The government of Belgium has unveiled its new passports decorated with characters from some of the country's most famous comic book characters, including "Tintin" and the "Smurfs".

From February 7 onward, the plethora of Gothic and baroque buildings in pages of Belgium's updated passport will make way for something for which nation is perhaps known even better — its cartoon characters, reports AP.

Tintin, the intrepid cartoon journalist who travelled the world looking to stamp out trouble, will now be travelling with every Belgian going overseas.

Apart from Tintin, his famous moon rocket and the Moulinsart mansion of his friend Captain Haddock, a 34-page standard Belgian passport will also include the likes of the blue Smurfs, cowboy Lucky Luke, Blake and Mortimer, and Bob and Bobette, reports The Guardian.

Despite its cartoon book appearance, authorities say security has been improved, with 48 new security features such as barcodes, laser-engraved photographs and the polycarbonate ID page.

Many images featured in the new passport are from the original Tintin comic strips, such as the "Explorers on the Moon" (1954), where Tintin took his first steps on the lunar surface 15 years before Neil Armstrong. Some images were also specially designed for the passport, including a Smurf contemplating a globe, with its backpack and maps spread on the ground, according to the report of The Guardian.

"We have chosen a design that represents well our country, its arts and culture, with a touch of talent, expertise, humour and humility," Belgium's foreign minister, Sophie Wilmès, told the Francophone national broadcaster RTBF.

Comic strips, or bande dessinée, are celebrated in Belgium and France as "the 9th art" and are widely popular despite no longer getting the same space in daily newspapers as they did during the postwar era.

Tintin was the first big hit after it was introduced in 1929by Georges Remi under the pen name Hergé. 

Blake and Mortimer, two British gentlemen -- an MI5 agent and a nuclear physicist in a quest to outsmart the villainous Colonel Olrik -- came after World War II. In 1958, artist Pierre Culliford introduced the Smurfs, a band of little blue people living in a mushroom village.

"There is a little bit of Belgian humour here," said Wouter Poels, a Belgian foreign ministry spokesperson. "It's always nice if you can link what is functional to something enjoyable. But a passport is and remains an administrative document".

"Until the early 21st century passports were boring… [but] in the last 20 years passport design is becoming fancier," passport expert Tom Topol told The Guardian.

Stressing on security, Topol said it is harder to forge complex designs. "Nowadays, a passport design with monotone graphic elements is just too simple".

However, the design remains the element that has captured the imagination. "A reason to become Belgian," tweeted one senior EU official in Brussels.