People don't really give Belgium the respect it deserves. Hercule Poirot, the fictional master detective, was Belgian and always bristled when he was mistaken for a Frenchman. "French" fries were actually invented and perfected in Belgium. The country has an enormously varied beer culture, much of it originating from abbeys. And Belgium is also home to some of the world's best-loved comic strips - like Tintin, the Smurfs (or "Schtroumpfs" as they are called originally), Lucky Luke and the list goes on.
My favorite of all these is "Spirou and Fantasio", (mostly) by comic artist great André Franquin even if the series did not originate with him and continues to live on today. The most famous character Franquin created is the Marsupilami, but my own favorite is the little squirrel Spip. Appearing in almost every classic story, the grouchy animal delivery sarcastic or sceptical commentary on the happening sin the human world.
This has been a longish intro to the point I want to make, which is, that during my recent trip to Belgium, I saw a super cute Spip figurine in a Liège shop window, only it happened to be a Sunday and the shop was closed. Back home, I was lucky enough to find it on Amazon France, and the little guy actually arrived yesterday. It's a coin bank, although not too many coins will fit in there.
So, is it cute, or...is it cute?
For comparison, here's the character as it appears in the comics (I just notice they were unable to reproduce the whiskers in the plastic version):
And finally, here's an original Franquin sketch showing Spip mischievously peeking out from behind a tree, with series hero Spirou in front:
