My Belgium. My beautiful Belgium. 'Dear country of my childhood,' I would like to say; -true to my origins- I love you. There, it's said. This book is dedicated to you. A surreal country where potato physics is taught from kindergarten onwards, you will always make me dream or give me nightmares (it's the same), but you have never disappointed me. With you, everything changes all the time, but nothing really changes. You retain your sacrosanct singularity. To the point of absurdity sometimes. Because yes, your way of working is a gas factory where the fries are blue, your traditions dipped in chocolate, your mentality steeped in mayo, even samurai or Brazilian. Yes, your heart is as warm and generous as a Liège waffle, and yes, sometimes it's as hard as a bottle of Gueuze, but often filled with raspberry gum arabic. And even if things regularly turn sour, your intestinal conflicts remain inspiring. Because they're always delirious. Crazy. Abracadabra. Hallucinating. You're my dealer. My dealer of crazy ideas and poetry. Your mountains are Russian or Polish, your plains sub-Saharan, your beaches are sometimes as cold as the poles, your roads are like hell, paved with good intentions, your landscapes make us believe we're on safari, and your river even flows into the Seine. And yes, your past is sometimes darker than 100% cocoa. Despite that, nothing stops you, because you're a unique invention all on your own. Like a prototype 'tof' that no one would have ever managed to reproduce. The plans were certainly lost in the twists and turns of your Magritte-like administration. Finally, let's not forget the King, who must always be of good repute and the guarantor of freedom, because above all, it is your name that is sung. 'Belgium is a pleasure and must remain so.' There is only one way to love you, dear country, and that is madly. This "Ma BelleGique" series began with Jo Deckmine, at the dawn of the 21st century, when he took me on one of his graphic adventures, which he loved to throw me into: Le Théâtre des Doms. The new theater of the French community of Belgium in Avignon. Directed for more than ten years, successively by Philippe Gromber and Isabelle Jans. I was responsible for designing the theater's posters for the festival and presenting the creation of the performing arts in French-speaking Belgium to... the French. What better way to slap them in the face than with a defector? For about ten years, I repurposed Belgian symbols in every possible way. It was then, in 2013, that Huges and Chantal decided to present a retrospective in their micro-museum of French Fries in Brussels (a place of worship). Some of the projects were published, others unpublished. And to remove them from their original context, I decided to add titles in the form of captions. That's when I understood that the space between the text and the image was none other than my creative space. With a little blue book that accompanied the exhibition of about twenty of these visual poems, 'Ma BelleGique' was born. And, of course, a friendship too, with this surprising place and its endearing people. Belgium, in other words. In the years following this exhibition, I continued to write and scribble about them, in notebooks, on scraps of paper, on restaurant tablecloths,... as ideas came to me. This book brings together my ninety favorites, created between 2002 and 2019. But be warned: filled with choux pastry, chocolate, mussels, fries, cuberdons, and other calories of all kinds, it should be enjoyed without moderation, like any good beer. But only a few pages from time to time. To avoid certain digestive problems and occasional nausea. 'Long live Belgium, damn it,' one would say, and another would say, 'Amai! What a mess.' Lucas Racasse (introduction from the book Ma Bellegique | 2019)