Hergé
Encyclopedia
Georges Prosper Remi better known by the pen name
Hergé, was a Belgian
comics
writer and artist
. His best known and most substantial work is the 23 completed comic books in The Adventures of Tintin
series, which he wrote and illustrated from 1929 until his death in 1983, although he was also responsible for other well known comic book series such as Quick & Flupke
(1930–1940) and Jo, Zette and Jocko
(1936–1957).
Born into a middle-class family in Etterbeek
, Brussels
, he took a keen interest in Scouting
in early life, something that would prove highly influential on his later work. Initially producing illustrations for Belgian Scouting magazines, in 1927 he began working for the conservative wing newspaper Le XXe Siècle
, where he adopted the pen name "Hergé" ɛʁʒe, based upon the French pronunciation of "RG", his initials reversed. It was here, in 1929, that he began serialising the first of the Adventures of Tintin, Tintin in the Land of the Soviets
.
The notable qualities of the Tintin stories include their vivid humanism, a realistic feel produced by meticulous and wide ranging research, and Hergé's ligne claire
drawing style. Adult readers enjoy the many satirical references to the history and politics of the 20th century. The Blue Lotus
, for example, was inspired by the Mukden incident
that led to the Chinese-Japanese War of 1934. King Ottokar's Sceptre
could be read against the background of Hitler's Anschluss
or in the context of the struggle between the Romanian Iron Guard
and the King of Romania, Carol II; whilst later albums such as The Calculus Affair
depict the Cold War
. Hergé has become one of the most famous Belgians worldwide and Tintin is still an international success.
Hergé is a prominent national hero in his native country, to the extent where he has been described as the actual "personification of Belgium". The long-awaited Hergé Museum was opened in Louvain-La-Neuve
on 2 June 2009. Designed by Pritzker Prize
-winning architect Christian de Portzamparc
, the museum reflects Hergé's huge corpus of work which has, until now, been sitting in studios and bank vaults. His work remains a strong influence on comics, particularly in Europe. He was inducted into the Comic Book Hall of Fame in 2003.
, Brussels
, a central area in the capital city of Belgium, to middle class parents; his father, the Wallonian Alexis Remi, worked in a candy factory, whilst his mother, the Flemish
Elisabeth Dufour, was a homemaker. His primary language was his father's French, but growing up in the bilingual Brussels, he also learned how to speak Flemish, developing a Marollien
accent from his maternal grandmother. Like the majority of Belgians at that time, his family belonged to the Catholic Church, though they were not particularly devout.
He would later characterise his life in Etterbeek as being dominated by a monochrome gray, and would always remember it as having been extremely boring. Trying to escape this boredom, the young Remi immersed himself in reading novels, in particular those written by British and American authors, such as Huckleberry Finn
, Treasure Island
, Robinson Crusoe
and The Pickwick Papers
, although also read a number of French novels, such as General Dourakine, Twenty Years After
and The Vicomte of Bragelonne: Ten Years Later. He also took to drawing as a hobby, sketching out stories and scenes from his daily life along the edges of his school books. Some of these illustrations were of German soldiers, because his four years of primary schooling coincided with World War I
(1914–1918), during which Brussels was occupied by the German Empire
. It was in these early years that Remi also developed a love of cinema, particularly favouring Windsor McCay's pioneering animated film Gertie the Dinosaur
and the films featuring Charlie Chaplin
, Harry Langdon
and Buster Keaton
; his later work in the comic strip medium would display an obvious influence from these early films in style and content.
In 1920 he began his secondary education at Saint-Boniface School, an institution controlled by the archbishop where the teachers were Roman Catholic priests. Georges joined the Boy Scouts
troop of the school, where he was given the totemic name "Renard curieux" (Curious fox). In 2007, an old "strip" by him was found on a wall of the school. His first drawings were published in 1922 in Jamais assez, the school's Scout paper, and in Le Boy-Scout Belge, the Scout monthly magazine. From 1924, he signed his illustrations using the pseudonym "Hergé". His subsequent comics work would be heavily influenced by the ethics of the Scouting movement
, as well as the early travel experiences he made with the Scout association.
On finishing school in 1925 Georges worked at the Catholic newspaper Le XXe Siècle
under the editor Norbert Wallez, a Catholic abbot. The following year, he published his first cartoon series, Totor
, in the Scouting magazine Le Boy-Scout Belge. In 1928, he was put in charge of producing material for the Le XXe Siècle's new weekly supplement for children, Le Petit Vingtième
. He began illustrating The Adventures of Flup, Nénesse, Poussette, and Cochonnet, a strip written by a member of the newspaper's sports staff, but soon became dissatisfied with this series. Wallez asked Remi to create a young hero, a Catholic reporter who would fight for good all over the world. He decided to create a comic strip of his own, which would adopt the recent American innovation of using speech balloon
s to depict words coming out of the characters' mouths, inspired by their use by established French comics author Alain St. Ogan.
, by "Hergé", appeared in the pages of Le Petit Vingtième on 10 January 1929, and ran until 8 May 1930. The strip chronicled the adventures of a young reporter named Tintin
and his pet fox terrier
Snowy
(Milou) as they journeyed through the Soviet Union
. The character of Tintin was partly inspired by Georges' brother Paul Remi, an officer in the Belgian army.
In January 1930 Hergé introduced Quick & Flupke
(Quick et Flupke), a new comic strip about two street urchins from Brussels, in the pages of Le Petit Vingtième. For many years, Hergé continued to produce this less well-known series in parallel with his Tintin stories. In June he began the second Tintin adventure, Tintin in the Congo
(then the colony
of Belgian Congo
), followed by Tintin in America
and Cigars of the Pharaoh
.
On 20 July 1932 he married Germaine Kieckens, the secretary of the director of the Le XXe Siècle, whom he had first met in 1927. They had no children, and eventually divorced in 1977.
The early Tintin adventures each took about a year to complete, upon which they were released in book form by Le Petit Vingtième and, from 1934, by the Casterman
publishing house. Hergé continued to revise these stories in subsequent editions, including a later conversion to colour.
Hergé reached a watershed with The Blue Lotus
, the fifth Tintin adventure. At the close of the previous story, Cigars of the Pharaoh, he had mentioned that Tintin's next adventure would bring him to China. Father Gosset, the chaplain to the Chinese students at the Catholic University of Leuven
, wrote to Hergé urging him to be sensitive about what he wrote about China. Hergé agreed, and in the spring of 1934 Gosset introduced him to Chang Chong-jen (Chang Chongren), a young sculpture student at the Brussels Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts
. The two young artists quickly became close friends, and Chang introduced Hergé to Chinese culture and the techniques of Chinese art
. As a result of this experience, Hergé strove in The Blue Lotus, and in subsequent Tintin adventures, to be meticulously accurate in depicting the places which Tintin visited. As a token of appreciation he added a fictional "Chang Chong-Chen
" to The Blue Lotus, a young Chinese boy who meets and befriends Tintin.
At the end of his studies in Brussels, Chang returned home to China, and Hergé lost contact with him during the invasion of China by Japan and the subsequent civil war
. More than four decades passed before the two friends would meet again.
, Hergé was mobilized as a reserve lieutenant, and had to interrupt Tintin's adventures in the middle of Land of Black Gold
. Prior to the invasion of neutral Belgium by German forces, Hergé published humoristic drawings in L'Ouest, a paper run by future collaborator Raymond de Becker
and which strongly advocated that Belgium not join the war alongside its World War One allies France and Britain. By the summer of 1940 Belgium had fallen to Germany along with most of Western Continental Europe
.
Le Petit Vingtième, in which Tintin's adventures had until then been published, was shut down by the Nazi occupiers. However, Hergé accepted an offer to produce a new Tintin strip in Le Soir
, Brussels' leading French daily, which had been appropriated as the mouthpiece of the occupation forces. He left Land of the Black Gold unfinished, launching instead into The Crab with the Golden Claws
, the first of six Tintin stories which he produced during the war.
As the war progressed, two factors arose that led to a revolution in Hergé's style. Firstly, paper shortages forced Tintin to be published in a daily three- or four-frame strip, rather than the two full pages every week which had been the practice on Le Petit Vingtième. In order to create tension at the end of each strip rather than the end of each page, Hergé had to introduce more frequent gags and faster-paced action. Secondly, Hergé had to move the focus of Tintin's adventures away from current affairs, in order to avoid controversy. He turned to stories with an escapist flavour: an expedition to a meteorite (The Shooting Star
), an intriguing mystery and treasure hunt (The Secret of the Unicorn
and Red Rackham's Treasure
), and a quest to undo an ancient Inca curse (The Seven Crystal Balls
and Prisoners of the Sun
).
In these stories Hergé placed more emphasis on characters than plot, and indeed Tintin's most memorable companions, Captain Haddock
and Cuthbert Calculus (in French Professeur Tryphon Tournesol), were introduced at this time. Haddock debuted in The Crab with the Golden Claws and Calculus in Red Rackham's Treasure.
The Shooting Star was nonetheless controversial. The story line involved a race between two ship crews trying to reach a meteorite which had landed in the Arctic. Hergé chose a subject that was as fantastic as possible rather than issues related to the crisis of the times to avoid trouble with the censors. Nonetheless politics intruded. The crew Tintin joined was composed of Europeans from Axis or neutral countries ("Europe") while their underhanded rivals were Americans (although in later editions the US flag was removed from the rival ship; see the image on the The Shooting Star
page), financed by a person with a Jewish name and what Nazi propagandists called "Jewish features." Tintin also flies in a German Arado Ar 196
plane.
In a scene which appeared when the story was being serialised in Le Soir two Jews, depicted in classic anti-Semitic caricature, are shown watching Philippulus harassing Tintin. One actually looks forward to the end of the world, arguing that it would mean that he would not be obliged to settle with his creditors (see the image on the Ideology of Tintin
page).
In 1943 Hergé met Edgar P. Jacobs, another comics artist, whom he hired to help revise the early Tintin albums. Jacobs' most significant contribution would be his redrawing of the costumes and backgrounds in the revised edition of King Ottokar's Sceptre
which gave it a Balkan feel—in the original, the castle guards had been dressed as British Beefeaters. Jacob also began collaborating with Hergé on a new Tintin adventure, The Seven Crystal Balls (see above).
During and after the German occupation Hergé was accused of being a collaborator
because of the Nazi control of the paper , and he was briefly taken in for interrogation after the war. He claimed that he was simply doing a job under the occupation, like a plumber or carpenter.
After the war Hergé admitted that: "I recognize that I myself believed that the future of the West could depend on the New Order
. For many, democracy had proved a disappointment, and the New Order brought new hope. In light of everything which has happened, it is of course a huge error to have believed for an instant in the New Order." The Tintin character was never depicted as adhering to these beliefs. However, it has been argued that anti-Semitic themes continued, especially in the depiction of Tintin's enemy Rastapopoulos in the post-war Flight 714
, though other writers argue against this, pointing out the way that Rastapopoulos surrounds himself with explicitly German-looking characters: Kurt, the submarine (or u-boat
) commander of The Red Sea Sharks
; Doctor Krollspell, whom Hergé himself referred to as a former concentration camp official, and Hans Boehm, the sinister-looking navigator and co-pilot, both from Flight 714
.
when the Allied
authorities shut down Le Soir. During the chaotic post-occupation period, Hergé was arrested four times by different groups. He was publicly accused of being a Nazi
/Rexist
sympathizer, a claim which was largely unfounded, as the Tintin adventures published during the war were scrupulously free of politics (the only dubious point occurring in The Shooting Star
, discussed above). In fact, one or two stories published before the war had been critical of fascism
; most prominently, King Ottokar's Sceptre
showed Tintin working to defeat a coup attempt that could be seen as an allegory of the Anschluss
, Nazi Germany
's takeover of Austria. Nevertheless, like other former employees of the Nazi-controlled press, Hergé found himself barred from newspaper work. He spent the next two years working with Jacobs, as well as a new assistant, Alice Devos, adapting many of the early Tintin adventures into colour.
Tintin's exile ended on 26 September 1946. The publisher and wartime resistance fighter Raymond Leblanc
provided the financial support and anti-Nazi credentials to launch the comics magazine
titled Tintin
with Hergé. The weekly publication featured two pages of Tintin's adventures, beginning with the remainder of The Seven Crystal Balls
, as well as other comic strips and assorted articles. It became highly successful, with circulation surpassing 100,000 every week.
Tintin had always been credited as simply "by Hergé", without mention of Edgar Pierre Jacobs and Hergé's other assistants. As Jacobs' contribution to the production of the strip increased, he asked for a joint credit in 1944, which Hergé refused. They continued to collaborate intensely until 1946, when Jacobs went on to produce his own comics for Tintin magazine, including the widely-acclaimed Blake and Mortimer
.
was interrupted for two months when an exhausted Hergé took a long vacation. Hergé, disillusioned by his treatment and that of many of his colleagues and friends after the war, planned to migrate with his wife Germaine to Argentina, but later abandoned the plan when he began a love affair. In 1949, while working on the new version of Land of Black Gold
(the first version had been left unfinished by the outbreak of World War II), Hergé suffered a nervous breakdown
and was forced to take an abrupt four month-long break. He suffered another breakdown in early 1950, while working on Destination Moon
.
In order to lighten Hergé's workload Hergé Studios was set up on 6 April 1950. The studio employed several assistants to aid Hergé in the production of The Adventures of Tintin. Foremost among these was artist Bob de Moor
, who collaborated with Hergé on the remaining Tintin adventures, filling in details and backgrounds such as the spectacular lunar landscapes in Explorers on the Moon
. With the aid of the studio, Hergé managed to produce The Calculus Affair
from 1954 until 1956, followed by The Red Sea Sharks
in 1956 to 1957.
By the end of this period his personal life was again in crisis. His marriage with Germaine was breaking apart after twenty-five years; he had fallen in love with Fanny Vlamynck
, a young artist who had recently joined the Hergé Studios. Furthermore, he was plagued by recurring nightmare
s filled with whiteness. He consulted a Swiss psychoanalyst, who advised him to give up working on Tintin. Instead, he finished Tintin in Tibet
, started the year before.
Published in Tintin magazine from September 1958 to November 1959, Tintin in Tibet sent Tintin to the Himalayas
in search of Chang Chong-Chen
, the Chinese boy he had befriended in The Blue Lotus
. The adventure allowed Hergé to confront his nightmares by filling the book with austere alpine
landscapes, giving the adventure a powerfully spacious setting. The normally rich cast of characters was pared to a minimum—Tintin, Captain Haddock, and the sherpa Tharkey—as the story focused on Tintin's dogged search for Chang. Hergé came to regard this highly personal and emotionally riveting Tintin adventure as his favourite. The completion of the story seemed also to signal an end to his problems: he was no longer troubled by nightmares, divorced Germaine in 1977 (they had separated in 1960), and finally married Fanny Vlamynck on 20 May of the same year.
in 1961, Flight 714 to Sydney in 1966, and Tintin and the Picaros
in 1975. However, by this time Tintin had begun to move into other media. From the start of Tintin magazine, Raymond Leblanc had used Tintin for merchandising and advertisements. In 1961 the second Tintin film was made: Tintin and the Golden Fleece
, starring Jean-Pierre Talbot as Tintin (an earlier stop motion
-animated film was made in 1947 called The Crab with the Golden Claws, but it was screened publicly only once). Several traditionally-animated
Tintin films have also been made, beginning with The Calculus Case in 1961.
The financial success of Tintin allowed Hergé to devote more of his time to travel. He travelled widely across Europe, and in 1971 visited America for the first time, meeting some of the Native Americans
whose culture had long been a source of fascination for him. In 1973 he visited Taiwan
, accepting an invitation offered three decades before by the Kuomintang
government, in appreciation of The Blue Lotus
.
In a remarkable instance of life mirroring art, Hergé managed to resume contact with his old friend Chang Chong-jen, years after Tintin rescued the fictional Chang Chong-Chen
in the closing pages of Tintin in Tibet
. Chang had been reduced to a street sweeper by the Cultural Revolution
, before becoming the head of the Fine Arts Academy in Shanghai during the 1970s. He returned to Europe for a reunion with Hergé in 1981, and settled in Paris in 1985, where he died in 1998.
Hergé died on 3 March 1983, aged 75. He had been severely ill for several years, but the nature of his disease was unclear, possibly leukemia
or a form of porphyria
. His death was hastened by an HIV
infection that he had become the victim of during his weekly blood transfusions.
He left the twenty-fourth Tintin adventure, Tintin and Alph-Art
, unfinished. Following his expressed desire not to have Tintin handled by another artist, it was published posthumously as a set of sketches and notes in 1986. In 1987 Fanny closed the Hergé Studios, replacing it with the Hergé Foundation. In 1988 the Tintin magazine was discontinued.
A cartoon version of Hergé makes a number of cameo appearances in Ellipse
-Nelvana
's The Adventures of Tintin
TV cartoon series. An animated version of Hergé also makes a cameo appearance at the start of the 2011
performance capture film, The Adventures of Tintin (directed by Steven Spielberg
and produced by Peter Jackson
), where he is depicted as an artist in a marketplace in Brussels, and draws a cartoon of Tintin (portrayed by Jamie Bell
) himself, while constantly reminding him that "his [Tintin] face looked familiar".
Hergé gave all rights to the creation of dolls and merchandise after his death to Michel Aroutcheff. Michel was Hergé's neighbour and a good friend. Aroutcheff then sold on these rights only keeping the right to make Tintin's red rocket when he goes to the moon.
and Ingres
, whose drawings with pure lines he admired. He was also very interested in contemporary artists, such as Lichtenstein
, Warhol
and Miro
. About Miro, he confided to his art adviser and friend Pierre Sterckx that he felt a shock the first time he saw one of his paintings. Hergé began to acquire artworks in the fifties, mainly paintings by Flemish expressionists
. In the early sixties, he attended the Gallerie Carrefour of Marcel Stal and, through his contacts with artists, critics and collectors, he began to buy works from Fontana
, Poliakoff
and many others.
In 1962, Hergé decided he wanted to paint. He chose Louis Van Lint
, one of the most respected Belgian abstract painters
at the time, whose work he liked a lot, to be his private teacher. For a year, Hergé learned under Van Lint's guidance, and 37 paintings emerged, influenced by Van Lint, Miro, Poliakoff, Devan or Klee
. Hergé, however, eventually gave up painting, thinking that he could not fully express himself through this art form. His paintings from this period are nonetheless valued by collectors not only because they are by Hergé but also for their intrinsic qualities.
According to the UNESCO
's Index Translationum
, Hergé is the ninth-most-often-translated French-language author, the second-most-often-translated Belgian author after Georges Simenon
, and the second-most-often-translated French-language comics author behind René Goscinny
.
1652 Hergé
, an asteroid
of the main belt, is named after him (see also 1683 Castafiore
).
Pen name
A pen name, nom de plume, or literary double, is a pseudonym adopted by an author. A pen name may be used to make the author's name more distinctive, to disguise his or her gender, to distance an author from some or all of his or her works, to protect the author from retribution for his or her...
Hergé, was a Belgian
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
comics
Comics
Comics denotes a hybrid medium having verbal side of its vocabulary tightly tied to its visual side in order to convey narrative or information only, the latter in case of non-fiction comics, seeking synergy by using both visual and verbal side in...
writer and artist
Artist
An artist is a person engaged in one or more of any of a broad spectrum of activities related to creating art, practicing the arts and/or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse is a practitioner in the visual arts only...
. His best known and most substantial work is the 23 completed comic books in The Adventures of Tintin
The Adventures of Tintin
The Adventures of Tintin is a series of classic comic books created by Belgian artist , who wrote under the pen name of Hergé...
series, which he wrote and illustrated from 1929 until his death in 1983, although he was also responsible for other well known comic book series such as Quick & Flupke
Quick & Flupke
Quick & Flupke is a comic book series by Hergé about two street urchins in Brussels named Quick and Flupke...
(1930–1940) and Jo, Zette and Jocko
Jo, Zette and Jocko
The Adventures of Jo, Zette and Jocko is a comic book series created by Hergé, the Belgian writer-artist who was best known for The Adventures of Tintin...
(1936–1957).
Born into a middle-class family in Etterbeek
Etterbeek
Etterbeek is one of the nineteen municipalities located in the Brussels-Capital Region of Belgium. It neighbours the municipalities of the City of Brussels, Ixelles, Auderghem, Woluwe-Saint-Pierre, Woluwe-Saint-Lambert and Schaerbeek....
, Brussels
Brussels
Brussels , officially the Brussels Region or Brussels-Capital Region , is the capital of Belgium and the de facto capital of the European Union...
, he took a keen interest in Scouting
Scouting
Scouting, also known as the Scout Movement, is a worldwide youth movement with the stated aim of supporting young people in their physical, mental and spiritual development, that they may play constructive roles in society....
in early life, something that would prove highly influential on his later work. Initially producing illustrations for Belgian Scouting magazines, in 1927 he began working for the conservative wing newspaper Le XXe Siècle
Le XXe Siècle
Le XXe Siècle was a Belgian newspaper that was published from 1895 and 1940. Its supplement Le Petit Vingtième is known as the first publication to feature The Adventures of Tintin....
, where he adopted the pen name "Hergé" ɛʁʒe, based upon the French pronunciation of "RG", his initials reversed. It was here, in 1929, that he began serialising the first of the Adventures of Tintin, Tintin in the Land of the Soviets
Tintin in the Land of the Soviets
Tintin in the Land of the Soviets is the first title in the comic book series The Adventures of Tintin, written and drawn by Belgian cartoonist Hergé...
.
The notable qualities of the Tintin stories include their vivid humanism, a realistic feel produced by meticulous and wide ranging research, and Hergé's ligne claire
Ligne claire
Ligne claire is a style of drawing pioneered by Hergé, the Belgian creator of The Adventures of Tintin. It uses clear strong lines of uniform importance. Artists working in it do not use hatching, while contrast is downplayed as well...
drawing style. Adult readers enjoy the many satirical references to the history and politics of the 20th century. The Blue Lotus
The Blue Lotus
The Blue Lotus , first published in 1936, is one of The Adventures of Tintin, a series of classic comic-strip albums written and illustrated by Hergé featuring young reporter Tintin as a hero. It is a sequel to Cigars of the Pharaoh, with Tintin continuing his struggle against a major gang of drug...
, for example, was inspired by the Mukden incident
Mukden Incident
The Mukden Incident, also known as the Manchurian Incident, was a staged event that was engineered by Japanese military personnel as a pretext for invading the northern part of China known as Manchuria in 1931....
that led to the Chinese-Japanese War of 1934. King Ottokar's Sceptre
King Ottokar's Sceptre
King Ottokar's Sceptre is the eighth of The Adventures of Tintin, a series of classic comic-strip albums, written and illustrated by Belgian writer and illustrator Hergé, featuring the young reporter Tintin. It was first serialized as a black-and-white comic strip in Le Petit Vingtième on 4 August...
could be read against the background of Hitler's Anschluss
Anschluss
The Anschluss , also known as the ', was the occupation and annexation of Austria into Nazi Germany in 1938....
or in the context of the struggle between the Romanian Iron Guard
Iron Guard
The Iron Guard is the name most commonly given to a far-right movement and political party in Romania in the period from 1927 into the early part of World War II. The Iron Guard was ultra-nationalist, fascist, anti-communist, and promoted the Orthodox Christian faith...
and the King of Romania, Carol II; whilst later albums such as The Calculus Affair
The Calculus Affair
The Calculus Affair is the eighteenth of The Adventures of Tintin, a series of classic comic-strip albums, written and illustrated by Belgian writer and illustrator Hergé, featuring young reporter Tintin as a hero....
depict the Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
. Hergé has become one of the most famous Belgians worldwide and Tintin is still an international success.
Hergé is a prominent national hero in his native country, to the extent where he has been described as the actual "personification of Belgium". The long-awaited Hergé Museum was opened in Louvain-La-Neuve
Louvain-la-Neuve
Louvain-la-Neuve is a planned city in the municipality of Ottignies-Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium, situated 30 km southeast of Brussels, in the French-speaking part of the country...
on 2 June 2009. Designed by Pritzker Prize
Pritzker Prize
The Pritzker Architecture Prize is awarded annually by the Hyatt Foundation to honour "a living architect whose built work demonstrates a combination of those qualities of talent, vision and commitment, which has produced consistent and significant contributions to humanity and the built...
-winning architect Christian de Portzamparc
Christian de Portzamparc
Christian de Portzamparc is a French architect and urbanist. He graduated from the École Nationale des Beaux Arts in Paris in 1970 and has since been noted for his bold designs and artistic touch; his projects reflect a sensibility to their environment and the town is a founding principal of his...
, the museum reflects Hergé's huge corpus of work which has, until now, been sitting in studios and bank vaults. His work remains a strong influence on comics, particularly in Europe. He was inducted into the Comic Book Hall of Fame in 2003.
Childhood and early career: 1907–1928
Georges Prosper Remi was born on 22 May 1907 in EtterbeekEtterbeek
Etterbeek is one of the nineteen municipalities located in the Brussels-Capital Region of Belgium. It neighbours the municipalities of the City of Brussels, Ixelles, Auderghem, Woluwe-Saint-Pierre, Woluwe-Saint-Lambert and Schaerbeek....
, Brussels
Brussels
Brussels , officially the Brussels Region or Brussels-Capital Region , is the capital of Belgium and the de facto capital of the European Union...
, a central area in the capital city of Belgium, to middle class parents; his father, the Wallonian Alexis Remi, worked in a candy factory, whilst his mother, the Flemish
Flemish
Flemish can refer to anything related to Flanders, and may refer directly to the following articles:*Flemish, an informal, though linguistically incorrect, name of any kind of the Dutch language as spoken in Belgium....
Elisabeth Dufour, was a homemaker. His primary language was his father's French, but growing up in the bilingual Brussels, he also learned how to speak Flemish, developing a Marollien
Marols
Marols or Marollien was a dialect spoken in Brussels. Essentially it is a Dutch dialect incorporating many words of French origin as well as a sprinkling of Spanish dating back to the rule of the Low Countries by the Habsburgs...
accent from his maternal grandmother. Like the majority of Belgians at that time, his family belonged to the Catholic Church, though they were not particularly devout.
He would later characterise his life in Etterbeek as being dominated by a monochrome gray, and would always remember it as having been extremely boring. Trying to escape this boredom, the young Remi immersed himself in reading novels, in particular those written by British and American authors, such as Huckleberry Finn
Huckleberry Finn
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a classic Mark Twain novel.Huckleberry Finn may also refer to:*Huckleberry Finn , a fictional character in the Adventures of Tom Sawyer...
, Treasure Island
Treasure Island
Treasure Island is an adventure novel by Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson, narrating a tale of "pirates and buried gold". First published as a book on May 23, 1883, it was originally serialized in the children's magazine Young Folks between 1881–82 under the title Treasure Island; or, the...
, Robinson Crusoe
Robinson Crusoe
Robinson Crusoe is a novel by Daniel Defoe that was first published in 1719. Epistolary, confessional, and didactic in form, the book is a fictional autobiography of the title character—a castaway who spends 28 years on a remote tropical island near Trinidad, encountering cannibals, captives, and...
and The Pickwick Papers
The Pickwick Papers
The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club is the first novel by Charles Dickens. After the publication, the widow of the illustrator Robert Seymour claimed that the idea for the novel was originally her husband's; however, in his preface to the 1867 edition, Dickens strenuously denied any...
, although also read a number of French novels, such as General Dourakine, Twenty Years After
Twenty Years After
Twenty Years After is a novel by Alexandre Dumas, père, first serialized from January to August, 1845. A book of the D'Artagnan Romances, it is a sequel to The Three Musketeers and precedes The Vicomte de Bragelonne .The novel follows events in France during La Fronde, during the childhood reign...
and The Vicomte of Bragelonne: Ten Years Later. He also took to drawing as a hobby, sketching out stories and scenes from his daily life along the edges of his school books. Some of these illustrations were of German soldiers, because his four years of primary schooling coincided with World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
(1914–1918), during which Brussels was occupied by the German Empire
German Empire
The German Empire refers to Germany during the "Second Reich" period from the unification of Germany and proclamation of Wilhelm I as German Emperor on 18 January 1871, to 1918, when it became a federal republic after defeat in World War I and the abdication of the Emperor, Wilhelm II.The German...
. It was in these early years that Remi also developed a love of cinema, particularly favouring Windsor McCay's pioneering animated film Gertie the Dinosaur
Gertie the Dinosaur
Gertie the Dinosaur is a 1914 American animated short film by Winsor McCay. Although not the first feature-length animated film, as is sometimes thought, it was the first cartoon to feature a character with an appealing personality...
and the films featuring Charlie Chaplin
Charlie Chaplin
Sir Charles Spencer "Charlie" Chaplin, KBE was an English comic actor, film director and composer best known for his work during the silent film era. He became the most famous film star in the world before the end of World War I...
, Harry Langdon
Harry Langdon
Harry Philmore Langdon was an American comedian who appeared in vaudeville, silent films , and talkies. He was briefly partnered with Oliver Hardy.-Life and career:...
and Buster Keaton
Buster Keaton
Joseph Frank "Buster" Keaton was an American comic actor, filmmaker, producer and writer. He was best known for his silent films, in which his trademark was physical comedy with a consistently stoic, deadpan expression, earning him the nickname "The Great Stone Face".Keaton was recognized as the...
; his later work in the comic strip medium would display an obvious influence from these early films in style and content.
In 1920 he began his secondary education at Saint-Boniface School, an institution controlled by the archbishop where the teachers were Roman Catholic priests. Georges joined the Boy Scouts
Guidisme et Scoutisme en Belgique
Gidsen- en Scoutsbeweging in België or Guidisme et Scoutisme en Belgique is the national Guiding and Scouting federation in Belgium. Scouting in Belgium started in 1911, and Guiding followed in 1915...
troop of the school, where he was given the totemic name "Renard curieux" (Curious fox). In 2007, an old "strip" by him was found on a wall of the school. His first drawings were published in 1922 in Jamais assez, the school's Scout paper, and in Le Boy-Scout Belge, the Scout monthly magazine. From 1924, he signed his illustrations using the pseudonym "Hergé". His subsequent comics work would be heavily influenced by the ethics of the Scouting movement
Scouting
Scouting, also known as the Scout Movement, is a worldwide youth movement with the stated aim of supporting young people in their physical, mental and spiritual development, that they may play constructive roles in society....
, as well as the early travel experiences he made with the Scout association.
On finishing school in 1925 Georges worked at the Catholic newspaper Le XXe Siècle
Le XXe Siècle
Le XXe Siècle was a Belgian newspaper that was published from 1895 and 1940. Its supplement Le Petit Vingtième is known as the first publication to feature The Adventures of Tintin....
under the editor Norbert Wallez, a Catholic abbot. The following year, he published his first cartoon series, Totor
Totor
Totor, Chief Scout of the Cockchafers is the first comic strip series written by Hergé who later wrote The Adventures of Tintin. Le Boy Scout Belge published it monthly from July 1926 to summer 1929 and tells of a Boy Scout called Totor on his adventures...
, in the Scouting magazine Le Boy-Scout Belge. In 1928, he was put in charge of producing material for the Le XXe Siècle's new weekly supplement for children, Le Petit Vingtième
Le Petit Vingtième
Le Petit Vingtième was the weekly youth supplement to the Belgian newspaper Le Vingtième Siècle from 1928 to 1940. The comics series The Adventures of Tintin first appeared in its pages.-History:...
. He began illustrating The Adventures of Flup, Nénesse, Poussette, and Cochonnet, a strip written by a member of the newspaper's sports staff, but soon became dissatisfied with this series. Wallez asked Remi to create a young hero, a Catholic reporter who would fight for good all over the world. He decided to create a comic strip of his own, which would adopt the recent American innovation of using speech balloon
Speech balloon
Speech balloons are a graphic convention used most commonly in comic books, comic strips and cartoons to allow words to be understood as representing the speech or thoughts of a given character in the comic...
s to depict words coming out of the characters' mouths, inspired by their use by established French comics author Alain St. Ogan.
Creating Tintin and Quick & Flupke: 1929–1938
Tintin in the Land of the SovietsTintin in the Land of the Soviets
Tintin in the Land of the Soviets is the first title in the comic book series The Adventures of Tintin, written and drawn by Belgian cartoonist Hergé...
, by "Hergé", appeared in the pages of Le Petit Vingtième on 10 January 1929, and ran until 8 May 1930. The strip chronicled the adventures of a young reporter named Tintin
Tintin (character)
Tintin is a fictional character in The Adventures of Tintin, the series of classic Belgian comic books written and illustrated by Hergé. Tintin is the protagonist of the series, a reporter and adventurer who travels around the world with his dog Snowy....
and his pet fox terrier
Fox Terrier
Fox Terrier refers primarily to two different breeds of the terrier dog type: the Smooth Fox Terrier and the Wire Fox Terrier. Both of these breeds originated in the 19th century from a handful of dogs who are descended from earlier varieties of British terriers, and are related to other modern...
Snowy
Snowy (character)
Snowy is a fictional character in The Adventures of Tintin, the series of classic Belgian comic books written and illustrated by Hergé. He is a white Wire Fox Terrier and Tintin's four-legged companion who travels everywhere with him...
(Milou) as they journeyed through the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
. The character of Tintin was partly inspired by Georges' brother Paul Remi, an officer in the Belgian army.
In January 1930 Hergé introduced Quick & Flupke
Quick & Flupke
Quick & Flupke is a comic book series by Hergé about two street urchins in Brussels named Quick and Flupke...
(Quick et Flupke), a new comic strip about two street urchins from Brussels, in the pages of Le Petit Vingtième. For many years, Hergé continued to produce this less well-known series in parallel with his Tintin stories. In June he began the second Tintin adventure, Tintin in the Congo
Tintin in the Congo
Tintin in the Congo is the second title in the comicbook series The Adventures of Tintin, written and drawn by Belgian cartoonist Hergé. Originally serialised in the Belgian children's newspaper supplement, Le Petit Vingtième between June 1930 and July 1931, it was first published in book form...
(then the colony
Colony
In politics and history, a colony is a territory under the immediate political control of a state. For colonies in antiquity, city-states would often found their own colonies. Some colonies were historically countries, while others were territories without definite statehood from their inception....
of Belgian Congo
Belgian Congo
The Belgian Congo was the formal title of present-day Democratic Republic of the Congo between King Leopold II's formal relinquishment of his personal control over the state to Belgium on 15 November 1908, and Congolese independence on 30 June 1960.-Congo Free State, 1884–1908:Until the latter...
), followed by Tintin in America
Tintin in America
Tintin in America is the third title in the comic book series The Adventures of Tintin, written and drawn by Belgian cartoonist Hergé...
and Cigars of the Pharaoh
Cigars of the Pharaoh
Cigars of the Pharaoh is one of The Adventures of Tintin, a series of classic comic-strip albums, written and illustrated by Hergé, featuring young reporter Tintin as a hero...
.
On 20 July 1932 he married Germaine Kieckens, the secretary of the director of the Le XXe Siècle, whom he had first met in 1927. They had no children, and eventually divorced in 1977.
The early Tintin adventures each took about a year to complete, upon which they were released in book form by Le Petit Vingtième and, from 1934, by the Casterman
Casterman
Casterman is a publisher of Franco-Belgian comics, specializing in comic books and children's literature. The company is based in Tournai, Belgium.Founded in 1780, Casterman was originally a printing company and publishing house...
publishing house. Hergé continued to revise these stories in subsequent editions, including a later conversion to colour.
Hergé reached a watershed with The Blue Lotus
The Blue Lotus
The Blue Lotus , first published in 1936, is one of The Adventures of Tintin, a series of classic comic-strip albums written and illustrated by Hergé featuring young reporter Tintin as a hero. It is a sequel to Cigars of the Pharaoh, with Tintin continuing his struggle against a major gang of drug...
, the fifth Tintin adventure. At the close of the previous story, Cigars of the Pharaoh, he had mentioned that Tintin's next adventure would bring him to China. Father Gosset, the chaplain to the Chinese students at the Catholic University of Leuven
Catholic University of Leuven
The Catholic University of Leuven, or of Louvain, was the largest, oldest and most prominent university in Belgium. The university was founded in 1425 as the University of Leuven by John IV, Duke of Brabant and approved by a Papal bull by Pope Martin V.During France's occupation of Belgium in the...
, wrote to Hergé urging him to be sensitive about what he wrote about China. Hergé agreed, and in the spring of 1934 Gosset introduced him to Chang Chong-jen (Chang Chongren), a young sculpture student at the Brussels Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts
Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts
The Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts in Brussels is an art school, founded in 1711.The faculty and alumni of ARBA include some of the most famous names in Belgian painting, sculpture, and architecture: James Ensor, Rene Magritte, and Paul Delvaux...
. The two young artists quickly became close friends, and Chang introduced Hergé to Chinese culture and the techniques of Chinese art
Chinese art
Chinese art is visual art that, whether ancient or modern, originated in or is practiced in China or by Chinese artists or performers. Early so-called "stone age art" dates back to 10,000 BC, mostly consisting of simple pottery and sculptures. This early period was followed by a series of art...
. As a result of this experience, Hergé strove in The Blue Lotus, and in subsequent Tintin adventures, to be meticulously accurate in depicting the places which Tintin visited. As a token of appreciation he added a fictional "Chang Chong-Chen
Chang Chong-Chen
Chang Chong-Chen is a fictional character in The Adventures of Tintin, the series of classic Belgian comic books written and illustrated by Hergé...
" to The Blue Lotus, a young Chinese boy who meets and befriends Tintin.
At the end of his studies in Brussels, Chang returned home to China, and Hergé lost contact with him during the invasion of China by Japan and the subsequent civil war
Chinese Civil War
The Chinese Civil War was a civil war fought between the Kuomintang , the governing party of the Republic of China, and the Communist Party of China , for the control of China which eventually led to China's division into two Chinas, Republic of China and People's Republic of...
. More than four decades passed before the two friends would meet again.
World War II
In the Second World WarWorld War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, Hergé was mobilized as a reserve lieutenant, and had to interrupt Tintin's adventures in the middle of Land of Black Gold
Land of Black Gold
Land of Black Gold is the fifteenth of The Adventures of Tintin, a series of classic comic-strip albums, written and illustrated by Belgian writer and illustrator Hergé, featuring young reporter Tintin as a hero....
. Prior to the invasion of neutral Belgium by German forces, Hergé published humoristic drawings in L'Ouest, a paper run by future collaborator Raymond de Becker
Raymond de Becker
Raymond De Becker was a Belgian journalist and writer who was born in Brussels. He edited the Belgian papers Independence and Avant-Garde...
and which strongly advocated that Belgium not join the war alongside its World War One allies France and Britain. By the summer of 1940 Belgium had fallen to Germany along with most of Western Continental Europe
Continental Europe
Continental Europe, also referred to as mainland Europe or simply the Continent, is the continent of Europe, explicitly excluding European islands....
.
Le Petit Vingtième, in which Tintin's adventures had until then been published, was shut down by the Nazi occupiers. However, Hergé accepted an offer to produce a new Tintin strip in Le Soir
Le Soir
Le Soir is a Berliner Format Belgian newspaper. Le Soir was founded in 1887 by Emile Rossel. It is the most popular Francophone newspaper in Belgium, and considered a newspaper of record.-Editorial stance:...
, Brussels' leading French daily, which had been appropriated as the mouthpiece of the occupation forces. He left Land of the Black Gold unfinished, launching instead into The Crab with the Golden Claws
The Crab with the Golden Claws
The Crab with the Golden Claws is the ninth of The Adventures of Tintin, a series of classic comic-strip albums, written and illustrated by Belgian writer and illustrator Hergé, featuring young reporter Tintin as a hero...
, the first of six Tintin stories which he produced during the war.
As the war progressed, two factors arose that led to a revolution in Hergé's style. Firstly, paper shortages forced Tintin to be published in a daily three- or four-frame strip, rather than the two full pages every week which had been the practice on Le Petit Vingtième. In order to create tension at the end of each strip rather than the end of each page, Hergé had to introduce more frequent gags and faster-paced action. Secondly, Hergé had to move the focus of Tintin's adventures away from current affairs, in order to avoid controversy. He turned to stories with an escapist flavour: an expedition to a meteorite (The Shooting Star
The Shooting Star
The Shooting Star is the tenth of The Adventures of Tintin, a series of classic comic-strip books that were written and illustrated by Belgian writer and illustrator Hergé, featuring young reporter Tintin as a hero....
), an intriguing mystery and treasure hunt (The Secret of the Unicorn
The Secret of the Unicorn
The Secret of the Unicorn is the eleventh title in the comic book series The Adventures of Tintin, written and illustrated by Belgian cartoonist Hergé. Designed to be the first volume in a two-part story, the plot of The Secret of the Unicorn was continued in the twelfth Tintin adventure, Red...
and Red Rackham's Treasure
Red Rackham's Treasure
Red Rackham's Treasure is the twelfth of The Adventures of Tintin, a series of classic comic-strip albums written and illustrated by Belgian writer and illustrator Hergé, featuring young reporter Tintin as a hero. It is a continuation of The Secret of the Unicorn, and is one of very few Tintin...
), and a quest to undo an ancient Inca curse (The Seven Crystal Balls
The Seven Crystal Balls
The Seven Crystal Balls is the thirteenth of The Adventures of Tintin, a series of classic comic-strip albums, written and illustrated by Belgian writer and illustrator Hergé, featuring young reporter Tintin as a hero....
and Prisoners of the Sun
Prisoners of the Sun
Prisoners of the Sun is the fourteenth of The Adventures of Tintin, a series of classic comic-strip albums written and illustrated by Belgian writer and illustrator Hergé, featuring young reporter Tintin as a hero. It is a continuation of The Seven Crystal Balls, and is one of very few Tintin...
).
In these stories Hergé placed more emphasis on characters than plot, and indeed Tintin's most memorable companions, Captain Haddock
Captain Haddock
Captain Archibald Haddock is a fictional character in The Adventures of Tintin, the series of classic Belgian comic books written and illustrated by Hergé...
and Cuthbert Calculus (in French Professeur Tryphon Tournesol), were introduced at this time. Haddock debuted in The Crab with the Golden Claws and Calculus in Red Rackham's Treasure.
The Shooting Star was nonetheless controversial. The story line involved a race between two ship crews trying to reach a meteorite which had landed in the Arctic. Hergé chose a subject that was as fantastic as possible rather than issues related to the crisis of the times to avoid trouble with the censors. Nonetheless politics intruded. The crew Tintin joined was composed of Europeans from Axis or neutral countries ("Europe") while their underhanded rivals were Americans (although in later editions the US flag was removed from the rival ship; see the image on the The Shooting Star
The Shooting Star
The Shooting Star is the tenth of The Adventures of Tintin, a series of classic comic-strip books that were written and illustrated by Belgian writer and illustrator Hergé, featuring young reporter Tintin as a hero....
page), financed by a person with a Jewish name and what Nazi propagandists called "Jewish features." Tintin also flies in a German Arado Ar 196
Arado Ar 196
-See also:-Bibliography:* Dabrowski, Hans-Peter and Koos, Volker. Arado Ar 196, Germany's Multi-Purpose Seaplane. Atglen, PA: Schiffer Military History, 1993. ISBN 0-88740-481-2....
plane.
In a scene which appeared when the story was being serialised in Le Soir two Jews, depicted in classic anti-Semitic caricature, are shown watching Philippulus harassing Tintin. One actually looks forward to the end of the world, arguing that it would mean that he would not be obliged to settle with his creditors (see the image on the Ideology of Tintin
Ideology of Tintin
Hergé started drawing his comics series The Adventures of Tintin in 1929 for Le Petit Vingtième, the children's section of the Belgian newspaper Le Vingtième Siècle, run by the Abbé Norbert Wallez, an avid supporter of social Catholicism, a right-wing movement...
page).
In 1943 Hergé met Edgar P. Jacobs, another comics artist, whom he hired to help revise the early Tintin albums. Jacobs' most significant contribution would be his redrawing of the costumes and backgrounds in the revised edition of King Ottokar's Sceptre
King Ottokar's Sceptre
King Ottokar's Sceptre is the eighth of The Adventures of Tintin, a series of classic comic-strip albums, written and illustrated by Belgian writer and illustrator Hergé, featuring the young reporter Tintin. It was first serialized as a black-and-white comic strip in Le Petit Vingtième on 4 August...
which gave it a Balkan feel—in the original, the castle guards had been dressed as British Beefeaters. Jacob also began collaborating with Hergé on a new Tintin adventure, The Seven Crystal Balls (see above).
During and after the German occupation Hergé was accused of being a collaborator
Collaborationism
Collaborationism is cooperation with enemy forces against one's country. Legally, it may be considered as a form of treason. Collaborationism may be associated with criminal deeds in the service of the occupying power, which may include complicity with the occupying power in murder, persecutions,...
because of the Nazi control of the paper , and he was briefly taken in for interrogation after the war. He claimed that he was simply doing a job under the occupation, like a plumber or carpenter.
After the war Hergé admitted that: "I recognize that I myself believed that the future of the West could depend on the New Order
New Order (political system)
The New Order or the New Order of Europe was the political order which the Nazis wanted to impose on Europe, and eventually the rest of the world, during their reign over Germany from 1933 to 1945...
. For many, democracy had proved a disappointment, and the New Order brought new hope. In light of everything which has happened, it is of course a huge error to have believed for an instant in the New Order." The Tintin character was never depicted as adhering to these beliefs. However, it has been argued that anti-Semitic themes continued, especially in the depiction of Tintin's enemy Rastapopoulos in the post-war Flight 714
Flight 714
Flight 714, first published in 1968, is the 22nd and penultimate complete volume of The Adventures of Tintin, a series of classic comic-strip albums by the Belgian writer and illustrator Hergé, featuring young reporter Tintin as a hero. Its original French title is Vol 714 pour Sydney...
, though other writers argue against this, pointing out the way that Rastapopoulos surrounds himself with explicitly German-looking characters: Kurt, the submarine (or u-boat
U-boat
U-boat is the anglicized version of the German word U-Boot , itself an abbreviation of Unterseeboot , and refers to military submarines operated by Germany, particularly in World War I and World War II...
) commander of The Red Sea Sharks
The Red Sea Sharks
The Red Sea Sharks is the nineteenth of The Adventures of Tintin, a series of classic comic-strip albums written and illustrated by Hergé, featuring young reporter Tintin as a hero...
; Doctor Krollspell, whom Hergé himself referred to as a former concentration camp official, and Hans Boehm, the sinister-looking navigator and co-pilot, both from Flight 714
Flight 714
Flight 714, first published in 1968, is the 22nd and penultimate complete volume of The Adventures of Tintin, a series of classic comic-strip albums by the Belgian writer and illustrator Hergé, featuring young reporter Tintin as a hero. Its original French title is Vol 714 pour Sydney...
.
Post-war troubles
The occupation of Brussels ended on 3 September 1944. Tintin's adventures were interrupted toward the end of The Seven Crystal BallsThe Seven Crystal Balls
The Seven Crystal Balls is the thirteenth of The Adventures of Tintin, a series of classic comic-strip albums, written and illustrated by Belgian writer and illustrator Hergé, featuring young reporter Tintin as a hero....
when the Allied
Allies of World War II
The Allies of World War II were the countries that opposed the Axis powers during the Second World War . Former Axis states contributing to the Allied victory are not considered Allied states...
authorities shut down Le Soir. During the chaotic post-occupation period, Hergé was arrested four times by different groups. He was publicly accused of being a Nazi
Nazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
/Rexist
Rexism
Rexism was a fascist political movement in the first half of the 20th century in Belgium.It was the ideology of the Rexist Party , officially called Rex, founded in 1930 by Léon Degrelle, a Walloon...
sympathizer, a claim which was largely unfounded, as the Tintin adventures published during the war were scrupulously free of politics (the only dubious point occurring in The Shooting Star
The Shooting Star
The Shooting Star is the tenth of The Adventures of Tintin, a series of classic comic-strip books that were written and illustrated by Belgian writer and illustrator Hergé, featuring young reporter Tintin as a hero....
, discussed above). In fact, one or two stories published before the war had been critical of fascism
Fascism
Fascism is a radical authoritarian nationalist political ideology. Fascists seek to rejuvenate their nation based on commitment to the national community as an organic entity, in which individuals are bound together in national identity by suprapersonal connections of ancestry, culture, and blood...
; most prominently, King Ottokar's Sceptre
King Ottokar's Sceptre
King Ottokar's Sceptre is the eighth of The Adventures of Tintin, a series of classic comic-strip albums, written and illustrated by Belgian writer and illustrator Hergé, featuring the young reporter Tintin. It was first serialized as a black-and-white comic strip in Le Petit Vingtième on 4 August...
showed Tintin working to defeat a coup attempt that could be seen as an allegory of the Anschluss
Anschluss
The Anschluss , also known as the ', was the occupation and annexation of Austria into Nazi Germany in 1938....
, Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
's takeover of Austria. Nevertheless, like other former employees of the Nazi-controlled press, Hergé found himself barred from newspaper work. He spent the next two years working with Jacobs, as well as a new assistant, Alice Devos, adapting many of the early Tintin adventures into colour.
Tintin's exile ended on 26 September 1946. The publisher and wartime resistance fighter Raymond Leblanc
Raymond Leblanc
Raymond Leblanc was a Belgian comic book producer and publisher, best known for publishing The Adventures of Tintin, by Hergé and the magazine Tintin...
provided the financial support and anti-Nazi credentials to launch the comics magazine
Franco-Belgian comics magazines
Belgium and France have a long tradition in comics. They have a common history for comics and magazines.In the early years of its history, magazines had a large place on the comics market and were often the only place where comics were published. Most of them were kids-targeted.In the 1970s,...
titled Tintin
Tintin (magazine)
Le journal de Tintin or Kuifje , was a weekly Belgian comics magazine of the second half of the 20th century...
with Hergé. The weekly publication featured two pages of Tintin's adventures, beginning with the remainder of The Seven Crystal Balls
The Seven Crystal Balls
The Seven Crystal Balls is the thirteenth of The Adventures of Tintin, a series of classic comic-strip albums, written and illustrated by Belgian writer and illustrator Hergé, featuring young reporter Tintin as a hero....
, as well as other comic strips and assorted articles. It became highly successful, with circulation surpassing 100,000 every week.
Tintin had always been credited as simply "by Hergé", without mention of Edgar Pierre Jacobs and Hergé's other assistants. As Jacobs' contribution to the production of the strip increased, he asked for a joint credit in 1944, which Hergé refused. They continued to collaborate intensely until 1946, when Jacobs went on to produce his own comics for Tintin magazine, including the widely-acclaimed Blake and Mortimer
Blake and Mortimer
Blake and Mortimer is a Belgian comics series created by the Belgian writer and comics artist Edgar P. Jacobs. It was one of the first series to appear in the Belgian comics magazine Tintin in 1946, and was subsequently published in book form by Les Editions du Lombard.The main protagonists of the...
.
Personal crisis
The increased demands which Tintin magazine placed on Hergé began to take their toll. In 1947 Prisoners of the SunPrisoners of the Sun
Prisoners of the Sun is the fourteenth of The Adventures of Tintin, a series of classic comic-strip albums written and illustrated by Belgian writer and illustrator Hergé, featuring young reporter Tintin as a hero. It is a continuation of The Seven Crystal Balls, and is one of very few Tintin...
was interrupted for two months when an exhausted Hergé took a long vacation. Hergé, disillusioned by his treatment and that of many of his colleagues and friends after the war, planned to migrate with his wife Germaine to Argentina, but later abandoned the plan when he began a love affair. In 1949, while working on the new version of Land of Black Gold
Land of Black Gold
Land of Black Gold is the fifteenth of The Adventures of Tintin, a series of classic comic-strip albums, written and illustrated by Belgian writer and illustrator Hergé, featuring young reporter Tintin as a hero....
(the first version had been left unfinished by the outbreak of World War II), Hergé suffered a nervous breakdown
Nervous breakdown
Mental breakdown is a non-medical term used to describe an acute, time-limited phase of a specific disorder that presents primarily with features of depression or anxiety.-Definition:...
and was forced to take an abrupt four month-long break. He suffered another breakdown in early 1950, while working on Destination Moon
Destination Moon (Tintin)
Destination Moon is the sixteenth of The Adventures of Tintin, a series of classic comic-strip albums, written and illustrated by Belgian writer and illustrator Hergé, featuring young reporter Tintin as a hero...
.
In order to lighten Hergé's workload Hergé Studios was set up on 6 April 1950. The studio employed several assistants to aid Hergé in the production of The Adventures of Tintin. Foremost among these was artist Bob de Moor
Bob de Moor
Bob de Moor is the pen name of Robert Frans Marie De Moor , a Belgian comics creator. Chiefly noted as an artist, he is considered an early master of the Ligne claire style. He wrote and drew several comics series on his own, but also collaborated with Hergé on several volumes of The Adventures of...
, who collaborated with Hergé on the remaining Tintin adventures, filling in details and backgrounds such as the spectacular lunar landscapes in Explorers on the Moon
Explorers on the Moon
Explorers on the Moon, published in 1954, is the seventeenth of The Adventures of Tintin, a series of classic comic-strip albums, written and illustrated by Belgian writer and illustrator Hergé, featuring young reporter Tintin as a hero. Its original French title is On a marché sur la Lune...
. With the aid of the studio, Hergé managed to produce The Calculus Affair
The Calculus Affair
The Calculus Affair is the eighteenth of The Adventures of Tintin, a series of classic comic-strip albums, written and illustrated by Belgian writer and illustrator Hergé, featuring young reporter Tintin as a hero....
from 1954 until 1956, followed by The Red Sea Sharks
The Red Sea Sharks
The Red Sea Sharks is the nineteenth of The Adventures of Tintin, a series of classic comic-strip albums written and illustrated by Hergé, featuring young reporter Tintin as a hero...
in 1956 to 1957.
By the end of this period his personal life was again in crisis. His marriage with Germaine was breaking apart after twenty-five years; he had fallen in love with Fanny Vlamynck
Fanny Rodwell
Fanny Rodwell is the second wife of well-known comic creator Hergé. She founded the Hergé Foundation in 1987 and is the copyright owner of Hergé's works after his death. She received an award on behalf of the foundation from the Dalai Lama in 2006.She financed the building of the Hergé Museum in...
, a young artist who had recently joined the Hergé Studios. Furthermore, he was plagued by recurring nightmare
Nightmare
A nightmare is an unpleasant dream that can cause a strong negative emotional response from the mind, typically fear or horror, but also despair, anxiety and great sadness. The dream may contain situations of danger, discomfort, psychological or physical terror...
s filled with whiteness. He consulted a Swiss psychoanalyst, who advised him to give up working on Tintin. Instead, he finished Tintin in Tibet
Tintin in Tibet
Tintin in Tibet is the twentieth title in the comic book series The Adventures of Tintin, written and drawn by Belgian cartoonist Hergé. Originally serialised from September 1958 in the French language magazine named after his creation, Le Journal de Tintin, it was then first published in book...
, started the year before.
Published in Tintin magazine from September 1958 to November 1959, Tintin in Tibet sent Tintin to the Himalayas
Himalayas
The Himalaya Range or Himalaya Mountains Sanskrit: Devanagari: हिमालय, literally "abode of snow"), usually called the Himalayas or Himalaya for short, is a mountain range in Asia, separating the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau...
in search of Chang Chong-Chen
Chang Chong-Chen
Chang Chong-Chen is a fictional character in The Adventures of Tintin, the series of classic Belgian comic books written and illustrated by Hergé...
, the Chinese boy he had befriended in The Blue Lotus
The Blue Lotus
The Blue Lotus , first published in 1936, is one of The Adventures of Tintin, a series of classic comic-strip albums written and illustrated by Hergé featuring young reporter Tintin as a hero. It is a sequel to Cigars of the Pharaoh, with Tintin continuing his struggle against a major gang of drug...
. The adventure allowed Hergé to confront his nightmares by filling the book with austere alpine
Alpine climate
Alpine climate is the average weather for a region above the tree line. This climate is also referred to as mountain climate or highland climate....
landscapes, giving the adventure a powerfully spacious setting. The normally rich cast of characters was pared to a minimum—Tintin, Captain Haddock, and the sherpa Tharkey—as the story focused on Tintin's dogged search for Chang. Hergé came to regard this highly personal and emotionally riveting Tintin adventure as his favourite. The completion of the story seemed also to signal an end to his problems: he was no longer troubled by nightmares, divorced Germaine in 1977 (they had separated in 1960), and finally married Fanny Vlamynck on 20 May of the same year.
Last years
The last three complete Tintin adventures were produced at a much-reduced pace: The Castafiore EmeraldThe Castafiore Emerald
The Castafiore Emerald is an album in the classic comic-strip series The Adventures of Tintin by Belgian writer and illustrator Hergé, featuring young reporter Tintin as a hero....
in 1961, Flight 714 to Sydney in 1966, and Tintin and the Picaros
Tintin and the Picaros
Tintin and the Picaros is one of The Adventures of Tintin, a series of classic comic-strip graphic novels, written and illustrated by Belgian writer and illustrator Hergé, featuring young reporter Tintin as a hero....
in 1975. However, by this time Tintin had begun to move into other media. From the start of Tintin magazine, Raymond Leblanc had used Tintin for merchandising and advertisements. In 1961 the second Tintin film was made: Tintin and the Golden Fleece
Tintin and the Golden Fleece
Tintin and the Golden Fleece is a film first released in France on December 6, 1961...
, starring Jean-Pierre Talbot as Tintin (an earlier stop motion
Stop motion
Stop motion is an animation technique to make a physically manipulated object appear to move on its own. The object is moved in small increments between individually photographed frames, creating the illusion of movement when the series of frames is played as a continuous sequence...
-animated film was made in 1947 called The Crab with the Golden Claws, but it was screened publicly only once). Several traditionally-animated
Traditional animation
Traditional animation, is an animation technique where each frame is drawn by hand...
Tintin films have also been made, beginning with The Calculus Case in 1961.
The financial success of Tintin allowed Hergé to devote more of his time to travel. He travelled widely across Europe, and in 1971 visited America for the first time, meeting some of the Native Americans
Native Americans in the United States
Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...
whose culture had long been a source of fascination for him. In 1973 he visited Taiwan
Taiwan
Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...
, accepting an invitation offered three decades before by the Kuomintang
Kuomintang
The Kuomintang of China , sometimes romanized as Guomindang via the Pinyin transcription system or GMD for short, and translated as the Chinese Nationalist Party is a founding and ruling political party of the Republic of China . Its guiding ideology is the Three Principles of the People, espoused...
government, in appreciation of The Blue Lotus
The Blue Lotus
The Blue Lotus , first published in 1936, is one of The Adventures of Tintin, a series of classic comic-strip albums written and illustrated by Hergé featuring young reporter Tintin as a hero. It is a sequel to Cigars of the Pharaoh, with Tintin continuing his struggle against a major gang of drug...
.
In a remarkable instance of life mirroring art, Hergé managed to resume contact with his old friend Chang Chong-jen, years after Tintin rescued the fictional Chang Chong-Chen
Chang Chong-Chen
Chang Chong-Chen is a fictional character in The Adventures of Tintin, the series of classic Belgian comic books written and illustrated by Hergé...
in the closing pages of Tintin in Tibet
Tintin in Tibet
Tintin in Tibet is the twentieth title in the comic book series The Adventures of Tintin, written and drawn by Belgian cartoonist Hergé. Originally serialised from September 1958 in the French language magazine named after his creation, Le Journal de Tintin, it was then first published in book...
. Chang had been reduced to a street sweeper by the Cultural Revolution
Cultural Revolution
The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, commonly known as the Cultural Revolution , was a socio-political movement that took place in the People's Republic of China from 1966 through 1976...
, before becoming the head of the Fine Arts Academy in Shanghai during the 1970s. He returned to Europe for a reunion with Hergé in 1981, and settled in Paris in 1985, where he died in 1998.
Hergé died on 3 March 1983, aged 75. He had been severely ill for several years, but the nature of his disease was unclear, possibly leukemia
Leukemia
Leukemia or leukaemia is a type of cancer of the blood or bone marrow characterized by an abnormal increase of immature white blood cells called "blasts". Leukemia is a broad term covering a spectrum of diseases...
or a form of porphyria
Porphyria
Porphyrias are a group of inherited or acquired disorders of certain enzymes in the heme bio-synthetic pathway . They are broadly classified as acute porphyrias and cutaneous porphyrias, based on the site of the overproduction and accumulation of the porphyrins...
. His death was hastened by an HIV
HIV
Human immunodeficiency virus is a lentivirus that causes acquired immunodeficiency syndrome , a condition in humans in which progressive failure of the immune system allows life-threatening opportunistic infections and cancers to thrive...
infection that he had become the victim of during his weekly blood transfusions.
He left the twenty-fourth Tintin adventure, Tintin and Alph-Art
Tintin and Alph-Art
Tintin and Alph-Art was the intended twenty-fourth and final book in the Tintin series, created by Belgian comics artist Hergé. It is a striking departure from the earlier books in tone and subject, as well as in some parts of the style; rather than being set in a usual exotic and action-packed...
, unfinished. Following his expressed desire not to have Tintin handled by another artist, it was published posthumously as a set of sketches and notes in 1986. In 1987 Fanny closed the Hergé Studios, replacing it with the Hergé Foundation. In 1988 the Tintin magazine was discontinued.
A cartoon version of Hergé makes a number of cameo appearances in Ellipse
Ellipse Programmé
EllipsAnimé is a French animation studio that produces television programs. It was founded in 1987....
-Nelvana
Nelvana
Nelvana Limited is a Canadian entertainment company founded in 1971 known for its work in children's animation. It was named by founders Michael Hirsh, Patrick Loubert and Clive A. Smith after a Canadian comic book superheroine created by Adrian Dingle in the 1940s...
's The Adventures of Tintin
The Adventures of Tintin (TV series)
The Adventures of Tintin is an animated television series based on The Adventures of Tintin, a series of books by Hergé. It debuted in 1991, and 39 half-hour episodes were produced over the course of three seasons...
TV cartoon series. An animated version of Hergé also makes a cameo appearance at the start of the 2011
2011 in film
The year 2011 is notable for containing the release of the most film sequels in a single year, at 27 sequels. The following tables list films that are in production or have completed production and will be released in the United States and Canada at some point in 2011.- Highest-grossing films :...
performance capture film, The Adventures of Tintin (directed by Steven Spielberg
Steven Spielberg
Steven Allan Spielberg KBE is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, video game designer, and studio entrepreneur. In a career of more than four decades, Spielberg's films have covered many themes and genres. Spielberg's early science-fiction and adventure films were seen as an...
and produced by Peter Jackson
Peter Jackson
Sir Peter Robert Jackson, KNZM is a New Zealand film director, producer, actor, and screenwriter, known for his The Lord of the Rings film trilogy , adapted from the novel by J. R. R...
), where he is depicted as an artist in a marketplace in Brussels, and draws a cartoon of Tintin (portrayed by Jamie Bell
Jamie Bell
Andrew James Matfin "Jamie" Bell is an English actor. He is best known for his roles in the films Billy Elliot , King Kong , Hallam Foe , Jumper , Defiance , The Eagle and The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn .- Early life :Bell was born in Billingham, in the Borough of...
) himself, while constantly reminding him that "his [Tintin] face looked familiar".
Hergé gave all rights to the creation of dolls and merchandise after his death to Michel Aroutcheff. Michel was Hergé's neighbour and a good friend. Aroutcheff then sold on these rights only keeping the right to make Tintin's red rocket when he goes to the moon.
Hergé, art collector and painter
Hergé had a strong affinity with painting. Among the old masters, he loved Bosch, Breugel, HolbeinHans Holbein the Younger
Hans Holbein the Younger was a German artist and printmaker who worked in a Northern Renaissance style. He is best known as one of the greatest portraitists of the 16th century. He also produced religious art, satire and Reformation propaganda, and made a significant contribution to the history...
and Ingres
Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres
Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres was a French Neoclassical painter. Although he considered himself to be a painter of history in the tradition of Nicolas Poussin and Jacques-Louis David, by the end of his life it was Ingres's portraits, both painted and drawn, that were recognized as his greatest...
, whose drawings with pure lines he admired. He was also very interested in contemporary artists, such as Lichtenstein
Roy Lichtenstein
Roy Lichtenstein was a prominent American pop artist. During the 1960s his paintings were exhibited at the Leo Castelli Gallery in New York City and along with Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns, James Rosenquist and others he became a leading figure in the new art movement...
, Warhol
Andy Warhol
Andrew Warhola , known as Andy Warhol, was an American painter, printmaker, and filmmaker who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art...
and Miro
Joan Miró
Joan Miró i Ferrà was a Spanish Catalan painter, sculptor, and ceramicist born in Barcelona.Earning international acclaim, his work has been interpreted as Surrealism, a sandbox for the subconscious mind, a re-creation of the childlike, and a manifestation of Catalan pride...
. About Miro, he confided to his art adviser and friend Pierre Sterckx that he felt a shock the first time he saw one of his paintings. Hergé began to acquire artworks in the fifties, mainly paintings by Flemish expressionists
Expressionism
Expressionism was a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Germany at the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it radically for emotional effect in order to evoke moods or ideas...
. In the early sixties, he attended the Gallerie Carrefour of Marcel Stal and, through his contacts with artists, critics and collectors, he began to buy works from Fontana
Lucio Fontana
Lucio Fontana was an Italian painter, sculptor and theorist of Argentine birth. He was mostly known as the founder of Spatialism and his ties to Arte Povera.-Early life:...
, Poliakoff
Serge Poliakoff
Serge Poliakoff was a Russian-born French modernist painter belonging to the 'New' Ecole de Paris .- Biography :...
and many others.
In 1962, Hergé decided he wanted to paint. He chose Louis Van Lint
Louis Van Lint
Louis Van Lint was a Belgian painter, major figure of the Belgian post-war abstraction.- Biography :Louis Van Lint studied painting at the Academy of Saint-Josse-ten-Noode under Henry Ottevaere and Jacques Maes until 1939...
, one of the most respected Belgian abstract painters
Abstract art
Abstract art uses a visual language of form, color and line to create a composition which may exist with a degree of independence from visual references in the world. Western art had been, from the Renaissance up to the middle of the 19th century, underpinned by the logic of perspective and an...
at the time, whose work he liked a lot, to be his private teacher. For a year, Hergé learned under Van Lint's guidance, and 37 paintings emerged, influenced by Van Lint, Miro, Poliakoff, Devan or Klee
Paul Klee
Paul Klee was born in Münchenbuchsee, Switzerland, and is considered both a German and a Swiss painter. His highly individual style was influenced by movements in art that included expressionism, cubism, and surrealism. He was, as well, a student of orientalism...
. Hergé, however, eventually gave up painting, thinking that he could not fully express himself through this art form. His paintings from this period are nonetheless valued by collectors not only because they are by Hergé but also for their intrinsic qualities.
Awards and recognition
- 1971: Adamson AwardsAdamson AwardsAdamson Awards is a Swedish award awarded to notable cartoonists, named after the famous Swedish comic strip "Adamson" .They have been presented by the Swedish Academy of Comic Art at the annual Gothenburg Book Fair since 1965...
, Sweden - 1972: Yellow Kid "una vita per il cartooning" (lifetime award) at the festival of LuccaLuccaLucca is a city and comune in Tuscany, central Italy, situated on the river Serchio in a fertile plainnear the Tyrrhenian Sea. It is the capital city of the Province of Lucca...
- 1973: Grand Prix Saint MichelPrix Saint-MichelThe Prix Saint-Michel is a series of comic awards presented by the city of Brussels, with a focus on Franco-Belgian comics. They were first awarded in 1971, and are the second oldest comics award in Europe still presented, behind the Adamson Awards...
of the city of BrusselsBrusselsBrussels , officially the Brussels Region or Brussels-Capital Region , is the capital of Belgium and the de facto capital of the European Union... - 1999: Included in the Harvey AwardHarvey AwardThe Harvey Awards, named for writer-artist Harvey Kurtzman and founded by Gary Groth, President of the publisher Fantagraphics, are given for achievement in comic books. The Harveys were created as part of a successor to the Kirby Awards which were discontinued after 1987.The Harvey Awards are...
Jack Kirby Hall of Fame - 2003: Included in the Eisner AwardEisner AwardThe Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards, commonly shortened to the Eisner Awards, and sometimes referred to as the Oscar Awards of the Comics Industry, are prizes given for creative achievement in American comic books. The Eisner Awards were first conferred in 1988, created in response to the...
Hall of Fame as the Judge's choice - 2005: Included in the running for De Grootste BelgDe Grootste BelgDe Grootste Belg was a 2005 vote conducted by Belgian public TV broadcaster Canvas, public radio broadcaster Radio 1, and newspaper De Standaard, to determine who is the Greatest Belgian of all time...
(The Greatest Belgian). In the FlemishFlemish peopleThe Flemings or Flemish are the Dutch-speaking inhabitants of Belgium, where they are mostly found in the northern region of Flanders. They are one of two principal cultural-linguistic groups in Belgium, the other being the French-speaking Walloons...
version he ended on 24th place. In the WalloonWalloon languageWalloon is a Romance language which was spoken as a primary language in large portions of the Walloon Region of Belgium and some villages of Northern France until the middle of the 20th century. It belongs to the langue d'oïl language family, whose most prominent member is the French language...
version he came 8th. - 2007: Selected as the main motif for a high-value commemorative coin, the 100th anniversary of Hergé's birth commemorative coin minted in 2007, with a face value of 20 euro. On the obverse there is a self portrait of Hergé on the left. To the right of the portrait there is a portrait of Tintin. In the bottom of the coin Hergé's signature is depicted.
According to the UNESCO
UNESCO
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations...
's Index Translationum
Index Translationum
The Index Translationum is UNESCO's database of book translations. Books have been translated for thousands of years, with no central record of the fact. The League of Nations established a record of translations in 1932. In 1946, the United Nations superseded the League and UNESCO was assigned the...
, Hergé is the ninth-most-often-translated French-language author, the second-most-often-translated Belgian author after Georges Simenon
Georges Simenon
Georges Joseph Christian Simenon was a Belgian writer. A prolific author who published nearly 200 novels and numerous short works, Simenon is best known for the creation of the fictional detective Maigret.-Early life and education:...
, and the second-most-often-translated French-language comics author behind René Goscinny
René Goscinny
René Goscinny was a French comics editor and writer, who is best known for the comic book Astérix, which he created with illustrator Albert Uderzo, and for his work on the comic series Lucky Luke with Morris and Iznogoud with Jean Tabary.-Early life:Goscinny was born in Paris in 1926, to a family...
.
1652 Hergé
1652 Hergé
1652 Hergé is a main belt asteroid discovered August 9, 1953 by Sylvain Julien Victor Arend in Uccle, and named in honour of Georges Remi, also known as Hergé.- See also :*Asteroids list...
, an asteroid
Asteroid
Asteroids are a class of small Solar System bodies in orbit around the Sun. They have also been called planetoids, especially the larger ones...
of the main belt, is named after him (see also 1683 Castafiore
1683 Castafiore
1683 Castafiore is a main-belt asteroid discovered on September 19, 1950 by Sylvain Arend at Uccle. It is named after the fictional Adventures of Tintin character, Bianca Castafiore.- External links :*...
).
Further reading
ISBN 978-2930402239- Pierre Sterckx (Textes) / André Soupart (Photos), Hergé. Collectionneur d'Art, Brussels/Belgium (Tournesol Conseils SA-Renaissance du Livre) 2006, 84 p. ISBN 2-87415-668-x
External links
- Official site
- Hergé biography on À la découverte de Tintin
- Hergé on LambiekLambiekLambiek is a comic book store and art gallery in Amsterdam, founded in 1968 by Kees Kousemaker .It has held exhibitions of art by comic creators, including Robert Crumb, Daniel Clowes, Erik Kriek, André Franquin, Tanino Liberatore and Chris Ware...
Comiclopedia - Herge - mini profile and time line on Tintinologist.org
- HERGÉ Museum - Museum Presentation In Greek on Designstories.gr
- Hergé publications in Belgian Tintin and French Tintin BDoubliées