Tintin Forums

There has been a couple of posts in the forum recently about the Tintin copyright issue.

French artist Xavier Marabout produced some paintings depicting Tintin in works of the American artist Edward Hopper, including his famous "Nighthawks" in which some people meet in a late-night diner.

Marabout's version had Tintin flirting with a young girl!

The Tintin copyright holders, Moulinsart, objected to this and sued Marabout. They disapproved of Tintin being shown in female company.

The judge however accepted that it was a parody and ruled in favour of Marabout, with Moulinsart having to pay legal costs and damages.

I've got to be honest and say, I'm interested that the case won on this point, as I can't actually see what's a parody about this...?
The definition of "parody" that I've seen is, "An imitation of the style of a particular writer, artist, or genre with deliberate exaggeration for comic effect".
It's true it meets part of the definition of parody - imitating styles - but is the effect comic...?
There's no particular reason that I can discern why placing characters from Hergé into Hopper makes a particular point; it just seems to be a juxtaposition without a purpose.
I'd have been more prepared to accept that it was a satire of Tintin's boy-scout image, had it been done in Hergé's style, but the additional use of a Hopper scene, which the artist has to alter in tone to his purpose, seems to me more a sign that the artist just wanted to show he can imitate styles, than that he was making a significant point.

Many of Marabout's works depict Tintin flirting with young women when we all know that he hardly even looks at one throughout his adventures. Most of the women he meets are landladies or housekeepers while Castafiore is just a friend given the age gap.

Marabout even has Tintin kissing a girl (search for "Baiser sous le pont de Queensboro (2016)") or sitting outside a sex shop! (based on Hopper's Sunday, 1926). There is even one of him topless in a seedy hotel room with a bra lying next to him on the bed! (no, I am sure the bra is not his :)

Boy-scouts are usually depicted as an all-male environment which is pretty the case of Tintin and his mostly all-male friends. Having the perfect boy-scout involved in such activities is Marabout's view of a parody.

Marabout is quoted as saying that he "imagined a romantic life for Tintin in the intimate and voyeuristic universe of the American painter. Because frankly, the universe of Hergé is terribly virile and women are completely absent." and "Who can imagine a world without women?"

On a separate note, some of these pictures appear to include Tintin with Yoko Tsuno, a comic character created by Roger Leloup who worked with Herge on many of the post-war Tintins. There is one of them on the moon in spacesuits or refuelling the blue jeep - with the moon rocket in the background