The cancellation of the BD Comic Strip Festival 2026, originally planned for September 25 to 27 at the Gare Maritime of Tour & Taxis, created a noticeable gap in Brussels, a city that sees itself as the global capital of comics. The event was canceled due to budget cuts from the Brussels-Capital Region. However, six months later, a new BD Festival took place on September 19 and 20, 2026, at the Bourse, the Piétonnier, and several surrounding cultural sites. This event was organized quickly, with a more compact format, but it drew a large crowd on Saturday. The idea to organize this new event came from city center bookstores. Reynold Leclercq, an associate of the Brüsel bookstore and one of the project's initiators, felt that not having a comics event in 2026 would be a missed opportunity. With Multi BD and several partners in the comic sector, the plan was to create a smaller event with a reasonable budget. The City of Brussels, under alderman Didier Wauters, who has a budget for commercial promotion, supported the project after the association of merchants in the Piétonnier was formed. The association gradually gained support from publishers, authors, merchants, Entreprendre Bruxelles, Brussels Major Events, and Visit.Brussels. The new BD Festival chose to return to the heart of the capital, with the Bourse as its central location. Unlike the previous festival, which had moved to the Gare Maritime of Tour & Taxis after the pandemic, this event expanded beyond the Bourse to include locations such as Riches Claires, Palace cinema, City Hall, Cercle des Voyageurs, Continental, Place de la Bourse, and Boulevard Anspach. The choice of the Bourse was significant, as it had been restored after three years of work and reopened to the public in 2023. Its renovation and the installation of the Belgian Beer World sparked discussions about the place of tourism in this new setup. The building also has a public gallery and is declared as a passage and meeting place. A monumental comic strip of about 600 m², composed of ten panels, was created by seven authors and writers on the Piétonnier. The mural was made by Camille Blin, an agent and editor, in response to a call for tenders launched by Brussels Major Events and Quentin Delvoye from the Brüsel bookstore. The mural was designed to be understood in two ways: as a whole when viewed from a distance or from above, and panel by panel when the passerby walks directly on it. The narrative of the mural shows an astronaut receiving ten photographs sent by her friends who remained on the Brussels Piétonnier. By going through the panels, a second story appears, notably around Nour and Charlie, whose meeting gradually evolves until a kiss in the last panel. Despite the cancellation of the BD Comic Strip Festival, the Atomium Awards, which this year represent more than 85,000 euros in prizes and support for authors, were maintained. Among the main results revealed on Saturday, Adele Rhoad won the Leblanc Award for young creation for her project V.A., Pascal Matthey received the Atomium Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles Award for Du pain blanc et du chocolat (L’Employé du Moi), and Laurie Agusti won the Première Atomium Galaxies BD Award with Rouge signal (Éditions 2042). The question remains of what will happen to this BD Festival once the 2026 emergency has passed. Didier Wauters remains cautious, emphasizing that the city's ambition is not to replace the old event. Reynold Leclercq, however, is more assertive, believing that with means clearly inferior to those of the previous festival, the organizers have managed to set up an event of considerable scale. He projects beyond this first experience, suggesting that the event could become permanent.