Smurfette and Hefty Smurf Statue, Middelkerke

Smurfette poses on a rocky mound while the much smaller Hefty Smurf gets to work below her, in a bronze by Monique Mol photographed near Middelkerke's beach in 2018. Peyo's little blue villagers began in a Belgian comic in 1958, years before the cartoons, and this pair gives the seaside trail one of its most family-friendly stops. It is among the figures taken off the dike for building works, which the town plans to regroup in a new comic statue park beside Arthur Degreefplein.