The top European comics festival has kicked off for the 36th time in the French city of Angouleme. Comics, including Tintin, are serious cultural in Europe so this isn’t the usual hoard of fanboys you might find at an American or British comics fair.

Fearless reporter Wim Lockefeer, best known for his excellent The Ephemerist blog has a special report on Angouleme on the Forbidden Planet blog. It has some Tintin related nuggets and is well worth a read.

Who is Jamie Bell and why is he playing Tintin?

Bell – A Beautiful Mover

Before being cast as Tintin, Jamie Bell was best known for his staring role in Billy Elliot. Bell was just 14 when he took the title role in this story of a working class boy who wants to be a ballet dancer. The film is set against the backdrop of a grim mining town during the bitter, year long miner’s strike of 1984 and was one of the best British films of the last ten years. It has since been adapted into a book and a smash West End stage play.

Following such as huge hit is difficult for any actor, but for a child actor such success can destroy their career and their life. But between Billy Elliot and getting cast as Tintin, Jamie Bell went back to basics and built his career from the ground up. He played a role in the low budget, World War I horror film Deathwatch with his future Tintin co-star Andy Serkis (Captain Haddock). Bell then had a small role in the 2002 version of Nicholas Nickleby.

Jamie Bell and the Youthful Looks

His next film, Undertow, did much to make it clear that Jamie Bell could make the leap from child actor to adult actor. The 2004 film stars the 18 year Bell as a troubled teenager on the run from a murderous uncle. Through the film split the critics, the performance of Bell and his co-star Devon Alan won them Young Artist Awards from the Young Artist Foundation.

There is no doubt that in winning the part of Tintin, Jamie Bell’s youth was significant. Having played one trouble teenager in Undertow, he played a similar role in Dear Wendy. This idiosyncratic film is about a group of gun-totting pacifist and was written by experimental film maker Lars von Trier. The Chumscrubber was Bell’s next film and once again he was playing a troubled teenager, though as a change of pace, this is a dark comedy. Here the focus is prescription medications, video games and the false ideal of middle class American suburbia.

Serkis & Jackson

His next film brought him back together with Andy Serkis. Bell got the part of Jimmy in Peter Jackson’s King Kong. Though only a minor role, it was no doubt that it was directly responsible for the casting of Jamie Bell as Tintin. Working with Serkis, Jackson, motion capture and a massive budget provided a great learning experience for Bell and a chance to shine before Peter Jackson.

Finally breaking through into more adult roles in his next film (though for Jamie Bell, Tintin may be a step back in this regard) with Hollywood legend Clint Eastwood. Flags of Our Fathers traces the story of the men who raised the flag on Iwo Jima and were captured on film by war photographer Joe Rosenthal.

Then it was back to playing disturbed characters in low budget, UK films as Bell starred in the award winning Hallam Foe (Mr Foe in the US). Playing a part completely unlike the clean cut, asexual Tintin, Jamie Bell is the eponymous Hallam Foe. A voyeur with dark obsessions about his dead mother. The film won various awards and Bell was nominated for Best Actor in the British Independent Film Awards.

Another CGI, high budget film was next for Jamie Bell in Jumper. This was poorly received by the critics and was summed up by one reviewer as “A tightly made film that could have been so much better. “

Jamie Bell – Dirty and Dangerous

Having played numerous troubled teenagers in various dark film, there was one more before Jamie Bell became Tintin, and this was the Mother of all dark subject matters – the holocaust. Just released in the UK, Defiance is the story of Jewish resistance fighters in Eastern Europe. The film placed Bell alongside Daniel Craig who is to play Red Rackham in The Secret of the Unicorn. </p

Tintin – Once, Twice, Three times?

Jamie Bell as Tintin is a great choice. He is an experienced film actor who can deliver great performances. Of special importance to motion capture films like The Secret of the Unicorn is the ability to move. Billy Elliot showed he has clear control of his body and in action films like Deathwatch, Jumpers and Defiance he has shown the right fighting dynamism to be Tintin. What will be interesting is what human qualities Bell will bring to Tintin. The comic book character is very flat and stereotyped, rarely displaying emotion except when angry at a bully or worried about Snowy. Getting the balance between making Tintin a living breathing character for the audience to empathise with and staying faithful to the books will be a difficult piece of acting.

If Jamie Bell pulls off Tintin, then at least one more film awaits. Peter Jackson is set to direct the second film and there is the possibility of a third. Though not confirmed, it seems likely that production of the second film will proceed soon after the first has finished. Probably adapting Red Rackham’s Treasure, the second part of the adventure started in The Secret of the Unicorn. If studios run to form, this will be released a year after the first. Production of the third film will only start if the first film proves to be a success.

Bell’s Big Chance

As Tintin, Jamie Bell has a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Working with Spielberg with a huge budget and an internationally famous character co
uld springboard Bell into Hollywood’s A-List. Becoming an action film hero and a sex symbol along the lines of Harrison Ford and Matt Damon is entirely possible. But that requires the film to be a smash and that is no easy thing to achieve, even when working with Spielberg and Jackson.

Jamie Bell – Star of Billy Elliot, King Kong, Hallam Foe, Jumper and Defiance – has been cast as Tintin.

Also cast is Daniel Craig – The current James Bond and star of Defiance – who is playing the pirate Red Rackham.

The film will be called: The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn

Also announced were the screen writing credits: Stephen Moffat, writer of Dr Who and so much more. Plus Edgar Wright, co-writer and director of Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead which starred Simon Pegg and Nick Frost who are playing Thompson and Thomson. Joe Cornish, know to Brits as one-half of Adam & Joe, also gets a screenwriting credit.

Production starts today on the 3D motion capture. Release is scheduled for 2011.

Its not clear is the film will only tell the story of the book Secret of the Unicorn or whether it will combine both Unicorn and Red Rackham’s Treasure. The press release say that “The second feature in the series is scheduled to be directed by Jackson, with a potential for a third film as well.”

Other names mentioned in the cast but the parts are not identified are Gad Elmaleh (lots of French language films), Toby Jones (voice of Dobby the House Elf in the Harry Potter films) and Mackenzie Crook (Pirates of the Caribbean and The Office).

Paramount Pictures will release the film in the US and in all English speaking territories and Asia, excluding India. Sony Pictures Releasing International will distribute the film in Continental Europe, Eastern Europe, Latin America, India and the remainder of the world.

Full press release here.

Credit to Marketsaw who were first to break the news.

Spotted on the Live Journal group Boy Reporter. Portraits of cartoon characters including this one.

This image of Herge was done by Belgian illustrator, designer, typographer and cartoonist Lucien De Roeck. For more information about this talented designer read Herge by Lucien De Roeck over on the ever informative The Ephemerist.

Between May 8th and May 10th, the Tintin Festival will be taking place in the Belgium city of Namur. There is very little information on this other than “Numerous animations will be organised for young and old: soapbox go-kart races, exhibitions, the Namur to Louvain-la-Neuve classic-car rally and many other activities on the theme of Tintin and his adventures.”.

A Map but very little other information available (in English at least). Tintin Movie will bring you more news when we get it.

Tintin, America and Gangsters

Tintin in America is very much an early work of Herge but marks the end of the first phase of his creative life. The artwork is much improved (especially after it was redrawn in 1945) and the story telling is more organised. The level of detail and how the countries are depicted are becoming more sophisticated. However when writing this in 1931-32, Herge had very limited material to base his work on. Consequently the book still contains many sterotyped images.

Tintin is still very much a reporter, something that becomes less and less important in the later books. But in Tintin in America he is there to investigate the gangsters that dominate the city of Chicago. At the time Herge was writing, Al Capone was still untouchable and prohibition had another two years to run. In far off Belgium, the glamour and excitement of the gangster business must of made an tempting subject for Herge.

Our hero’s problem with gangsters starts from page one where he is kidnapped on his arrival. Even for Tintin, this marks a quick start to the adventure. As the story progresses we see a real oddity: A gangster using a boomerang. This is truly incongruous. Maybe Herge had just found out about boomerangs and decided to use one in Tintin in America?

Tintin’s adventures continued as he subjected to repeated kidnapping and assassination attempts. Herge’s dry wit shines through in one of them. On page 14 of Tintin in America, a hitman’s relationship to the gangster who hired him is casual. Almost as if he was a plumber come to fix a leaking tap. The hitman cannot hang around to chat because he has three more jobs to do that morning. Clearly in Herge’s Chicago, life is very cheap and the gangster are organised like a Chamber of Commerce.

Tintin goes West

Tintin’s hunt for Bobby Smiles, one of Chicago bosses leads him to Redskin City. Here, Tintin in America changes from the stereotypes of pulp-novel gangsters to the stereotypes of pulp-novel Westerns. Though Herge is not without sympathy and understanding of the native American’s plight. On page 16, panel 8, Tintin takes a photo of a Indian. In the original, the Indian had a begging bowl though it was removed in later editions. Herge had some understanding of how hard life was on the reservation.

On the same page of Tintin in America, we see Tintin getting kitted out in cowboy dress with the tailor advising him that this year’s fashion is for the cartridge belt to be slung on the right. Another expressions of Herge’s humour and understanding of human nature. Then later, we see Tintin entangle himself, Snowy and his horse by trying to use a lasso. This type of visual gag with Tintin as the butt of the joke is replaced in the later books. With Captain Haddock, and especially Thompson and Thomson, Herge has far better fall guys than Tintin. Consequently in the later books we see Tintin becomes a lot more competent, making very few of this type of error. Also, without Captain Haddock to provide an avenue for Herge’s word play, other characters have to fill in such as Bobby Smiles’ habit of using prison names as swear words.

We get a clue of where Herge had in mind for this part of the adventure on page 19 when Bobby Smiles meets up the Blackfeet Indians. These indians straddle the border between Montana, US and Alberta, Canada. Their reservation borders the Glacier National Park. Though this location fits most of the clues, there are some counter-clues. We see Saguaro cacti that commonly appear in Western films but it is limited to parts of Arizona, Mexico and California. Some of the background scenery has the character of Monument Valley and the Colorado Plateau. Again common in Westerns but located in the south-western part of America. The indistinct geography and mixed clues in Tintin in America is typical of all of Tintin’s books.

There is more support for Blackfeet reservation as Tintin in America’s location in the style of the indian’s dress. The classic feathered headdresses were used by the Blackfeet as depicted by Herge. Also the indian chief makes reference to Great Manitou. Manitou is a general word for spirit in the Algonquian indians, of whom the Blackfeet are part of, and Gitche Manitou, means great spirit. Herge’s use of Great Manitou may be a portmanteau or something that got altered in the translation.

The discovery of oil on the reservation and the Blackfeet being moved out by the army is one of the most noted political statements by Herge. Whilst he exaggerates for comic effect the speed of which the Indians are driven off the land, the sentiment is certainly true. Custer’s Last Stand was a result of prospectors going after gold in the Black Hills Reservation. The area now called The Glacier National Park was once part of the Blackfeet reservation but it was sold when prospectors thought there were great mineral deposits. We see in Tintin in America the growth of Herge’s awareness of other cultures and the impact of colonialism.

Having escaped the indians and survived a train crash, Tintin’s bad luck fails him again as he is wrongly accused of bank robbery. Herge humour is again plain to see in the scene where the bank robbery is discovered and the old local tells the police “I raised the alarm and we hanged a few fellows straight away but the thief got clear…”. Later, a report on the radio has a similar line about hobos being lynched.

Sweet Home Chicago

Having delivered captured Bobby Smiles, Tintin returns to Chicago where, for a change, it is Snowy who gets kidnapped by a business venture called Kidnap Inc. This is a play on the name Murder Inc, a notorious group of gangland killers from the 20s and 30s. This last third of Tintin in America, is weaker than the rest of the book. Having caught a major gangster, most creators would of finished the story. However Herge continues with Tintin’s adventures with Snowy’s kidnapping and subsequent hunt for those behind it. This leads to further adventures but in a typical Herge fashion, he wraps up the book quickly with a bit of exposition. The book ends with Tintin sailing home from New York having been responsible for the capture of most of Chicago’s gangsters.

Beautiful artwork from Mattias Adolfsson.

It took me a while to spot why it is called Tintin Air. Click through to the original: TinTin Air for a bigger image and a clue.

(Thanks to The Ephemerist)

Written at the height of the war, whilst Belgium was under German occupation, The Secret of the Unicorn& Red Rackham’s Treasure are two of Herge’s most escapist books.

Starting the Treasure Hunt

Herge’s vagueness about where Tintin & Captain Haddock live is evident at the start of Red Rackham’s Treasure. It suggests that Tintin and friends live in a port city but Brussels is landlocked. However it could be construed that the scenes around the docks could be some distance from Tintin’s home. Or that Tintin and the Captain have taken temporary accommodation in the port.

The Sirius, Captain’s Haddock’s boat in the hunt for Red Rackham’s Treasure, must sail from a port. The ship is specifically described as a fishing traveller and Belgium has three fishing ports: Zeebrugge, Ostend and Nieuwpoort. For the Tintin Map project, I’ve picked Ostend as their home port because of its direct link to Brussels.

As way of providing exposition for those who had not read The Secret of the Unicorn, Herge has two sailors talking in a bar to explain a plot. Shortly afterwards the character of Cuthbert Calculus is introduced. After Haddock has been abused by various of Cuthbert’s contraptions, the Captain loses his temper and describes him as Bashi-bazouk, demonstrating Haddok’s amazing vocabulary once again. The Bashi-bazouk is type of Turkish militia whose name derives from the Turkish word for “damaged head” and generally means “leaderless” or “disorderly”. He later uses the word to describe Thompson & Thomson.

Where is Red Rackham’s Treasure

After setting out, the heros discover a stowaway – Professor Calculus. He had smuggled his underwater craft aboard in place of Captain Haddock’s much loved whisky. Herge love of detail normally meant that the machines in his adventures were copied from real craft. However with Calculus’ shark submersible, this worked in reverse.

Fabien Cousteau, grandson of Jacques-Yves Cousteau, is world expert on sharks. In order to study the great white shark he developed a shark shaped submersible inspired by his childhood reading of Red Rackham’s Treasure. Using the “trojan shark”, he could film the Great White’s natural behavior at close range without running the risk of becoming lunch. The footage he shot became a CBS special Shark: Mind of a Demon. Check out the web site for lots of photos and clips but my favourite was the one below because of its resemblance to a scene drawn fifty years before.

During the hunt for Red Rackham’s Treasure, Tintin is unable to find the island, despite having the coordinates. They search in vain until Tintin realises that the coordinations could of been based on the Paris Meridian and not the more normal Greenwich Meridian. This source of confusion dates back to 1600s when the issue of longitude was becoming a problem. This was because the discovery and opening up of the Americas required shipping to sail far into open waters where as previously most vessels had stayed near the shore. Being able to work out how far east or west a ship had traveled was vital for accurate mapping and avoiding shipwreck.

North / south measurements (latitude) are based on the equator, which is fixed by the shape of the planet. However the starting point of any east / west travel (longitude) is arbitrary. All the major seafaring nations chose their own place for 0′ Latitude. However by 1884, Greenwich was the dominant meridian and an international conference confirmed it as the prime meridian to be used on all maps around the world. It says something about the French that they abstained from the vote and continued to use the Paris meridian (2° 20′ 14.025″ east of the Greenwich Meridian) for several decades. Herge’s reference to this in Red Rackham’s Treasure is a nice touch of detail.

Back Home Again

After a fruitless search for Red Rackham’s Treasure lasting several weeks, Tintin and his friends return home. With Calculus’ help, Captain Haddock discovers that Marlinspike is his ancestral home and is able to buy it. Yet another coincidence in this tale. The house that the Bird Brothers lived in and had kept Tintin imprisoned in, just happens to have once been owned by Haddock’s ancestor. Knowing this vital fact, Tintin is able to find the real treasure when he spots the statue of St John.

Tintin Movie

The Secret of the Unicorn and Red Rackham’s Treasure are the books most likely to become the first Tintin film based on the casting list. Unlike many of the other books, these two are very focused in their story telling. Tintin’s other adventures often involve him being side-tracked or going wherever fate takes hims. This makes them a lot more unsuitable for a 90 minute movie. I suspect that Herge’s reliance of coincidences will be smoothed out in the film. The introduction of an Editor and other supporting cast will provide other ways of pulling Tintin into the story.

Herge always relied on coincidences in his stories but in The Secret of the Unicorn, he perhaps relied on them too much.

The Unicorn for Sale

The coincidences start on page one, where Tintin bumps into Thompson & Thomson. The detectives are investigating a pick-pocket who will, by chance, become very important towards the end of book. On page 3 of The Secret of the Unicorn, we have the next two coincidences. Firstly, as Tintin tries to buy the model Ivon Ivanovitch Sakharine also tries to buy the model. Then as those two argue, Barnaby joins in and also tries to purchase the same model.

If having three people (two of them who have been hunting for the model for years) all out shopping in the same place at the same time when the very object they seek happens to be for sale is not coincidence enough, there is more to come. The model is of the Unicorn, the ship of Sir Francis Haddock, Captain Haddock’s ancestors. After this, The Secret of the Unicorn settles down now that Herge has introduced all the characters and established the story line.

The True Unicorn

According to Tintin and the World of Herge, the Unicorn was not based on any specific ship but it was heavily influenced by Le Brillant. This 50 gun warship of the French Navy was built in Le Havre in 1690. A model of the ship can be seen here. Quite why Herge used this ship as the basis for the Unicorn is not clear.

The Secret of the Unicorn makes Captain Haddock unique in Herge’s cast. He is the only character to have any background. There is no mention of Tintin’s ancestry, ancient or modern, or that of any other characters. In fact, it is the only blood relation to a character to feature in the books except the children of various characters (e.g. the Waggs).

It is believed that the pirate Red Rackham in The Secret of the Unicorn was based on the pirate Calico Jack, whose real name was John Rackham. It was Calico Jack’s use of a jolly roger with two crossed swords that popularisied the design of the jolly roger as we know it today. This design was also used in the film Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End. This was fitting as Calico Jack was captured and hung in giblet. An image that is also referenced in Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl.

Pests, Marlinspike and Nestor

As well as having amazing ancestors, Captain Haddock has an amazing vocabulary. Reading his rage induced rants always expands your grasp of language. The Secret of the Unicorn is no exception as Haddock refers to the Thompsons as Phylloxera. This North American aphid like creature was responsible for near destruction of the European wine industry in the late 1800s. Brought across from America by accident, this pest destroyed many of the vines. Only with the introduction of vines crossed with resistant stock from America did European wine production survive.

Marlinspike makes its first appearance in The Secret of the Unicon. Later it is to become Captain Haddock’s and Calculas’ home and base for many Tintin’s adventures. But in the beginning it just a prison that Tintin wakes up in. One of the first things Tintin does in Marlinspike is damage it by combining ingenuity with a convenient wooden beam.

Along with Marlinspike, we also meet Nestor for the first time. Innocently caught up in the nefarious affairs of the Bird brothers, Nestor’s first meeting with Tintin results in a fight and almost ends in Tintin’s murder. Nestor’s saving grace is when, once Tintin is rescued by the Thompsons and Captain Haddock, Nestor replaces the Captain’s bottle of three star brandy. Nestor clearly understands the Captain’s needs and Nestor remains the butler of Marlinspike after it is purchased by Calculus and the Captain.