Tintin - Definition and Overview

Tintin and Snowy (Tintin et Milou) are world travellers and inseparable friends in The Adventures of Tintin.

The Adventures of Tintin (originally 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. Over 200 million books have been published to date, with translations into over 50 languages.

The hero of the series is a young reporter and traveller named Tintin, aided by his faithful dog Milou (Snowy), Captain Haddock and a variety of colourful supporting characters.

The comic book series has long been admired for its clean but expressive drawings (executed in Hergé's signature ligne claire style), engaging plots, and the painstaking research of the later stories.

The series straddles 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.

Characters

Tintin

The character of Tintin was created on January 10, 1929, and his 75th birthday was widely celebrated in 2004. Tintin was largely based on Hergé's earlier character Totor, a boy-scout with a striking resemblance to Tintin. The comics starring Totor, Les aventures de Totor, chef de patrouille des Hannetons, appeared in the magazine Le Boy-Scout Belge between 1926 and 1929. In the later comic book series, Tintin is a young Belgian reporter who becomes involved in dangerous cases in which he takes heroic action to save the day. Interestingly, although almost every adventure features Tintin hard at work at his investigative reporting, only once in the entire series does he actually turn in a story. He is a young man of more or less neutral attitudes and is less colourful than the supporting cast around him. Tintin's character changes in the last albums, starting with The Castafiore Emerald. Tintin no longer actively seeks out adventure but rather gets taken along with what happens around him: this is especially evident in Flight 714 and Picaros. Some fans consider this final album a betrayal of the Tintin image.

Captain Haddock

Captain Haddock is Tintin's best friend. He is a seafaring captain who was introduced in The Crab with the Golden Claws, originally as a sad slapstick character, but in later albums became a more respectable and genuinely heroic character. The Captain's coarse humanity acts as a counterpoint to Tintin's often implausible heroism; he is always quick with a wry 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", "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 alcoholism are often used for comic effect: often they usually result in minor unpleasantness for the captain, but at times (especially in earlier albums) they almost lead to a more tragic consequence.

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 (1974), when the name Archibald was suggested. Physically, he is probably based on Bob de Moor, a longtime collaborator of Hergé's. At the conclusion of Rackham's Treasure, Haddock purchases his ancestral seat, the castle Marlinspike (Moulinsart), where he, Tintin and Calculus live.

Also, in the French adaptation of Leiji Matsumoto's anime Captain Harlock, the main character (Harlock) was renamed Albator due to the resemblance between Captain Haddock's and Captain Harlock's names.

Professor Cuthbert Calculus — Professeur Tryphon Tournesol

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 the Moon rocket, a one-person submarine and an ultrasound weapon. Calculus is an idealist and seeks to benefit mankind by inventions such as a pill that cures alcoholism by making alcohol taste horrible to the patient. These inventions are usually disliked by Haddock, although Calculus usually interprets this the other way round: his deafness often prevents him from hearing Haddock's real opinion. But if he ever hears the Captain (or anyone else) call him a "goat," he flies into a rage: "Goat, am I?"

Calculus' 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 just poor hearing. 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 (that is, 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.

The Calculus character was most likely inspired by Auguste Piccard. In The Castafiore Emerald Bianca Castafiore mistakes Calculus for Piccard in claiming that Calculus is "famous for his balloon ascensions".

Snowy — Milou

Snowy, an exceptionally white fox terrier, is Tintin's four-legged companion, who always travels with his master. The bond between the dog and Tintin is deeper than life, and they have saved each other from perilous situations many times over. With a few exceptions, Snowy never speaks, since he is only a dog. However, he always manages to communicate well with Tintin in spite of these biological facts. Snowy often adds to the story in many interesting ways. For instance, Snowy is the only character in Flight 714 to remember that he was abducted by aliens. Like Captain Haddock, Snowy is fond of whisky of the Loch Lomond brand, and his occasional bouts of alcoholism tend to get him into problems, as does his raging arachnophobia. Milou was named after Hergé's first girlfriend.

Thomson and Thompson — Dupont et Dupond

Thomson and Thompson are two clumsy detectives who, although unrelated, look like twins with the only discernable difference being the subtle shape of their mustaches. 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: during those missions they insist on wearing the local "costume" of the country they are visiting so as to blend into the local population, but in general only manage to find some ridiculous attire that actually makes them stand apart. Thomson and Thompson were originally only side characters, but later became more important. In the redrawings of the earlier albums, especially The Black Island, the detectives gained their now traditional mannerisms.

The detectives were based on Hergé's actual father and brother, both of whom wore matching bowlers.

Translators of the series have tried to find names that are similar or identical in pronunciation for this pair. Dupond and Dupont thus become Thomson and Thompson in English, Schultze and Schulze in German, Jansen and Janssen in Dutch, Hernández and Fernández in Spanish and 杜本 and 杜朋 (Dùběn and Dùpéng) in Chinese and Skapti and Skafti in Icelandic.

Minor characters

See also: Minor characters in Tintin

Fictional countries

Hergé devised several fictional countries later in the series. Syldavia in particular is described in considerable detail (history, customs, language etc.).

• Syldavia in the Balkans, and neighbouring Borduria, which is set to invade the country in King Ottokar's Sceptre — this situation parallels respectively Czechoslovakia or Austria and expansionist Nazi Germany prior to World War II. In The Calculus Affair, Borduria is used as a metaphor of a Communist state.
• Khemed, in Arabia.
• San Theodoros in South America.
• Sao Rico in South America
• Nuevo Rico, bordering San Theodoros. The two countries go to war over oil in The Broken Ear. Nuevo Rico was also added as a reference in a later versions of The Shooting Star. The original version had the bad guy masterminds as stereotypical Jewish American puppet-masters — the later version darkens their skin tone and inserts Nuevo Rico as a reference.
• El Chapo, after the South American Chaco region. The Broken Ear is set in a war inspired by the Chaco War.

Race and Colonialism

The earliest stories in The Adventures of Tintin have been criticized 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. This story, set in China during the then-current Sino-Japanese War, was the first for which he did extensive background research. It criticized Japanese and Western colonial meddlings 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 edition, 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.

For a further discussion, see The ideology of Tintin.

List of books and films

Books

The books can either be listed in the order in which the stories first appeared in newspapers or magazines (the "production order"), or in the order they were first published in album form ("publication order"). As many early stories were altered in the redrawings, and therefore chronologically fit in more with the later albums, both orders can be considered valid. Sometimes the redrawings introduced problems with the chronological order, one example is when Sheik Bab-el-Ehr presents a copy of Destination Moon in Cigars of the Pharaoh — Tintin had not experienced the adventure yet!

Production order

1. Tintin in the Land of the Soviets - (Tintin au pays des Soviets) (1929–1930)
2. Tintin in the Congo - (Tintin au Congo) (1930–1931)
3. Tintin in America - (Tintin en Amérique) (1931–1932)
4. Cigars of the Pharaoh - (Les Cigares du Pharaon) (1932–1934)
5. The Blue Lotus - (Le Lotus bleu) (1934–1935)
6. The Broken Ear - (L'Oreille cassée) (1935–1937)
7. The Black Island - (L'Ile noire) (1937–1938)
8. King Ottokar's Sceptre - (Le Sceptre d'Ottokar) (1938–1939)
9. The Crab with the Golden Claws - (Le Crabe aux pinces d'or) (1940–1941)
10. The Shooting Star - (L'Etoile mystérieuse) (1941–1942)
11. The Secret of the Unicorn - (Le Secret de la Licorne) (1942–1943)
12. Red Rackham's Treasure - (Le Trésor de Rackam le Rouge) (1943–1944)
13. The Seven Crystal Balls - (Les Sept boules de cristal) (1943–1948)
14. Prisoners of the Sun - (Le Temple du soleil) (1946–1949)
15. Land of Black Gold - (Tintin au pays de l'or noir) (1948–1950 ¹)
16. Destination Moon - (Objectif Lune) (1950–1953)
17. Explorers on the Moon - (On a marché sur la Lune) (1950–1954)
18. The Calculus Affair - (L'Affaire Tournesol) (1954–1956)
19. The Red Sea Sharks - (Coke en stock) (1958)
20. Tintin in Tibet - (Tintin au Tibet) (1960)
21. The Castafiore Emerald - (Les Bijoux de la Castafiore) (1963)
22. Flight 714 - (Vol 714 pour Sydney) (1968)
23. Tintin and the Picaros - (Tintin et les Picaros) (1976)

• Tintin and Alph-Art - (Tintin et l'Alph-Art): Unfinished work, published posthumously in 1986, and republished with more material in 2004.

• Tintin and the Lake of Sharks - (Tintin et le lac aux requins): Film adaptation (1972), not written or drawn by Hergé.

1: Actually begun in 1939 but left uncompleted in 1940, redrawn starting 1948.

Publication order

1. Tintin in the Congo (1931, black & white)
2. Tintin in America (1932, black & white)
3. Cigars of the Pharaoh (1934, black & white)
4. The Blue Lotus (1936, black & white)
5. The Broken Ear (1937, black & white)
6. The Black Island (1938, black & white)
7. King Ottokar's Sceptre (1939, black & white)
8. The Crab with the Golden Claws (1941, black & white)
9. The Shooting Star (1942)
10. The Secret of the Unicorn (1943)
11. The Broken Ear (1943, redrawn in colour)
12. The Black Island (1943, colourized)
13. The Crab with the Golden Claws (1943, redrawn in colour)
14. Red Rackham's Treasure (1944)
15. Tintin in America (1945, redrawn in colour)
16. Tintin in the Congo (1946, redrawn in colour)
17. The Blue Lotus (1946, redrawn in colour)
18. King Ottokar's Sceptre (1947, redrawn in colour)
19. The Seven Crystal Balls (1948, slight changes from initial run)
20. Prisoners of the Sun (1949, slight changes from initial run)
21. Land of Black Gold (1950)
22. Destination Moon (1953)
23. Explorers on the Moon (1954)
24. Cigars of the Pharaoh (1955, redrawn in colour)
25. The Calculus Affair (1956, slight changes from initial run)
26. The Red Sea Sharks (1958)
27. Tintin in Tibet (1960)
28. The Castafiore Emerald (1963)
29. The Black Island (1965, redrawn)
30. The Red Sea Sharks (1967, edits in dialogue)
31. Flight 714 (1968)
32. Land of Black Gold (1971, redrawn version)
33. Tintin in the Land of the Soviets (1973, black & white)
34. Tintin in the Congo (1975, further redrawn version)
35. Tintin and the Picaros (1976)
36. Tintin and Alph-Art (1986, incomplete sketches)
37. Tintin and Alph-Art (2004, more complete version)

U.K. publication order

1. King Ottokar's Sceptre (1958)
2. The Crab with the Golden Claws (1958)
3. The Secret of the Unicorn (1959)
4. Red Rackham's Treasure (1959)
5. Destination Moon (1959)
6. Explorers on the Moon (1959)
7. The Calculus Affair (1960)
8. The Red Sea Sharks (1960)
9. The Shooting Star (1961)
10. The Seven Crystal Balls (1962)
11. Prisoners of the Sun (1962)
12. Tintin in Tibet (1962)
13. The Castafiore Emerald (1963)
14. The Black Island (1966)
15. Flight 714 (1968)
16. Cigars of the Pharaoh (1971)
17. Land of Black Gold (1972)
18. The Broken Ear (1975)
19. Tintin and the Picaros (1976)
20. Tintin in America (1978)
21. The Blue Lotus (1983)
22. Tintin in the Land of the Soviets (1989)
23. Tintin and Alph-art (1990)
24. Tintin in the Congo (1991)

Films

• Tintin and the Golden Fleece (Tintin et la mystère de la Toison d'or) (1961, live action, original story)
• Tintin and the Blue Oranges (Tintin et les oranges bleues) (1964, live action, original story)
• Tintin and the Temple of the Sun (Tintin et le temple du Soleil) (1969, animation, adaptation)
• Tintin and the Lake of Sharks (Tintin et le lac aux requins) (1972, animation, original story)

Groups

These fall in to three rough groups (rough outline only):

1. Tintin as a young Belgian reporter and world-traveller exploring real countries (Soviets–Crab);
2. Fantasy adventures: treasure hunts (Unicorn), ghost stories (Crystal Balls). These were mainly written during the buildup to World War II and the occupation, when Hergé had to steer clear of anything that could be construed as political. Science Fiction (Moon and Flight 714) in Moon, Tintin lands on the moon, and in 714 he flies away in a UFO only to be dumped on a raft. Tintin is here joined by a crew of secondary characters: Haddock and Calculus.
3. Coming of age: Hergé returns to the political intrigue seen in Ottokar, the odysseys seen in Ear, but with a much broader stroke. Most are set in, or involve, fictional countries. Characters from old adventures make reappearances, e.g. Dawson from Lotus.

Other books

In 1993, after the death of Hergé, his friend Frederic Tuten published Tintin in the New World: A Romance (ISBN 0-7493-9610-5). More a thought experiment than a new adventure, Tintin here grows up: he is seduced and falls in love, has a dream about the death of Snowy and caring for an invalid Haddock, and critically examines his life and experiences so far. Few secondary Tintin characters reappear in this book, and those that do behave differently.

In 1980, a pirate comic/parody, Breaking Free, was released. The story dealt with the social problems of the time, featuring Tintin as an unemployed youngster living with his uncle-by-marriage Haddock, who gets involved with the socialist/anarchists. Tintin is given a British nationality here, and is apparently in his early twenties. The book ends with an open call for a social revolution, and was briefly notorious for the uproar it caused because of its graphic depiction of social unrest.

In December 1999, a pirate comic book Tintin in Thailand came in circulation. Written and drawn by Thai fans, the book presented Tintin, Haddock and Calculus on a sex holiday to Bangkok, with numerous allusions to the characters being unhappy with their treatment by the Hergé Foundation. Over the course of the book Calculus gets engaged to a prostitute, Haddock spends several nights in brothels, Wagg nearly marries a transvestite, and Tintin is revealed as a homosexual. In 2001, Belgian police made several arrests regarding the book in the Belgian town of Tournai.

Memorabilia

Dutch Tintin and Snowy (Kuifje en Bobby) stamp from 1999.

Belgium minted a limited-edition (50,000) silver 10-euro commemorative coin to celebrate the 75th birthday of Tintin in January 2004, which was one of the best selling coins ever. The Royal Dutch Post released a set of Tintin stamps on October 8, 1999 which sold out within hours of release.

Television series

The Adventures of Tintin is also the title of a TV show that came out on HBO in 1991, and all of these books between Tintin in America and Tintin and the Picaros are adapted into 39 half-hour episodes directed by Stéphane Bernasconi. The television series was produced by Ellipse (France), and Nelvana (Canada), on behalf of La Foundation Hergé. — These stories were significantly altered for broadcast. For example, The Red Sea Sharks originally dealt with modern slavery, whereas the TV show dealt with illegal immigration.

Voice actors and their characters

• Colin O'Meara: Tintin
• Susan Roman: Snowy
• David Fox: Captain Haddock
• Wayne Robson: Professor Calculus
• Dan Hennessey: Detective Thomson
• John Stocker: Detective Thompson

Episodes

Season 1

1. The Crab with the Golden Claws - 1 of 2
2. The Crab with the Golden Claws - 2 of 2
3. The Secret of the Unicorn - 1 of 2
4. The Secret of the Unicorn - 2 of 2
5. Red Rackham's Treasure
6. Cigars of the Pharaoh - 1 of 2
7. Cigars of the Pharaoh - 2 of 2
8. The Blue Lotus - 1 of 2
9. The Blue Lotus - 2 of 2
10. The Black Island - 1 of 2
11. The Black Island - 2 of 2
12. The Calculus Affair - 1 of 2
13. The Calculus Affair - 2 of 2

Season 2

1. The Shooting Star
2. The Broken Ear - 1 of 2
3. The Broken Ear - 2 of 2
4. King Ottokar's Sceptre - 1 of 2
5. King Ottokar's Sceptre - 2 of 2
6. Tintin in Tibet - 1 of 2
7. Tintin in Tibet - 2 of 2
8. Tintin and the Picaros - 1 of 2
9. Tintin and the Picaros - 2 of 2
10. Land of Black Gold - 1 of 2
11. Land of Black Gold - 2 of 2
12. Flight 714 - 1 of 2
13. Flight 714 - 2 of 2

Season 3

1. The Red Sea Sharks - 1 of 2
2. The Red Sea Sharks - 2 of 2
3. The Seven Crystal Balls - 1 of 2
4. The Seven Crystal Balls - 2 of 2
5. Prisoners of the Sun - 1 of 2
6. Prisoners of the Sun - 2 of 2
7. The Castafiore Emerald - 1 of 2
8. The Castafiore Emerald - 2 of
9. Destination Moon - 1 of 2
10. Destination Moon - 2 of 2
11. Explorers on the Moon - 1 of 2
12. Explorers on the Moon - 2 of 2
13. Tintin in America

Total Episodes: 39

In the future

A trilogy of feature-length Tintin movies are in development by Steven Spielberg for Universal Studios and DreamWorks, featuring many live-action model characters based on the Adventures of Tintin books by Hergé. The first film in the series was scheduled to be released in theatres around 2006.

See also

• Franco-Belgian comics
• Ligne claire

External links

• Tintin official site (http://www.tintin.com/)
• The Cult of Tintin at Tintinologist.org (http://www.tintinologist.org/)
• Captain Haddock's Curses (http://www.tintinologist.org/guides/lists/curses.html)
• Tintin Characters Guide (http://www.tintinologist.org/guides/characters/index.html)
• Unofficial Tintin Movie News (http://marlinspike.org/)
• The Tintin Trivia Quiz (http://tintin.eugraph.com)

Reference

• Anders Høgsbro Østergaard, Tintin and I (2004)