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Why is Tintin more famous than Jo, Zette and Jocko?

Shivam302001
Member
#1 · Posted: 23 Sep 2018 04:30
Both The Adventures of Tintin and Jo, Zette and Jocko contain similar flow of plot with similar slapstick humour and written by the same author. Some of the characters are as good as Tintin and the two series also take place in many similar locales. So this is what I want to ask:
Why is Tintin & co. so much more famous than the characters of Jo, Zette and Jocko? Most of the people here in India have heard of Tintin but the same cannot be said of Jo, Zette and Jocko.
Is it due to lack of publicity? Is it because of the lack of colourful characters? Or is it just because of the Tintin brand name?

What do the others think about it?
mct16
Member
#2 · Posted: 23 Sep 2018 23:25
Tintin has always struck me as a very mature adventure strip in which the hero does not just travel the world fighting villains, but also observes many important events which readers of the time would have recognised as being very relevant: the Bolshevik regime in Soviets with its corruption and oppression of the people; the Japanese expansion into China in Blue Lotus; the Grand Chaco war and how it is instigated by corrupt Western businessmen in Broken Ear etc.

Also, eccentric characters like the Thom(p)sons, Haddock and Calculus would have added to its appeal.

On the other hand, Jo, Zette & Jocko strike me as just simple adventures with the heroes taking on pirates, gangsters and saboteurs.
The plots are pretty straightforward and there is hardly any political or social issues raised in these stories. Aside from Jocko and the trouble he gets into, the characters are rather standard and simple.

Hergé certainly put more energy and thought into Tintin than he did in his other series.

In an early scene of the Stratoship story (in Mr. Pump's Legacy), Mr Legrand reads a newspaper article about the other companies planning to build aircraft similar to his, yet they are never mentioned in the rest of the story and it appears that his is the only aircraft to be completed and the target of sabotage.
I have always thought that it would have been a more interesting story if the other companies' efforts were raised and looked into. It could have been a story about industrial espionage and how the designers would pinch and improve on the ideas of others (as is often done in industry).
Shivam302001
Member
#3 · Posted: 24 Sep 2018 16:35
I did a search on the Net about this matter, and found out some more.
It would not be wrong to say that Hergé was not too enthusiastic about this series and this was apparently reflected by the market.
Hergé did not intend to create the Jo, Zette & Jocko series, but was obliged to do so to keep his foothold in the French market in the 1930s.
He was urged by publishers to make stories more relatable, and with the protagonists having a proper family (unlike Tintin).
However, that limited the pace of the stories, and Hergé found himself in unfamiliar territory with an actul family at the centre, and quickly grew bored of the characters.
Also, these stories were kept on the backburner(as mct16 says) to make room for work on Tintin.

This series is fairly new to the English audience, having first been published in 1986 and then only three of them.
The Secret Ray was eventually published as a limited edition, due to the now unacceptable racial stereotyping in the two volumes, similar to the problems with Tintin in the Congo.
These problems mean it has also not been translated in as many languages as Tintin thus, decreasing its world market.

That is all from me. Feel free to add any further information.
jock123
Moderator
#4 · Posted: 26 Sep 2018 10:31
Shivam302001:
I did a search on the Net about this matter, and found out some more.

I hope you did a search on Tintinologist first, as most of this information - plus more - is available here; we have multiple threads about the books, both published an unpublished! ;-)

I'd think that as to the over-all popularity, it's simply down to quantity and quality - there aren't as many, and they aren't as good.

I'm not sure of the importance of the "recentness" of their translation to English - 32 years is a pretty long time! - as I don't think that they have that great a following in the French-speaking world either, where they were available from the start.
The books remain available, but that's it, really - no merchandise, calendars, toys, etc., to extend the brand, and no animated adventures to increase their profile with the public.

If Moulinsart and the regional publishers don't promote the series, it won't do more than just bubble along.

I do think that with a bit of TLC that they could be revived - a film, perhaps, would be a start, but there could be an archival release of the unpublished version of Le ThermoZéro, and what preparatory works was done on the unfinished La Main Noire.

It's purely speculative, and I may have said it before, but were there ever to be a move towards re-establishing the Tintin books as an ongoing series, J,Z&J might be where I would start.
It would allow an entry-point back into the world of Hergé, testing the waters for what might come next.
I'd propose that there could be a competition to encourage young artists and writers to develop their style on the principles of Hergé, either through art schools and comics courses at colleges and universities, perhaps with bursaries as prizes, as well as the chance for publication.
To balance some of the sins of the past, I'd promote it as following broadly educational lines, with a positive outlook and a more progressive attitude to issues of race and culture; the father's role as an engineer would allow for science and technology to be looked at, but could be expanded to say that their mother is also an engineer, scientist or naturalist, which broadens the options for stories, and global travel could be a chance to look at environmental issues, or to meet children and people from other cultures, without rendering them simply as stereotypes.
Once a pool of talent in the school of Hergé was available, then perhaps it could at some point be addressed to reviving other series - Quick & Flupke and lastly Tintin.
Were the exercise to prove unpopular, or unsuccessful, then whatever had been developed could easily be retired again, without damage to the Tintin series.
Furienna
Member
#5 · Posted: 19 Mar 2019 22:20
mct16:
Jo, Zette and Jocko strike me as just simple adventures

Well, I think you nailed it here. Jo, Zette & Jocko isn't bad (it has been many years since I read the series though). But where it was possible for Hergé to let Tintin evolve and become more mature, he seems to never have cared about Jo, Zette & Jocko.
So it would remain a series, that was only for kids.
Which is not a bad thing necessarily, but I guess that it gave it a more limited appeal with adult readers.
snowybella
Member
#6 · Posted: 20 Mar 2019 01:15
Personally, I think it's a shame that Jo, Zette and Jocko never really took off. In the last story (The Valley of the Cobras) it was actually "getting somewhere" with the evil fakir and the hypocritical Prime Minister(?) - it felt like another kind of Tintin adventure.

La Main Noire (mentioned above) seems to have been a missed opportunity for a good espionage story, let alone Le ThermoZéro...!

Back on point: I think they didn't really take off because they were done half-heartedly, the children didn't have freedom to do what they wanted, and there was only just five books produced in the series. Had Le ThermoZéro been released, however, then they may have become more popular.

I think that, overall, they should gain more recognition. They're good adventure stories for younger children. Just because they aren't as good as Tintin doesn't mean that they should be shunned.

jock123:
no merchandise, calendars, toys, etc.,

Actually, the Tintin Boutique has some merchandise of them, involving the areoplanes that appear in their adventures.

Two or three years back, they also had a set including Tintin, Quick, Flupke (as well as Popol and Virginny, if my memory's correct!) and their own lead minifigurine - though, given the material used, it's not exactly a toy!

When Hergé was still alive, in at least one of his calendars, he included Jo, Zette and Jocko - but that probably doesn't count, because it had Tintin, Quick, Flupke and Policeman No. 9(?) as well...

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