The early Tintin adventures, particularly Tintin in the Congo, were racist. Though the mind set they incorporated was common throughout the European and colonial powers. What redeemed Herge and his work was his ability to recognise and overcome his own prejudices. He became an ambassador of hope and for much his life, Herge worked to educate his readers about different cultures of world and show how, regardless of race, creed or colour, we are all the same.

Unfortunately the message Herge embodies – that we can overcome our fears and predjuices to be better human beings – is lost on people from the far left and the far right of politics. Calls for his books to be banned miss the point and play into the hands of extreme right wing racists.

Black People “look like monkeys and talk like imbeciles”.

This quote from the UK’s Commission for Racial Equality ( CRE ) is the title of a thread from the white supremacists site Stormfront.org [ WARNING: This is a site dedicated to 'White Pride World Wide' and all the hate and stupidity that involves ]. The idiots who frequent the site have focused on using the CRE’s statement and have spouted some predicable racist claptrap in support of Herge and Tintin.

This subversion of the Herge’s work in support of such a perverse agenda is sickening and it highlights the dangers of either side of the political spectrum focusing on a narrow aspect of an author’s work. The subject of Herge’s and racism is complex, inexplicably tied to the culture he grew up in and above, a message of hope and humanity.

Note: Clicking the links to the Stormfront web site will cause offense to all right-thinking people. In the HTML, I’ve have marked them as ‘no follow‘ so that the search engines will ignore these links.

It is inspired by dolphins, not sharks, but apart from that, it is perfect.

More Photos: Dolphin Inspired Personal Submarines

This beautiful image of Tintin taking tea with a Timelord in Tibet is by Neill Cameron who is putting together an A-to-Z of popular culture. It has a distinctive British slant (I’m not sure many people outside the UK will recognize Hagar the Horrible or Ford Fiestas) but that just makes it better. My favourite is (apart from Tintin & the Timelord) is another Timelord – Doctor Who Defeating Doctor Doom in a Deadly Disco Dance-off though Captain Britain Cuddling Cerebus is a close second.

Thanks to The Ephemerist for spotting this.

Have you ever wondered what the Thing from the Fantastic 4 would look like if Herge had drawn him? No, nor had I but writer Paul Tobin and artist Dustin Weaver did.

This image comes from a two page special in the Fantastic Four Giant-Size Adventures #1 which comes out June 24. You can see the complete image on Dustin’s blog and a couple of additional images on Paul’s blog.

A couple of re-imaginings of Tintin.

Tintin Versus Predator

Tintin Versus Predator

Tintin (not) doing the Batusi

Not Batusi – Tintin and Snowy by Jeff Lemire

Herge liked to mix real and fictional geography in his story-telling, sometimes explicitly and sometimes implicitly.

Machu Picchu doesn’t appear directly in the books but it can be assumed as the basis for the temple in The Seven Crystal Balls / Prisoners of the Sun. Located high in mountains, in a remote part of Peru, it was the last strong hold of the Incas. A sacred site, one of the main buildings is called the Temple of the Sun. The site was ‘discovered’ and made famous in 1911 by the American explorer and historian Hiram Bingham.

This facade appears in The Red Sea Shark though you may be more familiar with it from Indian Jones and the Last Crusade. In reality it is in Petra, an ancient city in modern-day Jordan and is one of the true wonders of the world. At its peak, around 200AD, it was a city of over 20,000 people with a sophisticated water management system that allowed the city to thrive in the middle of a desert.

Loch Lomond itself never appears in the books but it is a name familiar to all Tintin fans as Captain Haddocks favourite tipple. It is particularly prominent in The Black Island as Tintin visits Scotand but it crops up regularly in a number of books. There is a real world Loch Lomond Distillery who do tours. So, if you are ever in Scotland, call in, see how they make the whisky and have a wee dram for Captain Haddock.

Last Sunday, an auction of Tintin and Herge memorabilia smashed national and international records. The highlights of the auction were a handful of original pages drawn by the man himself. All the pages are reproduced below, taken from the auction catalog. If you are interested in Tintin memrobilia then I advise you to have a look through the catalog but these drawings are the real gems.

My favourite are the pages from Flight 714, particularly the sketch pages. In the image of Tintin with his hands behind his back we can see how fine an artist Herge was. Also, the strange figure in the bottom left hand corner. It is an odd mix of styles, half realistic, half modern art. The pages from The Castafiore Emerald are great examples of how Herge refined the story as he drew. Look how the sequence and point of view of the images changes between the original and the inked work.

Many thanks to MetaBunker for finding these.

This Tintin image just leaves me wanting to know more.

It comes from a fanzine writer / blogger / illustrator by the name of Frits Jonker who once did some illustrations for another fanzine writer, by the name of Anton Hermus.

Anton Hermus died a few years ago. When I was sixteen I started a correspondence with him. He published a private magazine about Tintin, called “Het Brilliantinepotje”. It was one of the weirdest zines I ever read, so when he asked me to make some illustrations for him, I gladly did that. In 1982 he wrote a little book about his rather paranoia ideas about Tintin …

I cannot help but wonder what paranoid ideas you can have about Tintin.

Source: Anton Hermus

I know nothing about this poster other than it came from BAPOM’s collection of posters and it is mentioned here.

Thanks to Toyota GB PR for finding this.