Original subtitles

(gentle music)

- [Narrator] This is the fascinating story

of Georges Remi, alias Herge,

a press cartoonist who became a legend

and a monument of comic book culture.

His drawings reach record prices in auction houses

and are today among the most expensive

comic book artworks in the world.

Tintin albums have been translated into almost 90 languages

and are read everywhere in the world.

- We're talking about 200 million copies

of the Tintin books have been sold,

more than a million are published every year.

I mean, it is amazing.

Then he said he was pinching himself

to see how this was happening.

He wouldn't believe it now.

(speaks in foreign language), he would say.

"Absolutely impossible, couldn't be."

- [Translator] Herge said, "Tintin is me.

"Would you believe that I've put my whole life into Tintin?"

And "my whole life" obviously means

that he really sacrificed a lot for Tintin.

- [Translator] What's wonderful with Tintin

is that Herge conveyed much more

than you might ever have imagined.

The character takes priority in some ways.

Herge created something bigger than himself.

- [Narrator] Who was Georges Remi,

whose creature became much more famous

than the man who created him?

This is the astonishing story of an artistic genius

who lived as best he could in the shadow of Tintin.

(elegant music)

(crowd chattering)

"My childhood seems very gray to me,"

Georges Remi used to say.

Born in 1907 into a middle class

Catholic family in Brussels,

as a boy, Georges tried to escape from a certain darkness

brought on by his mother's melancholy

and his father's regular absences.

When Brussels was occupied by the Germans

during World War I, he overcame boredom

by drawing stories of a young Belgian boy

who played tricks on the occupier.

The young self-taught artist enthusiastically sketched

countless figures and scenes in his notebooks.

The drawings were initially signed Georges Remi,

then just the initials GR.

Soon enough, the budding artist reversed them,

and the familiar signature Herge was born.

As Georges himself often said, his life changed radically

when he discovered the Scout Movement.

(gentle music)

- Herge, on a Saturday afternoon,

would go to a little, what was a new cinema,

Actualite Cinema in Brussels.

He saw his first silent films, with Charlie Chaplin,

and then it became all the other great heroes of his,

Harold Lloyd, Buster Keaton,

the Mack Sennett things,

and he developed this fascination

in the early black and white cinema.

- [Translator] In silent films, everything has to be

expressed through gestures, poses,

and all sorts of movement.

It doesn't happen through words,

and obviously it's wonderful

to be able to use that in drawings.

(dramatic music)

(horse snorts)

(horse galloping)

(loud clunk)

(loud thud)

He appropriated the rules of silent film

and used them to invent a new language

specifically for comics.

- [Narrator] At the age of 18,

Georges was hired by the newspaper The 20th Century,

an editorial spearhead for Belgium's Catholic

and nationalist right wing, run by an abbot, Norbert Wallez.

- [Translator] Herge was very, very young at that point,

21 or 22, he was just a kid.

But he discovered a mentor, who told him,

"Okay, you're going to do that,

"we're gonna train our readers to become good Catholics,

"good 20th century Catholics,"

meaning good conservative Catholics.

(people screaming)

- [Narrator] Abbe Wallez had an idea

that he presented to Herge.

Why not create a character like Totor

for the paper's supplement,

a pictorial hero without fear and reproach

transmitting the paper's ideas?

What better way to educate its young readers?

(playful music)

"The Adventures of Tintin,"

a reporter at the Petit Vingtieme,

accompanied by the faithful Snowy,

were first published on January the 10th, 1929.

Playing with the codes of the written press,

with drawings replacing an article and photographs,

Herge participated in the invention of modern comics.

- Herge himself, because he worked in a newspaper,

he knew all about how newspapers worked.

The Vingtieme Siecle, being a national newspaper,

it had all international editions there,

so he could see the big names on the newspaper,

who would send their stories from far-flung places

where exciting things were happening.

And he thought this was tremendous,

and, obviously, as a young man,

he would've loved to have done that himself.

But what did he do?

He creates Tintin, who he offers that job.

- [Narrator] Tintin would embody investigative journalism

for youngsters, an intrepid reporter traveling the globe

to bring back his sensational stories in pictures.

Young Tintin's first destination, chosen by Abbe Wallez,

was Soviet Russia, the new communist regime

which so appalled Europe's Catholic conservatives.

In his first appearances in the Petit Vingtieme,

the young hero's hair is brushed forward,

but suddenly, after a brisk car chase,

his quiff stands up straight, and would continue to do so.

A quiff of blonde hair standing upright,

soon to become the hero's most recognizable feature

in his evermore exciting adventures

from one week to the next.

(train horn blowing) (train chugging)

(train crashes)

- [Translator] He created a unique mix of adventure,

action, and burlesque humor,

which had never existed before in that form,

notably by imposing a very rapid pace.

When I read Tintin in the Land of the Soviets today,

the story has aged, but we can still feel the pace.

From the outset, Tintin has to cross a river,

then snow-covered landscapes, and something happens,

and then something else,

and finally he escapes by plane.

The nonstop movement is quite simply unprecedented,

it was completely new at the time.

(gentle music)

- Tintin's success was amazing.

It sold out the first issue on January the 10th, 1929,

so the publisher of the newspaper decided to double

the print run for the next week.

Sold out.

Trebled it for the next week, it sold out.

He was becoming instantly known

in the French-speaking world already

in his first year in 1929.

- [Narrator] In just a few months,

the Petit Vingtieme's intrepid reporter

became the newspaper's star feature.

There was no question of ending his adventures.

The thousands of readers of the youth supplement

couldn't wait to find out which continent

Tintin and Snowy would take them to next.

- [Translator] He'd been to Russia, which was fine,

and now Herge wanted to send him to America,

because you couldn't have one without the other.

And things were happening in America.

There was a lot of talk about Al Capone

and gangsters, et cetera.

But Abbe Wallez, who was obviously

an advocate of Catholicism,

and for whom Belgium's colony, the Congo,

was very important in terms of

the missionaries' civilizing influence,

didn't see things the same way as Herge.

He said, "It would be good now to send him to the Congo

"so he can take stock of what our companions are doing

"to bring civilization to the darkies."

(gentle music) (children shouting)

- [Narrator] In Tintin's early adventures,

Herge didn't really have a pre-established script.

Each week, he would simply dream up a new twist in the tale.

As in "The Land of the Soviets,"

Tintin's only assistant was his faithful friend, Snowy,

a wily fox terrier who would play a key role

in the exotic adventure in the Belgian Congo.

- [Translator] Herge had never been to the Congo.

He researched it as best he could,

and above all, he listened to what was being said.

And, at that time, like the French and other countries too,

the Belgians were colonialists.

Those were the times,

and so, it was something of a caricature,

and looking back now, rather unpleasant.

That vision of the Congolese is obviously not at all

what it should have been.

- [Narrator] In hindsight, Herge came to consider

that certain scenes were not acceptable.

A lesson in geography, for example, glorifying Belgium,

would be replaced by a simple maths class.

In view of Tintin's popularity

among the paper's younger readers,

Abbe Wallez suggested that Herge publish an album

of the young reporter's adventures.

And so, "In the Land of the Soviets" was published in 1930,

"Tintin in the Congo" in 1931,

and then "Tintin in America,"

which he had finally managed to visit, in 1932.

The imaginary scout returned in a burlesque

transatlantic adventure combining far West cowboys

and Chicago gangsters in a comic tradition

born in the USA just a few years before.

- [Translator] It's the essence of comics,

which were always intended to be comical and funny.

The humor was more important than the story,

which was secondary.

At the end of each page, something funny had to happen,

like someone falling over, or something being knocked down.

(loud thud)

(loud thud)

(loud clank)

(punch thuds)

(loud clang)

(playful music)

(loud thud)

(spring reverberates)

- [Narrator] Georges Remi was doing well,

both professionally and in his private life.

After months of patient courtship,

he managed to win the woman he loved,

Germaine, Norbert Wallez's secretary.

(gentle piano music)

After a brief engagement,

Georges and Germaine were married at the Saint-Roch Church

in Laeken in July, 1932.

Germaine would be his principal assistant

and a valuable adviser.

Georges was ambitious

and set up a graphics and advertising company,

believing that his talent and vocation

lay principally in illustrations and posters.

- [Translator] Up to a certain age,

probably about 28 or 29,

Herge was convinced that his professional career

would be in advertising and posters,

not in comics, or (speaks in foreign language) in French,

a term that didn't even exist at that time.

- [Narrator] Georges Remi was a workaholic.

In addition to his graphics work,

he was a mainstay of the Petit Vingtieme's operation.

Every week, he had more and more drawings to do

to fill the paper's 16 pages,

notably the cover,

various illustrations,

and a double-page Tintin story.

- [Translator] When we see the time Herge spent

working in any one week, I don't know how it was possible.

He did two pages of Tintin, and one with Quick & Flupke,

he'd do the covers and other things.

I don't know how it was possible to work so much

and to obtain such extraordinary results.

- [Narrator] In 1934, Georges finally managed

to free himself from Abbe Wallez's political directives.

(ship horn wails)

He was finally the master of a creature

he could develop and shape little by little.

The Tintin albums were now published by Casterman,

beginning with the reporter's adventures in the Middle East

on the trail of a mysterious secret society.

(mysterious music)

(playful music)

(loud slapping) (man groaning)

Herge gradually improved his narrative style

and invented what would be called Tintin's family.

(water splashes)

Inspired notably by his father, who had a twin brother,

he created the police officers Thomson without a P

and Thompson with a P, in French, Dupont and Dupond,

who would henceforth be regulars,

adding to the comedy and the adventures.

Georges Remi was finding his way.

Alone at his desk, he was now preparing an album

that would mark the history of comics and cartoons.

- [Translator] He could have stayed as he was,

in a narrow, limited, and stereotypical vision of society,

highly politicized.

But, paradoxically, it was Tintin that gave Herge

a much broader viewpoint.

In the early albums, Tintin spoke to practically nobody,

and, in fact, he didn't have a mouth.

But as he met more people, Tintin became someone

who was increasingly attentive to others.

The turning point was obviously "The Blue Lotus,"

with Tintin meeting Chang,

corresponding to Herge meeting a Chinese friend,

also called Chang, who was an artist of his own age.

(gentle music)

- [Narrator] Inspired by Chang's calligraphy,

which Chang himself taught him,

in 1934, Herge drew Shanghai

as it had never been depicted before.

Chang himself came every Sunday to paint the ideograms

on the drawings prepared by Georges.

Above all, Chang convinced his friend

that the Chinese were being treated unjustly,

caught between corrupt and racist Western colonialists,

who were occupying Shanghai

and the aggressive Japanese,

who were preparing to invade his country.

And so, real life politics suddenly came to life

in "The Adventures of Tintin," who chose his side.

Herge denounced Japan's military intervention

and the occupation of part of China.

His friend and colleague Chang

appeared as a fictional character

in an historic encounter with Tintin.

Like paper doppelgangers,

Tintin and Chang sealed the friendship of Herge

and his young Chinese friend.

- [Translator] It was a magic moment, "The Blue Lotus."

When I seen the original drawings,

I'm moved that they're extraordinary.

First, I think Herge is a great black and white draftsman,

that cannot be overstated,

and obviously, that's where I see the artist

as being unbeatable, at his best.

Some of the pages are breathtaking,

specifically in the mastery of the black and white.

And the original prints have these little blue washes,

which are quite disconcerting, they're very beautiful.

I'd love to see a facsimile edition

of the originals with the washes.

It would be a comic book that everyone should have

in their library, because, and it's very rarely

that one can say this,

something happens when you look at those original drawings.

- [Narrator] Georges Remi was at the peak of his powers.

His narrative system was now well-established.

Just 29 years old, the young man from Brussels

had invented his own graphic style,

(speaks in foreign language), or the clear line,

which would influence generations to come.

This concept was so-called by a Dutch artist,

Joost Swarte, who was himself influenced

by Georges Remi's original style.

- [Translator] In fact, for the catalog

of an Herge exhibition in Rotterdam, in 1976,

we were looking for a powerful title,

and I thought, (speaks in foreign language) was ideal.

When we talk about the (speaking in foreign language),

we're talking about a drawing style

where we're not using shadow,

and contours are drawn with strong lines of equal width.

- [Translator] Doubts or shades don't exist with Herge.

From a graphical point of view,

this is pursued to the extent that, in Herge's drawings,

there are no shadows.

Each scene, each panel is perfectly lit.

And with these clearly drawn lines,

ultimately the drawings almost attain the purity of signs.

Signs and pictograms are universally understood elements.

In my view, he invented something that relates

to a universal language through images.

It's the reason why his comics can be read around the world

in the most diverse cultures.

(playful music)

- [Narrator] For Herge, the (speaks in foreign language)

was, above all, a matter of legibility

and narrative effectiveness.

"The Adventures of Tintin" were similar to detective

or spy films, dramatic yarns steeped in reality.

"The Broken Ear" is based on the conflict

between Bolivia and Paraguay,

which was making the news at the time.

"The Black Island" was based on attempts by Nazi spies

to destabilize Great Britain

through the mass distribution of counterfeit money.

(tense music)

In "King Ottokar's Sceptre,"

Herge's drawings related the perils

of expansionist polices in Europe.

- I particularly love "King Ottokar's Sceptre,"

another wonderful anti-fascist book.

Just as "The Blue Lotus" was against

the fascism and imperialism

which the Japanese were imposing on the Chinese,

we have the "Ottokar's Sceptre,"

which is a story of a failed attempt

of a fascist dictatorship

to take over a neighboring small country with a king.

And, of course, the villain, who we never see,

but the villain is Musstler,

combination of Mussolini and Hitler.

It's his wonderful way, Herge relates world events,

things which are happening, to the stories.

(gentle piano music)

- [Narrator] Georges was a pacifist.

Through a character named Mr. Bellum,

appearing on the front cover of the Petit Vingtieme,

he attempted to denounce Hitler as a danger

and announce his own opposition to another world war.

(siren wailing) (explosions boom)

But it was too late.

Tintin was swept aside by the chaos of war,

and his adventures, for the moment, were over.

(airplanes screeching)

(airplane roaring)

- [Narrator] Like thousands of Belgians,

Georges and his wife Germaine took to the road

and sought exile in France.

But after France collapsed, there was nowhere else to go.

The couple returned to Brussels, now occupied by the Nazis.

It was during these troubled times

that Herge would draw and publish

some of the masterpieces that made Tintin a legend.

(ominous music)

- [Translator] The war changed many things for Herge,

in the sense that the invasion of Belgium

caused the Vingtieme Siecle paper to disappear,

and the Petit Vingtieme too,

and so he lost his regular publication medium.

- [Narrator] The thousands of Tintin readers

were a much sought-after audience, however,

and several newspapers tried to hire him.

He refused an offer from the Rexist Party

founded by Leon Degrelle,

Belgium's far right Catholic party,

which had sought to use his drawings for some years.

But he agreed to work for Le Soir,

the leading national daily,

which was launching a youth supplement.

This decision to publish his drawings under the occupation

would be held against Herge for a long time.

- [Translator] He agreed to work for Le Soir,

which was an important paper,

but was obviously controlled by the occupier.

All the papers published during the occupation

were controlled by the occupier.

(gentle music)

- [Narrator] And so it was in Le Soir's

daily youth supplement that Tintin returned.

(loud slap) (spring reverberates)

(loud slap) (spring reverberates)

(loud clack)

- [Translator] What happened during the war

was that Herge continued to be dominated

by his character and his comic creations.

It was all he could see.

He was living in a bubble,

in which Tintin was the principal inhabitant.

(gentle music)

- [Narrator] His new adventure took place

far from war-torn Europe,

surrounded by sand and sea

against a backdrop of opium smuggling.

In his notebooks where he wrote

the first version of his scenarios,

Herge imagined an exotic detective story,

with no reference to the world war.

"The Crab with the Golden Claws"

marks a key turning point in Tintin history,

particularly for the appearance of a new character

who would change the reporter's destiny.

(playful piano music)

(bottle crashes)

(waves splashing)

(fire crackling)

(spring reverberates)

- [Translator] Captain Haddock can do everything

that Tintin can't.

He can swear,

and there's even a dictionary of his curse words.

He can drink.

Tintin first meets him when he's a fully fledge alcoholic.

And in the following albums, there is always a time

when Haddock loses control and grabs a bottle.

It's the sign that something serious is happening,

as if real life were intervening in the story.

(crowd chattering)

"The Crab with the Golden Claws" was a success,

but the tenth Tintin story, "The Shooting Star,"

also published during the occupation,

would be more controversial.

Beginning in an apocalyptic atmosphere,

reflecting conditions in war-ravaged Brussels,

"The Shooting Star" is a fascinating

science fiction adventure.

What Herge was criticized for

was his conciliatory portrayal of scientists

from Axis countries or neutral states

such as Switzerland and Portugal, and above all,

the caricatural depiction of the story's baddie,

an American financier with a Jewish name.

- [Translator] "The Shooting Star" is less concerned

with propaganda than "Tintin in the Congo,"

"Tintin in America," or "Tintin in the Land of the Soviets."

"The Shooting Star" is, above all, the story of a chase.

If you wanted to demonstrate that there was a strong

ideological intention there, you'd have a hard time

because there is no ideology in the story.

(gentle music)

- [Narrator] The stories were now published in Le Soir

in a format of just four panels.

Paper shortages led to the demise of the youth supplement,

and also put paid to any hopes of publishing

"The Shooting Star" in a 120-page album.

Casterman wanted to halve the number of pages.

In exchange, the publisher offered

to print the album in color.

"It would be a revolution," they said.

(gentle music)

In order to use his original drawings

and to preserve the legibility and clarity

of the (speaks in foreign language),

Georges found a solution:

The colors would be printed separately from the black.

On the reproduction of a page

where the lines had become blue-gray,

the colors would be applied by hand, then printed first.

The black lines were then added to the color images.

The (speaks in foreign language) enclosed the areas of color

and perfectly outlined every element within the drawing.

- [Translator] He encouraged his editor and the printers

to get the hightest quality possible.

He knew all the techniques that were used very well.

The hardbound 64-page album,

which is something of a standard,

it was Herge who contributed to that.

- [Narrator] "The Adventures of Tintin"

continued uninterrupted in the Le Soir.

"The Crab with the Golden Claws appeared in 1941,

"The Shooting Star" in 1942,

"The Secret of the Unicorn"

and "Red Rackham's Treasure" in 1943.

"The Secret of the Unicorn,"

which begins at a famous flea market in Brussels,

is the story of a timeless and exotic quest,

the quest for a treasure,

and above all, for origins and roots.

This time, Herge doesn't focus on Tintin

but on Captain Haddock, on the trail of his ancestors.

With the splendid panels of pages

of "The Secret of the Unicorn,"

Herge perfected his coloring methods.

The clear line technique surrounding the flat colors

enhanced the readability of the panels

by giving equal priority to every element in the drawing,

whether in the background or the foreground.

(gentle music)

- [Translator] Herge said that his job

was that of an illuminator.

There's something very laborious

about putting all these panels together,

making sure they're well drawn, clean, and readable.

And so, there's a homemade craft element to it.

It's very demanding.

And on a daily basis, it requires an incredible discipline.

- [Narrator] After the Thomsons and Captain Haddock,

Herge completed Tintin's family in "Red Rackham's Treasure"

with an ingenious egghead,

an odd little academic

inspired by the explorer Auguste Piccard.

- [Narrator] Professor Cuthbert Calculus,

an absent-minded and half-deaf physicist,

suddenly appears with his ingenious inventions,

a character destined to become an inexhaustible source

of gags and misunderstandings.

(loud thud) (playful music)

(loud thud)

- The figures around Tintin, his friends,

the what you call in French (speaks in a foreign language),

the world characters around him,

they are very realistic.

You see every wrinkle on Captain Haddock's face,

every detail about Professor Calculus.

It's all terribly, terribly detailed,

but also, the key thing, which is more important,

is the hero, Tintin,

is wonderfully vague, he's an anonymous figure,

with the round head, just the quiff thing,

the two dots, the little nose.

And what's so clever about that

is that any reader can identify with Tintin.

So, it's a brilliant combination of the central figure,

Tintin, who is not well-defined,

and the very realistic setting of the country

where the adventure is taking place

and the characters around it.

(gentle piano music)

- [Narrator] Georges Remi's imaginary world

was dramatically submerged by the real world

when the Allies finally liberated Brussels

in September, 1944.

(crowd cheering)

(woman laughs)

A period of joyous relief was also a time of reckoning

for those suspected of fraternizing with the enemy.

An accusatory finger was pointed at everyone

who had worked at the German-run Le Soir newspaper.

Georges Remi even spent one night in jail

before the authorities dropped the charges,

having found nothing compromising in Tintin's adventures

during the occupation.

- [Translator] The immediate postwar period

was very hard for Herge.

All at once, he was caught up in reality,

meaning that, like everyone else, he was made aware

of the horror of the extermination camps, for example,

and so, like anyone else who considered themselves

to be neutral, there were questions to be answered.

Did I ignore what I should've noticed?

Did I deliberately not see things, et cetera.

And so they were troubled times for many people,

and the bubble he was locked inside

with Tintin finally burst.

Added to that, there were depression and overwork,

which is a physical ailment.

There are letters which reveal

that he was really sick of Tintin,

he didn't want to hear about him.

He saw the younger audience as a cruel monster

just waiting for things to befall him.

There are some very harsh words that are extremely poignant.

- [Narrator] What had the past 20 years brought him?

20 years stuck to his desk

with no time off apart from the odd Sunday.

Georges had the impression life had passed him by,

that he was a prisoner of his own characters,

and above all, of Tintin,

who he drew, at that moment, with a whip in his hand.

- [Translator] The drawing board is like a home,

it's a personal and private place,

and is no doubt a source of pleasure and dreams

for so many authors, and definitely for Herge.

But it can become an instrument of torture too.

It can become a source of worry and of stress.

(gentle music)

- [Narrator] Despite exhaustion and doubt,

Herge gave a favorable response to three industrialists,

notably to Raymond Leblanc,

who suggested in the autumn of 1946

that they launch a Tintin magazine,

where he would publish new adventures

after a two-year absence.

The magazine gave Georges the possibility of completing

a project that was close to his heart,

and which reflected his state of mind at the time,

a disturbing, paranormal story,

in which the main character was the mummy

of an Inca king, Rascar Capac.

(mysterious music)

(crystal ball crashes)

- [Translator] "The Seven Crystal Balls"

is one of the most frightening adventures,

one of the stories most concerned with the fear of madness,

which was a very personal theme for Herge.

His mother, who was extremely fragile,

had been interned several times,

and unfortunately, received electric shock treatment,

if one could call it treatment.

In any case, it was extremely hard on her.

Elisabeth Remi, Herge's mother,

wouldn't survive such treatment,

and she died in April, 1946.

"The Seven Crystal Balls" and "Prisoners of the Sun"

perhaps metaphorically, but nonetheless quite directly,

are marked by his concerns, and at the same time,

a certain tolerance for various perceptions of the world

which are perhaps not the norm.

- [Narrator] Georges's depression worsened at times,

much to the dismay of the "Tintin" magazine personnel.

He increasingly found refuge

in Switzerland or at the seaside,

as he couldn't find the strength to keep on drawing,

and refused to continue working as the slave to a creature

that was sucking the life out of him.

- [Translator] It's very unpredictable.

What's wonderful with writers

is that things just come to them.

They may wonder what's going on, what's happening,

and everything may be fine in some ways,

but then they lose something

and they can't find that thread

that they've been following so easily.

It's very odd, that thread,

it's a thread that connects you with childhood,

a link with the childhood of the readers

for whom you're writing.

At times like that, you're on a tightrope,

but you're able to balance and juggle

with so many things.

(melancholy piano music)

- [Narrator] To protect himself from overwork,

Georges made a decision.

He created a refuge with Germaine,

a real retreat in a large house in Ceroux-Mousty

in the countryside outside Brussels.

The image was one of a well-settled, satisfied couple.

Georges believed his country retreat

could stave off his existential anguish.

A second, and vital, decision was to create

a better workplace, with a team to assist him.

The Studios Herge was set up in Brussels in 1950.

Georges could now count on other artists

to create his backgrounds and settings,

and colorists to complete the painstaking job

of hand-painting every panel in a Tintin story.

The studio team enabled Herge

to concentrate on what he preferred,

drawing his characters

and dreaming up incredible new adventures.

- [Translator] In a way, Tintin led him on.

He was larger than life,

and he had an incredible intuition

for finding whatever enabled the character

and his world to grow.

He realized that each album was an adventure,

an adventure for Tintin, but also an adventure for himself.

He was looking for something.

It had to be exciting,

every page had to be new and inventive,

he had to create and surprise himself.

(elegant music)

- [Narrator] Largely thanks to the team around him,

Herge was able to imagine a futuristic adventure

that demanded a good deal of scientific research

and technical drawings

that were unprecedented for comic books.

(adventurous music)

(rocket rumbling)

In 1953, 16 years before Neil Armstrong,

Tintin walked on the moon.

Herge and his heroes were now ahead of their time.

Readers were thrilled by the two-volume story,

and the albums were phenomenally successful.

(playful piano music)

The teamwork organization

really proved itself in "The Calculus Affair."

Herge had become a master

in scriptwriting and plot breakdown,

borrowing the most effective framing

and sequencing techniques from the cinema.

In "The Calculus Affair,"

the panels are like perfectly framed film shots,

building the intensity of each scene

to a cliffhanger situation,

encouraging the readers to turn the page.

The global success of Tintin's adventures,

now translated into numerous languages,

did little to appease Georges.

After 25 years of marriage,

his relationship with Germaine was constantly deteriorating.

Georges succumbed to the charms

of a young colorist at the studios, Fanny Vlamynck.

The sudden attraction led to a relationship

as of autumn 1956.

As a scout steeped in the values of honor and fidelity,

Georges felt guilty and was ill at ease in his double life.

He worked harder than ever

and came up with an album

that was perhaps the most personal

and poignant in the series.

- [Translator] Writing a story isn't something

that you do artificially,

just inventing a character and various events.

You put your whole being into it.

"Tintin in Tibet" really reflects what was going on

in Herge's life at that point.

He was wondering what to do.

He was in love with someone else, but at the same time,

he didn't want to make Germaine unhappy.

And in a certain way,

we can read "Tintin in Tibet" in that light.

Tintin is certain that he can find his friend Chang alive.

And that's the pretext for a battle against the elements,

and ultimately, he has to go beyond his own limits.

The dreams of white,

torments that Herge himself experienced in his own dreams,

which he noted down at the time.

The white we can find in "Tintin in Tibet"

is also very telling.

It's not by chance that Herge was so fond of this episode,

it was the one in which he invested himself the most.

- [Narrator] In the end, against all the odds,

Tintin finally finds Chang,

and Herge regained a certain serenity,

aided by oriental philosophers

who accompanied him to the Himalayas.

Georges left Germaine in the autumn of 1960

and moved in with Fanny.

A new life opened up at the age of 53.

Far from the classic bourgeois environment

of Ceroux-Mousty, Georges gave vent

to his passion for contemporary art.

He became a keen collector,

and surrounded himself with abstract paintings,

Frank Stella, Serge Poliakoff,

Sonia Delaunay, Jean Dubuffet,

the Belgian Louis Van Lint,

or the slash canvasses of Lucio Fontana.

- [Translator] I remember the first time

I went into his office and I saw what was on the walls.

It was quite surprising.

I'll tell you the most striking thing.

There were some white tiles

with a plastic funeral wreath underneath,

a piece by Raynaurd.

I remember Herge explaining who Raynaurd was,

and why he generally expressed himself

using very cold images,

with taboos and transgressions, et cetera.

It can all be quite puzzling

for someone who doesn't understand it.

So, he had that talent, that interest in certain artists,

and he didn't but things inadvisably.

He was drawn by the artistic approach

as much as by the work itself.

- [Narrator] Art was a breath of fresh air.

What if he was a frustrated artist

who had missed his vocation?

Herge posed the question himself in the early '60s

when he began painting abstract subjects.

- Then he wanted, he said, "I would like to do this myself.

"I would like to see if I can do this."

So, in fact, he got in touch

with a leading Belgian abstract artist and said,

"Could you give me lessons, could you instruct me?"

and he had sessions with him.

And he did, I think, 37 abstract canvasses.

(gentle music)

But the judgment of the artist who was advising him

and of his friends were, "It's something you enjoy doing,

"perhaps getting out of the system,

"but what you are best at doing is Tintin."

- [Narrator] Herge realized that painting

required a lifelong devotion.

He laid his brushes aside,

picking up his pen and Chinese ink again

in order to finish another album.

This was a weak low,

where nothing or very little actually happens.

The whole Tintin family

is gathered together at Marlinspike Hall,

and the vaudeville entertainment

could almost have been the final album,

as "The Castafiore Emerald" has an air of completion

and contentedness about it.

- [Translator] When you create a family of characters,

at some point, readers become attached to each of them

and wait for them to return.

People expect to see Calculus and the Thomsons, et cetera,

and they're disappointed if one is missing.

So, the system becomes a little parochial.

What's extraordinary with "The Castafiore Emerald"

is that he ultimately manages to turn the system

on its head and reverse everything,

with an idea that I think is incredibly daring.

Tintin doesn't go anywhere.

As a child, you might like this story a bit less

because maybe it's too sophisticated,

but when you read it now, it's quite a remarkable feat.

(static crackling)

(television buzzing)

(electricity crackling)

(static crackling)

What's wonderful with Herge

is that he really believes in comics.

He believes that comics can translate every type of emotion.

They can make you cry and laugh, and puzzle you,

and haunt your dreams.

(gentle music)

- [Translator] Herge is a veritable author,

in the sense that he expresses his obsessions,

he presents his vision of the world, a form of humor.

He makes it a very personal form of expression

and, almost unconsciously, a private journal.

Tintin is an idealized projection of Herge,

but Herge is as much Haddock, or Calculus,

or even perhaps the Thomsons,

and Bianca Castafiore, who knows?

(gentle music)

- [Narrator] After 50 years of cohabitation,

Herge and Tintin were reconciled.

He realized that, after a string of adventures

begun in 1929, he had finally created a major work

that would mark comic book history

and, no doubt, art history too.

To celebrate their golden anniversary,

Herge made a caricature of himself

and his life as a prisoner,

gray-haired and chained to his drawing table.

Mm, yes, we met first five years ago.

- [Narrator] At the end of the 1970s,

the modern art fan gained a passion for pop art,

and his office featured paintings by Roy Lichtenstein.

Andy Warhol himself made the inventor

of modern comics a pop icon.

But time was running out for Georges, he was ill.

He was diagnosed with bone marrow cancer.

(crowd chattering)

(crows applauds)

He bought one last artwork, in 1982, Bleu de Nuit,

a Polaroid mosaic by Stefan de Jaeger,

in which a ghostly double seems to emerge.

Georges Remi, Herge, perhaps responsible

for raising comics and cartoons

to the status of the ninth art,

died on March the 3rd, 1983.

He specified that, after his death,

no one else should ever create another Tintin adventure.

(gentle music)