.
“If you check the catalogue of the Letterenhuis in Antwerp – the archive of Flemish literature – you find very few strips,” says Daenen. “But Flanders Literature has provided some artists with subsidies. So the heritage is diverse and includes original drawings, sketches, plates, prints, correspondence, scripts and more. Our research can go some way in making people aware of all this.”
Daenen hopes that a proper archive of Flemish strip heritage will inspire the illustrators and cartoonists of today. “In the old issues of Stripgids, I find it super interesting to read what the pioneers of the strip sector had to say. They talked about what it was like in their day. It’s very enlightening to see how things have developed over the years. Because nothing appears out of thin air.”
Photo courtesy Strip Turnhout
