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Tintin (Template:IPAc-en;<ref>Template:Cite LPD</ref> {{#invoke:IPA|main}}) is the titular protagonist of The Adventures of Tintin, the comic series by Belgian cartoonist Hergé. The character was created in 1929 and introduced in {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}, a weekly youth supplement to the Belgian newspaper {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Appearing as a young man with a round face and quiff hairstyle, Tintin is depicted as a precocious, multitalented reporter who travels the world with his dog Snowy.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Since his inception in the early 20th century, Tintin has remained a popular literary figure with statues and commemorative murals of the character seen throughout Belgium.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> In addition to the original comic series, Tintin has appeared in numerous plays, radio shows, television shows, and feature films, including the Steven Spielberg-directed film The Adventures of Tintin (2011).

As of January 1, 2025, Tintin and other characters appearing in the original 1929 French comic strips entered the public domain in the United States.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>Template:EfnTemplate:EfnTemplate:Efn Subsequent Tintin works will enter the public domain yearly on January 1 if United States copyright laws are not amended. However, Tintin remains under copyright in his original country, Belgium, and other countries utilizing terms that expire after a set period of time following the author's death.Template:Efn

HistoryEdit

InfluencesEdit

File:PalleHuld.jpg
Palle Huld, during his trip around the world in 1928, almost certainly influenced Hergé to create Tintin.Template:Sfnm

HergéTemplate:Efn biographer Pierre Assouline noted that "Tintin had a prehistory", being influenced by a variety of sources that Hergé had encountered throughout his life.Template:Sfn Hergé noted that during his early schooling in the midst of World War I, when Belgium was under German occupation, he had drawn pictures in the margins of his school workbooks of an unnamed young man battling the {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} (a slang term for Germans).Template:Sfn He later commented that these drawings depicted a brave and adventurous character using his intelligence and ingenuity against opponents. None of these early drawings survive.Template:Sfn

Hergé was also influenced by the physical appearance and mannerisms of his younger brother Paul, who had a round face and a quiff hairstyle.Template:Sfnm In search of adventure, Paul later joined the Belgian Army, receiving jeers from fellow officers when the source of Hergé's visual inspiration became obvious.Template:Sfn Hergé later stated that in his youth, "I watched him a lot; he entertained me and fascinated me... It makes sense that Tintin took on his character, gestures, poses. He had a way of moving and a physical presence that must have inspired me without my knowing it. His gestures stayed in my mind. I copied them clumsily, without meaning to or even knowing I was doing it; it was him I was drawing."Template:Sfnm

A few years after young Hergé joined Scouting,Template:SfnmTemplate:Efn he became the unofficial artist for his Scout troop and drew a Boy Scout character for the national magazine {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}. This young man, whom he named Totor, travelled the globe and righted wrongs, all without ruffling his Scout honour.Template:Sfn As was the format for European comics at the time, the early drawings of Totor merely illustrated the story; the text that appeared below the drawings is what propelled the action.Template:Sfn Years later, Totor would be very much in Hergé's mind; his new comics character would be, Hergé himself later said, "the little brother of Totor ... keeping the spirit of a Boy Scout."Template:Sfnm Assouline would describe Totor as "a sort of trial run" for Tintin.Template:Sfn Novelist and biographer Harry Thompson simply stated that Totor would "metamorphose" into Tintin.Template:Sfn

Literary influences have been observed. Benjamin Rabier and Fred Isly published an illustrated story in 1898 titled Template:Ill ("Tintin the Goblin"), in which they featured a small goblin boy named Tintin, who had a rounded face and quiff. Hergé agreed that Rabier's manner of drawing animals had influenced him, although he swore that he was unaware of the existence of Tintin-Lutin until one of his readers later informed him of the similarity.Template:Sfnm In 1907, Gaston Leroux (author of The Phantom of the Opera) created the character Joseph Rouletabille, a young journalist and amateur detective. Template:Ill wrote a series of adventures in 1910 titled Template:Ill.Template:Sfn

Hergé, an avid news reader, would have been aware of the activities of a number of popular journalists well known in Belgium, notably Joseph Kessel but especially Albert Londres, one of the creators of investigative journalism.Template:Sfnm Almost certainly another influence was Palle Huld, a 15-year-old Danish Boy Scout who travelled around the world in 1928 and wrote about his adventures the following year.Template:Sfnm Robert Sexé, a French motorcycle photojournalist, travelled and wrote about the Soviet Union, the Belgian Congo, and the United States—immediately followed by Tintin's adventures.Template:Sfn<ref name="Independent"/> Years later, when Hergé was asked who inspired Tintin, he answered, "Tintin c'est moi."<ref name="Independent">Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="Gardner">Template:Cite video</ref><ref name="Webster">Template:Cite news</ref>

Hergé had seen the new style of American comicsTemplate:SfnmTemplate:Efn and was ready to try it. Tintin's new comic would be a strip cartoonTemplate:Sfn with dialogue in speech bubblesTemplate:SfnTemplate:Efn and drawings that carried the story. Young reporter Tintin would have the investigative acumen of Londres, the travelling abilities of Huld, and the high moral standing of Totor; the Boy Scout travelling reporter that Hergé would have liked to have been.Template:Sfn

Early developmentEdit

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Tintin appeared after Hergé got his first job as a photographic reporter and cartoonistTemplate:Efn working at the Catholic newspaper {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} ("The Twentieth Century"), where his director challenged him to create a new serialised comic for its Thursday supplement for young readers, {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} ("The Little Twentieth").Template:Sfnm In the edition 30 December 1928 of the satirical weekly newspaper {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} (a parallel publication to Le Vingtième Siècle), Hergé included two cartoon gags with word balloons, in which he depicted a boy and a little white dog. Abbe Wallez thought that these characters could be developed further, and asked Hergé to use characters like these for an adventure that could be serialised in {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}.Template:Sfn Hergé agreed, and an image of Tintin and Snowy first appeared in the youth supplement on 4 January 1929, in an advert for the upcoming series.Template:Sfn Hergé would later insist that Tintin would only be "born" on 10 January 1929, in the first episode of Tintin in the Land of the Soviets.Template:Sfnm

Hergé admitted that 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, forgotten the next day."Template:Sfn Hergé biographer Benoît Peeters noted that Tintin was "supremely Belgian" in his characteristics,Template:Sfn a view echoed by Assouline, who deemed all of the protagonists of the early Adventures "very Belgian".Template:Sfn Hergé himself commented: "my early works are books by a young Belgian filled with the prejudices and ideas of a Catholic, they are books that could have been written by any Belgian in my situation. They are not very intelligent, I know, and do me no honour: they are 'Belgian' books."Template:Sfn Peeters ultimately considers the early Tintin to be "incoherent ... a Sartre-esque character", an "existentialist before the term had been coined", going on to observe that Tintin exists only through his actions, is just a narrative vehicle, having "no surname, no family, hardly anything of a face, and the mere semblance of a career."Template:Sfn

CharacterisationEdit

DescriptionEdit

File:Comic Mural Tintin, Hergé, Brussels (cropped).jpg
Tintin, Snowy and Captain Haddock depicted on a wall in the city of Brussels

The image of Tintin—a round-facedTemplate:Sfn young man running with a white fox terrier by his side—is easily one of the most recognisable visual icons of the twentieth century.Template:Sfn Hergé created Tintin as a young, blonde Belgian who is a native of Brussels, visualizing Hergé's values of conservative values and traditional norms.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>Template:SfnTemplate:Efn Assouline deemed Tintin to be middle-class, which he considers one of the few traits that the character had in common with Hergé.Template:Sfn In his first appearance, Tintin is dressed in a long travelling coat and hat, a few pages later adopting his plus fours, check suit, black socks, and Eton collar.Template:SfnTemplate:Efn At first, the famous quiff is plastered to Tintin's forehead, but during a particularly vigorous car chase in what became page 8 of the printed volume, his quiff is out and remains so.Template:Sfnm By the time he arrives in Chicago for his third adventure, both Hergé and his readers feel they know Tintin well, and he was to change little in either appearance or dress.Template:Sfn Hergé was once asked by interviewer Numa Sadoul how the character Tintin developed; he replied, "He practically did not evolve. Graphically, he remained an outline. Look at his features: his face is a sketch, a formula."Template:SfnmTemplate:Efn This view was echoed by Assouline: "Tintin was as uncomplicated as the story line".Template:Sfn

Hergé never explained why he chose Tintin as the character's name, stating that it has no inherent meaning.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> He had previously made use of alliteration with the name of his previous character, Totor.Template:Sfn Michael Farr believes that "Tintin" is probably the character's surname because other characters, such as his landlady, occasionally refer to him as Mr. Tintin (as printed on his doorbell).Template:Sfn Assouline asserted that it cannot be his surname because he lacks a family,Template:Sfn believing that Hergé had adopted it because "it sounded heroic, clear, and cheerful" as well as being easy to remember.Template:Sfn

Tintin's age is never specified.Template:Sfn Throughout the Adventures, published over 50 years, he remained youthful.Template:Sfn "Tintin was born at fifteen", says Assouline.Template:Sfn Hergé commented, "For me, Tintin hasn't aged. What age do I give him? I don't know ... 17? In my judgement, he was 14 or 15 when I created him, Boy Scout, and he has practically not moved on. Suppose he put on 3 or 4 years in 40 years ... Good, work out an average, 15 and 4 equals 19."Template:Sfnm

OccupationEdit

From Tintin's first adventure, he lives the life of a campaigning reporter.Template:Sfnm He is sent to the Soviet Union, where he writes his editor a dispatch.Template:Sfnm He travels to the Belgian Congo, where he engages in photojournalism. When he travels to China in The Blue Lotus, the Shanghai News features the front-page headline, "Tintin's Own Story". In The Broken Ear, with notebook in hand, Tintin questions the director of the Museum of Ethnography over a recent theft. Sometimes Tintin is the one being interviewed, such as when a radio reporter presses him for details, "In your own words."Template:Sfn But aside from these few examples, Tintin is never actually seen consulting with his editor or delivering a story.Template:Sfnm

As his adventures continue. Tintin is less often seen reporting and is more often seen as a detective,Template:Sfn pursuing his investigative journalism from his apartment at No. 26 Labrador Street.Template:Sfn Other characters refer to him as Sherlock Holmes, as he has a sharp intellect, an eye for detail, and powers of deduction. Like Holmes, he is occasionally a master of disguise, and in Rastapopoulos even has an archenemy.Template:Sfn

Tintin's occupation drifts further in later adventures, abandoning all pretence of reporting news and instead making news in his role of explorer.Template:Sfnm Clearly unencumbered with financial preoccupations, after Red Rackham's Treasure he is ensconced as a permanent house guest in the stately Marlinspike Hall with retired mariner Captain Haddock and the scientist Professor Calculus.Template:Sfn Tintin occupies all of his time with his friends, exploring the bottom of the sea, the tops of the mountains, and the surface of the Moon (sixteen years before astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin).Template:Sfn Through it all, Tintin finds himself cast in the role of international social crusader, sticking up for the underdog and looking after those less fortunate than himself.Template:Sfn

Skills and abilitiesEdit

From the first volume onward, Hergé depicted Tintin as being adept at driving or fixing any mechanical vehicle that he comes across.Template:Sfnm Given the opportunity, Tintin is at ease driving any automobile, has driven a moon tank, and is comfortable with every aspect of aviation. He is also a skilled radio operator with knowledge of Morse code.Template:Sfn He packs a solid punch to a villain's jaw when necessary, demonstrates impressive swimming skills, and is a crack shot.Template:Sfn He proves himself a capable engineer and scientist during his adventure to the Moon.Template:Sfn He is also an excellent athlete, in outstanding condition, able to walk, run, and swim long distances. Hergé summarized Tintin's abilities thusly: "a hero without fear and beyond reproach."Template:Sfn More than anything else, Tintin is a quick thinker and an effective diplomat. He is simply an all-rounder, good at almost everything, which is what Hergé himself would have liked to be.Template:Sfn

PersonalityEdit

Tintin's personality evolved as Hergé wrote the series.Template:Sfn Peeters relates that in the early Adventures, Tintin's personality was "incoherent", in that he was "[s]ometimes foolish and sometimes omniscient, pious to the point of mockery and then unacceptably aggressive", ultimately just serving as a "narrative vehicle" for Hergé's plots.Template:Sfn Hergé biographer Pierre Assouline notes that in the early Adventures, Tintin shows "little sympathy for humanity".Template:Sfn Assouline describes the character as "obviously celibate, excessively virtuous, chivalrous, brave, a defender of the weak and oppressed, never looks for trouble but always finds it."Template:Sfn

Michael Farr deems Tintin to be an intrepid young man of high moral standing, with whom his audience can identify.Template:Sfn His rather neutral personality permits a balanced reflection of the evil, folly, and foolhardiness that surrounds him, allowing the reader to assume Tintin's position within the story rather than merely following the adventures of a strong protagonist.Template:Sfn Tintin's representation enhances this aspect, with comics expert Scott McCloud noting that the combination of Tintin's iconic, neutral personality and Hergé's "unusually realistic", signature {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} ("clear line") style "allows the reader to mask themselves in a character and safely enter a sensually stimulating world."Template:Sfn

To the other characters, Tintin is honest, decent, compassionate, and kind.Template:Sfn He is also modest and self-effacing, which Hergé also was, and is the most loyal of friends, which Hergé strove to be.Template:Sfn The reporter does have vices, becoming too tipsy before facing the firing squad (in The Broken Ear) or too angry when informing Captain Haddock that he nearly cost them their lives (in Explorers on the Moon). However, as Michael Farr observes, Tintin has "tremendous spirit" and, in Tintin in Tibet, is appropriately given the name Great Heart.Template:Sfn By turns, Tintin is innocent, politically crusading, escapist, and finally cynical.Template:Sfn If he has perhaps too much of the goody-goody about him, at least he is not priggish; Hergé admitting as much, saying, "If Tintin is a moralist, he's a moralist who doesn't take things too seriously, so humour is never far away from his stories."Template:Sfn It is this sense of humour that makes the appeal of Tintin truly international.Template:Sfn

ReceptionEdit

The Adventures of Tintin was one of the most popular European comics of the 20th century. Tintin remains popular today; by the time of the centenary of Hergé's birth in 2007,Template:Sfnm Tintin had been published in more than 70 languages with sales of more than 200 million copies.Template:Sfn

Literary criticismEdit

{{#invoke:Labelled list hatnote|labelledList|Main article|Main articles|Main page|Main pages}} The study of Tintin has become the life work of many literary critics, observers sometimes referring to this study as "Tintinology".Template:Sfn A prominent literary critic of Tintin is Philippe Goddin, "Belgium's leading authority on Hergé",Template:Sfn author of numerous books on the subject, including Hergé and Tintin, Reporters and the biography {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}.Template:Sfn In 1983, Benoît Peeters published {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}, subsequently published in English as Tintin and the World of Hergé in 1988.Template:Sfn The reporter Michael Farr brought Tintin literary criticism to the English language with works such as Tintin, 60 Years of Adventure (1989), Tintin: The Complete Companion (2001),Template:Sfn Tintin & Co. (2007)Template:Sfn and The Adventures of Hergé (2007),Template:Sfn as had English screenwriter Harry Thompson, the author of Tintin: Hergé and his Creation (1991).Template:Sfn

ControversyEdit

Tintin's earliest stories naively depicted controversial images, with Tintin engaging in racial stereotypes, animal cruelty, violence, colonialism, including ethnocentric caricatured portrayals of non-Europeans, most notably and notoriously in Tintin in the Congo.Template:Sfn Later, Hergé made corrections to Tintin's actions, for example, replacing Tintin's dynamiting of a rhinoceros with an incident in which the rhino accidentally discharges Tintin's rifle, and called his earlier actions "a transgression of my youth."Template:Sfn

LegacyEdit

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As Farr observes, "Hergé created a hero who embodied human qualities and virtues but no faults. The Adventures of Tintin mirror the past century while Tintin himself provides a beacon of excellence for the future."Template:Sfn Thompson says Tintin is "almost featureless, ageless, sexless", and does not appear to be burdened with a personality. Yet this very anonymity remains the key to Tintin's gigantic international success. With so little to mark him out, anybody can identify with him and live out his adventures. Millions have done so, both adults and children, including the likes of Steven Spielberg, Andy Warhol, Wim Wenders, Françoise Sagan, Harold Macmillan and General Charles de Gaulle, who considered Tintin his only international rival.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfnm

While working on Tintin's next adventure, Tintin and the Alph'Art,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Hergé died at 76 on 3 March 1983,Template:Sfn and with him died the adventures of his most famous character. Several leading French and Belgian newspapers devoted their front pages to the news, some illustrating it with a panel of Snowy grieving over his master's unconscious body.Template:Sfn

Statues and commemorative murals of TintinEdit

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AdaptationsEdit

File:Tintin (character).jpg
Tintin as he appears in Steven Spielberg's 2011 motion capture feature film The Adventures of Tintin as portrayed by Jamie Bell

Tintin has appeared in real-life events staged by publishers for publicity stunts. Tintin's first live appearance was at the Gare du Nord station in Brussels on 8 May 1930, towards the end publication of the first adventure, Tintin in the Land of the Soviets. Fifteen-year-old Lucien Pepermans dressed to play the part and travelled with Hergé to the station by train. They were expecting only a handful of readers but instead found themselves mobbed by a whole horde of fans.Template:SfnTemplate:Efn Fourteen-year-old Henri Dendoncker appeared as Tintin returning from Tintin in the Congo.Template:SfnTemplate:Efn Others have played Tintin returning from the adventures Tintin in America and The Blue Lotus.Template:Sfn

Actress Jane Rubens was the first to play Tintin on stage in April 1941.Template:Sfn The plays, written by Jacques Van Melkebeke, included Tintin in India: The Mystery of the Blue Diamond and Mr. Boullock's Disappearance. She was later replaced by 11-year-old Roland Ravez, who also lent his voice to recordings of the Cigars of the Pharaoh and The Blue Lotus.Template:Sfn Jean-Pierre Talbot played Tintin in two live-action movie adaptations: Tintin and the Golden Fleece (1961) and Tintin and the Blue Oranges (1964).Template:Sfn Canadian actor Colin O'Meara voiced Tintin in the 1991 Canadian-made The Adventures of Tintin animated TV series, which originally aired on HBO and subsequently on Nickelodeon. At the same time, actor Richard Pearce provided the voice of Tintin for a radio drama series of Tintin created by the BBC, which also starred Andrew Sachs as Snowy.Template:Sfn In 2005, English actor Russell Tovey played the role at the London Barbican Theatre for a Young Vic adaptation of Tintin in Tibet.Template:Sfn

Shortly before Hergé's death in 1983, he came to admire the work of Steven Spielberg; who he felt was the only director who could successfully bring his Tintin to the big screen.Template:Sfn The result was the 2011 motion capture feature film The Adventures of Tintin, which merges plots from three Tintin books.

Tintin filmographyEdit

Live-action Feature films
Animated films
Television series

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See alsoEdit

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ReferencesEdit

NotesEdit

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CitationsEdit

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BibliographyEdit

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Further readingEdit

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External linksEdit

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