Tintin creator's passion for China

CERTAIN T-SHIRT ICONS dominate across the globe: Homer Simpson, SpongeBob SquarePants, Bob Marley, Che Guevara ... and an ageless Belgian lad called Tintin. Despite having an indeterminate young adult appearance, Tintin is actually one year 'older' than Che, having come into this world, albeit on the printed page only, in 1929. When the first Tintin adventures gained an audience, while fascism was casting shadows over 1930s Europe, these adventures were the Pixar animation films of their day. Adults enjoyed the topical and satirical referencing; younger readers were caught in the thrall of stories superbly told and illustrated. The true life story of Tintin's creator Georges Remi - better known by the pen name Herge - reads like a Hollywood biopic. Fact is stranger than fiction, even in Tintinland. Born in Brussels 100 years ago this May, Herge's first drawings were of the German soldiers who invaded his country in 1914. And, while he was still in secondary school, his first drawings to be published commercially appeared. Herge's first job was with the Belgian daily Le XXe Siecle. His talents were quickly recognised and he was tasked with overseeing the newspaper's weekly, Le Petit Vingtieme, for student readers. Creating a wholly original comic strip, the first Tintin adventure appeared in Le Petit Vingtieme in 1929. Tintin In The Land Of The Soviets, a yarn that meshed current affairs with the escapades of a young reporter, Tintin, journeying through the Soviet Union, was a national smash hit. The second Tintin adventure, Tintin in the Congo (then a Belgian colony), consolidated Herge's success. The fifth Tintin adventure, 1936's The Blue Lotus, was his first masterpiece. Set in Northeast China and Shanghai during the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese war, much background to this overtly anti-imperialist opus was provided by Herge's friend Chang Chong-jen, an art student at Brussels' Academie des Beaux-Arts, to whom Herge was introduced in 1934. Chang opened up a new world to Herge, for China and its culture was much misunderstood in 1930s Europe. Herge showed his appreciation by adding him as the central character to The Blue Lotus. At the end of his studies in Brussels, Chang returned to Shanghai and Herge lost contact with him during the war. After Belgium was overrun and occupied by the Nazis in 1940, Le Petit Vingtieme folded, and Herge accepted an offer to move Tintin to Le Soir, a leading daily that had become a mouthpiece of the occupation forces. At Le Soir, the diligent cartoonist delivered six notably apolitical Tintin adventures. The occupation of Brussels ended in September 1944 but, during the chaotic liberation, Herge was arrested no less than four times by different authorities. Worse, he was accused of being a Nazi sympathiser. It is worth noting that until his talent had been sequestered by Le Soir, Herge's work had been unequivocally critical of fascism (none more so than The Blue Lotus). Nevertheless, like other former employees of the Nazi-controlled press, Herge found himself temporarily barred from media work. In 1946, Herge regained much of his pre-war stature with Tintin Magazine, which was financially backed by a publisher with a stirring reputation as a war-time resistance hero. The magazine brought back colour and joie de vivre to the austere Belgium of the late 1940s and sales were robust. The magazine's success generated high expectations that put a huge strain on the cartoonist. In 1949 Herge suffered a nervous breakdown and, in the following years, he experienced major upsets in his personal life compounded by depressive illness. Nevertheless, another masterpiece lay around the corner. Published and serialised in Tintin Magazine, 1958-59, Tintin in Tibet dispatched the Peter Pan of journalism to the Himalayas in search of Chang, Tintin's friend from The Blue Lotus. The last three Tintin adventures came out between 1961 and 1976. All were well-received, but none come close to his twin masterpieces, The Blue Lotus and Tintin In Tibet, set in a part of the world that had captivated Herge since he met Chang in 1934. Life mirrored art when Herge managed to regain contact with Chang, decades after Tintin rescued the fictional Chang in the closing pages of Tintin in Tibet. Chang had also been wounded by the vicissitudes of the 20th century. The Cultural Revolution had little use for creative types, and the Red Guard forced Chang to accept a job as a street sweeper. As the revolutionary convulsions of the 1960s receded, Chang reasserted himself, and worked his way up to become the head of a fine arts academy during the 1970s. He returned to Europe for a reunion with Herge in 1981 and made Europe his home when he settled in Paris four years after. He died in 1998, a loss keenly felt in the French-speaking and Chinese arts communities. Herge died in 1983, aged 75, having lived through - and insightfully chronicled - Europe's most tumultuous century. But Tintin lives on in 23 complete Tintin books and in the hearts of millions for whom he was a portal into another, always thrilling, world. And, anyone who has recently read a Tintin adventure knows, Belgium's most famous journalist still has it all: an inquiring mind, a quest for adventure, an unstoppable yeaning for the truth and a distinctive cowlick hairstyle. Remarkably, he is also never troubled by deadlines, office politics or relationship problems. Escapism at its most comforting.