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Suske & Wiske (comic books)

Kriekebeek

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Kriekebeek

by Eugene Ipavec, 20 August 2007

There is a banner of Kriekebeek, a fictitious 16th C. village defended against the Spanish in the originally coloured album “Het Spaanse Spook” (i.e. The Spanish Ghost). This book launched the 'Blue Series' the adventures of which first appeared in 'Tintin' / 'Kuifje', a comic strip weekly run by the well-known Hergé.

A page on this album (in Dutch) showing the cover and the introductory page, first i.e. weekly and second i.e. 1952 album versions can be found here.

The picture of the cover is clickable, offering a good view of said banner (the cherries refer to the famous ‘kriek’ beer). Unfortunately I do not have the album and cannot find out more but anyhow there is the (reduced) attachment < fic-kriek.jpg > .

The squarish banner has a light green field with a wide red border (and a much smaller one, yellow, on the inside) plus yellow fringe on the fly only. In the centre is placed a yellow shield bearing three cherries, joined by a short branch with two leaves (all in natural colours); a banderole ‘Kriekebeek’ (white with black letters) identifies the village. Where you might expect a helmet appears a brown pitcher and pink ornaments resembling plumes – actually the pitcher stands on the banderole.

A spoof newspaper page announcing Kriekebeek’s liberation (banner vaguely visible) can be found here.

Our Spanish Ghost seems to have run through an extensive number of editions (check out the differences) as can be seen here.
Jan Mertens, 18 August 2007