Tintin 80, allegedly gay

Belgian boy reporter Tintin is 80. And he doesn’t look a day over his ill-defined age somewhere between adolescence and twentysomething.

It’s been 80 years since that quiffed visage first appeared as a strip cartoon in the magazine Le Petit Vingtième, and 80 years later he’s still stirring up controversy, with professional tosspot Matthew Parris’ recent article on Tintin’s “obvious” homosexuality (he’s got a best friend who’s a sailor and whatnot).

That in itself is hardly worth mentioning. What is interesting is the backlash that it’s prompted.

The cult of Tintin is clearly still around, even though the stories (and quiffed hairstyles) are looking a bit dated.

It’s not going away anytime soon either, what with über-fans Peter Jackson and Stephen Spielberg collaborating on a trilogy of films, the first to be released in 2010.

I wonder if they’ll explore the sexuality issue? I’m guessing not.

Tintin Movie News

Stephen Spielberg and Peter Jackson's much-talked-about Tintin trilogy has hit a small bump in the road, with Universal pulling funding after getting nervous about the $130m price tag.

Word is that Paramount is in discussions to step into the breach, although given Spielberg's DreamWorks studio is in the process of a protracted and messy divorce from Paramount, negotiations could be interesting.

On the casting front, it's rumoured that Nick Frost and Simon Pegg of Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz will be playing the Thompson Twins.


Note that that's these Thompson Twins . . .


not these ones . . .


Of course the latter was named after the former, but I'm still not expecting Hold Me Now to make it onto the soundtrack.

Hoping. But not expecting.

Paris and Brussells

I've been back home for a few days, so the holiday diary now seems a little superfluous. However, I hate to leave it incomplete.

After leaving Tourtoirac, Kate, Shannon and I hopped a train to Paris. Sarah and Greg were staying in the south for a few more days, before heading off to Spain and Italy.

We arrived in Paris in the late afternoon on Sunday, and would be leaving early on Tuesday morning. So we would have only one full day, and a checklist of things to do. This was to see the three cathedrals: Notre Dame, Sacré Coeur and Sainte-Chapelle, go shopping in Place des Vosges and go to a cemetery. Not really important which one, but we did want to see at least one dead celebrity.

(We ended up going to Montmartre cemetery, because this was the closest to our hotel. Celebrity spotting was limited to Alexandre Dumas and Hector Berlioz. Hmmm. Might try the one with Jim Morrison next time.)

We actually did manage to do all of these things, as well as fit in some overpriced coffee, a nice lunch and a nice dinner. The dinner would have been better if we hadn't been accosted by some obnoxious Aussie tourists who insisted on talking to us about the way Parisians treat their pets, but still.

The cathedrals were all appropriately spectacular, particularly the stained-glass windows in Sainte-Chapelle.

Tuesday morning we took the train north to Brussells, where we farewelled our travelling companion Shannon, who was off to explore Rotterdam and then Berlin.

Brussells was not really what we expected. Being the capital of Europe (apparently) and the home of the UN, I was expecting something like Canberra, or at least The Hague. What we saw was more like Footscray expanded out to an entire city.

This is not necessarily a problem, as I happen to like Footscray. It's just not what I was expecting.

We would be in Brussells for less than 24 hours. The aim (well, my aim) was to bask in all things Tintin as much as possible. Kate had heard about a street market near our hotel, so that seemed like a good place to start.

Once we found it, it turned out to be a combination of people selling very cool vintage furniture and objêts, and others flogging utter unmitigated junk. Seriously, some of the stalls looked like someone had upended their third-drawer-down on a blanket. Not much Tintin, sadly.

But nearby was a Tintin merchandise shop, where we could admire a €3,000 signed poster, cels from the 1980s TV show, and various sketches and whatnot from Studio Hergé. Inspired by this, and receiving directions from the store owner, I then headed out to the comic book museum. (Kate respectfully declined to join me.)

And it was simply fantastic. Comprehensive histories of Belgian and other international cartoonists (lots on Hergé, natch), their creations, and more detail than you might care to know about the development of comic styles over time. Budge, you would have loved it.

When I got back to the hotel, Kate and I went for a wander through the backstreets, as we tend to do. We found Katje's Kitchen, a great little restaurant run by an expat Dutch guy. Great food, great atmosphere. If you find yourself in Brussells, drop in.

Left the next morning for Copenhagen, which will be covered in the next exiting instalment.

And now some photos . . .

Drinks in Paris.


Paris red-light district, featuring the Moulin Rouge. The queue outside goes for blocks.


Saints outside Notre Dame. The fifth from the left looks like my father-in-law Russell. No, really.


Outside Sainte-Chapelle cathedral.


Stained-glass windows inside Sainte-Chapelle.


The view over Paris from the front steps of Sacré Coeur.


My personal shrine. Tintin mural at Brussells Midi train station.


Brussells streetscape.


Dinner at Katje's Kitchen.

Tintin in the Adults Section

Borders bookstores have made the decision to move the book Tintin in the Congo out of the kids section and into the adults section of their stores.

For those who haven't read it, this is the earliest Tintin to be published in the familiar book form, after first appearing as a serial in Belgian newspaper Le Vingtième Siècle. First published in 1931, it tells the story of intrepid reporter Tintin's visit to the Belgian Congo on a hunting trip.

It's easily the most violent and racist of the Tintin books, featuring scenes of animal slaughter and some genuinely shocking colonialism. Africans are portrayed as naive children, desperately in need of the guiding hand of enlightened Europeans to achieve something resembling civilisation. While this is a genuine reflection of European attitudes at the time, it's definitely not for kids.

The thing is, I think similar charges could be made about all the Tintin books, or at least the vast majority of them.

The portrayal of Africans in Tintin in the Congo is a racist and offensive caricature, but portrayals of Chinese people in The Blue Lotus and Native Americans in Tintin in America are not much better. And these are just the most obvious ones. The Tintin books regularly deal with Arabs, Jews and Eastern Europeans in less-than-flattering terms. The only ones that get off scot-free are Western Europeans.

Hergé even has a go at white America, showing it to be full of gangsters and money-obsessed buffoons. But really, that's just funny.

The more I think about it the more I wonder, was this stuff ever really just for kids? It's cut from the same cloth as the Hardy Boys and the Famous Five, with gun running and drug smuggling two of the most common plotlines. But Tintin is much more upfront about the subject matter. People are regularly shot and killed with the guns being run, and the drugs being smuggled aren't just nameless "packages" being moved in the dead of night . . . the drugs are used as poison, or to knock people out. And even to get high. The book Cigars of the Pharaoh, about a narcotics smuggling ring, makes no bones about what this stuff is for, with some really wacky psychedelic imagery. And this was way back in 1934.

So move them all to the adults section, I say. The kids of today's iGeneration surely aren't interested in this stuff. Let's face it, the only people still buying it are boomers and Gen X-ers on a nostalgia trip.

Not that that's a bad thing.

More Tintin

Spielberg and Jackson could do worse than check out this sensational work for inspiration.

*** Extreme Language Warning ***

Now that's funny, kids.

Tintin in glorious 3D

Word is that two of Hollywood's biggest (arguably artistically; certainly physically and financially) are going to do Tintin.

Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson are teaming up to produce a photo-realistic, motion-captured, CGI interpretation of three of the classic books.

(Which three hasn't been announced yet, but I'm tipping The Blue Lotus, The Black Island and The Crab with the Golden Claws . . . the latter because it's where we meet Captain Haddock, nicely setting up some sequels.)

Is photo-realism appropriate for Tintin? Do we really want to see Tintin's pores? The details of Snowy's muddy feet? Captain Haddock's rheumy eyes?

Part of the appeal of Tintin (for me, at least) is the simple ligne claire drawing style . . . all dark lines and flat colours. That probably wouldn't work on the big screen, but making it too real will just make it creepy, a la The Polar Express.

I'd like to see it done with a real background and 2D animated characters, Who Framed Roger Rabbit-style, but I can't see that happening, sadly.

And just who are they going to get to do the voices? Johnny Depp as Tintin . . . Geoffrey Rush as Captain Haddock. That'd be good.

I know it's Spielberg, but if anyone even mentions Tom Hanks' name I'll fucking scream.