Not All Heroes Need Museums: Brussels' Marc Sleen Museum Closes

Somewhere in the 1970s, Flemish comics gained recognition as a unique tradition separate from the Franco-Belgian school. The founding fathers of Flemish comics were Willy Vandersteen, Marc Sleen, and Bob De Moor. Vandersteen and Sleen were particularly influential, known by both avid and casual comi...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inInternational journal of comic art Vol. 25; no. 1; p. 521
Main Author Lockefeer, Wim
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Drexel Hill John A Lent, Ed & Pub 01.04.2023
Subjects
Comics
Graphic novels
Museums
Writers
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Summary:Somewhere in the 1970s, Flemish comics gained recognition as a unique tradition separate from the Franco-Belgian school. The founding fathers of Flemish comics were Willy Vandersteen, Marc Sleen, and Bob De Moor. Vandersteen and Sleen were particularly influential, known by both avid and casual comics readers. They both desired to establish museums to continue their legacies. Vandersteen's studio became an interactive museum for children, while Sleen's museum opened in Brussels. Sleen had concluded his longest-running series, Nero, in 2002, delegating the artwork to Dirk Stallaert. However, Nero had lost some of its former cultural and social relevance, appealing mainly to an older, nostalgic audience. Sleen's stories were newspaper strips filled with topical references, making them entertaining and satirical but not aging well in album form. Additionally, Vandersteen found it challenging to introduce Nero to French-speaking readers, leading to the series' discontinuation in 1987.
ISSN:1531-6793