As is probably well-known by now, Stephen Spielberg managed to successfully turn Tintin into a movie.  Alan Baran, an intimate friend of Hergé’s and his last private secretary, was also the man who conducted the first negotiations with Spielberg.  And he liked what he saw. UK and European audiences have already enjoyed the film and with the US release imminent we present a very special feature today courtesy of our friends at Stripgids, who have kindly allowed us to translate their original article:

December, 1982. A telephone call from our publisher, Casterman from Tournai, tells me that a request has arrived for information about the movie rights to the Tintin books.  The letter is signed by Kathleen Kennedy.  She was writing to us on behalf of Stephen Spielberg.  Tintin’s spiritual father, who was a great fan of the Spielberg who did Duel, Indiana Jones and ET, was very excited about the news.

Sadly, Hergé was not able to accept the invitation to come to Los Angeles for a first meeting with the American director.  His health does not allow a long an tiring journey.  But he asks me to take the trip in his place, to hear from Spielberg himself how he wants to bring Tintin to life on the silver screen.  Of our first meeting, I’ll always remember how he said, “Tintin, that’s Indiana Jones for children”, as well as his eagerness to find out everything about Hergé, for whom he had enormous admiration.

At the end of my stay in California I delivered a draft to Spielberg with a summary of our expectations for the project.  And a little later we received a declaration of intent which broadly sketched the particulars of the future contract.

Tuesday, February 22, 1983, at about 11 AM in the Studios Hergé in Brussels.  This would turn out to be my very last professional conversation with Hergé, and it only has one subject : Steven Spielberg’s proposal for turning Tintin into a movie.  Hergé and I discuss the letter from America at length, and in great detail.  To me one item in the proposal was quite fundamental : it stated that, in accordance with Californian laws, Hergé would have no right to veto in any case of artistic difference. In my opinion, that was unacceptable.  However, Hergé immediately had an answer, and it was clear as day : “I know I’m running the risk that I will not be able to recognize my own characters, but Spielberg is a creative artist himself, and I want to give him my confidence.”

The two men were to meet each other a couple of weeks later in Brussels.  However, Hergé’s death decided differently.  Nevertheless, the contract was signed one year later in New York, with a personal commitment from Spielberg : “I’ll do anything to make you proud of my work…”

Saturday, October 22, 2011, at about 8 PM in the UGC Cinemas in Brussels. I have just attended an advance performance of The Secret of the Unicorn.  Almost thirty years have gone by since we first spoke with Spielberg.  I feel like a child who is finally allowed to open a long-awaited present.  I feel relief when I say that Spielberg has ket all his promises : this is indeed an ‘Indiana Jones for children’, and the film testifies of the enormous respect that Spielberg felt for Hergé.  The homage to Hergé at the beginning of the movie was very moving in that respect (* possible slight spoiler warning, don’t read italics if you don’t want to know! * If you haven’t seen it yet, watch in one of the very first scenes for a street caricaturist drawing our hero in a cartoon style in a marketplace, the street artist’s face modelled after the great Hergé himself in a lovely, subtle touch – Joe) .

Die hard Tintin aficionados will probably have some difficulty with recognizing him on the silver screen, in 3D no less.  Yes, the film unmistakably bears the Spielberg brand.  Yes, the script allows itself numerous liberties vis-a-vis the books it is loosely based on.  Yes, some of the chase scenes are bound to become Hollywood classics.  And indeed, an enormous promotional machinery has been set in motion in order for the producers to earn back their investments.

And still, above all I feel immense joy.  Because Tintin has found the way to adventure again.  I have no doubt that he will be able to excite children all over the world again.  Their expectations, their demands even, have changed over the years, and Spielberg really gets that.  He succeeds in overwhelming them with all the magic of the world of Tintin, to which he adds a new dimension.

Hergé, an artistic genius from the twentieth century who did not want Tintin to survive him in new adventures, knew damn well what he was doing when he put his trust in Spielberg, an artistic genius of the twenty-first century.  Tintin is still alive and kicking, and he divides his time these days between his fatherland, Belgium, and Hollywood : two worlds that are different in so many ways, but also both are the birthplace of modern visual culture.

Long live Hergé’s Tintin books !

Long live Steven Spielberg’s Tintin movies !

Originally published in Stripgids – reproduced with kind permission.  With thanks to Stripgids’ Toon Horsten and special thanks to Marcel Wilmet.

They just don’t do superhero covers quite like that today… (art by Gil Kane and Murphy Anderson, (c) DC Comics)

Actually it’s a top week for some cracking new graphic novel releases, including the gorgeous looking slipcased Parker the Martini Edition, Bocquet and Barthelemey’s The Adventures Of Herge,

And it’s a pretty diverse mix of new titles this week too, including one I have been really looking forward to – it is big and it is clever. Okay, it is big and it is rude, maybe… It’s a big-ass hardback of Evan Dorkin’s bonkers but brilliant Milk & Cheese. I love it, this is how some of us (sick, twisted puppies that we are) entertained ourselves in the days before Jamie Smart’s Corporate Skull…

And as if this isn’t enough there’s this extremely tasty hardback collection of the brilliant Lynda Barry just in the door from D&Q, volume one of Everything:

All this plus a slew of new releases from Marvel and DC too (including the fifth Preacher hardback collection, which has one of my favourite chapters, where Jesse lives his cowboy dream as a small town sherrif). It’s a damned fine week for comics reading, peeps, there’s more just come in the door than we’ve got time to read!

Quick reminder: Toronto Draws Tintin is a month long gallery exhibition at Steamwhistle Gallery from 2nd-27th November, featuring art from many comic artists and all tied into the release of the “The Adventures Of Herge” by Stanislas. The final day of the exhibition will feature a silent auction of the exhibition pieces in support of The Comic Legends Legal Defense Fund. On with the art…..

Maurice Vellekoop:

Brian Evinou:

Benjamin Rivers (Via How To Carve Roast Unicorn, but part of the Toronto Draws Tintin as well)

If you are tired of waiting for The Secret of the Unicorn to finally hit your local multiplex this weekend, or if you prefer the quaint, rather old-fashioned Tintin to the Indiana Jones in Plus-fours that Spielberg seems to have turned him into, this might be something for you.

In 1947, a long time before the animated series that was broadcasted on TV stations across the globe, and a long time even before the very camp and very funny Tintin films starring Jean-Pierre Talbot, a first attempt was made at translating the Tintin stories to the silver screen.  La Crab Aux Pinces D’Or (The Crab With The Golden Claws) was made by the Productions Cinématographiques Wilfried Bouchery et Compagnie from Keerbergen, Belgium, and is a very charming and endearing example of what you can do with just a bunch of puppets, a number of cardboard sets and all the inventiveness that stop-motion animation brings along.

Digital copies of the film had been doing the rounds for a while now, but the Spanish comics blog, La Carcel de Papel, also discovered a copy on YouTube, in four parts.  They are in French, and sometimes quite hard to understand, but very enjoyable nevertheless.  More info here.

French daily Le Figaro has discovered that, in an attempt to finally get the US hooked on Tintin in the wake of the movie, american publisher Little Brown has desecrated the holiest of holies : the covers of the Tintin books, which have remained the same for almost half a century.  In order to make closer ties to the storyline in the film, the publisher wanted covers that were more dynamic, easily recognisable and that focused on characters from the film.  They had only three criteria to live up to : the scene had to be dynamic, Tintin had to be the central character and they had to choose the artwork from the books themselves.  Oh well, if it helps selling more than the meagre 5 million copies the Tintin books have done in the past 50 years, why not ?

A new movie might just as well spawn a whole new deluge of merchandise and derived products.  Strangely enough, none of the books or toys that have been presented bear the characteristic orange-and-blue design that the official Moulinsart-backed products have.  Could it be that Les Héritiers had to settle for a rather smaller portion of the cake ? Whatever the reason, Nick Rodwell’s organisation recently clamped down on a restaurant in Brussels which for twenty years had been decorated with a large number of Tintin memorabilia, from books to statuettes to sketches by other artists.  All of a sudden, this does not fit in the plan that Rodwell has for his property.

(AFP/File, Georges Gobet)

And finally, let’s not forget a lawsuit was still going on against the alledged racist undertones of the seminal Tintin Au Congo. Bienvenu Mbutu Mondondo, a Congolese citizen living in Belgium, wants the book off the shelves, or at least sold with a clear disclaimer, since it is a “justification of colonisation and of white supremacy”.  In a final hearing last week, publisher Casterman maintained that the book was merely a reflection of its time, not so much racist and supremacist, as “paternalistic”.  A ruling is expected for February, 2012.

The Adventures of Hergé was originally published in 1999, to coincide with the 70th anniversary of Tintin, by Les Editions Reporter, one of the more niche publishers in France, specialising in ligne claire and style atome books by the likes of Serge Clerc, François Avril and Yves Challand. As such, it would seem to have been created especially for a romanticized biography comic about the creator of Tintin, drawn by one of the best style atome artists of the moment (and one of the co-founders of L’association). In sixteen vignettes the book recounts the life of Hergé.

Ranging from one single page to six pages or more, the vignettes each single out a particular year featuring an important event in the development of Tintin, or of Hergé as an artist. The story starts in 1914, when at the age of 7, Georges Rémi develops an interest in drawing and art, and goes on to tell of Hergé’s first successes with Tintin, his encounter with Tchang Tchong-Yen, who taught him the virtue of verisimilitude, and the great Raymond Leblanc, who gave him the opportunity to start again after he had been accused of aiding the Nazi government during World War II (see here for a great translated interview by Toon Horsten with Leblanc on the blog earlier).

From the 1950s onwards the anecdotes largely focus on Hergé’s psychological and marital problems, which typically had their influence on the Tintin books. His affair and subsequent marriage to his collaborator, Fanny Vlaminck, resulted in the white-out of Tintin Au Tibet, which can be read as a philosophical search for friendship and innocence. His growing interest in modern art, and the feeling that he was trapped as a comic book creator and would never get recognition as a “serious” artist, were only some of the reasons why Hergé drew less and less as the years progressed. It is striking how the last few stories are all about his renewed contact with his old friend Tchang, and about his continued friendship with is first wife, Germaine.

The stories are meticulously researched, and all quotes and anecdotes can doubtlessly be referenced by numerous reference books. What differentiates this book from the numerous biographies and studies that have been devoted to Hergé and his creation, is the fact that the authors continuously pepper their story with elements from the Tintin books themselves. Hergé’s father and his twin brother, who are generally thought to have been Hergé’s inspiration for Thomson and Thompson, speak in a way that is not unlike their moustached counterparts, and Hergé’s adventure on the Lac Leman is presented in a way that is almost a copy of a similar scene in L’affaire Tournesol. Similarly, details in the background of almost every panel make the book a veritable Where’s Wally for the Tintin afficcionado.

Comics creators, as with everyone who is involved in creating stories that entertain others, are often asked where they get their ideas from. A common belief is that everything that happens to them, somehow ends up in their stories. This book, for once, turns the tables and decorates the life of the creator with tidbits from the stories he created. And the result is a lovely, endearing story that rings true, not only because it has been checked (and double-checked), but more in particular because it adds links and connections that explain one another, and add to the general understanding of one of the most important comics ever.

Oh, and one more thing. Once you finished this, why not teach yourself French and continue with Le Groom Vert-de-Gris by Yann and Olivier Schwartz, which at first glance is a romp of a story set in occupied Brussels, but also is a celebration of and a commentary on the traditional Franco-Belgian comic, how it came to be and why it functions the way it does. Like I said, indispensable.

The Adventures of Hergé by Bocquet, Fromental and Stanislas – due from Drawn & Quarterly, October 2011, available for pre-order from the FPI webstore now. Le Groom Vert-de-Gris by Yann and Schwartz – Dupuis, 2009

First up, it’s a new biography in comic format of Tintin creator Hergé by Lawrence Colonnier, revealingly called Georges et Chang – Une Histoire d’Amour Au XXième Siècle (Georges and Chang, A Love Story in the 20th Century). It focuses on Hergé’s relationship with Chinese student (and later artist) Chang Chong-Yen, whom he met through a common friend while preparing for a new Tintin adventure which was supposed to be set in China (after all, what better way to satisfy a reporter’s curiosity who’s already visited the Soviet Union and the United States). Thanks to Chen, The Blue Lotus, the book that was the result of their collaboration, relied far less on racial stereotypes than its predecessors, and Hergé started to recognize the value of verisimilitude, which his subsequent books (and those of his collaborators) would become known for.

Chang played a major part in the book himself (or rather, one of the main characters had his name, and made sure that Tintin’s view on China was appropriately balanced), and he made sure that all signposts, posters and inscriptions were in perfect Chinese script. Although he would later lose contact with Chang, Hergé would continue to get back in touch, especially after the Communists took up power in China and the situation became very dangerous for artists who were Christian as well. In Tintin in Tibet, this search plays an important part, but only towards the end of Hergé’s life, the two friends would actually meet again

In Colonnier’s book, however, a totally different spin is given to these elements. Here Hergé and Chang are supposed to have been lovers while working on the Blue Lotus, and on top of that, he also attributes communist sympathies to Hergé, even going as far as to have him act as a communist spy. It sure is a change in tone from the right-wing tendencies that Hergé is continually accused of (with valid reasons or not, that is a whole other debate), but I don’t think that Moulinsart will go over it lightly. (via Non-fiction Comics and Bleeding cool – check out fragments from the book there)

A second book, Hergé Tintin – A Life in the Twentieth Century (Fernando Castillo, Fórcola Ediciones) takes a more traditional but no less unauthorised approach to the life of Tintin’s creator. This book tries to sketch a general portrait of European history, culture and values, using Hergé’s life and work as a guideline. Castillo tries to depict Tintin as the embodiment of what are supposed to be the traditional values of European society, a mix of medieval chivalry, mixed with classical culture, Christianity and the Enlightenment.

The origins of Hergé’s look on life have been amply documented – raised in a traditional catholic bourgeois family, he first went to work for the right-wing catholic newspaper Le XXième Siècle, which wanted to use Tintin to warn its readers (and especially the children) against the dangers of communism and other foreign influences. Later he went on to work for Le Soir (during World War II, which caused him considerable problems after the war), and later, when he was creative director for Tintin Magazine, he always at least seemed to be on the side of tradition, conservatism and good old values. Tintin would be the forever boy scout, doing a good deed every day without worrying too much about the politics.

Castillo studies each of the 24 Tintin books, and makes connections with Hergé’s life and background, his education and the people that influenced him. He is obviously a good researcher, who has read all there is to read, but above all he is a fan of the Clear Line, which may explain why the less positive aspects of Western civilisation (racism, imperialism, …) are left out of the equation, as are Hergé’s tendencies to look for inspiration elsewhere later in life, be it eastern philosophy or the wisdom of the Native Americans. But all in all, this book promises to be a welcome addition to the ever-growing Tintin library (via La cárcel De Papel)

All of a sudden, three different posters for the upcoming Tintin movie have popped up all over the internet.  The above one, which was spotlighted by Slashfilm, is the moodiest of them all and, in my opinion, the best, movie-wise.  It shows enough mystery to have people who don’t really know who Tintin is get interested, I think.  Also, it could get people to think the movie stars Brad Pitt and his dog, as one Facebook commenter says.  One gripe from French-speaking Tintin fans though : will the ship actually be called the Unicorn ?  It’s a French ship, so at least call it La Licorne !

The second one features the same Tintin and Snowy stance, but this time against a composite background which should give a good idea of the many settings the movie has.  In order to introduce Captain Haddock in a logical way, the script writers seem to have combined the two part The Secret Of The Unicorn and Red Rackham’s Treasure (largely centered around the mystery of a pirate’s treasure, complete with desert islands), with The Crab With The Golden Claws, which features some harrowing desert scenes.

But wait, there’s more.  On the official Tintin Facebook page, a photo was shown of the teaser poster that is currently used at the Cannes festival.  It’s basically the teaser image that was shown on Empire magazine and the like, but this time Tintin is actually carrying a gun… I know he’s not Batman, and he’s known to be a not that bad shot, but I’d rather see a bit more of the boy scout reporter than of the gun-toting, hardboiled detective…

A quick recap for those amongst you who are not as steeped in Tintin as our dear editor seems to think I am (we know you are, Wim, when a Belgian baby is born the hospital gives them a full medical then their first copy of a Tintin book to start them off :-) – Joe).  When Tintin creator Hergé died in 1983, he left the final Tintin book unfinished, even though he had been working on it since 1978.  Of Tintin Et L’Alph-Art (Tintin And Alph-art) only a handful of the pages had been sketched, and most of them merely existed as preliminary narrative breakdowns or notes.  Even the plot was incomplete : the very last image that was found, showed Tintin being led away to be made into a living work of art.  But even though Hergé’s right-hand man, Bob De Moor, had been working independently on the Tintin books (updating The Black Island into one of the best comics ever made), even he was not allowed to finish it.  Tintin was to die together with his maker.

One of the earliest examples of the Hergé estate being predominantly interested in how to make money from its inheritance, was the publication of the raw version of Alph-art, first as a separate script and a sketchbook in 1987 (in English in 1990), and later as a regular 24th album in the series.   The final English edition by Egmont was published in 2004, completing the Tintin saga for once and for all.

(scenes from the Tintin and Alph-Art attempted by ‘Ramo Nash’)

In the mean time, though, no less than three Tintin fans had started to finish the book on their own.  First there was a version by an artist who called himself Ramo Nash (after the main villain in the book), but this was a fairly sub-standard version, with art that was largely traced from earlier books and a plot that tried to live up to Hergé’s standards, but failed.  However in 1996, one Régric created an attempt as well – to be totally honest, I haven’t seen this one yet.

(cover art from Rodier’s finish based on Hergé’s unfinished tale, Tintin (c) Moulinsart)

The best Tintin et L’alph-art version so far, in my opinion, is the one by Canadian cartoonist Denis Rodier, who also created a few other unauthorised Tintin comics that tried to emulate the Hergé touch rather than exploit or ridicule it.  Rodier is a masterful clear line artist, who only very slightly tries to update Hergé’s style for the 21st century.  Thanks to The Cult Of Tintin, that final book is now finally available in English : a complete English translation (by Richard Wainman), using the right Methuen font and everything from the regular books, has been posted online for all to read and enjoy.  Now you too can read how even in this last book, Tintin’s world only counts one real baddie, and how Tintin may find love after all…

(a scene from Rodier’s take on Alph-Art, which includes a nod to Ramo Nash)

The Belgian economic weekly Trends/Tendances reports that Laurent de Froberville has resigned from his job as director of the Hergé Museum in Louvain-La-Neuve on New Year’s eve.  De Froberville takes this decision a mere three years after his appointment and only a year and a half after the museum opened its doors.  De Froberville has since taken up the position as director of the Alesia park and museum in Alice-Sainte-Reine (France)

Tendances points out the fact that only because the Alesia people made this announcement on their website, that De Froberville’s carreer change became public knowledge.  No statement was made by the company behind the Hergé Museum, La Croix de l’Aigle SA.

When asked for the motivation of his decision, De Froberville stresses that he has always been able to work in a very amicable way with the people behind the museum and that it was time for a new adventure.  Still, the fact that he’s moving on without much ado, only adds to the rumours that more particularly Nick Rodwell was very difficult to work with.

The Museum, which can boast 150.000 visitors since its opening (and which still hosts a special exhibition on Tintin and trains, until February 28), is now looking for a new director.

(via Stripgids)