Tintin the Legend
>> Saturday, August 2, 2008
The Adventures of Tintin (French: Les Aventures de Tintin) is a series of comic strips created by Belgian artist Hergé, the pen name of Georges Remi (1907–1983). The series first appeared in French in a children's supplement to the Belgian newspaper Le Vingtième Siècle on January 10, 1929. Set in a painstakingly researched world closely mirroring our own, the series has continued as a favourite of readers and critics alike for over 70 years.
The hero of the series is Tintin, a young Belgian reporter. He is aided in his adventures from the beginning by his faithful fox terrier dog Snowy (Milou in French). Later, popular additions to the cast included the brash, cynical and grumpy Captain Haddock, the bright but hearing-impaired Professor Calculus (Professeur Tournesol) and other colourful supporting characters such as the incompetent detectives Thomson and Thompson (Dupond et Dupont).
The success of the series saw the serialised strips collected into a series of albums (24 in all), spun into a successful magazine and adapted for both film and theatre. The series is one of the most popular European comics of the 20th century, with translations published in over 50 languages and more than 200 million copies of the books sold to date.
The comic strip series has long been admired for its clean, expressive drawings in Hergé's signature ligne claire style. Engaging, well-researched plots straddle a variety of genres: swashbuckling adventures with elements of fantasy, mysteries, political thrillers, and science fiction. The stories within the Tintin series always feature slapstick humour, offset in later albums by sophisticated satire and political/cultural commentary.
Overview
Tintin is a reporter, and Hergé uses this to present the character in a number of adventures which were contemporaneous to the period in which he was working (most notably, the Bolshevik uprising in Russia and the Second World War) and sometimes even prescient (the moon landings). Hergé also created a world for Tintin which managed to reduce detail to a simplified but recognisable and realistic representation, an effect Hergé was able to achieve with reference to a well-maintained archive of images.
Though Tintin's adventures are formulaic—presenting a mystery which is then solved logically—Hergé infused the strip with his own sense of humour, and created supporting characters who, whilst being predictable, were filled with charm that allowed the reader to engage with them. This formula of comfortable, humorous predictability is similar to the presentation of cast in the Peanuts strip or The Three Stooges. Hergé also had a great understanding of the mechanics of the comic strip, especially pacing, a skill displayed in The Castafiore Emerald, a work he meant to be packed with tension in which nothing actually happens.
Hergé initially improvised the creation of Tintin's adventures, uncertain how Tintin would escape from whatever predicament appeared. Not until after the completion of Cigars of the Pharaoh was Hergé encouraged to research and plan his stories. The impetus came from Zhang Chongren, a Chinese student who, on hearing Hergé was to send Tintin to China in his next adventure, urged him to avoid perpetuating the perceptions Europeans had of China at the time. Hergé and Zhang collaborated on the next serial, The Blue Lotus, which has been cited by critics as Hergé's first masterpiece.
Other changes to the mechanics of creating the strip were forced on Hergé by outside events. The Second World War and the invasion of Belgium by Hitler's armies saw the closure of the newspaper in which Tintin was serialised. Work was halted on Land of Black Gold, and the already published Tintin in America and The Black Island were banned by the Nazi censors, who were concerned at their presentation of America and Britain. However, Hergé was able to continue with Tintin's adventures, publishing four books and serialising two more adventures in a German-licensed newspaper.
During and after the German occupation Hergé was accused of being a collaborator because of the Nazi control of the paper (Le Soir), and he was briefly taken for interrogation after the war. He claimed that he was simply doing a job under the occupation, like a plumber or carpenter. His work of this period, unlike earlier and later work, is politically neutral and resulted in classic adventure stories such as The Secret of the Unicorn and Red Rackham's Treasure, but the apocalyptic The Shooting Star reflects the foreboding Hergé felt during this uncertain political period.
A post-war paper shortage forced changes in the format of the books. Hergé had usually allowed the stories to develop to a length that suited the story, but with paper now in short supply, publishers Casterman asked Hergé to consider using smaller panel sizes and adopt an arbitrary length of 62 pages. Hergé took on more staff (the first ten books having been produced by himself and his wife), eventually building a studio system.
The adoption of color allowed Hergé to expand the scope of the works. His use of color was more advanced than that of American comics of the time, with better production values allowing a combination of the four printing shades and thus a cinematographic approach to lighting and shading. Hergé and his studio would allow images to fill half pages or more, simply to detail and accentuate the scene, using colour to emphasise important points. Hergé notes this fact, stating "I consider my stories as movies. No narration, no descriptions, emphasis is given to images."
Hergé's personal life also affected the series, with Tintin in Tibet heavily influenced by his nervous breakdown. His nightmares, which he reportedly described as being "all white", are reflected in the snowy landscapes. The plot has Tintin set off in search of Chang Chong-Chen, previously seen in The Blue Lotus, and the piece contains no villains and little moral judgement, with Hergé even refusing to refer to the Snowman of the Himalayas as "abominable".
The conclusion of Tintin's adventures was untimely. Hergé's death on March 3, 1983 left the twenty-fourth and final adventure, Tintin and Alph-Art, unfinished. The plot saw Tintin embroiled in the world of modern art, and the story ended with him apparently about to be killed, encased in perspex and presented as a work of art.
Characters :-
Tintin and Snowy
Tintin is a young Belgian reporter 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 without first getting caught up in some misadventure. He is a young man of more or less neutral attitudes and is less colourful than the supporting cast. In this respect, he represents the everyman.
Snowy, a white Fox terrier, is Tintin's four-legged companion. They regularly save each other from perilous situations. Snowy frequently "speaks" to the reader through his thoughts (often displaying a dry sense of humour), which are supposedly not heard by the characters in the story except in Tintin in America where he explains to Tintin about his absence for a period of time in the book.
Like Captain Haddock, Snowy is fond of the Loch Lomond brand of whisky, and his occasional bouts of drinking tend to get him into trouble, as does his raging arachnophobia. The French name of Snowy, "Milou", has nothing to do with snow or the color white. It has been widely credited as an oblique reference to a girlfriend from Hergé's youth, Marie-Louise Van Cutsem, whose nickname was "Milou".
Another explanation to the origins of the two characters is possible. The first 3 adventures of Tintin visit places originally visited by photographer-reporter Robert Sexé, recorded in the Belgian press from the mid to late 1920s. At that time Sexé had made numerous trips round the world on a motorcycle, in collaboration with Grand-Prix champion and motorcycle record holder René Milhoux, and these trips were highly publicised at the time. Sexé has also been noted to have a similar appearance to Tintin, and the Hergé Foundation in Belgium has admitted that it is not too hard to imagine how Hergé could have been influenced by the exploits of Sexé. In 1996, a biography of Robert Sexé by Janpol Schulz was published, titled "Sexé au pays des Soviets" (Sexé in the Land of the Soviets) to mimic the name of the first Tintin Adventure.
Captain Haddoc :-
Captain Archibald Haddock, a seafaring captain of disputed ancestry (he may be of English, French or Belgian origin), is Tintin's best friend, and was introduced in The Crab with the Golden Claws. Haddock was initially depicted as a weak and alcoholic character, but later became more respectable. He evolves to become genuinely heroic and even a socialite after he finds a treasure from his ancestor, Sir Francis Haddock (François de Hadoque in French), in the episode Red Rackham's Treasure. The Captain's coarse humanity and sarcasm act as a counterpoint to Tintin's often implausible heroism; he is always quick with a dry comment whenever the boy reporter seems too idealistic. Captain Haddock lives in his luxurious mansion called Marlinspike Hall ("Moulinsart" in the original French).
Haddock uses a range of colourful insults and curses to express his feelings, such as "billions of bilious blue blistering barnacles", "ten thousand thundering typhoons", "troglodytes", "bashi-bazouk", "kleptomaniac", "ectoplasm", "sea gherkin", "anacoluthon", and "pockmark", but nothing that is actually considered a swear word. Haddock is a hard drinker, particularly fond of Loch Lomond whisky, and his bouts of drunkenness are often used for comic effect.
Hergé stated that Haddock's surname was derived from a "sad English fish that drinks a lot". Haddock remained without a first name until the last completed story, Tintin and the Picaros (1976), when the name Archibald was suggested.
Supporting characters :-
Hergé's supporting characters have been cited as far more developed than the central character, each imbued with a strength of character and depth of personality which has been compared with that of the characters of Charles Dickens. Hergé used the supporting characters to create a realistic world in which to set his protagonists' adventures. To further the realism and continuity, characters would recur throughout the series. It has been speculated that the occupation of Belgium and the restrictions imposed upon Hergé forced him to focus on characterisation to avoid depicting troublesome political situations. The major supporting cast was developed during this period.
Professor Cuthbert Calculus (Professeur Tryphon Tournesol {Prof. Sunflower} in French), an absent-minded and half-deaf physicist, is a minor but regular character alongside Tintin, Snowy, and Captain Haddock. Introduced in Red Rackham's Treasure, and based partially on Auguste Piccard, his appearance was initially not welcomed by the leading characters, but through his generous nature and his scientific ability he develops a lasting bond with them.
Thomson and Thompson (Dupont et Dupond) are two bumbling 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, being afflicted with chronic spoonerism and shown to be thoroughly incompetent. The detectives were in part based on Hergé's father and uncle, identical twins who wore matching bowlers.
Bianca Castafiore is an opera singer whom Haddock absolutely despises. However, she seems to constantly be popping up wherever they go, along with her maid, Irma, and pianist, Igor Wagner. Her name means "white and chaste flower", something Prof. Calculus understands when he offers a white rose to the singer he's secretly in love with in The Castafiore Emerald. She was based upon opera divas in general (according to Hergé's perception), Hergé's Aunt Ninie, and in the post-war comics on Maria Callas.
Other recurring characters include Nestor the butler, General Alcazar the South American dictator, Jolyon Wagg an insurance salesman, Kalish Ezab the emir, Abdullah the emir's son, Chang the Chinese boy, Müller the evil German doctor, and Rastapopoulos the criminal mastermind. No young women feature as any main or side characters, and in fact only occasionally feature in the background.
About Tintin Movie :-
Directed by Peter Jackson Steven Spielberg
Writers : Hergé Characters
Producers
Peter Jackson ... producer
Kathleen Kennedy ... producer
Nick Rodwell ... producer
Steven Spielberg ... producer
Visual Effects Department
Rocky Curby ... pre-visualization: Weta Digital
Danny Keller ... character animator
Emily Pearce ... mocap artist
Mark Richardson ... compositing lead: weta digital
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
