Author - Hergé

Birth: May 22, 1907.

Death: March 3, 1983.

Comments: Hergé is the pen name of Belgian cartoonist Georges Remi who is famous for writing and illustrating the Adventures of Tintin. He started writing Tintin for the newspaper Le Petit Vingtième, penning the panels that became the story of Tintin in the Land of the Soviets between 1929 and 1930. During World War II, Belgium was occupied by German troops, and Le Petit Vingtième was closed down. Hergé began writing for Le Soir, a Belgian daily that became the official mouthpiece of the occupying forces. Though Hergé attempted to steer clear of political topics, the stories he wrote in this era, most notably The Shooting Star, bore the markings of at least passive Nazi influence (which has, in many cases, been edited out or toned down in later editions).

Although some people criticize the Tintin series for racism, it doesn't appear that Hergé's presentation was particularly hostile to minorities, and given the era in which he was writing, in many ways his depictions were fairly sympathetic to their cause (and in cases in which they were not, they were later revised, Hergé, it seems, was a man who could repent for his previous errors). Hergé seems to have held some fairly monarchist leanings, and despite accusations that dogged him following World War II, he seems to have been both anti-fascist and anti-communist. No matter his political leanings, the hero he created is more or less just a grown up Boy Scout wandering the world finding adventure and settings wrongs right while not doing very much reporting of the news.

     

My reviews of Hergé's books:
The Black Island
The Blue Lotus
The Broken Ear
The Calculus Affair
The Castafiore Emerald
Cigars of the Pharaoh
The Crab with the Golden Claws
Destination Moon
Explorers on the Moon
Flight 714
King Ottokar's Sceptre
Land of Black Gold
Prisoners of the Sun
Red Rackham's Treasure
The Red Sea Sharks
The Secret of the Unicorn
The Seven Crystal Balls
The Shooting Star
Tintin and the Picaros
Tintin in America
Tintin in Tibet

Other books by Hergé that I have read but not reviewed:
None

Related books:

Tintin: Hergé and His Creation by Harry Thompson

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