Comics & Street Art

BD & street art · Strips & streetart

The mural route, the Comics Art Museum, and why Brussels rather than anywhere else is the capital of the form.

A street on the Brussels comic book route — Photograph by Trougnouf, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0

Brussels treats the comic strip as a national art form, and the evidence is on the walls. The comic mural route — dozens of painted gable ends across the city centre — is free, self-guided, and walkable in an afternoon.

Where it comes from

Belgium produced Tintin, the Smurfs, Lucky Luke, Spirou and Gaston Lagaffe. The form is called bande dessinée and is taken as seriously here as film is elsewhere, with a national museum, a state collection and a publishing industry to match.

Tintin's rocket in the Comics Art Museum — The Comics Art Museum sits in a Horta warehouse. Photograph via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0

What to visit

The Comics Art Museum is the main institution, in a Horta warehouse that is worth the ticket by itself. The Marolles and the streets around the Bourse carry the densest concentration of murals. Specialist bookshops in the centre sell original plates and are free to browse.

A comic mural in Brussels — The mural route is free, self-guided and walkable in an afternoon. Photograph by Ferran Cornellà, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0

The rest of the street art

Beyond the sanctioned murals there is a large unsanctioned scene, concentrated along the canal north of the centre and in Molenbeek. It changes constantly, which is the point, and no printed route will be current.

The Gaston Lagaffe statue in Brussels — Belgium treats the bande dessinee as a national art form. Photograph by Ferran Cornellà, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0

Checked on 5 September 2026 against published sources. Fares, hours and closing days change without much warning — confirm before you travel.

This section is being written. The guide above is the section for now. New articles are published across the site about twice a week rather than a section being filled in a day, so this page grows steadily — it is worth looking in again. In the meantime the sixteen sight pages and the plans by trip length are finished, and they are the best place to start.

Coming next in this section

Walking the Brussels comic mural route
Why Belgium became the capital of the comic strip
Where to buy comics and original plates in Brussels
Street art beyond the murals: the canal and Molenbeek