The Seriocomicstrip World of Tin-Tin

In show business, performers make a distinction between comedians, who work in a particular style or do a set routine, and comics, who will use any device, however hackneyed or ridiculous, to get a laugh. A Mort Sahl, for instance, will do pointed political satire; a Jerry Lewis will catch pies in his face. In terms of professionalism, comics are seen as lacking in "class."

Literarily, the same distinction holds between humorous hardcover books and comic books. Comics definitely have no class. They traffic in the lowest forms of banality and bathos —sight gags, double-takes, buffoonery, and the biffs, pows, and zonks that have been their stock-in-trade ever since "The Yellow Kid" first appeared in the 1890's. The cheapness of this comedy has won the comic book its status as a degraded subspecies of literature.

There is one comic series, however, that stands out markedly from the general mediocrity of the genre. It is called The Adventures of Tin-Tin, the creation of a Belgian artist named Georges Remi, who goes by the nom de plume Herge. Such is the excellence of the Tin-Tin series that since it first appeared in 1929 its readership has included such luminaries as Andre Malraux, Henri Peyre, and Madame Chaing Kai-shek; and it has drawn praise from critics in Newsweek, the Sunday Times of London, the Times Literary Supplement, and the Daily Mail. ¹ While no claims can (or should) be made for the series as serious literature, The Adventures of Tin-Tin uniquely demonstrates that comic book comedy need not be incompatible with the tastes of those who take literature seriously.

As the title implies, the stories center on the exploits of a young reporter named Tintin (unhyphenated in the text) and his two sidekicks, a hard-drinking sailor named Captain Haddock and a pet dog, Snowy. Their adventures have a distinctly internationalist cast about them: in "Prisoners of the Sun" they fall prey to a band of atavistic Peruvian Indians, in "Flight 714" it's Indonesian skyjackers, in another he goes to Tibet, and so on. (Economics may partially dictate this theme, since the series is published in 28 different countries.) Tintin's profession is really only nominal, a convenience for Herge to lead him into the classic comic book situations —chasing bad guys, uncovering plots, discovering treasures, escaping murderous villains. In this respect, as in others, the author is a thoroughgoing traditionalist.

What probably appeals most to adult readers is the quality of the drawings, which, by comic book standards, are exquisite. Herge's ambition in his youth was to become a fine artist, but in 1929 he published the first of the adventures as a comic strip in a Brussels newspaper, and its instant success caused him to devote all his energies to Tin-Tin. His artistic skill, however, is evident in nearly every frame of the books. Each scene is rendered in almost photographic detail —individual plant species can be identified, for example, in jungle settings —which is augmented by an exceptionally subtle handling of color. The orchestration of line and color has led one critic to aver that the drawings "are worthy of serious critical consideration . . . as works of art."²

Apropos comedy, our concern here, Tin-Tin is likewise remarkable but for different reasons. Surprisingly (or so it seems), Tintin himself is neither the subject nor the object of much laughter in the books. In fact, he is rather bland. Both visually and literarily, he is the most underdrawn of the characters. Herge has given him a roundish face, sandy, cow-licked hair, button eyes, and a tiny, o-shaped mouth. His personality is likewise tepid ("Crumbs!" is his most powerful epithet) and, except for some noteworthy departures, his dialogue is as laconic as the generic schoolboy's outfit he wears (light sweater, dark knickers). Tintin is an exactly life-size character, neither very shrewd nor very gullible, neither heroically outsized nor cutely miniaturized. And yet, these same "characterless" qualities are what make him the key to the entire series, the vital center and focal point...