Tintin Forums

Hello everyone.. this is my first post. Don't really think that's relevant though!

Anyway, re. Tintin's age: this used to annoy me a lot, like the way he's in 1931 and looks the same 20 years later, and 20 later still etc., but if you look at it like that you're probably looking at it the wrong way.

I think Hergé meant for every book to be a separate story in itself, even though there are characters and places that recur and link with different stories.

I look at it like from the point of view of Tintin in America, Picaros happens only like 10 years later, but from Picaros POV its the reverse.

Oh well, a bit complicated. Maybe I think too much....

See related topic in the Tintin news and events Forum: Tintin goes to the neurologist.

And surely the reason Sponsz and Müller look different is that they've assumed other identities?

And surely the reason Sponsz and Müller look different is they've assumed other identities?
Rastapopoulos doesn't age either: he looks the same in The Cigars of the Pharaoh, The Blue Lotus, The Red Sea Sharks, and Flight 714.
He only has an alias once (Marquis di Gorgonzola) to hide his criminal identity in front of others.

Jorgen/ Boris also does not age.
Chang and Bianca Castafiore don't age.
Neither do the Detectives or Calculus become older.

Sponsz and Müller are the only ones who have consistently changed identifies because they are essentially running away from the past.

I like thinking of Tintin as a permanent 21, Archie as 45-50, and Cuthbert 75 (not so sure about the Thom(p)sons, although considering their semi-baldness, they haven't aged too well). It lends the sagas a sense of unity, making them comfortable and easily accessible.

... although just because Allan and other villains refer to Tintin as a "boy" doesn't necessarily mean he's VERY young. After all, it's common for older people to think of younger ones as boys/girls, even if they're well out of adolescence and officially "grown up".

Allan doesn't age as well even though we first seem to see him in "Cigars of the Pharaoh"...

In magazine LIRE (1977), Hergé declared that Tintin was 14 when he created him, so the most amazing point is Hergé made him look only 4 or 5 in the very beginning of Soviets...
By the way, have you ever heard of any other children's comic book the heroes of which get older so fast, and without any apparent reason??

Where was this interview? I wouldn't mind getting hold of it!...

True, the odious Mr (Allan) Thompson (not to be confused with the benevolent chappie with the tash) looks craggier every time we see him.

Too much sun, violence and opium does that for a person.

When do we see that Allan's last name is Thompson? I'm very curious about that!

It's not in the English editions, only in the original French.
Leslie Lonsdale-Coopper and Michael Turner had to remove the 'Thompson' from the end, to avoid confusion with, as Karaboudjan put it, "the benevolent chappie with the tash" (the detectives had been named Thompson and Thomson before LL-C & MT were involved).