Brussels, homeland of Tintin and Spirou, the undeniable forerunners of many generations of comic strip heroes. The Smurfs, Lucky Luke and the Daltons, Corentin, Black and Mortimer - to mention only the most famous - have made children of all ages in every country of the world dream, tremble with fear and laugh with mirth.

The clear line at the tip of a pencil, Belgian comic strip has given birth to some great names of the 9th art and its future looks bright because there’s nothing like deep roots for encouraging new talent to grow. “Speech balloons” are more or less everywhere in Brussels and especially at the Belgian Comic Strip Center (CBBD), set up in a superb Art Nouveau building.

The CBBD regularly puts on themed exhibitions. Don’t miss the comic strip trail, which leads you across the city, gazing upwards, in the company of these likeable characters, immortalised in giant format on nearly 50 city gables. But Brussels celebrates its heroes all over the city in countless bookshops and other little shops packed with pages for poring over, miniatures for collecting, engravings and lithographs...