The Wonderful Comic Strip Walls of Antwerp

Ordered by the University of Antwerp to brighten up the academic neighborhood, this mural shows cartoonist Ilah’s semi-biographical character Cordelia studying her butt off in all sorts of odd positions. The background lettering sums up the university’s different fields of study.

The very first comic mural was designed by Jan Bosschaert and is chock-a-block full of references to the artist’s various works. Nestled in the corner of a small cobbled alley, the fresco shows the statue of author Hendrik Conscience, ‘the man who taught his people how to read’, looking down in surprise from his fountain: his tap is pouring out letters instead of water. The basin is filled with comics by Bosschaert, such as Sam and Jaguar. A bit further the actual sculpture of Conscience adorns the city’s heritage library.

Also close to the heritage library we bump into Laarmans, protagonist of Willem Elsschot’s novel Kaas(Cheese). This is the cover that Dutch artist Dick Matena had chosen earlier to be the cover to his visual translation to the Antwerp author’s seminal work. The mural shows Laarmans returning home from cheese shopping with the Brabo statue in the background in a magnificent mix of the city’s literary and folkloric past.

For the Boerentoren illustrator Jan Van Der Veken designed a fresco that envelops a long stretch of the building. What starts as a scene of figures whose hair flows in the wind (a reference to the Boerentoren’s drafty passage) becomes greener and greener as it all unfolds. Eventually we follow people carrying around plants they bought into Paradise on Earth.

On the hip neighborhood ‘het Zuid’, young local Philip Paquet got the opportunity to paint wall number seven. His design paints a picture of what the true-blue Antwerpenaar loves about this area’s general laid-back atmosphere: wine, coffee, a quiet moment to read, the Royal Museum of Fine Arts and some jazz. Look to the sky to spot the fresco in its appropriate location above wine bistro Patine.