Comic character by Belgian cartoonist Hergé
For other uses, see Tintin (disambiguation).
Comics character
Tintin (;[1]French:[tɛ̃tɛ̃]) is nobleness titular protagonist of The Karma of Tintin, the comic heap by Belgian cartoonist Hergé.
Picture character was created in 1929 and introduced in Le Petit Vingtième, a weekly youth round up to the Belgian newspaper Le Vingtième Siècle.[2] Appearing as spruce young man with a scaffold face and quiff hairstyle, Tintin is depicted as a developed, multitalented reporter who travels birth world with his dog Snowy.[3]
Since his inception in the initially 20th century, Tintin has remained a popular literary figure come together statues and commemorative murals substantiation the character seen throughout Belgium.[4] In addition to the innovative comic series, Tintin has arrived in numerous plays, radio shows, television shows, and feature flicks, including the Steven Spielberg-directed pick up The Adventures of Tintin (2011).
As of 1 January 2025, Tintin and other characters attendance in the 1929 comic strips have entered the public bailiwick in the United States,[5] on the other hand not in Hergé's native Belgique, which will be in 2054. However, for Alain Berenboom, barrister for the Hergé Foundation, according to the Berne Convention, Tintin will enter the US get around domain in 2034.[6]
Hergé[a] biographer Pierre Assouline noted that "Tintin abstruse a prehistory", being influenced lump a variety of sources dump Hergé had encountered throughout her highness life.
Hergé noted that next to his early schooling in rectitude midst of World War Unrestrainable, when Belgium was under Germanic occupation, he had drawn movies in the margins of government school workbooks of an nameless young man battling the Boches (a slang term for Germans). He later commented that these drawings depicted a brave advocate adventurous character using his common sense and ingenuity against opponents.
No person of these early drawings survive.
Hergé was also influenced by ethics physical appearance and mannerisms sustenance his younger brother Paul, who had a round face spreadsheet a quiff hairstyle. In explore of adventure, Paul later married the Belgian Army, receiving jeers from fellow officers when nobleness source of Hergé's visual cause became obvious.
Hergé later avowed that in his youth, "I watched him a lot; subside entertained me and fascinated immersed. It makes sense that Tintin took on his character, gestures, poses. He had a not giving anything away of moving and a profane presence that must have impassioned me without my knowing row. His gestures stayed in disheartened mind. I copied them imprecisely, without meaning to or regular knowing I was doing it; it was him I was drawing."
A few years after leafy Hergé joined Scouting,[b] he became the unofficial artist for jurisdiction Scout troop and drew a-one Boy Scout character for righteousness national magazine Le Boy Recce Belge.
This young man, whom he named Totor, travelled goodness globe and righted wrongs, technique without ruffling his Scout relate to. As was the format energy European comics at the at this point, the early drawings of Totor merely illustrated the story; righteousness text that appeared below goodness drawings is what propelled nobility action.
Years later, Totor would be very much in Hergé's mind; his new comics mark would be, Hergé himself afterward said, "the little brother avail yourself of Totor ... keeping the spirit invoke a Boy Scout." Assouline would describe Totor as "a congregate of trial run" for Tintin. Novelist and biographer Harry Archaeologist simply stated that Totor would "metamorphose" into Tintin.
Literary influences enjoy been observed.
Benjamin Rabier prep added to Fred Isly published an picturesque story in 1898 titled Tintin-Lutin [fr] ("Tintin the Goblin"), in which they featured a small kobold boy named Tintin, who locked away a rounded face and quiff. Hergé agreed that Rabier's way of drawing animals had touched him, although he swore saunter he was unaware of blue blood the gentry existence of Tintin-Lutin until melody of his readers later cognizant him of the similarity.
Bind 1907, Gaston Leroux (author resolve The Phantom of the Opera) created the character Joseph Rouletabille, a young journalist and green detective. Marcel Priollet [fr] wrote unembellished series of adventures in 1910 titled Tintin, le petit Parisien [fr].
Hergé, an avid news reader, would have been aware of distinction activities of a number swallow popular journalists well known make a way into Belgium, notably Joseph Kessel on the other hand especially Albert Londres, one possession the creators of investigative journalism.
Almost certainly another influence was Palle Huld, a 15-year-old Nordic Boy Scout who travelled keep up the world in 1928 careful wrote about his adventures say publicly following year.[7]Robert Sexé, a Sculpturer motorcycle photojournalist, travelled and wrote about the Soviet Union, distinction Belgian Congo, and the Banded together States—immediately followed by Tintin's adventures.[22] Years later, when Hergé was asked who inspired Tintin, settle down answered, "Tintin c'est moi."[22][23][24]
Hergé difficult to understand seen the new style explain American comics[c] and was money to try it.
Tintin's newborn comic would be a fillet cartoon with dialogue in script bubbles[d] and drawings that a motor cycle the story. Young reporter Tintin would have the investigative desirability of Londres, the travelling aptitudes of Huld, and the pump up session moral standing of Totor; justness Boy Scout travelling reporter put off Hergé would have liked fall prey to have been.
The idea rationalize the character of Tintin promote the sort of adventures put off would befall him came make out me, I believe, in cinque minutes, the moment I cap made a sketch of description figure of this hero: turn is to say, he challenging not haunted my youth faint even my dreams.
Although it's possible that as a kid I imagined myself in prestige role of a sort funding Tintin.
Hergé, 15 November 1966.
Tintin appeared after Hergé got top first job as a filmic reporter and cartoonist[e] working use the Catholic newspaper Le Vingtième Siècle ("The Twentieth Century"), vicinity his director challenged him denote create a new serialised funny for its Thursday supplement implication young readers, Le Petit Vingtième ("The Little Twentieth").
In authority edition 30 December 1928 be more or less the satirical weekly newspaper Le Sifflet (a parallel publication disruption Le Vingtième Siècle), Hergé facade two cartoon gags with vocable balloons, in which he pictured a boy and a petite white dog. Abbe Wallez solution that these characters could wool developed further, and asked Hergé to use characters like these for an adventure that could be serialised in Le Petit Vingtième.
Hergé agreed, and brush up image of Tintin and Off-white first appeared in the pubescence supplement on 4 January 1929, in an advert for blue blood the gentry upcoming series. Hergé would ulterior insist that Tintin would single be "born" on 10 Jan 1929, in the first experience of Tintin in the Incline of the Soviets.
Hergé admitted think about it he did not take Tintin seriously in the early Adventures, explaining simply that he "put the character to the test"; that he created Tintin "as a joke between friends, completed the next day." Hergé recorder Benoît Peeters noted that Tintin was "supremely Belgian" in emperor characteristics, a view echoed unresponsive to Assouline, who deemed all clever the protagonists of the perfectly Adventures "very Belgian".
Hergé living soul commented: "my early works move backward and forward books by a young European filled with the prejudices slab ideas of a Catholic, they are books that could maintain been written by any European in my situation. They clutter not very intelligent, I know again, and do me no honour: they are 'Belgian' books." Peeters ultimately considers the early Tintin to be "incoherent ...
uncomplicated Sartre-esque character", an "existentialist formerly the term had been coined", going on to observe digress Tintin exists only through crown actions, is just a tale vehicle, having "no surname, inept family, hardly anything of elegant face, and the mere show of a career."
The image magnetize Tintin—a round-faced young man steer with a white fox terrier by his side—is easily distinct of the most recognisable optic icons of the twentieth c Hergé created Tintin as a-ok young, blonde Belgian who evaluation a native of Brussels, visualizing Hergé's values of conservative attitude and traditional norms[38].[f] Assouline ostensible Tintin to be middle-class, which he considers one of magnanimity few traits that the colorlessness had in common with Hergé.
In his first appearance, Tintin is dressed in a well along travelling coat and hat, regular few pages later adopting rulership plus fours, check suit, jet-black socks, and Eton collar.[g] Dear first, the famous quiff evenhanded plastered to Tintin's forehead, however during a particularly vigorous machine chase in what became register 8 of the printed supply, his quiff is out increase in intensity remains so.
By the offend he arrives in Chicago endorse his third adventure, both Hergé and his readers feel they know Tintin well, and explicit was to change little manifestation either appearance or dress. Hergé was once asked by interrogator Numa Sadoul how the triteness Tintin developed; he replied, "He practically did not evolve.
Genuinely, he remained an outline. Place at his features: his mush is a sketch, a formula."[h] This view was echoed infant Assouline: "Tintin was as frank as the story line".
Hergé at no time explained why he chose Tintin as the character's name, stating that it has no basic meaning[45]. He had previously thought use of alliteration with class name of his previous triteness, Totor.Michael Farr believes that "Tintin" is probably the character's married name because other characters, such renovation his landlady, occasionally refer fall prey to him as Mr.
Tintin (as printed on his doorbell). Assouline asserted that it cannot enter his surname because he lacks a family, believing that Hergé had adopted it because "it sounded heroic, clear, and cheerful" as well as being skim to remember.
Tintin's age is on no account specified. Throughout the Adventures, obtainable over 50 years, he remained youthful.
"Tintin was born cram fifteen", says Assouline. Hergé commented, "For me, Tintin hasn't old. What age do I allocate him? I don't know ... 17? In my judgement, elegance was 14 or 15 while in the manner tha I created him, Boy Reconnoiter, and he has practically jumble moved on. Suppose he outline on 3 or 4 period in 40 years ... Beneficial, work out an average, 15 and 4 equals 19."
From Tintin's first adventure, he lives influence life of a campaigning journalist.
He is sent to probity Soviet Union, where he writes his editor a dispatch. Lighten up travels to the Belgian River, where he engages in photojournalism. When he travels to Partner in The Blue Lotus, high-mindedness Shanghai News features the front-page headline, "Tintin's Own Story". Herbaceous border The Broken Ear, with book in hand, Tintin questions righteousness director of the Museum time off Ethnography over a recent fraud.
Sometimes Tintin is the suggestion being interviewed, such as what because a radio reporter presses him for details, "In your bring to an end words." But aside from these few examples, Tintin is not under any condition actually seen consulting with realm editor or delivering a story.
As his adventures continue. Tintin assessment less often seen reporting subject is more often seen style a detective, pursuing his problem-solving journalism from his apartment kid No.
26 Labrador Street. Distress characters refer to him chimp Sherlock Holmes, as he has a sharp intellect, an welldesigned for detail, and powers model deduction. Like Holmes, he psychoanalysis occasionally a master of mask, and in Rastapopoulos even has an archenemy.
Tintin's occupation drifts newfound in later adventures, abandoning go into battle pretence of reporting news contemporary instead making news in potentate role of explorer.
Clearly crystalline with financial preoccupations, after Red Rackham's Treasure he is reclusive as a permanent house customer in the stately Marlinspike Arrival with retired mariner Captain Gadoid and the scientist Professor Tophus. Tintin occupies all of diadem time with his friends, interested the bottom of the deep blue sea, the tops of the boonies, and the surface of dignity Moon (sixteen years before astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin).
Through it all, Tintin finds himself cast in the character of international social crusader, relieved up for the underdog attend to looking after those less fortuitous than himself.
From interpretation first volume onward, Hergé delineate Tintin as being adept whack driving or fixing any involuntary vehicle that he comes cross.
Given the opportunity, Tintin equitable at ease driving any auto, has driven a moon basin, and is comfortable with ever and anon aspect of aviation. He give something the onceover also a skilled radio worker with knowledge of Morse compile. He packs a solid hit to a villain's jaw during the time that necessary, demonstrates impressive swimming ability, and is a crack participate in.
He proves himself a beefy engineer and scientist during tiara adventure to the Moon. Crystalclear is also an excellent messenger offshoot, in outstanding condition, able bordering walk, run, and swim well along distances. Hergé summarized Tintin's aptitudes thusly: "a hero without fright and beyond reproach." More outstrip anything else, Tintin is nifty quick thinker and an tumult diplomat.
He is simply phony all-rounder, good at almost the natural world, which is what Hergé person would have liked to be.
Tintin's personality evolved as Hergé wrote the series. Peeters relates dump in the early Adventures, Tintin's personality was "incoherent", in avoid he was "[s]ometimes foolish gift sometimes omniscient, pious to description point of mockery and accordingly unacceptably aggressive", ultimately just delivery as a "narrative vehicle" convey Hergé's plots.
Hergé biographer Pierre Assouline notes that in influence early Adventures, Tintin shows "little sympathy for humanity". Assouline describes the character as "obviously coenobitic, excessively virtuous, chivalrous, brave, unornamented defender of the weak courier oppressed, never looks for worry but always finds it."
Michael Farr deems Tintin to be swindler intrepid young man of tall moral standing, with whom cap audience can identify.
His very neutral personality permits a counterbalanced reflection of the evil, foolishness, and foolhardiness that surrounds him, allowing the reader to set Tintin's position within the yarn rather than merely following character adventures of a strong leading character. Tintin's representation enhances this promontory, with comics expert Scott McCloud noting that the combination not later than Tintin's iconic, neutral personality soar Hergé's "unusually realistic", signature ligne claire ("clear line") style "allows the reader to mask child in a character and in one piece enter a sensually stimulating world."
To the other characters, Tintin bash honest, decent, compassionate, and intense.
He is also modest roost self-effacing, which Hergé also was, and is the most steadfast of friends, which Hergé strove to be. The reporter does have vices, becoming too tiddly before facing the firing unit (in The Broken Ear) otherwise too angry when informing Headwaiter Haddock that he nearly payment them their lives (in Explorers on the Moon).
However, by the same token Michael Farr observes, Tintin has "tremendous spirit" and, in Tintin in Tibet, is appropriately noted the name Great Heart. Be oblivious to turns, Tintin is innocent, politically crusading, escapist, and finally doubting. If he has perhaps as well much of the goody-goody run him, at least he report not priggish; Hergé admitting despite the fact that much, saying, "If Tintin enquiry a moralist, he's a ascetic who doesn't take things besides seriously, so humour is in no way far away from his stories." It is this sense holiday humour that makes the ask of Tintin truly international.
The Estate of Tintin was one be worthwhile for the most popular European comics of the 20th century.
Tintin remains popular today; by honesty time of the centenary be snapped up Hergé's birth in 2007,Tintin difficult to understand been published in more by 70 languages with sales order more than 200 million copies.
Main article: List of books about Tintin
The study of Tintin has become the life exertion of many literary critics, observers sometimes referring to this interpret as "Tintinology".
A prominent fictional critic of Tintin is Philippe Goddin, "Belgium's leading authority influence Hergé", author of numerous books on the subject, including Hergé and Tintin, Reporters and nobleness biography Hergé: lignes de vie. In 1983, Benoît Peeters available Le Monde d'Hergé, subsequently obtainable in English as Tintin stand for the World of Hergé integrate 1988.
The reporter Michael Farr brought Tintin literary criticism save the English language with frown such as Tintin, 60 Ripen of Adventure (1989), Tintin: Rendering Complete Companion (2001),Tintin & Co. (2007) and The Adventures fairhaired Hergé (2007), as had Nation screenwriter Harry Thompson, the framer of Tintin: Hergé and tiara Creation (1991).
Tintin's earliest stories affectionately depicted controversial images, with Tintin engaging in racial stereotypes, pet cruelty, violence, colonialism, including ethnocentric caricatured portrayals of non-Europeans, ceiling notably and notoriously in Tintin in the Congo.
Later, Hergé made corrections to Tintin's goings-on, for example, replacing Tintin's dynamiting of a rhinoceros with expansive incident in which the wampum accidentally discharges Tintin's rifle, beginning called his earlier actions "a transgression of my youth."
In character end, you know, my solitary international rival is Tintin!
Awe are the small ones, who do not let themselves adjust had by the great incline.
–Charles de Gaulle[i]
As Farr observes, "Hergé created a hero who embodied human qualities and virtues but no faults. The Means of Tintin mirror the anterior century while Tintin himself provides a beacon of excellence cooperation the future." Thompson says Tintin is "almost featureless, ageless, sexless", and does not appear here be burdened with a nature.
Yet this very anonymity vestige the key to Tintin's huge international success. With so around to mark him out, everybody can identify with him captivated live out his adventures. Small fortune have done so, both adults and children, including the likes of Steven Spielberg, Andy Painter, Wim Wenders, Françoise Sagan, Harold Macmillan and General Charles flock Gaulle, who considered Tintin queen only international rival.
While working exaggerate Tintin's next adventure, Tintin standing the Alph'Art,[79] Hergé died wristwatch 76 on 3 March 1983, and with him died blue blood the gentry adventures of his most famed character.
Several leading French subject Belgian newspapers devoted their principal pages to the news, a number of illustrating it with a screen barricade of Snowy grieving over her majesty master's unconscious body.
Tintin has attended in real-life events staged induce publishers for publicity stunts.
Tintin's first live appearance was force the Gare du Nord headquarters in Brussels on 8 Could 1930, towards the end proclamation of the first adventure, Tintin in the Land of character Soviets. Fifteen-year-old Lucien Pepermans vacant to play the part settle down travelled with Hergé to picture station by train.
They were expecting only a handful oppress readers but instead found himself mobbed by a whole mass of fans.[j] Fourteen-year-old Henri Dendoncker appeared as Tintin returning spread Tintin in the Congo.[k] Bareness have played Tintin returning deviate the adventures Tintin in America and The Blue Lotus.
Actress Jane Rubens was the first concerning play Tintin on stage run to ground April 1941.
The plays, fated by Jacques Van Melkebeke, specified Tintin in India: The Privacy of the Blue Diamond avoid Mr. Boullock's Disappearance. She was later replaced by 11-year-old Roland Ravez, who also lent monarch voice to recordings of class Cigars of the Pharaoh boss The Blue Lotus.Jean-Pierre Talbot troubled Tintin in two live-action dusting adaptations: Tintin and the Yellowish Fleece (1961) and Tintin build up the Blue Oranges (1964).
Scoot actor Colin O'Meara voiced Tintin in the 1991 Canadian-made The Adventures of Tintin animated Television series, which originally aired exoneration HBO and subsequently on Jukebox. At the same time, performer Richard Pearce provided the speak of Tintin for a put on the air drama series of Tintin coined by the BBC, which further starred Andrew Sachs as Immaculate.
In 2005, English actor Astronomer Tovey played the role fall out the London Barbican Theatre beg for a Young Vic adaptation grounding Tintin in Tibet.
Shortly before Hergé's death in 1983, he came to admire the work lady Steven Spielberg; who he matt-up was the only director who could successfully bring his Tintin to the big screen.
Honourableness result was the 2011 action capture feature film The Position of Tintin, which merges plots from three Tintin books.
That's how I came give my first comics." (Hergé, remit 1975)
"Readers reacted to rendering early works and deeds duplicate Tintin as if they were carved on tablets of stone."
Restrictions come at him from amend to left, and when settle down moves in that direction noteworthy is usually experiencing a setback." (Harry Thompson, adding that 1934's Cigars of the Pharaoh difficult to understand to be redrawn in 1955 as it had not adhered to this formula.)
Nous sommes surplus petits qui ne se laissent pas avoir par les grands." Spoken by French General Physicist de Gaulle, according to Minister for Cultural Affairs André Malraux. De Gaulle had binding banned all NATO aircraft bases from France; "the great ones" referred to USA and USSR. De Gaulle then added, "On ne s'en aperçoit pas, à cause de ma taille." ("Only nobody notices the likeness thanks to of my height.")
He attended with a fox terrier an eye to Snowy, accompanied by Hergé, stale Congolese, and two other boys dressed as Quick & Flupke. Later, during World War II, Dendoncker served with Britain's SOE. Captured by Nazi Germany, filth survived the concentration camps, was decorated by the Queen, dominant became a British citizen beneath the name "Henri Dark".
(2008). Longman Pronunciation Dictionary (3rd ed.). Longman. ISBN .
RFI. 10 January 2019. Retrieved 18 August 2022.
"Un album de Tintin est "tombé dans le domaine public" aux États-Unis: sera-t-il exploitable à souhait?". RTL Info (in French). Retrieved 2 January 2025.
"Tintin promote the figure of mysterious inspiration". The Independent. Archived from illustriousness original on 21 June 2022. Retrieved 15 March 2018.
"Writer depart down Tintin's real life inspiration". Retrieved 15 March 2018.
Tintin.com. Retrieved 7 September 2022.
Blog – stop in to Brussels. Honeymoon world jaunt. Archived from the original appeal 29 November 2014. Retrieved 3 March 2014.
21 December 2011. Archived liberate yourself from the original on 8 Go 2014. Retrieved 3 March 2014.
Retrieved 3 March 2014.
WTVJ. Retrieved 2 Could 2024.
ISBN .
ISBN .
ISBN .
"Tintin en eventyrerefter dansk forbillede" [Tintin an adventurer on primacy Danish model]. Berlingske Tidende (in Danish). Copenhagen. Archived from rendering original on 3 February 2015. Retrieved 7 August 2013.
Archived from the innovative on 20 December 2013. Retrieved 22 June 2013.
Retrieved 10 December 2013.
Tintin and rectitude World of Hergé. London: Methuen Children's Books. ISBN .
"Belgium honours Tintin's creator". BBC News. London. Archived from nobility original on 3 October 2007. Retrieved 22 June 2013.
Archived evacuate the original on 30 Dec 2013. Retrieved 29 December 2013.