On January 10, 1929, the entire world was introduced to a young reporter as he embarked on his first great adventure. Tintin and his dog Snowy boarded a train from Brussels to Moscow and thus started their journey of a lifetime. Tintin celebrates his 94th birthday today; the first book in “The Adventures of Tintin” comic series, was published in 1929.
The world-famous comic series, created from 1929 onwards by the Belgian cartoonist Hergé, whose real name was Georges Remi. The series is composed of 24 albums, from the first album Tintin in the Land of the Soviets in 1930 to the last one, Tintin and the Alph-Art (unfinished album, 1986). Herge died in 1983.
The first Tintin comic was published in the Belgian weekly "Le Petit Vingtième". Since 1929, more than 270 million copies (figures for 2019) have been sold, the website states. The Tintin adventures have been translated in more than 110 languages.
Characters such as captain Haddock, professor Calculus, Bianca Castafiore, or Thompson & Thomson feature in the comics, as does Herge himself. He discreetly drew himself into the scenery, appearing as a reporter taking notes when Tintin embarks for the Congo, or interviewing a local in front of the gates to Marlinspike Hall. His characters were mainly historical figures or inspired from real life characters.
Fun Fact
Tintin's iconic puff did not always exist. In “Tintin in the Land of the Soviets”, he has his hair pulled forward for eight pages. In the last square of this eighth page, Tintin starts off in a convertible car. His puff rises up and never falls down again.
Happy Birthday to the forever-young journalist who “explored” the moon in 1953, 16 years before Neil Armstrong.
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