Talk:The Adventures of Tintin
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Political (in)correctness
The first stories of Tintin were naively racist from a modern point of view but at the time they were no more or less racist than contemporary pulp adventures. The idea for the _Tintin in Africa _was originally from the editor of _Le Petit Vingtieme _who wanted Herge to make propaganda for Belgian colony of Congo. After WW2 he made colored versions of the first stories and removed most blatant propaganda and racism – and completely ludicrous sequences like blowing up a rhino with dynamite. It still does exist in some editions, though.
When Herge was planning _Blue Lotus, _he was introduced to young Chinese student Tsang-Tsong-jen. After that he consciously tried to place the story in accurately depicted China and make Chinese human beings instead of caricatures. After that he wanted to make the stories as accurate as possible – within the limits of the comical medium, of course. Even vehicles are accurate to the point of correct door locking mechanisms. For _Calculus Affair _he looked for a suitable place in a real Swiss road where a car could drive into a lake.
Still, Herge changed his later albums for various reasons afterwards. British publisher of _The Black Island _wanted more accurate Britain – of the 1965 when the original version was made in 1938. He changed a black man with a whip in _The Crab with the Golden Claws _into an Arab. From _the Prisoners of the Sun _he removed a sequence where Haddock chews coca leaf. _Land of Black Gold _was originally about a conflict of Jewish guerilla and British mandate soldiers in Palestine. In _The Red Sea Sharks, _he made would-be-slaves “primitive” speech less so. Indian Airlines complained that none of their planes had ever crashed like in _Tintin in Tibet _and Herge changed the company into Sari Airlines. He seemed to have bent over backwards to avoid any hint of racism or jingoism. In fact, he ridicules those attitudes in the form of Dupont and Dupond who always believe in the stereotype – use ridiculous “national” costumes and jump to conclusions based on ethnic origin.
Nuevo Rico appears only in _the Broken Ear. _The country mentioned in _The Shooting Star _is Sao Rico – of which we know nothing else than its flag and the fact that there is a bank. _The Shooting Star _was made during German occupation of Belgium and Herge was apparently afraid of censorship of the possible worst kind – in short, he had to make propaganda again. He was briefly suspected of collaboration after the war. In a post-war version he replaced USA with Sao Rico. Banker’’s original name was Blumenstein and Herge was afraid that it would sound too Jewish and changed it to Bohlwinkel – which proved to be a real-life Jewish surname...
Skysmith¨ Skysmith
More elaboration is needed. -- Hajhouse
Yes, things like the importance of "Le journal de Tintin", that is the weekly comics periodical founded in 1948 in Brussels, are sadly neglected, and the personal and professional friendship btween Herge and Edgar P. Jacobs (author of the adventures of Blake and Mortimer) is a crucial element in understanding the development of the adventures and their graphic styles.
Unfortunately, all my Tintin stuff is in storage, across the country. From memory though: Hergé and his mentor, mr. Wallez?, were originally strongly anti-American. The picture of the poor woman in the ghetto may have been a criticism of the USA, and the American publishers may have interpreted it as such.
The error of Hergé's ways was, IMHO, not so much seeing that what he wrote could be construed as being racist, but rather that it could be recognised as inaccurate. IIRC, a reader who was offended by the simplistic stereostypes of the early albums offered Hergé to inform him about 'real life' in China.
I think The Blue Lotus deserves its own article, on the grounds of it being one the most important 20th century comics albums, because it was a break-through album in Hergé's development and because it helps portray the way Hergé and many Europeans of his time looked upon 'racial' and cultural differences. -- branko
Early Herge is more naive than racist. He wrote at a time when his publisher was keen to promote Belgium as a colonial power, hence the scene in Congo where Tintin does a stint as a schoolteacher, writing "notre patrie la Belgique" on a blackboard. -- Tarquin
I think intention to promote Congo (colony or not) is quite clear in the french and spanish language titles of this album which would translate as Tintin in Congo instead of Tintin in Africa.
--Fern 21:46, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Tarquin, did you intend to remove "Cuthbert"? -phma
- I made a huge accident in the layout when I put headings in for the characters -- it was probably that. Sorry. - tarquin
The ISBN for Le Haddock Illustre is correct (tested on www.fnac.com), but the site that Wikipedia is using for ISBN's doesn't like it. I'm assuming that's because it's not an English book. -- Tarquin
Is Abdullah's full name "Abdullah ben Mohammed Ezab" (with Ezab being the family name) or "Abdullah ben Mohammed" (i.e. Mohammed's father was Kalish Ezab ben someone else)? -phma
Should app the book pages be put into a sub-category. It is not obvious that Cigars of the Pharaoh is fictional or has anything to do with Tintin.
-- Chris Q 10:57 Oct 18, 2002 (UTC)
- The policy is to avoid creating subpages. However, we should rewrite the intro to Cigars of the Pharaoh to make it clear what it is. -- Tarquin 14:19 Oct 18, 2002 (UTC)
Is there an English texpression for "La Ligne Claire" ? Ericd 21:57 Feb 8, 2003 (UTC)
This paragraph is gratuitous:
- Tintin has also been accused of sexism, due to its almost complete lack of female characters. It must be noted, though, that the only recurring female character, Bianca Castafiore, is portrayed as temperamentic and strong willed, and as an independent agent without a direct attachement to any of the male characters.
Unless sources for the accusations of sexism can be provided, I think it should be removed. A great deal of books, comics, cartoons, and computer games targeted at young boys contain mostly male characters, so Tintin is hardly alone in that regard; in any case, IMO the lack of major female characters in a work is not in itself an indication of sexism.
Comments about Hergé and ideology.
Tintin first albums are anti-Soviet, pro-colonialist, anti-American. This is obvious. Well Hergé is young, Belgian and catholic and published in catholic newspaper. He's naive and under influence and his comics are reflecting the dominant ideolgy in Belgiumat that time.
Things begin to changes with "The Blue Lotus" (his encouter with Tchang may have change his mind) his vision of China his more subtle and the album can be read as anti-colonialist.
Things gets more complicated later "King Ottokar's Sceptre" is obviouly anti-nazi. But some album are more controversial. The early and unfinished version of "Land of Black Gold" is generally considered as pro-Arab, anti-Zionist and anti-British.
The more controversial book is "The Shooting Star" which can be read as a competition between Europeans (German occupied at that time) and anglo-Americans (some of the Anglo-American have Jewish names, and Tintin flies a German plane at least in first edition), IMHO the ideology is not obvious and maybe it was done to fool censorship but it can be discussed.
"The Calculus Affair" is anti-Stalinist but there is nothing controversial IMO.
"The Castafiore Emerald" takes part for the gispsies.
"Flight 714" is obviously mocking Marcel Dassault who was both a jew and a weapon seller, this could be interpreted as anti-semitic by some but there's no reference to the fact he was was jewish. BTW weapons sellers are a recuring theme in Tintin there are several (more or less obvious) references to De Havilland.
The last controversial album is "Tintin and the Picaros" it has been seen both as left-wing and right-wing. Well Hergé fooled everyone, Tintin supports the guerrilla but the guerrilla is pro-west and the end suggest that the revolution didn't change anything.
If someone can turn it in good English and incorporate in the article, thanks.
Ericd 22:49 Feb 8, 2003 (UTC)
"This paragraph is gratuitous:
- Tintin has also been accused of sexism, due to its almost complete lack of female characters. It must be noted, though, that the only recurring female character, Bianca Castafiore, is portrayed as temperamentic and strong willed, and as an independent agent without a direct attachement to any of the male characters.
Unless sources for the accusations of sexism can be provided, I think it should be removed. A great deal of books, comics, cartoons, and computer games targeted at young boys contain mostly male characters, so Tintin is hardly alone in that regard; in any case, IMO the lack of major female characters in a work is not in itself an indication of sexism."
All the Franco-Belgian comics until the end of the 60's suffer from a complete lack of female characters. This is an interresting problem. Seccotine a minor character in Spirou and later Laureline (my favourite. Boys, what a woman. She inspired "The Fifth Element") in Valerian, Natacha and Yoko Tsuno where the probably the first female characters.
Ericd 22:59 Feb 8, 2003 (UTC)
She more than inspired the 5th element -- Mezieres who draws Valerian designed the aliens & stuff in the film -- Tarquin 23:03 Feb 8, 2003 (UTC)
I agree with you at 200% a lot of themes in the plot can be found in Valerian. The flying taxi, the space cruise... Ericd 23:07 Feb 8, 2003 (UTC)
- I forgot the most important the four elements (Yes not the five) have a major role in "Métro Chatelet direction Cassiopée" and "Brooklin Station terminus cosmos". I'm still disappointed that even in France so few people have made the connection between the film and the comics which are IMO among the best sci-fi comics ever written (drawed ?).
- Ericd 23:37 Feb 8, 2003 (UTC)
Allan or Alacazar ? Ericd 21:15, 6 Feb 2004 (UTC)
- In Cigars? I think it must be Allan, given the Rastapopoulos connection, but I haven't the book to check -- Tarquin 11:09, 7 Feb 2004 (UTC)
- I don't understand the question, but I think EricD was asking whether Allan appeared in Cigars. He did, but anonymously as the crook who ditches the coffins bearing Tintin, Snowy and the made professot overboard. Arno 01:14, 8 Feb 2004 (UTC)
130, you are welcome to add notes here. However, please note the following:
(1) Please reemember to punctuate your comments. For instance, start sentences with capital letters.
(2) Make sure that your comments are not redundant.
(3) Avoid obsolete web page links.
Thanks
Arno 10:27, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)
Tintin's name
I think the sentence on the meaning of Tintin's name is spurious - both the original version stating that it "literally means 'nothing'" and the recent edit that it is short for "Valentin". Neither Harry Thompson's biography of Herge nor Michael Farr's Tintin: The Complete Companion make any mention of a meaning for Tintin's name. Google doesn't reveal any other alleged links from "Tintin" to "Valentin", and the only one linking "Tintin" with the meaning of "nothing" is this page: http://www.tutorgig.com/encyclopedia/getdefn.jsp?keywords=Tintin which the original author of the name/meaning sentence seems to have copied from word-for-word. Therefore, I am deleting the sentence entirely until anyone can come up with some more conclusive evidence. dmmaus 03:08, 11 May 2004 (UTC)
Hmmm. As a matter of fact, that tutorgig article is copied from Wikipedia! So there is no source at all for Tintin literally meaning "nothing". dmmaus 03:17, 11 May 2004 (UTC)
www.tintin.com states about Tintin: "Take the name for a start. In neither French nor English does it mean anything. Is it a first name or a surname?" This seems pretty conclusive that "Tintin" does not mean anything. dmmaus 03:27, 11 May 2004 (UTC)
I have a book--"Tintin: The Complete Companion." It clearly states that the name is a derivative of Herge's earlier comic about a scout master named Totor, who also looks almost exactly like Tintin. Lockeownzj00 04:08, 24 Aug 2004 (UTC)
- Correct. See Les aventures de Totor for some images. Totor is chef de patrouille des Hannetons, i.e. "scout master of the May Beetles". The name Totor may be derived from Du. tor, which means "beetle". Karl Stas 10:17, 24 Aug 2004 (UTC)
- Then again, Totor and Tintin may well be pet names derived from Victor and Martin or Valentin. Karl Stas 22:25, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I may be a bit late, but I can answer for the "Tintin's name literally means 'nothing'" quote. It's taken from the book TINTIN Y EL MUNDO DE HERGÉ by Benoît Peeters. Editorial Juventud ISBN 84-246-2523-9 on page 31. A side-bar titled TINTIN says, and I quote:
- "Escuchemos primero su nombre: éste nombre que en francés significa «nada», destaca inmediatamente por su doble sílaba. Como si este patronímico que en realidad no lo es (¿se trata de un apellido, de un nombre o de un simple apodo?) no pudiese prolongarse más que para repetirse, más que para anularse instantáneamente."
--Fern 21:46, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)
- I have an odd information, but not sure where it should go. "Tintin" is translated as "Tantan" in Japanese editions. "Tintin" happens to be a childish word for a penis and was deemed inappropriate when first translated. Revth 02:21, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Pictures
The lack of pictures is astounding. We need some Haddock, Calculus, milou, etc. in here. Lockeownzj00 04:08, 24 Aug 2004 (UTC)
- I am surprised that there are any images at all. All Tintin images are copyrighted and no images can be used without permission from the Fondation Hergé Moulinsart. Karl Stas 10:02, 24 Aug 2004 (UTC)
I'd say, be happy to have A picture, since there's people with a great fear of copyright lawyers who always takes it off. I don't know how it got to be on there. I'm guessing permission was obtained but I'm not sure
--Fern 21:46, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)
The proper contact to ask for permission seems to be Yves Février at [email protected]. Apparently they do, on occasion, grant permission, seeing as Mark Rosenfelder's page on Syldavian has several images, and notes that they are "Used by kind permission of the Fondation Hergé." --Xiaopo ℑ 23:05, Sep 17, 2004 (UTC)
Mad Scientist
Does Cuthbert Calculus qualify as a mad scientist ? He might be a stock character scientist but not mad IMO ! Ericd 22:46, 7 Sep 2004 (UTC)
- I agree, Calculus doesn't qualify as a mad scientist. He's merely a little deaf, as he says when he introduces himself in Red Rackham's Treasure making a funny character, but nevertheless, being funny he still plays vital parts in the plot. If Calculus is to be considered "mad", then all scientists who are as distracted as he would be also. Can't think of any other examples of distracted scientists except Professor Elm from Pokémon.
--Fern 21:46, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Personally, I'm fascinated by the paragraph "The Calculus character was most likely inspired by Auguste Piccard. Calculus first appeared in Red Rackham's Treasure, and was the end result of Hergés long quest to find the archetypal mad scientist (For instance, Dr. Sarcophogus in Cigars of the Pharaoh, Prof. Alembick in King Ottokar's Sceptre)." Could we have more info on this? - Ta bu shi da yu 11:36, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)
- Interesting point of view, Ta bu shi. However, neither of them was mad. The professor from Cigars of the Pharaoh was simply somewhat forgetful, and probably didn't have the right glasses on (of course, he does go compleately mad once he gets that drug). Professor Alembick for starters isn't himself for most of the book, it's his twin, and from little we get to know of him from the begining (he smokes, uses glasses, and is obsessed with studying seals) I don't think we could call him mad. If you are refering to the part where he confuses Tintin with a lady, it was because he didn't turn around to look at who had walked in.
--Fern 13:01, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Featured article
I have placed Tintin on WP:FAC (link to discussion), and invite everyone to help me get it up to FA status. {Ⓐℕάℛℹℴɴ} 13:00, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I support putting Tintin as a featured article. This article is really well done. While it may not be the most illustrated article, it certainly does go very in-depth on the subject of Tintin. Horray to that! J.
--Fern 21:46, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Cleanup and clarifications
Can we have some clarification of the sentence "Some fans consider this album a betrayal of the image they had of Tintin, which could be built easily on the neutral view Hergé originally provided.". Which fans were these? - Ta bu shi da yu 10:46, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)
- Well, Hergé never provided any details on Tintin's past nor his habits which (according to Tintin en el Mundo de Hergé) is what let him be so flexible in so many different scenarios. By starting to give Tintin some of these features, some of Tintin's ability to fit in every scenario could be lost.
Also, some people just assumed some of these details (such as "Tintin is a Belgian reporter that probably graduated from some university where he studied the reporter carreer. He doesn't seem to have much free time due to his occupation, and when he takes a 'vacation', it turns into a big adventure, taking the 'relax' out of it")
--Fern 11:54, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)
- I understand now. Firstly, how do we incorporate this into the story? Secondly, I object to the words "some fans" without a qualification of who those fans might be. This is called a weasel term and is frowned upon by Wikipedia. - Ta bu shi da yu 12:05, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)
"In later stories, Hergé admitted to increasingly identify with Haddock, rather than Tintin." where are we getting this information from? Can we expand on this? Seems interesting, just unverifiable. - Ta bu shi da yu 12:02, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)
- Hergé was filmed stating this in an interview, which was also in the documentary "Tintin and I" (Tintin et Moi). It is a well-attributed statement, but I am searching for the original interview now for sources. {Ⓐℕάℛℹℴɴ} 12:14, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)
- Cool... if we could get clarification then this will be good. If you find it put into a References section (see Cite your sources for the format). - Ta bu shi da yu 04:38, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)
- Cool. Can we include something of what he said? - Ta bu shi da yu 15:12, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)
- Actually, I think it must be from Tintin and I. We should really see if we could incorporate this into the story - it seems pretty important! - Ta bu shi da yu 15:13, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Tintin in Thailand
Can we add something about this? - Ta bu shi da yu 15:29, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)
- Other than provide a link to it, I am not sure what… but I'll try. {Ⓐℕάℛℹℴɴ} 15:35, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Is Haddock really British ?
The article says Haddock is British. I have no evidence of that. If I don't have any justifications, I'm gonna suppress this. Thanks. --JeDi
- I hadn't noticed the article said that. If it does, I'm sure it's wrong. Tintin met Cpt. Haddock in a port in France so he could tecnically be from anywhere. However, when we have to discover the secret of the Unicorn (the ship, not the animal) then we find out that he descends from a frenchman, right?
--Fern 10:39, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)