Cartoon legend Tintin, a rare reporter to rise to world fame having barely written an article, celebrates his 80th birthday this weekend as popular as ever.The immortal boy reporter—the most loved figure in cartoon-mad Belgium’s history—first appeared on January 10, 1929 bound for the Soviet Union, in a supplement to the Roman Catholic Brussels weekly, Le Vingtieme Siecle.Since then, 24 comic books about his adventures have been translated into more than 50 languages, with over 200 million copies sold and new young fans attracted to what appears to be a timeless and certainly ageless character.
It has been a long career that the death in 1983 of his creator, Georges Remi—alias Herge—has not compromised, with his descendants refusing to hand over the rights to Tintin.Yet he may be immortalised on screen soon. With the agreement of Herge’s wife, Fanny Rodwell, US film-maker Steven Spielberg plans to make a trilogy of cartoon movies, the first expected out next year.This could finally give the character so well-known to Europeans the acclaim he never had in the United States, even if Tintin, his faithful companion Captain Haddock and trusty little dog Snowy have travelled the world.However this anniversary will not just be a celebration of a character who is both brave and resourceful with the morals of a boy scout.Tintin and his creator, whose 100th birthday was marked last year, remain a target for some.They have been accused of anti-communism in his first adventure “Tintin in the Land of the Soviets” and colonialism in “Tintin in the Congo” from 1931.Worse still, in 1942, there also appeared a story of his called “The Mystery Star,” which prompted charges of anti-Semitism, a charge Herge denied.It’s a litany that was examined last month by the British business weekly, The Economist. The magazine described Tintin as “a very European hero” who, while being wholesome and slightly priggish, had a simple ethical code that is far from the politically correct attitudes found in English-language comics today.
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General awareness