Preface
Somewhere in Europe, a passionate love story is going on between the little country Belgium and comic strips. In the drawing studio’s hundreds of adventures, find their way to the public, to conquer the world. The Smurfs are a well-known example, but the Godfather of the International comic book is Tintin. No other country produces so many new strip comics than Belgium.
Tintin may not yet be a household name in the United States or Asia but there are good chances that this will change. The Smurfs conquered already the world and Steven Spielberg introduced Tintin to Hollywood.
Hergé
When you think about Tintin you automatically end up with his spiritual father: Hergé aka Georges Prosper Remi, a French-speaking native of the Belgian capital Brussels. He was the creator of 23 complete albums of Tintin. He curated his brainchild from 1929 to 1983 and made sure that his high-quality standards would prevail in each story. He later started a few other series with other heroes, but none of them could equal Tintin.
Born in 1907 in Brussels he started to draw when he was a scout member. He animated the Belgian Scouts magazine with fictional characters and soon later, a French newspaper hired him. He accepted and decided to write under a pseudonym. He thought about his initials GR for George Remi, but that did not quite sound good so he switched the letter to RG (pronounced Hergé) in French. Two years later his first album ‘Tin Tin in The Land of the Sovjets” was ready.
The Tin Tin series
For Hergé it was imperative that the albums were as realistic as possible. The research for each album took him five times the time he needed to draw the books. His artistic correctness with clear drawings and an intelligent script became his trademark.
The child inside Hergé came to life in the stories when he did not hesitate to use humoristic undertone on political issues, here and there he was a hard critic of certain people or regimes. In the album “The Blue Lotus” he warned against the Chinese military danger. This little funny man from Brussels became in a very short time a V.I.P. in his own country. Let us face it there are not a lot of famous Belgian people, so it was quite an accomplishment. Against all odds, the little drafter became an international celebrity.
His recognition was one of the few matters that both the North (Dutch-speaking) and the South (French-speaking) agreed upon. He is often mentioned in a row of famous Belgians like Hercule Poirot (Agatha Christie’s character) and the novelist Georges Simenon.
In 2009 Hergé finally got his personal museum in Louvain-La-Neuve in the French-speaking part of Belgium. In 2003 he got a well known deserved place in the “Comic Book Hall of Fame”.
Tintin conquers the world
In the final years of his life, Hergé realized that his fictional character Tin Tin was more famous than he was. Tintin had outgrown the drawing board and had an own life in the media, the merchandising and conquered a space in the collective cultural memory.
A few attempts to bring Tin Tin on the silver screen, both in animations and movies with actors were not able to fulfill the expectations. The French films were just not good enough and people were used to seeing high-quality Disney movies. This would change when Steven Spielberg finally obtained permission from the heirs of Hergé to make a movie.
End of a cartoonist legend
At the age of 75, Hergé was infected with the HIV virus through a blood transfusion for leukemia. With him died also the studios named after him. In his last will and testament, he stipulated that no other designer would be allowed ever to continue the adventures of Tintin. He left all his intellectual and artistic rights to his neighbor who was his best friend.
Hergé might be dead but the spirit of the character Tintin is immortal much to the delight of comic lovers worldwide.
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