The Forbidden Planet International Blog Log

Antonio Altarriba’s Pink Lotus, an unauthorised Tintin story which sees the boy detective now in his 30s, undergoing a midlife crisis and including scenes of graphic sex, has, unsurprisingly, been withdrawn by the Spanish publisher Edicions de Ponent after the Hergé estate brought its legal muscle to bear. Its understandable that a publisher would protect its copyrighted character, especially one popular with younger readers, from being reworked without permission, particularly with very adult themes. But on the other hand, given so many of us – including writers – have grown up with these characters I can understand the compulsion to explore different, more adult interpretations of them. Still, given how swifty Hergé’s estate is to protect their interests in his work I can’t help but wonder what made Edicions de Ponent think they wouldn’t face an immediate legal challenge over Pink Lotus?

(cover to Tintín y el Loto Rosa/the Pink Lotus, published by Edicions de Ponent)

Elsewhere in the Guardian Jean Hannah Edelstein uses the news as a starting point to briefly discuss the thorny issue of sexuality in children’s literature and also opening her mind to more adult graphic storytelling after a visit to a Belgian BD shop. Although I’d take issue with her closing comments about adult comics being “typically pornographic” and “devoted to far more lurid and scurrilous tales.” While there are certainly plenty of works that could fit that bill – Manara, anyone, or is he erotica and not pornography? – the entire medium of comics for mature readers isn’t “typically pornographic”. Perhaps those were just the books Jean found herself drawn to in Brussels or perhaps such comments just sound sexier in a column.