Saturday, April 21, 2007

Agent 15

Well, Brussels (Belgium) is indeed all about chocolate, beer and cartoons. I understand that tourists (locals as well, I would guess) can even get specially designed maps to visit Brussels on the cartoon trail.

This time not a cartoon mural, but a cartoon sculpture: Agent 15, a cartoon character by Herge. The sculpture is by Tom Frantzen, a Brussels artist. An interesting story goes with this sculpture. The boy coming out of the pavement is a 'Vaartkapoen', the name given to young men who used to work in the sewers. Later the name became synonym with the 'bad boys' of Molenbeek (the commune where this sculpture can be found).

Other cartoon related posts on Brussels Daily Photo, which I know many of you liked, were:
There was also the unknown one which is still a mystery

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Brilliant! The sculpture is brilliant. The whole idea is fantastic. The city is very progressive. Wow. I wish we had some of your local enthusiastic officials here where I live.

Thank you for visiting my blog.

We went for another Nature walk yesterday.

Abraham Lincoln
Brookville Daily Photo

Dsole said...

Cooool!!
I really like it! what an amazing idea!

Kunterbunt said...

Such a funny sculpture, telling a story. And you give us a lot of information. Thanks for that, merci ou dank je wel.

Anonymous said...

hey, I know this one! It's not far from where I work!

Nathalie H.D. said...

It's amazing!
It really is soooo Hergé in the attitudes and the shape of the characters!

But is the hole "escaping man" only holding straight thanks to his ankle being held by the other man? If so, it's quite a feat as far as balancing a statue, isn't it?

Deb said...

I love playful art-and this is one of the best I've seen.
Thanks for bringing a smile to my face this morning!

Andreea said...

AL - glad you like. i would not call brussels progressive, but is does have a sense of humour;
dsole - i thouhgt so too;
april - thank you;
maarten - what a coincidence!
nathalie - the sculpture also balances on the police man's foot, but yes it is quite an interesting piece of art;
chris&deb - glad you like it!