Without rival

Tintin is a name that you will have heard of, even if you don8217;t know for sure who he is. Any child will gladly enlighten any poor soul who is ignorant of Tintin 8212; a boy reporter, who with his dog Snowy, and friend Captain Haddock, rescue the world from evildoers, time and again. Tintin was the creation of the Belgian Georges Remi, who used the pseudonym, Herge, derived from the pronunciation of his reversed initials, RG. And on Herge8217;s centenary today, there8217;s good news 8212; ace directors Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson are making a Tintin trilogy.

The young Herge drew comics for Le Boy-Scout, his hero Totor a clear precursor of Tintin. His drawings brought him to the attention of Abbe Wallez, a right-wing priest and editor of Le Vingtieme Siecle. On January 10, 1929, Tintin and Snowy appeared for the first time in a supplement, Le Petit Vingtieme. It was a crude black and white adventure set in the Soviet Union, but an instant hit. Herge drew other characters 8212; Quick, Flupke and Jo; and Zette and Jocko 8212; but they never reached the popularity of Tintin and are largely forgotten. Wallez8217;s paper folded in World War II, but Herge continued Tintin in a pro-German paper, which tarred his reputation for ever. Blackballed after the war, he sprang back with Studio Herge and the Tintin magazine in France in 1950.

There was no looking back. Tintin8217;s popularity grew worldwide, especially after the English versions began to come out in the 1960s. His only rival was Asterix, whose creators doffed their hats to Herge by drawing him as a bystander in one of their comics. The 24 albums were followed by cartoons, films with Jean-Pierre Talbot as our hero, and translations in at least 45 languages, including Hindi. In Hindi it takes time to realise that 8220;bhadakte hue baingan and toofani lehren8221; are actually Captain Haddock8217;s legendary war cries, 8220;Blistering barnacles8221; and 8220;Thundering typhoons8221;. The pace at which Herge worked had its inevitable toll, with bouts of depression and illnesses, and he died on March 3, 1983. The news made the front page worldwide, and in France, it pushed the election of Francois Mitterand as president off the front pages, with blackborder pages proclaiming: 8220;Tintin est mort!8221;