European Comic Art

The present edition of European Comic Art is our somewhat belated tribute to the eightieth anniversary of Hergé’s Adventures of Tintin. Hergé’s roaming reporter first appeared in the Brussels-based children’s magazine Le Petit Vingtième on 10 January 1929, but he still bestrides the world of Francophone comics like a colossus in plus fours. The 24 Tintin albums, which appeared from 1929 to 1986, have sold millions of copies. Without The Adventures of Tintin the bande dessinée would not exist as we know it and neither, very probably, would European Comic Art.

This article focuses on the two Hergé albums which recount the story of Haddock's ancestor, the Chevalier de Hadoque. The author postulates that the narrative device of the search for a lost object also operates at the level of individual panels, offering the reader the fantasy of burrowing into their two-dimensional surface. He proceeds to do a reading of the 'crypt' sequences from these albums, attending to details which seem insignificant in terms of the plot, but which, he argues, amount to a series of key visual motifs. They may symbolise deeper narrative structures, such as the entry into dangerous and forbidden places, or offer a poetic evocation of the aspiration of a silent, static medium towards sound and movement. Above all, they set up a dense network of relationships which resonate through the albums for the greater pleasure of the readers who become attuned to their subtle harmonics.

This paper examines the similarities between the narrative techniques employed in the final three Tintin albums, and the novels of the lesser-known French naturalist authors from the 1880s. Both Hergé and these writers were driven by a pessimism, both existential and aesthetic, to rewrite the earlier works in whose shadow they stood, undermining their mimetic character. As a result, such apparently diverse genres as the bande dessinée and the naturalist novel come to share features like misleading nomenclature, the erosion of character agency and circular narratives. The praise frequently lavished on Les Bijoux de la Castafiore ['The Castafiore Emerald'] at the expense of the two following albums, therefore, overlooks their fundamental kinship. Hergé removes Tintin from the centre of his later narratives and often diminishes his role. His interviews and biographies confirm his deteriorating feelings toward his creation, a sentiment that had been foreshadowed in 1880s France. There, authors like Hennique, Huysmans and Céard felt oppressed by the style of writing mastered by Flaubert and Zola before them. In both contexts, the paradoxical result of such disillusionment is a focus on rewriting the earlier texts, exposing the mechanisms of mimesis relied upon by Zola and the younger Hergé.

While religious celebrations during the Renaissance served to reaffirm society's hegemony, the carnival was a means of freeing oneself from social norms, hierarchy and privileges. As it questions hegemony, the carnival sometimes leads to changes. Picaresque literature emerged in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Spain. In its early stages, the picaresque was a strongly satirical and ironic 'countergenre' to mystic literature and romance genres. Like the carnivalesque, picaresque literature questions the ruling classes.2 Tintin is mostly studied either in terms of its ideological commitment or in terms of its fidelity to stylistic features. The aim of this paper differs from such concerns: it is to consider Tintin et les Picaros as a satire of politics. This paper explores the constant pairing of politics and carnival in Tintin et les Picaros, as well as the representation of both through amalgams and imports. Using Bakhtin's theory, the picaresque and Latin American history, this paper addresses the central question: how are politics and carnival represented in Tintin et les Picaros and to what extent is the album picaresque in this respect?

The opening of the Musée Hergé at Louvain-la-Neuve in 2009 promises to have a significant effect on the reception of Hergé's works. Curated by Joost Swarte, it makes available to the public a broad and regularly updated selection of original artwork. This article considers what can be learned through a close inspection of Hergé's originals for Les Aventures de Tintin. A general description of their material features is followed by close readings of two examples (a sheet of pen-and-ink drawings and a sheet of preparatory pencil drawings) from Tintin au Tibet ['Tintin in Tibet']. By adopting a suitable reading method, we can recover hidden aspects of Hergé's creative process, thereby gaining a better understanding of how ideas for his bande dessinée narratives were developed and finalised during the act of composition.

Joost Swarte, the Dutch comic artist, designer and architect, and inventor of the term ligne claire ['clear line'], played a major role in the conception of the new Hergé museum at Louvain-la-Neuve in Belgium. The museum website (http://www.museeherge.com) has details of the rooms and exhibits, and includes an explanation from Swarte about his role as scenographer. In this interview with European Comic Art, he further elaborates some of the points made in that text, and sheds interesting light upon issues raised by contributors to this volume.

BOOK REVIEWS

Pierre Assouline, Hergé: The Man Who Created Tintin, trans. Charles Ruas

Jean-Marie Apostolidès, The Metamorphoses of Tintin, or, Tintin for Adults

Stephen E. Tabachnick, ed., Teaching the Graphic Novel

Philippe Delisle, Spirou, Tintin et Cie, une littérature catholique? Années 1930 / Années 1980 [‘Spirou, Tintin and Company, a Catholic Literature? 1930s / 1980s’]

EXHIBITION REVIEW

Archi & BD, La ville dessinée, an exhibition on view at the Cité de l’Architecture et du Patrimoine, Paris, from 9 June, 2010 to 28 November, 2010.

Notes on Contributors to Volume 3

Index to Volume 3