The Adventures of Tintin (Les Aventures de Tintin), drawn and written by the Belgian writer-artist Georges Remi a.k.a. Hergé, is one of the most popular 20th century European comics. According to BBC magazine, over 200 million copies of the comic books have been sold to date, with translations into over 58 languages.
The hero of the series is a young reporter and traveller named Tintin, aided by his faithful dog Snowy, Captain Haddock and a variety of colourful supporting characters.
The comic book series has long been admired for its clean yet expressive drawings executed in Hergé's signature ligne claire style; their engaging plots; and the painstaking research done while creating the later stories. They straddle a variety of genres: swashbuckling adventures with elements of fantasy, mysteries, political thrillers, and science fiction. All the titles in the Tintin series include plenty of slapstick humour, offset in later albums by dashes of sophisticated satire and political/cultural commentary.
Tintin lives in Brussels, the capital city of Belgium and the birthplace of Hergé. This is evidenced most notably in Tintin in the Land of the Soviets where the text states that Tintin arrives in Brussels as he returns home after his adventure, and in Tintin in Tibet, where the letter sent to Tintin by his friend Chang is addressed to Brussels. There are other more subtle hints in some of the other books, such as recognisable locations, car numberplates, etc. However, after Red Rackham's Treasure Tintin moves into Marlinspike Hall, whose geographical location is debatable.
Tintin is a young Belgian reporter (as well as an accomplished fighter and pilot) who becomes involved in dangerous cases in which he takes heroic action to save the day. Almost every adventure features Tintin hard at work at his investigative reporting, but he is rarely seen actually turning in a story. He is a young man of more or less neutral attitudes and is less colourful than the supporting cast.
The earlier version of Tintin was apparently inspired, at least in part, by Hergé's youngest brother. Hergé later became estranged from his brother and depicted him as the villainous Colonel Sponsz in The Calculus Affair.[citation needed] Tintin and Sponsz, although physically very different, have quite similar hair spikes.
Captain Haddock is Tintin's best friend, a seafaring captain who was introduced in The Crab with the Golden Claws. Haddock was initially depicted as a weak and alcoholic character, but in later albums he became more respectable and genuinely heroic. The Captain's coarse humanity and sarcasm acts as a counterpoint to Tintin's often implausible heroism; he is always quick with a dry comment whenever the boy reporter gets too idealistic.
Haddock uses all sorts of words as insults and curses to express his feelings, such as "blistering barnacles", "thundering typhoons", "bashi-bazouk", "kleptomaniac", "anacoluthon", and "pockmark", but no words that are actually considered swear words (see list of exclamations used by Captain Haddock). Haddock is a hard drinker, especially of whisky of the Loch Lomond brand, and his bouts of drunkenness are often used for comic effect.
Haddock's surname was derived from a conversation that Hergé had with his wife, in which she mentioned that the haddock was a "sad English fish". Hergé chose this name accordingly. Haddock remained without a first name until the last completed story, Tintin and the Picaros (1976), when the name Archibald was suggested.
NOTE: A literal translation of his French name would be Tryphonius Sunflower. Professor Cuthbert Calculus is a distracted, hard-of-hearing professor, who invented many objects used in the series, such as a one-person shark-shaped submarine, the Moon rocket and an ultrasound weapon. Calculus seeks to benefit mankind by inventions such as a pill that cures alcoholism by making alcohol taste horrible to the patient.
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: "attachez votre ceinture" (fasten your belt) is repeated as "une tache de peinture?" (a paint stain). He does not admit to being near-deaf and insists on having poor hearing in only one ear. Notably in the "Moon" books, Calculus has a hearing aid inserted, and for the duration of the album has near-perfect hearing: this made him a more serious character (as long as the word "goat" is not uttered in his presence). However, in later adventures Calculus once again lost his hearing aid, and went back to his old deaf self. Calculus is a fervent believer in dowsing, and carries a pendulum for that purpose.
Calculus first appeared in Red Rackham's Treasure, and was the end result of Hergé's long quest to find the archetypal mad scientist or absent-minded professor: for instance, Dr. Sarcophagus in Cigars of the Pharaoh, and Prof. Alembick in King Ottokar's Sceptre.
Snowy, an exceptionally white fox terrier, is Tintin's four-legged companion, who travels everywhere with him. The bond between the dog and Tintin is deeper than life, and they have saved each other from perilous situations many times.
Like Captain Haddock, Snowy is fond of whisky of the Loch Lomond brand, and his occasional bouts of drinking tend to get him into trouble, as does his raging arachnophobia.
Thomson and Thompson are two clumsy detectives who, although unrelated, look like twins with the only discernible difference being the shape of their moustaches. They provide much of the comic relief throughout the series, as they are afflicted with spoonerism. They are thoroughly incompetent, and always bent on arresting the wrong character, but in spite of this they somehow get entrusted with delicate missions, such as ensuring security for the Syldavian space project.
The detectives usually wear bowler hats and carry walking sticks, except when abroad, when they insist on wearing the "national costume" of the country they are visiting so as to blend into the local population, but in general only manage to find some ridiculous folkloric attire that makes them stand apart. The detectives were in part based on Hergé's father and uncle, identical twins who wore matching bowlers.
Hergé devised several fictional countries later in the series. Syldavia in particular is described in considerable detail (history, customs, language etc.).
The earliest stories in The Adventures of Tintin have been criticised for racist and colonialist leanings, including caricatured portrayals of non-Europeans. However, Hergé changed his views sometime between these early works and The Blue Lotus, published in 1936. This story, set in China during the then-current Sino-Japanese War, was the first for which he did extensive background research. It criticised Japanese and Western colonial meddling in China and helped to dispel popular myths about the Chinese people (though it does contain flagrant stereotyping of Japanese people). From then on, meticulous research would be one of Hergé's trademarks.
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. The Shooting Star originally had an American villain with a Jewish name, who was changed to an American with a less ethnically specific name in later editions, and subsequently to a South American of a fictional country.
The Broken Ear depicted a tribe of "head-shrinkers", which Hergé originally named the Bibaros in reference to the real-life Jivaros (Shuar) people. The explorer Ridgewell has lived among them for many years and has still not given up trying to teach them to play golf.
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.
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. [2]
The Belgian Post issued a Tintin stamp in 1979 to celebrate the day of youth philately. This was the first in a series of stamps with the images of Belgian comic heroes to be issued in later years, and was the first stamp in the world to feature a comic hero. The Royal Dutch Post released a set of Tintin stamps on October 8, 1999 which sold out within hours of release. Belgium minted a limited edition (50,000) silver 10-euro commemorative coin to celebrate the 75th birthday of Tintin in January 2004.
Universal Studios has licensed the rights to Adventures of Tintin merchandise in North America.