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  • Hergé reporter: Tintin en contexte
  • Laurence Grove
Hergé reporter: Tintin en contexte. Edited by Rainier Grutman and Maxime Prévost. (Special issue of Études françaises, 46.2). Montreal: Presses de l’Université de Montréal, 2010. 184 pp. Pb CAD $12.00.

An irony of BD studies has been that although, until recently at least, the field has cried out for scholarly analyses of many of the form’s eclectic and innovative creations, from 1959 onwards Hergé, and in particular Tintin, has spawned a micro-industry of publications. This current volume adds to that, but also addresses some of the previous concerns in so far as this is no adulatory homage to the master, but rather an evaluation that underlines historical, political, and cultural contexts. Of the six studies dedicated to the boy-scout reporter (this special issue of Études françaises also includes [End Page 266] three close readings of Sollers, Volodine, and Céline), three centre on aspects of popular culture: Guillaume Pinson on the nineteenth-century tradition of journalistic fiction, Ludovic Schuurman on references relating to L’Île noire, including Alain Saint-Ogan and Alfred Hitchcock, and Maxime Prévost on 1960s science fiction, specifically the journal Planète, and Vol 714 pour Sydney. Marc Angenot outlines certain 1930s South American faits divers that attracted mainstream attention, including that of Hergé in L’Oreille cassée, while Rainier Grutman turns to local linguistic politics, Brussels, and Le Sceptre d’Ottokar. Jean Rime’s contribution addresses the inner world of cultural composition via the role of Hergé as metafictional narrator. Overall, therefore, four studies provide a close contextualized reading of a specific album, with two exploring Hergé’s career more generally. The volume as a whole is strong in its application of archival material, such as the documented professionalization of the status of reporter towards the end of the nineteenth century, or Hergé’s French sources for Tintin’s trip to Scotland, although at one stage Robert Flaherty’s descriptions of the Irish Isle of Aran are confused with Bob de Moor’s documentary visit to the Scottish Isle of Arran. Overall, however, Hergé reporter is to be applauded as a case study exemplifying a method applicable to other BDs while returning to a father figure of the form and spanning the range of Tintin’s career from the 1930s to Spielberg.

Laurence Grove
University of Glasgow
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