Brussels Comic City

With Brussels gearing up for a year-long comic festival, it’s probably a good idea to spotlight a more hidden comics gem to prospective tourists.  If you visit the Porte de Hal métro station, it’s like you enter a parallel world, much like when you read Benoît Peeters and François Schuiten’s Les Cités Obscures.

Instead of creating a work of art for this particular station, Schuiten turned it into a complete installation, called Le Passage Inconnu (the Unknown Passage).  It features mosaics, miniature cars and even real-life, 3D trams bursting through the ceiling, as if they cross over from a different reality.  It’s a beauty, even fifteen years after it was unveiled.

For more information on comics murals and public artworks, check out the blog BD et Fresques Murales, which continuously spotlights new initatives.