-
January
-
Email hacking
-
Laura Pausini
-
Expedition of the Thousand
-
You can't have your cake and eat it
-
Ravi Shankar
-
Association football
-
Fractional reserve banking
-
American English
-
Shaken, not stirred
-
Skyfall
-
Smart
-
Adele
-
Sanremo Music Festival
-
Amazon Kindle
-
iPad Mini
-
2012 Italian shooting in the Arabian Sea
-
John Kerry
-
Arms industry
-
Gérard Depardieu
-
Camorra
-
Angela Merkel
-
Venice
-
Samsung Galaxy Note II
-
Crowd funding
-
Freedom of the press
-
WikiLeaks
-
Curiosity
-
Lucio Dalla
-
Influenza
-
Taxation in the United States
-
J. K. Rowling
-
Juventus F.C.
-
Italian diaspora
-
Life of Pi
-
Pub
-
Lidl
-
Book scanning
-
English as a second or foreign language
-
Microsoft Surface
-
The Adventures of Tintin
-
United States fiscal cliff
-
Peer-to-peer lending
-
Pinterest
-
PayPal
-
Italian dialects
-
The Right Honourable
-
High-speed rail
-
Expatriate
-
Cesare Beccaria
|
WIKIMAG n. 2 - Gennaio 2013
The Adventures of Tintin
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- Togli il segno di spunta per disattivarla
The Adventures of Tintin (French:
Les Aventures de Tintin) is a series of
comic
albums created by
Belgian
artist Georges Remi (1907–1983), who wrote under
the pen name of
Hergé.
The series is one of the most popular European
comics
of the 20th century, with translations published in more than 50
languages and more than 200 million copies of the books sold to date.[1]
The series first appeared in French in
Le Petit Vingtième, a children's supplement to the
Belgian newspaper
Le XXe Siècle on 10 January 1929. The success of the
series saw the serialised strips published in Belgium's leading
newspaper
Le Soir
and spun into a successful
Tintin magazine. Then in 1950, Hergé created
Studios Hergé, which produced the canon series of twenty-four
albums. The Adventures of Tintin have been adapted for radio,
television, theatre, and film.
The series is set during a largely realistic 20th century. Its hero
is
Tintin, a young Belgian reporter. He is aided in his adventures by
his faithful
fox terrier dog
Snowy (Milou in the original French
edition). Later, popular additions to the cast included the brash and
cynical
Captain Haddock, the highly intelligent but hearing-impaired
Professor Calculus (Professeur Tournesol)
and other supporting characters such as the incompetent detectives
Thomson and Thompson (Dupont et Dupond).
Hergé himself features in several of the comics as a background
character, as do his assistants in some instances.
The comic strip series has long been admired for its clean,
expressive drawings in Hergé's signature
ligne claire style.[2][3][4][5]
Its engaging,[6]
well-researched[6][7][8]
plots straddle a variety of genres: swashbuckling adventures with
elements of fantasy, mysteries, political thrillers, and science
fiction. The stories within the Tintin series always feature slapstick
humour, offset by dashes of sophisticated satire and political/cultural
commentary.
List of titles
These are the twenty-four comic albums of the canon series as named
in English.
The publication dates are those of the original French versions. Book
1 was at first prevented republication by Hergé and was never
subsequently redrawn in a colour edition. Books 2 to 9 were re-published
in colour and in a fixed 62-page format. Book 10 was the first to be
originally published in colour and, along with books 11 to 15, set a
middle period for Hergé marked by war and changing collaborators. Books
16 to 23 (and revised editions of books 4, 7 & 15) are creations of
Studios Hergé. Book 24 is an unfinished work, published
posthumously.
- 1.
Tintin in the Land of the Soviets (1929–1930,
1930)
- 2.
Tintin in the Congo (1930–1931, 1931, 1946)
- 3.
Tintin in America (1931–1932, 1932, 1945)
- 4.
Cigars of the Pharaoh (1932–1934, 1934, 1955)
- 5.
The Blue Lotus (1934–1935, 1936, 1946)
- 6.
The Broken Ear (1935–1937, 1937, 1943)
- 7.
The Black Island (1937–1938, 1938, 1943,
1966)
- 8.
King Ottokar's Sceptre (1938–1939, 1939,
1947)
- 9.
The Crab with the Golden Claws (1940–1941, 1941,
1943)
- 10.
The Shooting Star (1941–1942, 1942)
- 11.
The Secret of the Unicorn (1942–1943, 1943)
- 12.
Red Rackham's Treasure (1943, 1944)
|
- 13.
The Seven Crystal Balls (1943–1946, 1948)
- 14.
Prisoners of the Sun (1946–1948, 1949)
- 15.
Land of Black Gold (1948–1950, 1950, 1971)
- 16.
Destination Moon (1950–1953, 1953)
- 17.
Explorers on the Moon (1950–1953, 1954)
- 18.
The Calculus Affair (1954–1956, 1956)
- 19.
The Red Sea Sharks (1956–1958, 1958)
- 20.
Tintin in Tibet (1958–1959, 1960)
- 21.
The Castafiore Emerald (1961–1962, 1963)
- 22.
Flight 714 (1966–1967, 1968)
- 23.
Tintin and the Picaros (1975–1976, 1976)
- 24.
Tintin and Alph-Art (1986, 2004)
|
Apart from the series, a comic not written by Hergé was released
based on the film Tintin et le lac aux requins.
Hergé attempted and then abandoned one comic.
History
Georges Remi came up with the character of
Tintin, a young boy reporter, whilst working at the Belgian
newspaper
Le XXe Siècle (The 20th Century). Writing under his pen
name, Hergé
pioneered the new character in the story
Tintin in the Land of the Soviets. This comic, which involved
Tintin battling the socialist authorities in the
Soviet Union, was serialised in Le XXe Siècle's supplement
for children,
Le Petit Vingtième (The Little Twentieth), from 10
January 1929 until 11 May 1930.[9]
The series was an instant success; sales of the Thursday edition of the
newspaper, the day the supplement appeared, were to increase by 600%.
Hergé went on to pen a string of Adventures of Tintin, sending
his character to real locations such as the Belgian Congo, the United
States, Egypt, India, China, and the United Kingdom, and also to
fictional countries of his own devising, such as the Latin American
republic of
San Theodoros and the East European kingdom of
Syldavia.
The eighth Tintin adventure,
King Ottokar's Sceptre (1939), involved Tintin battling the
forces of fictional fascist state
Borduria, whose leader, named Müsstler, was a combination of Nazi
German leader
Adolf Hitler and Italian Fascist leader
Benito Mussolini.[10]
Himself an anti-fascist, Hergé focused his series The
Adventures of Tintin on non-political themes to avoid
trouble with the Gestapo (pictured here) during the period
of Nazi occupation.
In May 1940,
Nazi Germany invaded Belgium as World War II broke out across
Europe, and although Hergé initially considered fleeing into a
self-imposed exile, he ultimately decided to stay in his occupied
homeland.[11]
To ensure their own dominance, the Nazi authorities closed down Le
XXe Siècle, leaving Hergé unemployed.[12]
In search of employment, he was given a job as an illustrator at
Belgium's leading newspaper,
Le Soir
(The Evening), which was allowed to continue publication under
German management.[13]
On 17 October 1940 he was made editor of the paper's children's
supplement, Le Soir Jeunesse, in which he set about producing new
Tintin adventures.[14]
In this new, more repressive political climate, Hergé could no longer
explore political themes in his Adventures of Tintin lest he be
arrested by the
Gestapo.
As Tintinologist
Harry Thompson noted, Tintin's role as a reporter came to an end, to
be replaced by his new role as an explorer, something which was not a
politically sensitive topic.[15]
With the end of the war, Hergé left Le Soir and, in 1949,
accepted an invitation to continue The Adventures of Tintin in
the new
Tintin magazine (Le journal de Tintin). Finally, Hergé's
Tintin series reached the height of its success in 1950 when he created
Studios Hergé. The studios produced eight new Tintin albums,
coloured and reformatted several old Tintin albums, and ultimately
completed twenty-three albums of the canon series. Studios Hergé
continued to release additional publications until Hergé's death in
1983. In 1986, a twenty-fourth
unfinished album was released, the Studios were disbanded, and its
assets were transferred to the
Hergé Foundation. The Adventures of Tintin continue to
entertain new generations of Tintin fans today.
Synopsis
Characters
Tintin and Snowy
Tintin is a young Belgian reporter who becomes involved in dangerous
cases in which he takes heroic action to save the day. Almost every
adventure features Tintin hard at work in his investigative journalism,
but seldom is he seen actually turning in a story. He is a young man of
neutral attitudes with whom the audience can identify; in this respect,
he represents the
everyman.
Readers and critics have described Tintin as a well-rounded yet
open-ended, intelligent and imaginative character, noting that his
rather neutral personality—sometimes labelled as bland—permits a
balanced reflection of the evil, folly and foolhardiness which surrounds
him. His
Boy Scout ideals, which represent Hergé's own, are never compromised
by the character, and his status allows the reader to assume his
position within the story, rather than merely following the adventures
of a strong protagonist.[16]
Tintin's iconic representation enhances this aspect, with
Scott McCloud noting that it "allows readers to mask themselves in a
character and safely enter a sensually stimulating world."[17]
Snowy (Milou in Hergé's original version), a
fox terrier dog, is Tintin's loyal, four-legged companion. The bond
between Snowy and Tintin is very deep as they have saved each other from
perilous situations many times. Snowy frequently "speaks" to the reader
through his thoughts (often displaying a dry sense of humour), which are
apparently not heard by the human characters in the story. Snowy has
nearly let Tintin down on occasion, particularly when distracted by a
bone. Like Captain Haddock, he is fond of
Loch Lomond brand
Scotch whisky, and his occasional bouts of drinking tend to get him
into trouble. When not distracted, Snowy is generally fearless, his only
fear being
arachnophobia.
Captain Haddock
Captain Archibald Haddock, a seafaring Captain of disputed ancestry
(he may be of Belgian, French, English, or Scottish origin) is Tintin's
best friend, who was introduced in The Crab with the Golden Claws.
Haddock was initially depicted as a weak and alcoholic character, but
later became more respectable. He evolves to become genuinely heroic and
even a socialite after he finds a treasure captured by his ancestor,
Sir Francis Haddock. The Captain's coarse humanity and sarcasm act
as a counterpoint to Tintin's often implausible heroism; he is always
quick with a dry comment whenever the boy reporter seems too idealistic.
Captain Haddock lives in the luxurious mansion
Marlinspike Hall.
Haddock uses a range of colourful insults and curses to express his
feelings, such as "billions of blue blistering barnacles" (sometimes
just "blistering barnacles", "billions of blistering barnacles", or
"blue blistering barnacles"), "ten thousand thundering typhoons"
(sometimes just "thundering typhoons"), "troglodyte",
"bashi-bazouk",
"visigoths",
"kleptomaniac",
"ectoplasm",
"sea
gherkin", "anacoluthon",
"pockmark",
"nincompoop",
"abominable
snowman", "nitwits",
"scoundrels", "steam
rollers", "parasites",
"vegetarians", "floundering oath", "carpet seller","blundering
Bazookas",
"Popinjay",
"bragger",
"pinheads",
"miserable
slugs", "ectomorph",
"maniacs",
"freshwater
swabs",
"miserable
molecule of
mildew",
and "Fuzzy Wuzzy", but nothing that is actually considered a
swear
word. Haddock is a hard drinker, particularly fond of rum and of
Scotch whisky; his bouts of drunkenness are often used for comic effect.
Captain Haddock remained without a first name until the last
completed story, Tintin and the Picaros.
Professor Calculus
Professor Calculus, an
absent-minded professor and half-deaf
physicist, is a regular character alongside Tintin, Snowy, and
Captain Haddock. He was introduced in
Red Rackham's Treasure, and based partially on
Auguste Piccard, a Swiss physicist.[18]
His presence was initially not welcomed by the leading characters, but
through his generous nature and his scientific ability he develops a
lasting bond with them. Eventually, at the end of the album
Land of Black Gold, he has become a resident of Marlinspike Hall.
Calculus has a tendency to act in an aggressive manner when someone says
he's "acting the goat." He is a fervent believer in
dowsing,
and carries a
pendulum for that purpose. Calculus's deafness is a frequent source
of humour, as he repeats back what he thinks he has heard, usually in
the most unlikely words possible. He does not admit to being near-deaf
and insists he is only a little hard of hearing in one ear.
Supporting
characters
Hergé's supporting characters have been cited as far more developed
than the central character, each imbued with a strength of character and
depth of personality which has been compared with that of the characters
of
Charles Dickens.[19]
Hergé used the supporting characters to create a
realistic world in which to set his protagonists' adventures. To
further the realism and continuity, characters would recur throughout
the series. It has been speculated that the occupation of Belgium and
the restrictions imposed upon Hergé forced him to focus on
characterisation to avoid depicting troublesome political situations.
The major supporting cast was developed during this period.[20]
-
Thomson and Thompson are two bumbling detectives whose only
discernible difference is the shape of their moustaches.[21]
They provide much of the
comic relief throughout the series, being afflicted with chronic
spoonerisms and comic
pratfalls. They are thoroughly incompetent in their tasks,
always bent on arresting the wrong character, but in spite of this
they somehow get entrusted with delicate missions. The detectives
usually wear bowler hats and carry walking sticks, except when
abroad: during those missions they insist on wearing the "costume"
of the locality they are visiting so as to blend into the local
population, but instead manage to dress in folkloric attire that
actually makes them stand apart. The detectives were in part based
on Hergé's father Alexis and uncle Léon, identical twins who often
took walks together wearing matching bowler hats while carrying
matching walking sticks.
-
Bianca Castafiore is an opera singer whom Haddock absolutely
despises. She seems to constantly be popping up wherever he goes,
along with her maid Irma and pianist Igor Wagner. She is comically
foolish, whimsical, absent-minded, and talkative, and seems unaware
that her voice is shrill and appallingly loud. Her specialty is the
Jewel Song (Ah! je ris de me voir si belle en ce
miroir) from
Gounod's opera,
Faust, and sings this at the least provocation, much to
Haddock's dismay. She tends to be melodramatic in an exaggerated
fashion and is often maternal toward Haddock, of whose dislike she
remains ignorant. She often confuses words, especially names, with
other words that rhyme with them or of which they remind her;
"Haddock" is frequently replaced by
malapropisms such as "Paddock",
"Harrock", "Padlock",
"Hopscotch",
"Drydock",
"Stopcock",
"Maggot",
"Bartók",
"Hammock",
and "Hemlock",
while Nestor, Haddock's butler, is confused with "Chestor" and
"Hector." Her own name means "white and chaste flower," a meaning to
which Professor Calculus refers when he offers a white rose to the
singer in
The Castafiore Emerald. She was based upon opera
divas
in general (according to Hergé's perception), Hergé's Aunt Ninie
(who was known for her "shrill" singing of opera), and, in the
post-war comics, on
Maria Callas.[22]
- Other recurring characters include
Nestor the butler,
Chang the loyal Chinese boy,
Rastapopoulos, the criminal mastermind,
Jolyon Wagg the infuriating (to Haddock) insurance salesman,
General Alcazar the South American leader,
Kalish Ezab the Arab emir,
Abdullah the emir's mischievous son,
Doctor Müller the evil Nazi German doctor,
Oliveira de Figueira the friendly salesman who can sell even the
most trivial of items,
Cutts the Butcher whose phone number is repeatedly confused with
Haddock's, and
Allan, Rastapopoulos' henchman and formerly Haddock's
first mate.
Settings
The settings within Tintin have also added depth to the
strips. Hergé mingles real and fictional lands into his stories, along
with a base in Belgium from where the heroes set off—originally 26
Labrador Road, but later
Marlinspike Hall. This is best demonstrated in King Ottokar's
Sceptre, in which Hergé creates two fictional countries,
Syldavia and
Borduria, and invites the reader to tour them in text through the
insertion of a travel brochure into the storyline.[6]
Other fictional lands include
Khemed
on the
Arabian Peninsula,
San Theodoros,
São Rico, and
Nuevo Rico in South America, and the kingdom of Gaipajama in India.[23]
Along with these fictitious locations, actual nations were employed such
as Belgium, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, the United States, the
Soviet Union, Congo, Peru, India, Egypt, Indonesia, Nepal, Tibet, and
China. Other actual locales used were the Sahara Desert, the Atlantic
Ocean and the Moon.
Research
Hergé's extensive research began with
The Blue Lotus, Hergé stating: "it was from that time that I
undertook research and really interested myself in the people and
countries to which I sent Tintin, out of a sense of responsibility to my
readers".[7]
Hergé's use of research and photographic reference allowed him to
build a realised universe for Tintin, going so far as to create
fictionalised countries, dressing them with specific political cultures.
These were heavily informed by the cultures evident in Hergé's lifetime.
Pierre Skilling has asserted that Hergé saw monarchy as "the legitimate
form of government", noting that democratic "values seem
underrepresented in [such] a classic Franco-Belgian strip".[24]
Syldavia in particular is described in considerable detail, Hergé
creating a history, customs, and a language which is actually a
Slavian-looking transcript of
Marols,
the Flemish dialect of Brussels. He set the country in the
Balkans,
and it is, by his own admission, modeled after
Albania.[25]
The country finds itself threatened by neighbouring
Borduria with an attempted annexation appearing in
King Ottokar's Sceptre. This situation parallels the
Italian conquest of Albania and of
Czechoslovakia and
Austria
by expansionist
Nazi Germany prior to World War II.[26]
Hergé's use of research would include months of preparation for
Tintin's voyage to the moon in the two-part storyline spread across
Destination Moon and
Explorers on the Moon. His research for the storyline was noted
in
New Scientist: "The considerable research undertaken by Hergé
enabled him to come very close to the type of space suit that would be
used in future
Moon exploration, although his portrayal of the type of rocket that
was actually used was a long way off the mark". The moon rocket is based
on the German V-2
rockets.[27]
Influences
In his youth Hergé admired
Benjamin Rabier and suggested that a number of images within
Tintin in the Land of the Soviets reflected this influence,
particularly the pictures of animals. René Vincent,
the Art
Deco designer, also had an impact on early Tintin adventures: "His
influence can be detected at the beginning of the Soviets, where
my drawings are designed along a decorative line, like an 'S'..".[28]
Hergé also felt no compunction in admitting that he had stolen the image
of round noses from
George McManus, feeling they were "so much fun that I used them,
without scruples!"[29]
During the extensive research Hergé carried out for The Blue Lotus,
he became influenced by Chinese and Japanese illustrative styles and
woodcuts.
This is especially noticeable in the seascapes, which are reminiscent of
works by
Hokusai and
Hiroshige.[30][31]
Hergé also declared
Mark Twain an influence, although this admiration may have led him
astray when depicting
Incas as having no knowledge of an upcoming solar eclipse in
Prisoners of the Sun, an error attributed by T.F. Mills to an
attempt to portray "Incas in awe of a latter-day 'Connecticut
Yankee'".[8]
Reception
Awards
On 1 June 2006, the
Dalai Lama bestowed the
International Campaign for Tibet's
Light of Truth Award upon the character of Tintin, along with South
African Archbishop
Desmond Tutu.[32]
The award was in recognition of Hergé's book
Tintin in Tibet, which the Executive Director of ICT Europe
Tsering Jampa noted was "for many ... their introduction to the
awe-inspiring landscape and culture of Tibet".[33]
In 2001 the Hergé Foundation demanded the recall of the Chinese
translation of the work, which had been released with the title
Tintin in China's Tibet. The work was subsequently published with
the correct translation of the title.[34]
Accepting on behalf of the Hergé Foundation, Hergé's widow Fanny Rodwell
declared: "We never thought that this story of friendship would have a
resonance more than 40 years later".[32]
Tintinology and literary criticism
The study of The Adventures of Tintin is known as Tintinology,
with its followers being varyingly known as Tintinologists,
Tintinophiles, Tintinolators, Tintinites or Hergélogues.[3][35]
One notable Tintinologist is the Belgian
Philippe Goddin, who published Hergé et Tintin reporters: Du
Petit vingtième au Journal Tintin (1986, later republished in
English as Hergé and Tintin Reporters: From "Le Petit Vingtieme" to
"Tintin" Magazine in 1987) and Hergé et les Bigotudos (1993)
amongst other books on the series. In 1983,
Benoît Peeters published Le Monde d'Hergé, subsequently
published in English as
Tintin and the World of Hergé in 1988.[36]
Although Goddin and Peeters were native French-speakers, the English
reporter
Michael Farr also published works on Tintinology such as Tintin,
60 Years of Adventure (1989), Tintin: The Complete Companion
(2001),[37]
Tintin & Co. (2007)[38]
and The Adventures of Hergé (2007), as had English screenwriter
Harry Thompson, the author of Tintin: Hergé and his Creation
(1991).[39]
The Adventures of Tintin have also been examined by
literary critics, primarily in French-speaking Europe. In 1984,
Jean-Marie Apostolidès published his study of the Adventures of
Tintin from a more "adult" perspective as Les Métamorphoses de
Tintin, although it would only appear in English as The
Metamorphoses of Tintin, or Tintin for Adults in 2010.[40]
In reviewing Apostolidès' book, Nathan Perl-Rosenthal of
The New Republic thought that it was "not for the faint of
heart: it is densely-packed with close textual analysis and laden with
psychological jargon."[41]
Following Apostolidès's work, French psychoanalyst Serge Tisseron
examined the series in his books Tintin et les Secrets de Famille
("Tintin and the Family Secrets"), which was published in 1990,[42]
and Tintin et le Secret d'Hergé ("Tintin and Hergé's Secret"),
published in 1993.[43]
The first English-language work of literary criticism devoted to the
series was Tintin and the Secret of Literature, written by the
novelist
Tom McCarthy and published in 2006. In this book, McCarthy compares
Hergé's work with that of
Aeschylus,
Honoré de Balzac,
Joseph Conrad and
Henry James and argues that the series contains the key to
understanding literature itself.[44]
McCarthy considered the Adventures of Tintin to be "stupendously
rich",[45]
containing "a mastery of plot and symbol, theme and sub-text"[46]
which, influenced by Tisseron's psychoanalytical readings of the work,
he believed could be deciphered to reveal a series of recurring themes,
ranging from
bartering[47]
to implicit sexual intercourse[48]
that Hergé had featured throughout the series. Reviewing the book in
The Telegraph, Toby Clements argued however that McCarthy's
work, and literary criticism of Hergé's comic strips in general, cut
"perilously close" to simply feeding "the appetite of those willing to
cross the line between enthusiast and obsessive" in the Tintinological
community.[2]
Controversy
The earliest stories in The Adventures of Tintin have been
criticised
[49][50]
for both displaying animal cruelty as well as
racial
stereotypes, violent,
colonialist, and even fascist leanings, including caricatured
portrayals of non-Europeans. While the Hergé Foundation has presented
such criticism as naïveté,[51]
and scholars of Hergé such as Harry Thompson have claimed that "Hergé
did what he was told by the
Abbé Wallez",[51]
Hergé himself felt that his background made it impossible to avoid
prejudice, stating that "I was fed the prejudices of the
bourgeois society that surrounded me."[29]
In
Tintin in the Land of the Soviets, the
Bolsheviks were presented without exception as villains. Hergé drew
on Moscow Unveiled, a work given to him by Wallez and authored by
Joseph Douillet, the former Belgian consul in Russia, that is highly
critical of the
Soviet regime, although Hergé contextualised this by noting that in
Belgium, at the time a devout Catholic nation, "Anything Bolshevik was
atheist".[29]
In the story, Bolshevik leaders are motivated only by personal greed and
by a desire to deceive the world. Tintin discovers, buried, "the hideout
where
Lenin,
Trotsky, and
Stalin have collected together wealth stolen from the people". Hergé
later dismissed the failings of this first story as "a transgression of
my youth".[51]
By 1999, some part of this presentation was being noted as far more
reasonable, with British weekly newspaper
The Economist declaring: "In retrospect, however, the land of
hunger and tyranny painted by Hergé was uncannily accurate".[52]
Tintin in the Congo has been criticised as presenting the
Africans as naïve and primitive. In the original work, Tintin is
shown at a blackboard addressing a class of African children. "Mes chers
amis," he says, "je vais vous parler aujourd'hui de votre patrie: La
Belgique" ("My dear friends, I am going to talk to you today about your
fatherland: Belgium"). Hergé redrew this in 1946 to show a lesson in
mathematics.[53][54]
Hergé later admitted the flaws in the original story, excusing it by
noting: "I portrayed these Africans according to ... this purely
paternalistic spirit of the time".[29]
The perceived problems with this book were summarised by Sue Buswell in
1988[55]
as being "all to do with rubbery lips and heaps of dead animals"
although Thompson noted this quote may have been "taken out of context".[51]
"Dead animals" refers to the fashion for big game hunting at the time of
the work's original publication.
Drawing on
André Maurois' Les Silences du colonel Bramble, Hergé
presents Tintin as a
big-game hunter, accidentally killing fifteen
antelope as opposed to the one needed for the evening meal. However,
concerns over the number of dead animals did lead the Scandinavian
publishers of Tintin's adventures to request changes. A page which
presented Tintin killing a
rhinoceros by drilling a hole in the animal's back and inserting a
stick of dynamite was deemed excessive, and Hergé substituted a page in
which the rhino accidentally discharges Tintin's rifle while he slept
under a tree.[56]
In 2007 the UK's
Commission for Racial Equality called for the book to be pulled from
the shelves after a complaint, stating that "it beggars belief that in
this day and age that any shop would think it acceptable to sell and
display 'Tintin In The Congo'."[57][58]
In August 2007, a complaint was filed in Brussels, Belgium, by a
Congolese student, claiming the book was an insult to the Congolese
people. Public prosecutors are investigating, however, Belgium's Centre
for Equal Opportunities warned against "over-reaction and hyper
political correctness".[59]
Some of the early albums were altered by Hergé in subsequent
editions, usually at the demand of publishers. For example, at the
instigation of his American publishers, many of the black characters in
Tintin in America were re-coloured to make their race white or
ambiguous.[60]
The Shooting Star album originally had an American villain with
the Jewish surname of "Blumenstein". This proved to be controversial, as
the character exhibited exaggerated
stereotypically Jewish characteristics. "Blumenstein" was changed to
an American with a less ethnically specific name,
Mr. Bohlwinkel, in later editions and subsequently to a South
American of a
fictional country – São Rico. Hergé later discovered that
'Bohlwinkel' was also a Jewish name.[26]
Adaptations and memorabilia
The Adventures of Tintin has been adapted in a variety of
media besides the original comic strip and its collections. Hergé
encouraged adaptations and members of his studio working on the animated
films. After Hergé's death, the Hergé Foundation became responsible for
authorising adaptations and exhibitions.[citation
needed]
The French film poster for the 1961 film, Tintin and the
Golden Fleece
Cinema
-
The Crab with the Golden Claws (1947) – The first successful
attempt to adapt one of the comics into a feature film. Written and
directed by Claude Misonne and João B Michiels, the film was a
black-and-white stop-motion puppet production created by a small
Belgian studio.[61]
-
Tintin and the Golden Fleece (1961) – A French live action
film was released, adapted not from one of Hergé's Adventures of
Tintin but instead from an original script written by André
Barret and Rémo Forlani.[62]
Directed by Jean-Jacques Vierne and starring
Jean-Pierre Talbot as Tintin and
Georges Wilson as Haddock, the plot revolves around the
protagonists travelling to Istanbul in Turkey to collect the Golden
Fleece, a ship left to Haddock in the will of his friend,
Themistocle Paparanic. Whilst in the city however, Tintin and
Haddock discover that a group of villains also want possession of
the ship, believing that it would lead them to a hidden treasure.[62]
-
Tintin and the Blue Oranges (1964) – The success of the
first Tintin live action film led to a second being released. Again
based upon an original script, once more by André Barret, it was
directed by Philippe Condroyer and starred Talbot as Tintin and
Jean Bouise as Haddock.[62]
The plot revolves around a new invention, the blue orange, that can
grow in the desert and solve world famines, which has been devised
by Calculus' friend, the Spanish Professor Zalamea. An emir whose
interests are threatened by the invention of the blue orange
proceeds to kidnap both Zalamea and Calculus, and Tintin and Haddock
travel to Spain in order to rescue them.[62]
-
Tintin and the Temple of the Sun (1969) – The next feature
film to be based upon the Adventures of Tintin was the
animated, adapted from the comic books The Seven Crystal Balls
and Prisoners of the Sun. Produced by
Belvision, who had recently finished their television series
based upon the Tintin stories, it was directed by Eddie Lateste and
featured a critically acclaimed musical score by
François Rauber.[63]
In 1970, Belvision then released an animated promotional short,
Tintin et la SGM.[64]
Jackson will co-direct and Spielberg will produce the second movie of
the trilogy.[67]
Television and
radio
Two animated television series have been made, both adaptations of
the comic strips rather than original stories. The first was
Hergé's Adventures of Tintin, produced by
Belvision. The series aired from 1958 to 1962, with 104 five-minute
episodes produced. It was adapted by Charles Shows and then translated
into French by
Greg (Michel Regnier), then editor-in-chief of
Tintin magazine. This series has been criticised for differing
too greatly from the original books and for its poor animation.[citation
needed] The second series was
The Adventures of Tintin, featuring twenty-one of the stories.
It ran for three seasons (from 1991 to 1992), was co-directed by
Stéphane Bernasconi and
Peter Hudecki, and was produced by
Ellipse (France), and
Nelvana (Canada), on behalf of La Fondation Hergé. Traditional
animation techniques were used on the series, adhering closely to the
books to such an extent that some frames from the original albums were
transposed directly to screen. The series was successful and it has
aired in over fifty countries and was released on DVD.[citation
needed] This series aired in the US on
HBO.[68]
BBC
produced two "The Adventures of Tintin" radio series in 1992 and 1993
starring
Richard Pearce as Tintin and
Andrew Sachs as Snowy. Captain Haddock was played by
Leo
McKern in Series One and
Lionel Jeffries in Series Two, Professor Calculus was played by
Stephen Moore and Thomson and Thompson were played by
Charles Kay.
Documentaries
Two documentaries have been made about Tintin and his creator Hergé.
-
I, Tintin (1976), a French documentary
-
Tintin and I (Tintin et Moi),
by Danish director Anders Høgsbro Østergaard in 2003, a
co-production of companies from Denmark, Belgium, France, and
Switzerland. This documentary was based on a taped interview with
Hergé by
Numa Sadoul from 1971. Although the interview was published as a
book, Hergé was allowed to edit the work prior to publishing and
much of the interview was excised.[69]
The documentary was broadcast in the United States as "Tintin and I"
on the
PBS network, 11 July 2006.[70]
Theatre
Hergé himself helped to create two Tintin stage plays; Tintin in
India: The Mystery of the Blue Diamond (1941) and The
Disappearance of Mr. Boullock (1941–1942), both of which were
written with
Jacques Van Melkebeke and performed in
Brussels.[71]
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, two Tintin plays appeared in London,
adapted by Geoffrey Case for the Unicorn Theatre Company – these were
Tintin's Great American Adventure, based on the comic
Tintin in America, which was shown across 1976–1977, and
Tintin and the Black Island, which was based on
The Black Island and shown in 1980. This second play later went
on tour.[72][73][74][75][76]
A
musical based on The Seven Crystal Balls and Prisoners of
the Sun premièred on 15 September 2001 at the
Stadsschouwburg (city theatre) in
Antwerp,
Belgium. It was entitled
Kuifje – De Zonnetempel (De Musical) and was broadcast on
Canal Plus, before moving on to
Charleroi in 2002 as
Tintin – Le Temple du Soleil.[76][77][78][79]
The
Young Vic theatre company ran a musical version of
Tintin in Tibet at the
Barbican Arts Centre in London from December 2005 to January 2006.[80]
The production was directed by Rufus Norris, and was adapted by Norris
and
David Greig.[80]
The Hergé Foundation organised the return of this show to the West End
theatre in December 2006 and January 2007 in order to celebrate the
Hergé centenary (2007).
Exhibitions
Hergé's work on Tintin has formed the basis of many exhibitions, with
the Hergé Foundation creating a mobile exhibition in 1991. "The World of
Hergé" is described by the Foundation as being "an excellent
introduction to Hergé's work". Materials from this exhibition have also
formed the basis for larger shows, namely "Hergé the Draughtsman", an
exhibition to celebrate the 60th anniversary of Tintin's creation, and
the more recent "In Tibet With Tintin". In 2001 the
Musée de la Marine staged an exhibition of items related to the sea
which had inspired Hergé. In 2002 the
Bunkamura Museum of Art in Japan staged an exhibition of original
drawings, as well as of the submarine and rocket ship invented in the
strips by Professor Calculus.
Barcelona has also hosted an exhibition on Tintin and the sea,
"llamp de rellamp" at the Maritime Museum in 2003.[citation
needed]
2004 saw exhibitions in Holland, "Tintin and the Incas" at the Royal
Museum of Ethnology; the "Tintin in the City" exhibition in the Halles
Saint Géry in Brussels; and an exhibition focusing on Tintin's exploits
at sea at the
National Maritime Museum in London.[citation
needed] The latter exhibition was in commemoration
of the 75th anniversary of the publication of Tintin's first adventure,
and was organised in partnership with the Hergé Foundation.[81]
2004 also saw the
Belgian Comic Strip Center add an area dedicated to Hergé.[82]
The 100th anniversary of Hergé's birth was commemorated with a large
exhibition at the Paris museum for contemporary arts,
Centre Georges Pompidou, from 20 December 2006 until 19 February
2007, featuring some 300 boards and original drawings, including all 124
original plates of
The Blue Lotus.[83][84][85]
Video game
A
shoot 'em up/side
scroller
video game,
Tintin on the Moon, was released by
Infogrames in 1987. An
action-adventure video game called
The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn, a tie-in
to the movie, was released by
Ubisoft
in October 2011.
Memorabilia and merchandise
Images from the series have long been
licensed
for use on
merchandise; the success of the
Tintin magazine helping to create a market for such items.
Tintin's image has been used to sell a wide variety of products, from
alarm clocks to underpants.[86]
There are now estimated to be over 250 separate items related to the
character available, with some becoming
collectors items in their own right.[87]
Since Hergé's death, the Hergé Foundation have maintained control of
the licenses, through
Moulinsart, the commercial wing of the foundation. Speaking in 2002,
Peter Horemans, the then director general at Moulinsart, noted this
control: "We have to be very protective of the property. We don’t take
lightly any potential partners and we have to be very selective ... for
him to continue to be as popular as he is, great care needs to be taken
of his use."[88]
However, the Foundation has been criticised by scholars as "trivialising
the work of Hergé by concentrating on the more lucrative merchandising"
in the wake of a move in the late 1990s to charge them for using
relevant images to illustrate their papers on the series.[89]
NBC Universal acquired the rights to all of The Adventures of
Tintin merchandise in North America.
Tintin
memorabilia and merchandise has allowed a chain of stores based
solely on the character to become viable. The first shop was launched in
1984 in
Covent Garden, London. Tintin shops have also opened in both
Bruges
and
Brussels in Belgium, and in
Montpellier, France. The British bookstore chain,
Ottakar's, founded in 1987, was named after the character of King
Ottokar from the Tintin book
King Ottokar's Sceptre, and their shops stocked a large amount
of Tintin merchandise until their takeover by
Waterstone's in 2006.[90]
Stamps and coinage
Tintin's image has been used on postage stamps on numerous occasions,
the first issued by the
Belgian Post in 1979 to celebrate the day of youth
philately.[91]
This was the first in a series of stamps with the images of
Belgian comic heroes, and was the first stamp in the world to
feature a comic book hero. In 1999, the
Royal
Dutch Post released two stamps, based upon the
Destination Moon adventure, with the stamps selling out within
hours of release. The French post office, Poste Française, then issued a
stamp of Tintin and Snowy in 2001. To mark the end of the Belgian Franc,
and also to celebrate the seventieth anniversary of the publication of
Tintin in the Congo, two more stamps were issued by the Belgian
Post on 31 December 2001. The stamps were also issued in the
Democratic Republic of the Congo at the same time. 2002 saw the
French Post issue stamped envelopes featuring Tintin, whilst in 2004 the
Belgian post-office celebrated its own seventy-fifth anniversary, as
well as the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of
Explorers on the Moon and the thirty-fifth anniversary of the
moon landings with a series of stamps based upon the Explorers on the
Moon adventure.[92]
In 2007, to celebrate Hergé's centennial, Belgium, France and
Switzerland all plan to issue special stamps in commemoration.[93]
Besides stamps, Tintin has also been
commemorated by coin several times. In 1995,
Monnaie de Paris issued a set of 12 silver medallions to commemorate
the 10th anniversary of Hergé's death, which were available in a limited
edition of 5000. Another coin was released to commemorate the 50th
anniversary of the Tintin book
Explorers on the Moon, again in a limited run, this time of
10,000. Belgium minted a limited edition commemorative coin to celebrate
the 75th birthday of Tintin in January 2004.[94]
The coin, composed of silver and featuring Tintin and Snowy, was limited
to a minting of 50,000. Although it has a face value of €10, it is, as
with other commemorative euro coins of this type (i.e. not a
commemorative issue of a standard
euro coin), only legal tender in the country in which it was issued
– in this case, Belgium.[94]
Parody and
pastiche
During Hergé's lifetime, parodies were produced of the Adventures
of Tintin, with one of the earliest appearing in Belgian newspaper
La Patrie after the liberation of the country from Nazi German
occupation in September 1944. Entitled Tintin au Pays de Nazis
("Tintin in the Land of the Nazis"), the short and crudely drawn strip
lampoons Hergé for working for a Nazi-run newspaper during the
occupation.[95]
Following Hergé's death, hundreds more unofficial parodies and
pastiches of the Adventures of Tintin were produced, covering a
wide variety of different genres.[96]
Tom McCarthy divided such works into three specific groupings: those
which are pornographic, those which are political, and those which are
artistic.[97]
In a number of cases, the actual name "Tintin" is replaced by something
similar, like Nitnit, Timtim or Quinquin, within these books.[96]
Other parodies have been produced for political reasons, for instance
Tintin in Iraq lampoons the world politics of the early 21st
century, with Hergé's character General Alcazar representing President
of the United States
George W. Bush.[96]
Written by the pseudonymous Jack Daniels,
Breaking Free (1989) is a
revolutionary socialist comic set in Britain during the 1980s, with
Tintin and his uncle (modelled after Captain Haddock) being working
class Englishmen who turn to socialism in order to oppose the capitalist
policies of the
Conservative Party government of
Margaret Thatcher. When first published in Britain, it caused an
outrage in the mainstream press, with one paper issuing the headline
that "Commie nutters turn Tintin into picket yob!"[96]
Other comic creators have chosen to create stories that are more like
fan fiction than parody. The Swiss comic creator Exem has produced a
series of adventures about Tintin's "evil twin" Zinzin.[96]
Similarly, the Canadian comic book writer and illustrator
Yves Rodier has produced a number of Tintin works, none of which
have been authorised by the Hergé Foundation, including a 1986
"completion" of the unfinished Tintin and Alph-art, which he drew
in imitation of Hergé's ligne-clair style.[96]
The response to these parodies has been mixed in the Tintinological
community. Many Tintinologists despise them, seeing them as an affront
to Hergé's work,[96]
with this being the view taken by Nick Rodwell of the Studio Hergé, who
declared that "None of these copyists count as true fans of Hergé. If
they were, they would respect his wishes that no one but him draw
Tintin's adventures."[96]
Where possible, Studio Hergé have taken legal action against those known
to be producing such items. Other Tintinologists have however taken a
different attitude, considering such parodies and pastiches to be
tributes to Hergé, and collecting them has become a "niche speciality".[96]
Translation
into English
British
Tintin first appeared in English in the weekly British children's
comic
Eagle in 1951 in Vol 2:17 (3 August) and it ran in weekly parts in
the lower half of the centrefold, beneath the cutaway drawings, until
Vol 3:4 (2 May 1952). It was translated by a Frenchman in conjunction
with
Casterman, Tintin's publishers, and starts by describing Tintin as
"a French boy". Snowy was called by his French name "Milou".[98]
The process of
translating Tintin into
British English was then commissioned in 1958 by
Methuen & Co. Ltd. of London. It was a joint-operation, headed by
Leslie Lonsdale-Cooper and Michael Turner,[99]
who worked closely with Hergé to attain an accurate translation as true
as possible to the original work.[100]
Due in part to the large amount of language-specific
word
play (such as punning) in the series, especially the jokes which
played on
Professor Calculus' partial deafness, it was always the intention
not to translate literally, instead striving to sculpt a work whose
idioms and jokes would be meritorious in their own right; however, in
spite of the free hand Hergé afforded the two, they worked closely with
the original text, asking for regular assistance to understand Hergé's
intentions.[100]
The British translations were also Anglicised to appeal to British
customs and values. Milou, for example, was renamed Snowy at the
translators' discretion. The opportunity was taken to make scenes set in
Britain more true-to-life, such as ensuring that the British police were
unarmed, and ensuring scenes of the British
countryside were more accurate for discerning British readers.[100]
American
The works were also adapted for the
American English market by
Golden Books, a branch of the
Western Publishing Company in the 1950s. The albums were translated
from French into American English with some blocks blanked except for
the speech balloons. This was done to remove content considered to be
inappropriate for children, such as drunkenness and free mixing of
races.[101]
The albums were not very popular and only six were published in mixed
order.[102]
The edited albums later had their blanked blocks redrawn by Hergé to be
more acceptable, and they currently appear this way in published
editions around the world.
Atlantic Monthly Press, in cooperation with
Little, Brown and Company beginning in the 1970s, published the
albums again. This time, the text features the originally translated
British English text with alterations to non-universally understood
words such as
gaol,
tyre,
saloon and
spanner.
Currently, they are being published under the Joy Street imprint of
Little, Brown and Company.
Unlike in the United Kingdom, the books have always had very limited
popularity in the United States.[103]
However, from 1966 to 1979
Children's Digest included monthly installments of The
Adventures of Tintin. These serializations served to greatly
increase Tintin’s popularity in the United States. At that time
Children's Digest had a circulation of around 700,000 copies
monthly.[104]
Legacy
Today, Hergé is recognized as one of the leading designers of the
twentieth century.[85]
Most notably, Hergé's
ligne claire style has proven influential. Contributors to
Tintin magazine have employed ligne claire, and more recently,
Jacques Tardi,
Yves Chaland,
Jason Little,
Phil Elliott,
Martin Handford,
Geof Darrow, Eric Heuvel,
Garen Ewing, and
Joost Swarte have produced works utilising it.
In the wider art world, both
Andy Warhol and
Roy Lichtenstein have claimed Hergé as one of their most important
influences. Lichtenstein made paintings based on fragments from Tintin's
comics, whilst Warhol utilised the ligne claire and even made a series
of paintings with Hergé as subject. He declared: "Hergé has influenced
my work in the same way as
Walt Disney. For me, Hergé was more than a comic strip artist".[105]
In music, Tintin has been the inspiration to a number of bands and
musicians. A British 1980s pop band took the name
Thompson Twins after the Tintin characters.[106]
Stephen Duffy, lead singer of
Duran Duran before they struck fame, had a UK number 4 hit with
"Kiss Me" under the name Stephen "Tintin" Duffy; he had to drop the
nickname, however, under pressure of a copyright infringement suit.[107]
An Australian
psychedelic rock band and an American independent
progressive rock band have used the name "Tin
Tin", and British electronic dance music duo
Tin Tin Out was similarly inspired by the character. South African
singer/songwriter
Gert Vlok Nel compares Tintin to God in his
Afrikaans song "Waarom ek roep na jou vanaand", presumably because
Tintin is a morally pure character.
Scottish singer and actor
Jimmy Somerville, as early as 1982, sported a new "look" with very
short cut hair, and a kuifje ("small tuft" in Dutch) up-front, in
a deliberate move to resemble Tintin character. Following this
"breakthrough" in
80's fashions, lots of young
gay men
around the world adopted this new image for themselves, even to the
point of advertising it as a
Gay
pride public statement.
Australian cartoonist
Bill
Leak often portrays Australia's round-faced former prime minister
and subsequent foreign minister,
Kevin Rudd, as Tintin.
Hergé has been lauded as "creating in art a powerful graphic record
of the 20th century's tortured history" through his work on Tintin.[70]
whilst Maurice Horn's Encyclopaedia of World Comics declares him to have
"spear-headed the post-World War II renaissance of European comic art".[108]
French philosopher
Michel Serres noted that the 23 Tintin albums constituted a "chef-d'oeuvre"
to which "the work of no French novelist is comparable in importance or
greatness".[109]
On 30 May 2010, a life-sized bronze statue of Tintin and Snowy, and
more than 200 other Tintin items, including many original panels by
Hergé, sold for 1.08 million euros ($1.3 million USD) at a Paris
auction.[110]
Charles de Gaulle once said, in 1966 : "Mon seul rival
international est Tintin". But then, he added : "Nous sommes les
petits qui n'avons pas peur des grands" ("My only international
rival is Tintin. We are the small ones, who aren't afraid of the big
ones").[111]
This claim was spoken when De Gaulle decided to
ban all NATO aircraft bases from France. The allusion to "the big
ones", thus, refers to USA and USSR, just as Tintin was not afraid of Al
Capone in America, nor of
Colonel Sponsz in Eastern Europe
Tintin's legacy includes the establishment of a market for comic
strip collections; the serialisation followed by collection model has
been adopted by creators and publishers in France and Belgium. This
system allows for greater financial stability, as creators receive money
whilst working. This rivals the American and British model of
work for hire.
Roger Sabin has argued that this model allowed for "in theory ... a
better quality product".[112]
Paul Gravett has also noted that the use of detailed reference
material and a picture archive, which Hergé implemented from
The Blue Lotus onwards, was "a turning point ... in the maturing
of the medium as a whole".[7]
The Amazing Race 19 used the detectives of The Adventures of
Tintin as a challenge to find out that the contestants were going to
Panama City.
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