The Adventures of Tintin
Bust of Hergé in Angoulême, France. Image credit: Jean-Louis Zimmermann, CC by 2.0.
Although comic illustrations with captions had appeared in newspapers and magazines in France since the late 1800s and a few series were well- known domestically, “The Adventures of Tintin”, first published in 1929, is considered to be the launchpad for the Franco-Belgian comics industry, or bandes dessinées (BDs). The series has sold hundreds of millions of copies worldwide and been translated into dozens of languages, making Tintin one of the most popular comics titles in history.
The first Tintin strip was published in January 1929 in Le Petit Vingtième, an offshoot of a conservative Belgian Catholic newspaper called Le Vingtième Siècle. Georges Remi, an illustrator and the editor of Le Petit Vingtième, had been a Boy Scout in his youth and produced a scout-themed comic strip for another publication. He signed his work “Hergé”, the French phonetic pronunciation of his initials in reverse. Tintin was modeled on Totor, the protagonist of Hergé’s series in the scouting newspaper, and the series was created using speech bubbles instead of the traditional practice of presenting text underneath illustration panels. At the direction of the editor, the Abbé Norbert Wallez, Hergé created an anti-communist story line in Tintin au pays des Soviets (Tintin in the Land of the Soviets), introducing the boy reporter Tintin and his dog Milou (Snowy in English translations) to readers.
Hergé took many liberties with the story elements of the first series, having never visited the Soviet Union nor availed himself of reliable sources about the country. His weekly publishing deadline contributed to his development of the plot on the fly, with accuracy less of a priority than appealing to prevailing anti-communist fears about the Soviet Union and a public appetite for adventurous tales. In accordance with the (lack of) journalistic standards of the era, Le Vingtième Siècle management prefaced the series by announcing that it had sent a reporter to Russia, thus blurring the line between fact and fiction. This and other promotional tactics contributed to the commercial success of the Tintin series in Belgium as well as in France and Switzerland. In the fall of 1930, Éditions du Petit Vingtième published the entire series in a limited-edition book form.
Milou / Snowy, Tintin’s dog. Image credit: Kathy Hymson
The Soviet storyline ran weekly in Le Petit Vingtième for approximately 16 months before yielding to Tintin au Congo (Tintin in the Congo) in May 1930. Wallez wanted to extol the colonial and evangelical roles that Belgium had assumed in modern-day Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Hergé delivered despite being largely uninformed about the Congo. This series was popular with audiences of the time but was subsequently largely criticized for its racism and animal cruelty as well as the amateur nature of its plot and drawings. Nevertheless, Tintin au Congo was also published and sold well in book form. A revised color version was released in 1946 by another Belgian publishing company, Casterman, that asked Hergé to redraw the images and reduce the series length to conform with the 62-page BD standard that had emerged. Some of the colonial elements were removed or changed in the updated version although the racism of the original remains largely intact.
Tintin’s popularity earned Hergé a raise and greater autonomy, resulting in the September 1931 debut of Tintin en Amérique (Tintin in America) which had been the author’s preferred setting from the start. While the invisible hand of Wallez ensured the inclusion of an anti-capitalist message into the story, Hergé was able to incorporate Native American characters based on books and articles he had read about the Blackfoot tribe and their treatment by the U.S. government and oil exploration companies.
In 1934, Hergé was introduced to Zhang Chong-ren, a Chinese art student who would become a close friend and model for a character in Le Lotus Bleu (The Blue Lotus) and Tintin au Tibet (Tintin in Tibet). Zhang educated Hergé about Chinese art and culture and encouraged him to learn about the settings where the adventures of Tintin would take place instead of relying on stereotypes or a single (often inaccurate) resource. From then on, Hergé conducted research on the places where he would send his characters, including sketching out imaginary lands with distinct cultures that he invented based on his findings from his studies. He also paid greater attention to story development rather than counting on inspiration or deadlines to come up with episodes. Tintin and Milou were soon accompanied by a growing cast of supporting characters, reaching fans through Le Petit Vingtième and books that encapsulated each series as well as through syndication to French, Portuguese, and other publishers.
The Nazi occupation of Belgium put a stop to Le Vingtième Siècle and Le Petit Vingtième. Hergé found new employment as the editor of Le Soir Jeunesse, whose parent newspaper had been allowed to continue operations albeit under the management of the occupiers. Tintin morphed from boy reporter to explorer in order to minimize the risk of giving offense that could have significant repercussions for his creator, who developed imaginary countries and customs as settings. He received criticism for what some saw as collaborating with the enemy as well as including depictions and situations that reflected the anti-Jewish stance of his bosses but worked steadily on additional adventures for Tintin throughout the war.
Musée Hergé in Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium. Image credit: Peripatetic, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
When Le Soir ceased to operate after Liberation, Tintin and Hergé were forced to go on hiatus before being offered a new home in 1946 at Les Éditions du Lombard, a new publishing company that launched Le journal de Tintin. The magazine dedicated to Hergé’s most successful cast of characters quickly built a loyal readership, and additional artists were hired. By 1950, Hergé had established his own company, Studios Hergé, and brought over a team to work on the content for Le Journal de Tintin as well as modifying past collections for re-release.
The Adventures of Tintin has been adapted for film, television, radio, videogames, and theater in several languages in addition to serving as the basis for the documentaries Moi, Tintin (1976), Tintin et moi (2003), and Sur les traces de Tintin (2010). Tintin shops operate in Belgium, France, the United Kingdom, Singapore, and the Philippines, and Tintin merchandise is sold worldwide. The book series grew to encompass 24 albums, culminating in Tintin et l’Alph-Art (Tintin and the Alph-Art), which consists of selected sketches and notes that Hergé was working on in the years preceding his passing in 1983. His wishes were that Tintin would not continue without him so Studios Hergé wrapped up other works in progress and ceased to operate, transferring the management of Tintin and Hergé’s other characters and series to a nonprofit organization called the Hergé Foundation. In mid-2009, the Foundation opened the Musée Hergé in Louvain-la-Neuve southwest of Brussels, where visitors can learn about Hergé and his creations, most notably the star of The Adventures of Tintin.
Jeu de français
Fans and scholars of Tintin, known as Tintinologists, gather online and in person at exhibitions to parse, discuss, and celebrate every detail of the Tintin universe. Whether you consider yourself to be a Tintinologist or not, see if you can find twelve French words related to Tintin in the word search below.
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