Over on Now Read This there is a comprehensive review of Tintin and the Lake of Sharks

Although lacking the satirical edge of Hergé’s comedy, action and slapstick are still well represented in this tale which turns animation stills into sequential narrative, with admittedly mixed results. Purists who love the artist’s landmark and legendary Ligne Claire style will be deterred that is laid over and across fully-rendered, moulded and painted backgrounds, but although it is initially jarring, the story does swiftly carry the reader beyond such quibbles.

Rather than doing any proper work I’ve been browsing Flickr for Tintin related photos. My favourite is this composite of Château de Cheverny, the real world inspiration for Marlinspike, and Herge’s vision of it. Check on the Tintin Map for Marlinspike’s real location.

I was also taken by this “Tintin in a blender” shot” and the knitted Tintin rocket.

Still want more. Try these

Tintin fire escape; Fantastic Tintin halloween lantern; Desktop Destination Moon ; Milou .

Herge’s art style, Ligne claire or Clear Line, was highly distinctive but has been used by a number of European artists. Amounst the best current practitioners is Eric Heuvel. An ex-history teacher and long time comics creator who has recently created a book on the Holocaust, The Search. It is the fictional story of Daniel, who after seeking information on the Holocaust on the internet, hears a first hand account from his grandmother Esther, who as a young Jewish girl saw her parents deported to their death in Auschwitz. The Search has recently been translated to German and is being used as a teaching aid to help German school children understand those terrible events.

When Tintin and Snowy are cast a drift in sarcophagi during Cigars of the Pharaoh they are rescued by a passing arms dealer. That man was based on Henry de Monfreid, a french drug smuggler who became famous after the publication of the autobiographic Hashish: A Smuggler’s Tale and Secrets of the Red Sea.

Monfreid first went to the Red Sea in 1911 with the intent of trading in coffee but spent the next thirty years smuggling guns, hashish and diving for pearls. He also spent a fair amount in prison because of this. Following the outbreak of World War II he worked for the Italians until captured by the British. When the war was over he retired to France and continued to write. Over the next 30 years he wrote about 70 books. When money got tight he mortgaged the family collection of Gauguin. After his death these paintings were found to be fake.

Hashish: A Smuggler’s Tale was published in the early thirties just when Herge was writing Cigars of the Pharaoh. It seems odd that the conservative, strait-laced Herge should put a character like Monfreid in his book but one can imagine the exotic, devil-may-care, existence of the smuggler would appeal to the shy Belgium who had never left his country. Though possible it was Monfreid attitude to Germans that appeal. On seeing the Pyramids he couldn’t wait to leave. Saying “The only thing that one might possibly admire is the stupendous effort it took to build them, and this admiration demands the mentality of a German tourist.”

Following the Herge / Tintin / Congo / Racism row, the planned publication of Tintin in the Congo for the US market has been scrapped by publisher Little Brown Books. According to Publisher Weekly:

Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, which had been planning to publish Tintin in the Congo, a book criticized for its racist, Colonial-era depictions of Africans, has quietly pulled the title from its fall list, PW has learned. The publisher also said it will not include the book in a forthcoming box set of all 24 books in the Tintin series.



Publicist Melanie Chang did not give a reason for the standalone book’s cancellation, but of its omission from the box set she said, “Given the controversy surrounding the Congo title, we felt including it in the box set would eclipse the true intention of the collection, which is to showcase Hergé’s extraordinary art and his remarkable contribution to the graphic arts.”

A five minute piece on Tintin on America’s PBS network. It does get a lot of the facts about Herge and Racism muddled up but its not a bad introduction to Tintin for Americans: Tintin in the World

This cartoon comments on the ongoing debate about Herge and Racism .

From balthazarb via The Ephemerist

TIn support of Oxfam’s Fair Trade campaign, Flemish cartoonist Gerard Alsteens has created this image. Tintin is strangely disguised, possibly because of the Moulinsart anti-art policy. With the Tintin Movies, I’m sure that the estates and studios will get even stricter about clamping down on unauthorised but perfectly legal uses of Tintin. (Via The Ephemerist).

The racism in Tintin in the Congo and is often dismissed by Tintin fans as youthful folly. Fans point to The Blue Lotus as an example of how Herge learnt from his mistake and depicted the Chinese in a sensitive and positive light. However the portrayal of the Japanese is suspect as this essay points out.

An Analysis of Herge’s Portrayal of Various Racial Groups in The Adventures of Tintin: The Blue Lotus [PDF]

Herge’s motivation to depict the inhumanity of colonial oppression in The Blue Lotus is offset by his dehumanizing characterization of the Japanese. Through manipulation and repetition of comic imagery, heightened impact through timing, expressive gesture, and reflective writing, he built a message that was bold but ultimately shortsighted. Herge’s benevolent concern for the Chinese was earnest, but he proves to be a much more of an effective propagandist than a social commentator.

The Danish artist, Ole Ahlberg, was sued by Moulinsart (Tintin’s copyright holders), for using images of Tintin and the Thompson Twins in his art. They lost.

This dates back to 2001, when the artist was opening a show of his art in Brussels with the wife of the Danish prime minister when Moulinsart’s lawyers demanded the offending images be removed. Ahlberg refused and the case went to court where the Judge found in the artists favour on the grounds that parody is allowable under Belgian and international copyright law.

An example of Ole Ahlberg’s work is below and his online gallery is here.

Source: Forbidden Planet