If Belgium is France's little bilingual
brother, then franco-belgian comic books are the little brothers of
the Louvre's paintings. In anglo-saxon culture, cartoons are often
seen as entertainment for children and computer geeks who live in
their mom's basement but in french-speaking culture, cartooning is
the ninth art (neuvième art ) and cartoonists have the full
respect shown to writers who write books without pictures. The most
respected among them is Hergé, born Georges Rémi, creator of a
timeless little guy named Tintin, whose adventures lasted between
1927 and 1976.
Hergé first published Tintin in in a newspaper called le Petit Vingtième or, the little twentieth (century). Predestinated, considering that after inviting us to Soviet Russia after the 1917 revolution, to Chicago during the prohibition, China during the 1930's japanese occupation, Hergé drew the whole twentieth century as it unfolded in front of his eyes, from the Anschluss in King Ottokar's Sceptor to the arms race in the Calculus Affair to the Moon Landing in Explorers on the Moon, until we see general Alcazar, that Che Guevara-sort of semi-rebel lead a revolution that would make Anonymous proud in Tintin and the Picaros, the only complete album of the series drawn after the 1960s.
I was surprised when I was a teenager and heard that Hergé had been accused of collaborating with the Nazis after World War II. All I knew from Hergé was, if anything against that sort of attrocity. The Blue Lotus is a smart denunciation of the Japanese occupation of China (same war, other place), The Calculus Affair is a warning against all those Cold War weapons that can wipe all life off the planet and even after all this time, page 29 of Tintin in America could be re-named Tintin in Alberta.
...but then there's also Tintin in the Congo. An album fans are uncomfortable with because it puts Tintin in Africa, carrying the « white man's burden » there on behalf of Belgium.
It is easy to be uncomfortable with that reality but we have to admit it; there was a point in history were people thought like that and decades from now, people will look back at us and think the same thing about our way of though. It is easy to retroactively look down at an author for publishing The Shooting Star and The Crab with the Golden Claws in a paper that collaborated with the ennemy during WW2, especially seen from modern days, without a SS under your windows. We all want to be the hero, but heroes are few and far between, that's why they're heroes. Sold as the symbol of innocence, Tintin seen from that angle is...remarquably imperfect, like all of us and a lot like the twentieth century that gave us Mandela, MLK, Gandhi and women's votes but it could not have learned that without making a few major fuckups first.
At the time I'm writing this, Ukraine is on the news. Is it a new Cold war or is the news channel running a good show again? Putin is at odds with what we call « the West » and after whatever comes out if it, who of the two will say, like Kaiser Wilhelm« I did not want this »?
Hergé first published Tintin in in a newspaper called le Petit Vingtième or, the little twentieth (century). Predestinated, considering that after inviting us to Soviet Russia after the 1917 revolution, to Chicago during the prohibition, China during the 1930's japanese occupation, Hergé drew the whole twentieth century as it unfolded in front of his eyes, from the Anschluss in King Ottokar's Sceptor to the arms race in the Calculus Affair to the Moon Landing in Explorers on the Moon, until we see general Alcazar, that Che Guevara-sort of semi-rebel lead a revolution that would make Anonymous proud in Tintin and the Picaros, the only complete album of the series drawn after the 1960s.
I was surprised when I was a teenager and heard that Hergé had been accused of collaborating with the Nazis after World War II. All I knew from Hergé was, if anything against that sort of attrocity. The Blue Lotus is a smart denunciation of the Japanese occupation of China (same war, other place), The Calculus Affair is a warning against all those Cold War weapons that can wipe all life off the planet and even after all this time, page 29 of Tintin in America could be re-named Tintin in Alberta.
...but then there's also Tintin in the Congo. An album fans are uncomfortable with because it puts Tintin in Africa, carrying the « white man's burden » there on behalf of Belgium.
It is easy to be uncomfortable with that reality but we have to admit it; there was a point in history were people thought like that and decades from now, people will look back at us and think the same thing about our way of though. It is easy to retroactively look down at an author for publishing The Shooting Star and The Crab with the Golden Claws in a paper that collaborated with the ennemy during WW2, especially seen from modern days, without a SS under your windows. We all want to be the hero, but heroes are few and far between, that's why they're heroes. Sold as the symbol of innocence, Tintin seen from that angle is...remarquably imperfect, like all of us and a lot like the twentieth century that gave us Mandela, MLK, Gandhi and women's votes but it could not have learned that without making a few major fuckups first.
At the time I'm writing this, Ukraine is on the news. Is it a new Cold war or is the news channel running a good show again? Putin is at odds with what we call « the West » and after whatever comes out if it, who of the two will say, like Kaiser Wilhelm« I did not want this »?
