The Adventures of Tintin ( ) is a series of 24 comic albums written and illustrated by Belgian cartoonist Hergé (pen name of Georges Remi). One of the most popular European comics of the 20th century, Tintin had been published in more than 70 languages with sales of more than 200 million copies by 2007, with the series also having been adapted for radio, television, theatre, and film.
The series debuted in French on 10 January 1929 in , a youth supplement to the Belgian newspaper . The success of the series led to serialised strips published in Belgium's leading newspaper and spun into a successful Tintin magazine. In 1950, Hergé created Studios Hergé, which produced the canonical versions of ten Tintin albums. Following Hergé's death in 1983, the final installment of the series, Tintin and Alph-Art, was released posthumously.
Set in the contemporary world, the series focuses on the titular Tintin, a courageous young Belgian reporter and adventurer aided by his faithful dog Snowy ( in the original French publication). Other allies include the brash and cynical Captain Haddock, the intelligent but hard-of-hearing Professor Calculus (), incompetent detectives Thomson and Thompson (), and the opera diva Bianca Castafiore.
The series has been praised for its clean, expressive drawings in Hergé's signature ("clear line") style. Its well-researched plots straddle a variety of genres: swashbuckling adventures with elements of fantasy, mysteries, political thrillers, and science fiction. The stories feature slapstick humour, offset by dashes of political or cultural commentary.
History : 1929–1939
Georges Prosper Remi, best known under the pen name Hergé, was employed as an illustrator at (The Twentieth Century), a staunchly Roman Catholic, conservative Belgian newspaper based in Hergé's native Brussels. Run by the Abbé Norbert Wallez, the paper described itself as a "Catholic Newspaper for Doctrine and Information" and disseminated a fascist viewpoint. Wallez appointed Hergé editor of a new Thursday youth supplement, titled ("The Little Twentieth"). Propagating Wallez's sociopolitical views to its young readership, it contained explicitly pro-fascist and antisemitic sentiment. In addition to editing the supplement, Hergé illustrated (The Extraordinary Adventure of Flup, Nénesse, Poussette and Cochonnet), a comic strip authored by a member of the newspaper's sport staff. Dissatisfied with this, Hergé wanted to write and draw his own cartoon strip.
He already had experience creating comic strips. From July 1926, he had written a strip about a Boy Scout patrol leader titled (The Adventures of Totor, Scout Leader of the Cockchafers) for the Scouting newspaper (The Belgian Boy Scout). Totor was a strong influence on Tintin, with Hergé describing the latter as being like Totor's younger brother. Jean-Marc and Randy Lofficier stated that graphically, Totor and Tintin were "virtually identical" except for the Scout uniform, also noting many similarities between their respective adventures, particularly in the illustration style, the fast pace of the story, and the use of humour. He was fascinated by new techniques in the medium such as the systematic use of speech bubbles—found in such American comics as George McManus' Bringing up Father, George Herriman's Krazy Kat, and Rudolph Dirks's Katzenjammer Kids, copies of which had been sent to him from Mexico by the paper's reporter Léon Degrelle.
Although Hergé wanted to send Tintin to the United States, Wallez ordered him to set his adventure in the Soviet Union, in order to create antisocialist propaganda for children. The result, Tintin in the Land of the Soviets, was serialised in from January 1929 to May 1930. Popular in Francophone Belgium, Wallez organised a publicity stunt at the Paris Gare du Nord railway station, following which he organised the publication of the story in book form. The story's popularity led to an increase in sales, so Wallez granted Hergé two assistants. In Tintin in the Land of the Soviets, the Bolsheviks are presented 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". In the story, Bolshevik leaders are motivated by personal greed and a desire to deceive the world. Tintin discovers, buried, "the hideout where Lenin, Trotsky, and Stalin have collected together wealth stolen from the people". The Economist stated that while the book is "crude", "the land of hunger and tyranny painted by Hergé was uncannily accurate."
At Wallez's direction, in June Hergé began serialisation of the second story, Tintin in the Congo, designed to encourage colonial sentiment towards the Belgian Congo. Authored in a paternalistic style that depicted the Congolese as childlike idiots, in later decades it was accused of racism, but at the time was uncontroversial and popular, and further publicity stunts were held to increase sales.
For the third adventure, Tintin in America, serialised from September 1931 to October 1932, Hergé finally got to deal with a scenario of his own choice, and used the work to push an anti-capitalist, anti-consumerist agenda in keeping with the paper's ultraconservative ideology. The Adventures of Tintin had been syndicated to a Catholic magazine named (Brave Hearts) since 1930, and Hergé was soon receiving syndication requests from Swiss and Portuguese newspapers, too.
Hergé wrote a string of Adventures of Tintin, sending his character to real locations such as the Belgian Congo, United States, Egypt, India, Tibet, China, and the United Kingdom. He also sent Tintin to fictional countries of his own devising, such as the Latin American republic of San Theodoros, the East European kingdom of Syldavia, or the fascist state of Borduria—whose leader's name, Müsstler, was a portmanteau of the names of the Nazi German Führer Adolf Hitler and the Italian Fascist Prime Minister Benito Mussolini.
: 1940–1945 In May 1940, Nazi Germany invaded Belgium as World War II spread further across Europe. Although Hergé briefly fled to France and was considered a self-imposed exile, he ultimately decided to return to his occupied homeland. For political reasons, the Nazi authorities closed down , leaving Hergé unemployed. In search of employment, he got a job as an illustrator at Belgium's leading newspaper, (The Evening), which was allowed to continue publication under German management. On 17 October 1940, he was made editor of the children's supplement, , in which he set about producing new Tintin adventures. In this new, more repressive political climate of German-occupied Belgium, Hergé could no longer politicize The Adventures of Tintin lest he be arrested by the Gestapo. As Harry Thompson noted, Tintin's role as a reporter came to an end, to be replaced by his new role as an explorer. The serialized publication of Land of Black Gold, which was being released in the years immediately preceding the occupation, was put on hold and its publication would not resume until 1948. Six other stories were released in the meantime, which were notably absent of any explicitly political plot or commentary.
: 1946–1983 In September 1944, the Allies entered Brussels and Hergé's German employers fled. was shut down and The Adventures of Tintin was put on hold. Then in 1946, Hergé accepted an invitation from Belgian comic publisher Raymond Leblanc and his new publishing company to continue The Adventures of Tintin in the new (Tintin magazine). Hergé quickly learned that he no longer had the independence he preferred; he was required to produce two coloured pages a week for Leblanc's magazine, a tall order.
In 1950, Hergé began to poach the better members of the Tintin magazine staff to work in the large house on Avenue Louise that contained the fledgling . Bob De Moor (who imitated Hergé's style and did half the work), Guy Dessicy (colourist), and Marcel DeHaye (secretary) were the nucleus. To this, Hergé added Jacques Martin (imitated Hergé's style), Roger Leloup (detailed, realistic drawings), Eugène Evany (later chief of the Studios), Michel Demaret (letterer), and Baudouin Van Den Branden (secretary). As Harry Thompson observed, the idea was to turn the process of creating The Adventures of Tintin into a "veritable production line, the artwork passing from person to person, everyone knowing their part, like an artistic orchestra with Hergé conducting". The studios produced eight new Tintin albums for Tintin magazine, and coloured and reformatted two old Tintin albums. continued to release additional publications until Hergé's death in 1983. In 1986, a 24th unfinished album was released, the studios were disbanded, and the assets were transferred to the Hergé Foundation.
Characters Tintin and Snowy
Tintin is a young Belgian reporter and adventurer who becomes involved in dangerous cases in which he takes heroic action to save the day. The Adventures may feature Tintin hard at work in his investigative journalism, but seldom is he seen actually turning in a story. Readers and critics have described Tintin as a well-rounded yet open-ended, intelligent, and creative character, noting that his lack of backstory and neutral personality permits a reflection of the evil, folly, and foolhardiness which surrounds him. The character never compromises his Boy Scout ideals, which represent Hergé's own, and his status allows the reader to assume his position within the story, rather than merely following the adventures of a strong protagonist. Tintin's cartoonish representation against more realistic backgrounds enhances this aspect, with Scott McCloud noting that it "allows readers to mask themselves in a character and safely enter a sensually stimulating world".
Snowy ( in Hergé's original version), a white Wire Fox Terrier dog, is Tintin's loyal companion. Like Captain Haddock, Snowy is fond of Loch Lomond brand Scotch whisky, and his occasional bouts of drinking tend to get him into unintentional trouble, as does his only fear: arachnids.
Captain Haddock
Captain Archibald Haddock ( in Hergé's original version) is a Merchant Marine sea captain and Tintin's best friend. Introduced in The Crab with the Golden Claws, Haddock is initially depicted as a weak and alcoholic character, but later evolves to become genuinely heroic and even a socialite after he finds a treasure from 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. The hot-tempered Haddock uses a range of colourful insults and curses to express his feelings, such as "billions of bilious blue blistering barnacles!" () or "ten thousand thundering typhoons!"
Professor Calculus
Professor Cuthbert Calculus ( in Hergé's original version; is the French word for 'sunflower') is an absent-minded and partially deaf physicist and 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.
Supporting characters