Tintin, the young reporter, has become a worldwide cartoon phenomenon, rivalled only by Asterix, a cult with a following among adults and children alike. How did this apparently simple character gain such a hold? What is the secret of his appeal? And what was his shadowy creator - Georges Remi, "Herge", really like? Harry Thompson, a lifelong Tintin fan, has written a dual biography. On the one hand he charts Tintin's progress from a doodle on a school exercise book during World War I to the young reporter used first for propaganda, then for political satire under the guise of adventure stories, into character comedy and even on to the moon, well ahead of real-life astronauts. And on the other he tells of a strongly moral man, the researcher and perfectionist, who turned himself into a great artist through sheer effort and travelled the world, escaping from the boredom of a desk-job in Brussels. He examines accusations against Remi of collaboration during the last war, his wariness in relationships, and his loss of creativity.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The man behind the mystery,
By Gary Selikow (Great Kush) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Tintin: Herge and His Creation (Paperback)
This fascinating and revealing book combines a biography of the creator of Tintin, Herge (George Remi) with tracing the development of the Tintin albums.
We learn how Herge's personality, experiences and outlook shaped Tintin and his friends and foes, and some of the extraordinary happeings behind the scenes. Tintin's pet dog Milou (in the original French) was named after a teenage sweetheart of Herge's. We explore just how the character that is featureless, ageless, sexless and seemingly unburdened with a personality, has endeared millions and millions of fans across the world over several generations. Children around the world still love Tintin today, as they did since the 1930s. We learn of the political and historic events of some of the works, and the reflections of Herge's life and various experiences in others. For example one powerful example of Herge's creativity are his celebrated dream sequences. I disagree with the author of this book about Tintin in the Land of the Soviets (The Adventures of Tintin) and see no reason why Herge apologized. This was not propaganda as the author and so many others claim, but brilliant political satire with much truth in it about the Soviet tyranny. The episode of the anti-semitic stereotype of the international banker Bohlwinkel in The Shooting Star (The Adventures of Tintin), Herge insisted was a genuine error with no malicious intent, while Hitlerism and Fascism are clearly attacked in King Ottokar's Sceptre (Tintin). In Cigars of the Pharoah (The Adventures of Tintin) "Rastapopulous and Snowy, in Egyptian dress, carry Tintin off, while Sarcophagus rocks the baby Tintin in a crib and smokes one of the Pharaoh's cigars. Tintinologists have long tried to find the hidden meaning in these dreams, but if anyone was dreaming then it wasn't Herge. He merely used the illogic of dreams for comic effect. When Captain Haddock sat naked in an audience of parrots in The Castafiore Emerald (The Adventures of Tintin), for instance Herge was not interested in any subliminal meaning, only that he found the idea funny". Then there is a whole geography that Herge invented, which is one of his greatest creative achievements. " By the 1970s, it was posible for Tintin to board a plane in Sondonesia (not a million miles away from Indonesia)and fly to Khemed, a desert nation betwen Saudi Arabia and the Lebanon, which was curiously reminiscent of Jordan. Or he could visit the Bordurian capital Szohod, a merciless parody of a pre-glasnost East European city, right down to the many representations of the dictator Marshal Kurvi-Tasch, a figure with an uncanny resemblance to Stalin. Or perhaps Klow, the mineral water capital of the world, in a guardedly friendly but authoritarian Syldavia, whose mosques, hills and coastline look for all the world like Yugoslavia's". (I would say Albania). An incredible insight into the mysteries behind Tintin and Herge. One can return to read each of the Tintin adventures with renewed insight.
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