Tintin Forums

Sin Yee Hon of the Financial Times has just contacted us with the following message:

I thought you might be interested in a special Tintin feature in the 22nd/23rd Oct 2011 edition of the Financial Times Magazine (part of FT Weekend).

The piece reveals never-seen-before Tintin material that Hergé sent to a 9 year old Australian boy, Luke Davis.

Not only are there new original Tintin sketches but personal letters between the two, including Hergé saying, “I have no children, except of course Tintin, Captain Haddock, Professor Calculus… and that's a family!”

The FT-Tintin feature is only available to the UK, as it won't be online. All the same, I thought I would give you a heads up so if any of your British members would like to read the article, you could let them know it will be available to buy this weekend.”

It sounds like it could be very interesting, so pick up a copy if you can!

The piece reveals never-seen-before Tintin material that Hergé sent to a 9 year old Australian boy, Luke Davis.

Wouldn't it make more sense to make this Time magazine also available in Australia then? Can someone who has a copy please describe the contents of the drawing and letters? Cheers.

There is an FT article by Simon Kuper available on-line:Tintin and the war

Fascinating article, especially the details of the background of Herge's father and uncle.

What does stand out, however, is what is not included!

No mention whatsoever of "The Shooting Star". Kuper goes on and on about how Herge and Tintin avoided any mention of the war and the treatment of the Jews, but aspects of these subjects are present in "Star": the tension at the prospect of the end of the world which reflects the war; Phostle ordering rationed sweets to celebrate his discovery of Phostlite; the expedition of mainly continental European scientists taking on the Americans; the use of a German seaplane.

The original newspaper strip even included a pair of greedy, grasping Jews who felt that the end of the world would clear them of their debts!

Talk about selective evidence.

Interesting comparison to Wodehouse too whom I also love.

You’ll have to ask Luke Davies, both the subject and author of the article, why he wrote it for a British paper.

Straight off, I have to say that there aren’t any un-published sketches. I’ve a feeling this is an understandable, honest mistake by the publicist, as the article features the Christmas card that Hergé sent out based on Picaros; this is a trompe-l'œil effect work, using a pencil-sketch of the whisky-drinking scene, onto which has been drawn what appears to be a second card with a picture of Tintin and Snowy and a hand-written message from Hergé, held in place with a paper-clip (both the second card and the clip are drawn). It would be easy to mistake this for a real page of sketch material with a real personal card attached.

The other illustrations are also Christmas cards, half-a-dozen or so, personal letters on Studio letter-head paper, and various envelopes.

The article is a rather charming tale of how the writer, as a nine-year-old, decided to write to Hergé, sure in the knowledge that Hergé would want to write to him, and how he engaged his father to find an address for him. Then how surprised they were when an envelope turned up, with Tintin on it…!

My guess is it may get syndicated, so you could let an Australian paper know, and they might want to carry it.

Hi.

I wrote the piece; it was print-only in the UK simply because The Age and Sydney Morning Herald will be running a slightly expanded version in a couple of weeks that will be print and online.

I hope you enjoy it.

Luke

It was a very touching article - and I'm looking forward to reading an expanded version. Excellent news.

luinivierge2010
Thankyou! I'm glad you liked it. It's been amazing revisiting that time. The expanded version will include (1) an odd additional anecdote which I won't spoil by mentioning here, and (2) what's happened since the UK version went to press, which is that the Hergé archivist Bernard Tordeur kindly tracked down, in storage, copies of a couple of the letters that I wrote to Hergé. I can't even begin to tell you how strange and beautiful it was to see these letters after decades. I'll post here when the article's out. Luke

Thanks, Luke! Looking forward to it. Go the Aussies!