Tintin

PBS has done it again. PBS broadcast a wonderful short film about Tintin's creator Herge (Georges Remi) by director Anders Ostergaard and I learnt some new things about Herge that are very illuminating and explain how they defined Tintin and his adventures. Especially poignant are his real-life (idealized) friendship with Tchang, how the war effected his stories and his public profile, his views on suicide/"sacrifice" and how they clashed with the stand of Catholic Church. Here's a link to the PBS page.

Growing up, I had the good fortune of getting to read a few comic books of the Tintin series and the Asterix series. I, like many before me and after me got addicted to both the series. However, the addiction worked in different ways for the two. While Tintin enabled me to escape into far off lands and into his adventurous life of a reporter, the Asterix series was so intricately witty that if you didn't pay attention to every detail of an "Asterix" frame, you missed a whole lot. The common thread between the two was the realism in story setting (for Tintin) and in the characters (for Asterix).

More Links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tintin
http://www.tintinologist.org/

[2/15/07] Recently my friend Corbet commented to me how depressing this documentary was. In his words, even more so than one about Lincoln's life.

[2/23/07] A link I found on crave - the cars of Tintin:
http://dardel.info/tintin/tout.html