A Belgian haul

 

Earlier this month, my youngest sister and I went to Belgium for a week, and one of the main goals for that trip was to expand my personal library, as is every trip abroad for me. Belgium, however, is a tricky place for me when it comes to buying books. Neither my Flemish/Dutch nor my French is good enough for me to sit down with a novel, at least not without having to spend a lot of time consulting a dictionary. Luckily, Belgium has embraced its role as a producer of high-quality comic books, and this was were I turned most of my attention. Below is the haul from a week's travel. 

With the exception of an academic book that I was gifted by a friend, and which was printed in Belgium, I got my purchases from various museums and comic book shops. And with the exception of a children's book about castles that I purchased at the Gravenstein Castle museum in Ghent, the books all belonging to the long and proud tradition of Belgian comics. 

Suske en Wiske was created by Willy Vandersteen, and recount the adventures of two children across space and time. As a good medievalist, I naturally selected two albums that were medieval-themed, and I am looking forward to how these Flemish texts will help me expand what little Flemish/Dutch that I have at this point in time. Likewise, I was also quite pleased to find an album of Tintin - one of my all-time favourite comic books - in Galician. Like Flemish, Galician is not a language I know very well, but I have spent enough time in Galicia to get some sense of it, and I bought this album as a way to prepare for my next journey to Santiago de Compostela. The final item in my rather modest haul is the sequel to an album that I read earlier this year, and which I learned about by chance. The first album - not pictured here - is a Flash Gordon pastiche written by Edgar P. Jacobs during World War II, in order to meet demands for comics during the German occupation, which did not allow new instalments of Flash Gordon to reach the Belgian newspapers. Jacobs - best known for the comic book series Blake and Mortimer, of which I am a great fan - wrote and drew a story in the style of Flash Gordon, called "The U Ray" (Le Rayon U). The album was recently re-released and translated into English, and the author Jean van Hamme wrote the sequel which I bought in Belgium (also in English translation). 

At the present, I am still working my way through the Galician translation of Castafiore's Jewels. I have laid it aside for a few days due to the duties of October - butchering and smoking meat - which have taken up most of my spare time. But to slowly wind my way through a text in a semi-familiar language and actually understanding what is happening is a great joy, and I look forward to feeling that joy as I continue to work my way through this Belgian haul.