The Adventures of Tintin

The first publication was January 10, 1929 on the pages of the weekly Twentieth Century for Children (supplement to the Twentieth Century newspaper). The first album, Tintin in the Land of Soviets ( French: Tintin au pays des Soviets ), was published in 1929 . From 1930 to 1976, Erzhe created 24 albums about the adventures of a reporter and his friends (the latter remained incomplete).

During the Second World War, the publication of "Twentieth Century" was discontinued, and Erzhe began to collaborate with the newspaper Le Soir , which occupied pro-fascist positions. After the war, the artist managed to clear his name of accusations of collaborationism ^[4] , since during the occupation he consciously avoided any political motives in his work. Subsequently, his old acquaintance, publisher and member of the Resistance, Raymond Leblanc, opened the Tenten magazine, whose editor-in-chief and author was Erzhe. Post-war albums were done in color, and pre-war albums (with the exception of the very first) were revised and painted.

In the XX century, there were no white spots on the map, and Erzhe was the last romantic of imaginary movements around the globe, Jules Verne comics. Tintin stepped on the lunar surface a decade and a half before Neil Armstrong . He explored Tibet and found the Bigfoot . He was the first to meet with aliens .

- Anton Dolin in Kommersant ^[4]

Tintin and Milu

The protagonist of the series is the newspaper reporter Tintin . His age is not entirely clear; most likely, he is a little over twenty, and during the whole stretched for many years of the story, he does not change at all (in contrast to the reality surrounding him). Thanks to his profession, Tintin travels around the world ( USSR , Europe , America , Africa , Asia ) and becomes a member of fascinating, often risky adventures. His constant companion and faithful friend is the fox terrier Milu (in the Russian versions of Tintin albums - Snowball or Melok).

Other characters

The Tintin series features about 350 characters, some of whom move from one album to another. Here are the main ones:

1. Captain Haddock , a great drinker, master of exquisite curses. In the process, he becomes the owner of the luxurious estate of Mulensar .
2. Professor Tournesol ( Tournesol , in Russian versions of albums about Tintin - Khristaradi or Lakmus , in English - Kalkulyus, Calculus ). Type of scattered and deaf professor. A brilliant inventor. A possible prototype is engineer and physicist Auguste Picard .
3. Dupont and Dupont ( Dupond et Dupont , in the English versions of Thomson and Thompson , whose surnames are spelled differently, but pronounced the same way), two seemingly very unlucky detectives (they are very inferior to Tintin in the ability to investigate a particular incident).
4. Bianca Castafiore , singer, enthusiastic admirer of belcanto and captain Haddock. Her prototype may have been Renata Tebaldi .
5. American millionaire Rastapopoulos ( Rastapopoulos ), Tintin's worst enemy.
6. Nestor , the butler. The noble, faithful Nestor serves his master, Captain Archibald Haddock, at the Mulensar estate. Nestor is described as a tall man, in a butler’s livery, with a potato nose and drooping cheeks, "making him look like a pug."

The adventures of Tintin are a mixture of different genres: adventure novel , detective story , satire , travel novel , science fiction , etc .; many albums contain socially critical motives.

The first album, Tintin in the Land of Soviets, was released in 1930 ; the last of the number fully completed by the author is Tintin and Picaros ( 1976 ). The album Tintin and Alfa Art remained incomplete. Albums compiled by followers of Erzhe after his death are not considered canonical.

All albums (in chronological order)

1. Tintin in the country of the Soviets , September 1930
2. Tintin in the Congo , July 1931
3. Tintin in America , November 1932
4. Cigars of the Pharaoh , October 1934
5. Blue Lotus , September 1936
6. Broken Ear , November 1937
7. Black Island , November 1938
8. Scepter of Ottokar , January 1940
9. Crab with Golden Claws , November 1941
10. Mysterious Star , December 1942
11. The Secret of the Unicorn , October 1943
12. Treasure of the Red Rakham , November 1944
13. 7 crystal balls , September 1948
14. Temple of the Sun , September 1949
15. Tintin in the country of black gold , December 1950
16. Destination - Moon , September 1953
17. Travelers on the Moon , August 1954
18. Professor's case , October 1956
19. Sharks of the Red Sea , July 1958
20. Tintin in Tibet , January 1960
21. Jewels of Castafiore , January 1963
22. Flight 714 to Sydney , January 1968
23. Tintin and the Picaros , January 1976
24. Tintin and Alpha Art , October 1986

Despite its worldwide popularity, The Adventures of Tintin has been criticized. Usually criticized is the stereotypical (and even, according to critics, almost racist ^[5] ) image of the inhabitants of the non-European world. First of all, what has been said refers to the early albums, especially Tintin in the Land of Soviets and Tintin in the Congo , which Erzhe himself recognized in the late period as "mistakes of youth."

In subsequent reissues of albums, Erzhe systematically removed acute issues and seriously remade Tintin in the Congo . The album “Tintin in the Land of Soviets” , which was written under the strong influence of his boss, Abbot Norbert Walle, an ardent anti-communist who worshiped Mussolini , and on the material of a single source - the book of the former Belgian consul in Rostov-on-Don Joseph Dualle “Moscow without integument ”, Erzhe even completely banned reprinting, considering it weak and not meeting the strict standards of authenticity characteristic of his later work. The album, however, gained widespread popularity in pirated publications and was eventually reprinted in 1973 with commentary by the author.

In the mid-30s, while working on Tintin's next adventure (The Blue Lotus, 1936), Erzhe met the budding Chinese sculptor Zhang Chunzhen, who was studying in Belgium at that time, and the two young artists quickly became friends. Zhang's stories had more impact on Erzhe, and from that moment he begins to move away from his early naive racism and strive to maximize the authenticity of his work. The artist’s political views also change - from the right-conservative, Catholic traditions in which he was raised, Erzhe begins to migrate towards universalism and moderately social-democratic views. In his later albums, he himself regularly regularly criticizes colonialism, the dominance of large corporations, and the arms race. His works from the time of the war and later reflect the left rather than the right spectrum of political views.

British modernist writer Tom McCarthy published the book Tintin and the Secret of Literature in 2006, in which he insists on the psychoanalytic background of Tintin’s adventures. He cites the data of biographers Erzhe that his grandmother worked as a servant in the country estate of Chaumont-Jistou - a favorite vacation spot of the Belgian royal family. In 1882, she became pregnant from an unknown high-ranking guest and gave birth to twins. They were father and uncle Erzhe, resembling Dupont and Dupont . In official documents, the gardener was named the father, but the legend was rooted in the family that the loving Belgian monarch was the real father of the twins.

Combining psychoanalysis with conspiracy theories , McCarthy is trying to find the second bottom of Tintin's Adventures in the form of a secret story of the Erzhe family. For example, the seduction of a maid by a dishonest aristocrat is the subject of that aria from Gounod's Faust , which is mentioned several times in the comics. Each time Bianca Castafiore tries to fulfill it, Captain Haddock pinches his ears, because the captain’s family history has many skeletons. The Mulensar family estate was donated in the 17th century to his ancestor by the “ sun king ”. Usually, Louis made such gifts to his illegitimate children as a sign of informal recognition of his paternity.

Comics about Tintin were not published in the Soviet Union , among other reasons, due to the anti-Soviet and pro-colonialist orientation of a number of albums. Although in 1993 the first comic strip about Tintin in Russian (“ Temple of the Sun ”) was published, by the beginning of the 21st century Russia remained one of the few European countries where Tintin remained almost unknown to the general public ^[4] .

From 1993 to 2001, the French publishing house Kasterman published several books about the adventures of a reporter in Russian. In them, the main character was translated as Tantanum. In total, eight albums were published (“Temple of the Sun”, “The Secret of the Unicorn”, “Treasures of Bloody Rockham”, “Seven Crystal Balls”, “Crab with Golden Claws”, “Mysterious Star”, “Flight to the Moon” and “First Steps to the Moon” Moon ”), but now it’s very difficult to get them in Russia. Kasterman also collaborated with the Russian publishing house MK-Knigi, together they released the album Pharaoh ’s Cigars in 2006, but it sold very poorly.

Since 2013, Makhaon Publishing House has begun publishing a full series of books on Tintin’s adventures in Russian: in 2013, Pharaoh’s Cigars, Blue Lotus, Crab with Golden Claws, Black Island, and Secret Unicorn “” and “Treasure of the Red Rakham”, in 2014 - “The Mysterious Star” and “Broken Ear”, in 2015 - “Tintin in the Congo”, “Tintin in America”, “7 Crystal Balls”, “Temple of the Sun”, “ Tintin in Tibet ”,“ Scepter of Ottokar ”,“ Destination - Moon ”and“ Travelers on the Moon ”, in 2016 -“ Jewels of Castafiore ”,“ Flight 714 to Sydney ”,“ Tin ting in the country of Black Gold ”,“ Case of the Professor ”,“ Sharks of the Red Sea ”and“ Tintin and Picaros ”.

In the 1990s, the 1972 animated film " " was shown on Russian television.

The adventures of Tintin are repeatedly filmed: “ Tintin and the mystery of the Golden Fleece ” ( 1961 ), “ Tintin and the Blue Orange ” ( 1964 ) and “ Tintin and the Temple of the Sun ” ( 1969 ). The first two films were shot based on the motives and, in addition to the main characters, the films have nothing in common with the comics, while Tintin and the Temple of the Sun was shot on one of Erzhe's albums. In 1990, Stephanie Bernasconi directed the animated series “The Adventures of Tintin,” and in 2011 the movie “ The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn ” was released, directed by Stephen Spielberg .

• Tom McCarthy Tintin and the Secret of Literature. M .: Ad Margin Press , 2013.

• Asterix is the hero of another popular Franco-Belgian comic book series.
• Arsene Lupine - Another Adventurer Popular with the French-Speaking Public

• Official site (French, English, goal, Japanese)
• Tintinologist.org