Tintin Forums

So here's a question...
If Tintin fans feel they can do their own Tintin adventures and cartoons, without Moulinsart's official approval, are there still restrictions on how Tintin should be portrayed in such a potential free-for-all?

I know, really, there is a big difference between so-called "adult" uses of Tintin and an innocent fan-adventure, but it all depends what you're into, I guess, as to whether it interests you or not.

Perhaps Moulinsart see any unofficial misuse of the character as a blight on the image Hergé created over almost 50 years or so?
Just an interesting observation - not my opinion necessarily. :-)

Well yes... look at the furore over Tintin in Thailand (which infamously had Jolyon Wagg skipping over there with a drag queen, and Archie and Cuthbert visiting a lap-dancing club...)

There have been... ahem... explicit versions of Tintin, but these are mostly in America.

Karaboudjan said:

There have been... ahem... explicit versions of Tintin, but these are mostly in America.

Really? I'm only aware of two or three "adult" Tintin books, but they were all continental - La Vie Sexuelle de Tintin etc. I wouldn't have thought that Tintin had anything like the profile in the U.S. to warrant there being "dirty" versions.

I assume that it is in fact Tintin's ubiquitous boy-scout like image on the European continent which provokes the adult versions in the first place - it isn't necessarily provoked by someone thinking that a randy Tintin and crew will be in and of themselves titilating, so much as it is seen as a two-fingered salute to the "Establishment".

Personally, I would posit that the fan, if working in tribute to Hergé's work, should maintain a link to at least something of the ethos of Hergé, or at least if they are to depart from that, that it is for some genuine artistic reason - Tintin in the New World would spring to mind if it hadn't departed from the ethos of Hergé by being boring...

jock123 noted: it is in fact Tintin's ubiquitous boy-scout like image on the European continent which provokes the adult versions
Definitely, and that applies here too. I had some freinds at school that spent many a break-time with their Tintin books, tippexing out some of the speech in the balloons and adding rude words (I'm sure this was/is a widespread phenomenon!). I thought it actually worked very well at the time, the juxtaposition of Tintin's squeaky clean image and foul language was fairly amusing to a 13 year old schoolboy (snigger!).

My view is that the Tintin icon (quiff, plus fours - easily recognisable) is used in parody strips, and not his personality. Its a kind of Iconic shell that other artists and writers have used as a vehicle for their own grubby (ok, I find some of the stuff is funny!) stories or political means, as in Breaking Free. Breaking Free is a comic book which uses the easily recognisable Tintin format to preach liberal socialist propaganda.
The characters are nothing like the originals, and they could have been drawn as any comic character family.

I think Tintin is such an easy target for humility, and that is why he is put in lewd situations. Have you heard of Robert Crumb's Rupert and the Gypsy Grandmother? here is an example of an innocent character placed in a completely un-fitting situation. But that's part of the humour, a basic comedy of it being out of the ordinary.

The trouble with the "serious" parodies - Rodier, Harry Edwood, etc. - is that that I've never found one that even compares to real Hergé (and studio).
Even when the art's good the feeling and complexity of the story-telling is just not there!

Harrock n roll observed:
I had some friends at school that spent many a break-time with their Tintin books, tippexing out some of the speech in the balloons and adding rude words (I'm sure this was/is a widespread phenomenon!).

Actually, I've never heard of this! I can't emphasise enough that I'm not being ironic in any way here - I can't say it ever occurred to me, and I've never come across it having been done, even with other comics. Did I just lead a sheltered life?

Admittedly, Tippex didn't arrive until I was in secondary school, and neither did I go to school with Kenneth Halliwell and Joe Orton... ;-)

Rastapopoulos
Have you heard of Robert Crumb's Rupert and the Gypsy Grandmother?
Yes, it was a part the major Old Bailey obscenity trial against the Oz magazine "Schoolkids" issue, and a turning point in what was deemed permissable in Britain. However, it wasn't actually by Robert Crumb, per se. The magazine took one of Crumb's underground adult "comix", as the genre was known, and pasted the head of the Rupert Bear character over that of the original's central character - and I have no idea what Crumb thought of that!

Rastapopoulos' observation about "serious" parodies brought back another point I meant to make earlier: part of the peculiarity of the situation is that if you come out and do a straight pastiche of Hergé, you will be shot down by copyright legislation; however, if you drop Tintin and Cº into depraved goings on in a brothel, you can plead that you are parodying the original, and you seem to have an element of protection in law!!

I believe that at least one of the adult parodies has won on that score when challenged in court, and given its longevity, availability and apparent lack of on-going legal actions, I suspect that Breaking Free might be covered in this way...

jock123 admitted: Tippex didn't arrive until I was in secondary school

Tippex wasn't always necessary. Take The Calculus Affro which simply involved giving the prof a big curly hairdo!!

Is it that with the various parodies of Alph-art the breach of copyright is clear-cut (as that particular book was written by Hergé), wheras with the adult parodies a different set of copyright laws apply which relate to the use of image?
I'm no expert on Belgian law (or law in general!) but you'd think that in the case of the "adult" parodies they might have grounds for prosecution under some kind of obscenities act, especially with Tintin being a children's book character.

It might also be worth mentioning that, strickly speaking, it's not a crime to create a parody or a pastiche.
Publishing one or making it available through other means without permission is prohibited under Moulinsart's charter. That doesn't explain why Tintin parodies still continue to be sold regulaly on eBay although I suspect it could partly be down to their intransigence. There are some well-documented cases of fraud where eBay have been very slow to react.

Harrock:I'm no expert on Belgian law (or law in general!) but you'd think that in the case of the “adult” parodies they might have grounds for prosecution under some kind of obsenities act, especially with Tintin being a children's book character.

Well, in the common law system, it all comes down to "fair use." That means both the category of use is fair (private study, critique, etc.) and the way in which it was used was fair too. Parody is generally seen as an embodiment of criticism, but here in Canada, at least, courts have been slow to adopt it. If ever challenged, publications like "Breaking Free" would probably get slapped with an injunction. Less likely in the United States, unless the sheer amount of copying or disrespectful nature was deemed to render the use unfair for the purpose. Not sure about the UK, to be honest.

But as to the question of using the characters in lewd situations, while this is not a specific matter I've studied, there is a doctrine of "moral rights" in intellectual property law that basically says that an author should have a certain degree of control over his/her creation. Again, I know little about them, but I imagine a pornographic depiction of children's characters would be right up there.

Moulinsart could also have a very realistic common law action in passing off against writers of works like "Breaking Free." This is similar to trademark infringement (which they could also try, as presumably phrases like "The Adventures of Tintin" are trademarked), and basically means either that the authors of the parodies are suggesting (purposely or negligently) that their works are in fact the works of Hergé or Moulinsart, or else they are damaging Moulinsart's 'goodwill' by introducing doubt into the market of whether any given work is a real Tintin book or not.

Fans like us would say, "Well, no one would ever take 'Breaking Free' for a real Tintin adventure!" But you'd be surprised how little credit consumers are given in common law courts, especially in the UK.

Harrock:
well-documented cases of fraud where eBay have been very slow to react.

Yeah, I think eBay just doesn't care enough yet. If Moulinsart starts threatening legal action, then we might see them wake up a little.

Well, it looks very much as if Moulinsart are in an impossible position. They can't stop people drawing parodies - that would be scary! The Moulinsart police are coming round your house to confiscate your pens! - nor can they realistically prevent people from mass-producing them, unless of course they get wind of it somehow which has happened. Also, the biggest marketplace for these books is the internet which - aside from being difficult and time consuming to police - means that to stop it they would be forced to take out countless lawsuits against individuals, a lot of whom would be their own fans.

Their only option is to actually release all the parodies in a special "adult" line; catch the bootleggers at their own game! Let's face it, most of them are completely overated anyway. They could release them all in one, generously-packed, reasonably-priced volume.

Dream on...

The Calculus Affro!

*squeals with laughter*

Genius, whoever came up with that!!!

And there are more than a few filthy Tintin pics on the Net as well. My delightful sister spends much of her time sending them to me as ecards (clearly she doesn't have enough to do)...