Celebrating the Timeless Allure of Tintin's Aesthetics
135 comments
·January 9, 2025eadmund
GuB-42
In Europe, Tintin is under copyright until 2053 (death + 70 years).
And the rightsholders (Tintinimaginatio, previously Moulinsart) are very aggressive about it, even more so than Disney. They don't have the lobbying power of Disney, but they are going to do everything in their power to protect and possibly overstep their rights. It includes using trademark laws and publishing new Tintin adventures against the will of the original author as an attempt to renew their copyright.
jeffreyrogers
If he sold his rights then it's not really against his wishes anymore.
ForOldHack
“It appears, from a 1942 document… that Hergé gave publishing rights for the books of the adventures of Tintin to publisher Casterman so Moulinsart is not the one to decide who can use material from the books,”
( in Dutch )
https://www.livreshebdo.fr/sites/default/files/assets/docume...
swores
He died. So pedantically you can say he doesn't have any wishes any more, but it's clear they meant that it's against what he wanted when alive.
andrepd
Silly me, I thought there was ethics beyond The Profit Motive.
fnordian_slip
While I don't have a dog in that fight, describing the opponents position as being against Tintin "becom[ing] part of the shared treasure of all mankind" seems rather unfairly dismissive.
I would expect that most of those artists don't mind the journey into public domain. Rather, the are against large corporations hoovering up that treasure and regurgitating it with a profit motive.
Gormo
So they don't mind work entering the public domain, but they do mind people making use of that work in an organized way after it has? Seems a bit strange.
mihaic
LLMs are not people, and some organized way are worse than others, yes.
In the same way we defined "fair use" for those reviewing a movie for instance to be ok, but we don't find it acceptable to put 99% of the movie with a single comment.
ForOldHack
Because a lot of interested people do not want the images and style to be destroyed by A.I. usage.
jfim
Some countries have moral rights which are perpetual, and are meant to prevent works from being mutilated, defaced, misattributed, or otherwise could cause reputational damage to the author.
It's not unreasonable for an author to want their creation to be enjoyed as it was designed to be, but not torn apart to be reassembled in different ways.
tokioyoyo
It’s not strange if you think how the worth of the images have plummeted down to zero, both emotionally and monetarily, in the last few years. I’m not an artist, nor directly in AI field, but it is weird how I have zero emotional response to any image I see, because I think it might be AI generated.
marxisttemp
What about that seems strange?
bazoom42
Tintin is notable in that the series was not continued by other artists after the desth of Hergé. While the estate is critized for guarding the IP too zealously, I greatly respect this decision, which is part of what makes it such a classic.
bigmattystyles
Maybe not in the official series, though I’d love to see Al-far one finished by someone. But as far as tintin, there may not be official series, but there is a lot of new work based on it, from merch to the Spielberg movie, as bad as it was.
lcouturi
Several fans have created their own (unauthorized) completed versions of the Alph-Art. Most famous is Yves Rodier's version from 1991.
jaymzcampbell
There's been weights on Civit.ai [1] for months, and I just assumed this was already done and a lost cause. When I asked ChatGPT/Dall-E for an image "... in the style of Herge" it didn't do a half bad job enough for me to see the inspiration either.
mongol
I can see a difference between being allowed to publish an expired work as-is, and profit from it, vs reusing the characters for a completely different story.
cryptonector
No, people have to be able to derive works from other works, especially when the latter are in the public domain. Up-thread I sardonically said to burn Picasso's Las Meninas, and I repeat that here because I think it's a good example, and I think you can probably think of many more on your own. E.g., A Fith of Beethoven vs. Beethoven's Fith Symphony -- good or bad?
Gormo
What you're seeing might be a smudge on your glasses. Legally, there is no such difference.
oharapj
And legal differences are the only differences that exist, right?
toss1
Right, so by that rule, someone could stage a theater production or movie of the exact text of one of Doyle's Sherlock Holmes books, but could not make anything similar to the characters and relationships of Holmes and Watson. Forever.
And exactly how similar must the new production be? Can there be any deviation from the exact words written by Doyle? It seems your rule would certainly ban the excellent BBC production of Sherlock [0]
What about Shakespeare? It seems this would ban the entire writing and production of West Side Story (of course a 1950's riff on Romeo and Juilet) [1,2].
That sounds like a permanent extension of copyright, with a limited media exception.
[0] https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b018ttws
[1] https://www.westsidestory.com/
[2] https://www.folger.edu/blogs/shakespeare-and-beyond/west-sid...
cryptonector
We have tons and tons of derivative works not remotely faithful to the original. The list of examples is very long. What about Roxane? What about A Fifth of Beethoven? What about all those novels with biblical inspiration? The works of H. G. Wells, and Jules Verne, and many others have been adapted endlessly.
Derivatives have to be allowed to differ markedly from the original, even offensively. As you point out, the definitions problems that arise in trying to control derivatives are intractable / inherently political rather than legalistic.
kmeisthax
In Europe (and Japan), training LLMs and AI "art" generators on copyrighted work is explicitly permitted. So this is doubly confusing to me, since even if it wasn't public domain, it'd still be legal to train on it.
Findecanor
In legal terms, that is not entirely correct. In practice, it is however. For now.
EU (which is not the whole of Europe) has regulation that allows a copyright owner to opt out of data mining for AI training. But the framework is incomplete: there does not exist a generally agree-upon method to actually opt out. There are a few protocols and file formats from a couple of organisation but none which has been given any official status. While a publisher may use one, a web scraper might support only another.
Japan has traditionally been quite strict on copyright law. I would not be surprised if the law would get tightened to explicitly disallow AI training on copyrighted works.
spencerflem
Yes, or at least, we should prevent companies from cheapening our cultural legacy with endless tackyness, spin-offs, merchandice, advertisements, and other vulgar things.
eboynyc32
I agree 100%.
exhilaration
Thanks to a Hacker News comment, my kids, ages 7-13. Have been watching an episode of Tintin from the internet archive every week, and they love it. Link: https://archive.org/details/tintinseries43
rramadass
Get them the comic books; they are well worth the money. The stories, the imagination, the artwork, the language, the settings across the world, the spirit of exploration all together fires one's mind. They are some of the best comics ever written.
Here they are:
1) https://archive.org/details/01TintinInTheLandOfTheSoviets/01...
2) https://readtintin.blogspot.com/
PS: Also Asterix comics - https://readasterix.blogspot.com/
OskarS
I would say: skip the early ones. Tintin in the Land of the Soviets and especially Tintin in the Congo are outrageously bad (Tintin in the Congo is horrendously racist). Tintin didn't really become the Tintin we know and love until Blue Lotus, though Cigars of the Pharaoh is still readable.
Like, the parts of Tintin that capture the imagination, the world travel, the realistic depiction of different cultures, the great adventure stories, all of that starts with Blue Lotus.
When people criticize Tintin for being racist, what they're really criticizing are those early stories. In the later stories, the ones that everyone falls in love with, Hergé went to enormous trouble to depict cultures accurately, gathering huge amounts of references to depict everything accurately (you see that in this article, with the image from Blue Lotus). In these stories, almost without exception, Tintin is the champion of colonized and oppressed peoples, and the stories hold up extremely well.
chrismorgan
I espouse precisely the opposite opinion: actively try to get Tintin in the Land of the Soviets and Tintin in the Congo, preferably the original/uncensored version of the latter. They’re hilarious. They weren’t supposed to be serious—it was humour. It was only from Tintin in America that he headed in the direction of being more serious (and yeah, it took about three more books to really settle).
Just as a couple of examples, one from each, which I believe are fairly representative of the tone (and probably my favourite bits in each):
• Car breaks down, so pull the engine apart completely, then realise it was a flat tyre, so punch a guy, chase him till he’s out of breath, then stick the valve in his mouth so he reinflates your tyre; then toss all the bits of the engine back in, throw away the few bits that don’t fit, drive off, and remark about how reliable these cars are.
• When hunting a rhinoceros and bullets don’t work, drill a hole in its hide (somehow unnoticed), put in some dynamite, light the fuse, hide behind a tree, explosion, rhinoceros obliterated, and say (loose translation) “oops, guess I used too much dynamite”.
The latter incident was removed from the 1975 edition of Tintin in the Congo by Hergé (45 years after initial publication), and by then he said he regretted its big game hunting stuff (understandable; that and the race issues certainly haven’t aged well!). But really, it was never supposed to be taken seriously, it was a fun and gloriously unrealistic story. Instead of getting upset, I wish people would just enjoy its absurdity, as I think was originally intended.
But definitely don’t treat those two as containing the same Tintin as in later books. They feature his slapstick humour twin brother.
trgn
Tintein in america is such a fun rollercoaster though, the instance he climbs out of that skyscraper window to escape the gangsters is so exhilerating
philistine
Don't worry about reading them in order. Start kids with Le sceptre d'Ottokar, the tightest early story without Capitaine Haddock.
starspangled
I love Tintin comics, but even the later ones Tintin is very much the archetype white savior. Everywhere he goes, he's saving the cowering savages and poor natives from themselves or racist whites, and the good ones are always groveling and indebted to the brave and wise Sahib.
Which is okay as a superhero story, but if one is terrified of their children being incapable of separating fact from fiction or inability to develop their own understanding of the time and environment these were created in, they may not be ideal.
There are a bunch of other problems too.
* I'm not big on everything having to be about equal representation all the time, but there is a glaring omission of women. Which I guess would be okay given the times, but the few that do show up are vain, narcissistic, selfish -- Castafiore and General Alcazar's American wife are two I can remember.
* Haddock can get a little racist when he's drunk. It does help that most of his more colorful insults are so old that they've fallen off the treadmill and kids wouldn't understand what they mean (or maybe they've been censored in recent editions?).
* Speaking of which, depictions of Haddock's alcoholism are for comedic value. Tintin often enables and exploits his addiction and gets him inebriated in order to consent to things he had refused. While his drinking usually ends in disaster, he generally comes out unscathed or even ahead and faces no real consequences.
* Non-whites / savages are often treated as simpletons, emotionally driven, gullible and superstitious. Quickly resorting to violence, being fooled by ventriloquism or other cheap tricks, terrified of spells and gods, etc.
I'm skeptical whether these kinds of things actually harm children. I read these as a young child and could recognize all these issues and understand they were based on stereotypes or opinions, but again if people don't think their children are capable, I would advise reading them first. Ones where he stays in Europe are generally pretty safe IIRC.
On a completely different note, it's funny in the English editions, they seemed to me to imply that he's living in Britain, but if you keep an eye out you can spot the inconsistencies. Cars drive on the right, he takes a ferry to get to Scotland, etc.
DoctorOetker
Even the later tintin books are awkward: its the comic equivalent of a sausage fest; The only 2 women I recall are: Tintin's cleaning lady and Captain Haddock's favorite Bianca Castafiore (a comical drama queen and opera singer).
Practically every other character is a man.
rramadass
Right.
Wikipedia as usual has the details - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Adventures_of_Tintin#Contr...
Note: The archive.org collection has some parodies and pastiches which are decidedly not meant for children - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Adventures_of_Tintin#Parod...
abc123abc123
[flagged]
asimovfan
also spirou, also theres a lot more franco belgian comics
also books like the le petit nicolas series, little nicholas, by Sempe & Goscinny (who also did asterix) so funny and great for children!
bigmattystyles
Yoko Tsuno!
cryptonector
Oh man, is there a way to get them in the original French on PDF?
Al-Khwarizmi
Nice post about Tintin, one of my top childhood influences. I have a new edition of all the albums (much better than mine) unopened and ready for when my kid grows enough. The TV show wasn't so good IMHO - of course the narrative was great because it came from the comics, but animation quality was just so-so, or at least that's how I remember it.
If you liked Tintin and long for more comics of the same kind, I recommend you to try Blake and Mortimer. They're different (e.g. with a more serious and wordy style, hardly any comical gags, but also with more fantastic elements). But they are the closest I know, and in some aspects even better (I personally prefer them although I'm aware it's due to very subjective factors, most people would still rank Tintin higher overall and Blake and Mortimer don't have such a universal acclaim).
The only thing I dislike about the post is the gratuitous rant on AI at the end. It is great news that Tintin joins the public domain. Especially great because it's one of these cases where the owners have been especially abusive, chasing fan efforts done as a labor of love, lest they harm their sales of overpriced merchandising.
Why exactly should be worry about people generating AI images of Tintin? What is the harm done? We know what the original albums are, they will probably be preserved as long as there is human civilization (despite copyright, not thanks to it), and we can freely decide if we also want to read/watch/see derivative works (and which) or not. I just don't see the problem at all.
svl7
What also comes to mind is Yoko Tsuno [1]. I'm not sure how well known this is in the US. The creator Roger Leloup was supporting Hegré on the technical drawings. For people who like the 'ligne claire' style, definitely check it out. The science fiction aspect of it might appeal to the audience on HN.
tmtvl
If we're going to recommend comics I'm gonna pitch The Red Knight. I have some of the old monochrome prints and they're an absolute blast.
rcarmo
I would second this. There is archeology, space travel, time travel... Loads of fun. I'm still trying to get a hold of all the titles.
Oh, and evil AI! Right in the first album. Had totally forgotten about that.
jaymzcampbell
I was massively into Tintin as a kid in Ireland and when I met my Belgian wife she introduced me to this and I loved it. I was hoping I'd find it mentioned in here already!
Al-Khwarizmi
Had never heard of it (in spite of being European, not from the US) and it looks like my cup of tea, so definitely will check it out.
kaushikt
10 Tintin comics/books came as donations to my small school in a small town in India. Hardy boys were also donated but Tintin just hit the sweet spot for me.
I sometimes think it's the artsy design which feels so warm. As an 11-year-old, I was mesmerised by them. I didn't understand a ton of things Captain Haddock said with English being the 2nd language.
The adventures were sooo good. I saw the movie when it came out more than a decade ago and it brought back so many memories.
Even today, I love it's aesthetic design a lot. I discovered Asterix and Obelix when I was 17 and they had similar vibes and energy with their designs in them too.
Popular Indian comics at the time (Chacha Choudhary and others) were great too but the design aesthetic were worlds apart.
zol
Ahh Tintin. This takes me right back to the pre-internet era perusing the Tintin section at my school’s library. It was such a delight to occasionally come across one that I hadn’t read yet. Somehow this happened surprisingly often, I guess a bunch of us borrowers kept the series under heavy rotation.
tetris11
Same, always a surprise to see that "book" was even there along with Asterix comics.
mamcx
When both were unavailable, I had no other option to read the other books. I think I manage to devour almost all the (for kid) library back them.
aa-jv
In my school there was always a mad scramble every month to get first access to the latest addition to our school librarys' Tintin and Asterix sections; it resulted in many a schoolyard scrap, in fact. So much so, that our school librarian would often 'scramble' the day of the week that she'd release it into the collection .. some of us worked out that the release day of the week was simply incremented each month, however.
I vividly remember my disappointment that some of the richer kids just got their own 'subscription' to the Tintin/Asterix comics at home, and therefore often spoiled the stories for those of us dependent on the school library.
Was very non-Tintin like behaviour, I have to say .. which I eventually trumped by bringing to school a well-worn Lucky Luke collection that had been gifted to me, in order to share with the oik kids, exclusively ..
simonw
Destination Moon - the one where Tintin goes to the moon - is an absolutely remarkable piece of science fiction, considering it was published in 1950-1953, nearly twenty years prior to the actual moon landings.
The rocket design in that one is SO iconic.
rcarmo
The detail in panels like the Luxor (mid-article) was always my favorite part about Tintin. The world Hergé created felt lived in, but not worn out, and that was a big draw.
baggy_trough
Not an original, but it's in keeping with the aesthetic.
atombender
There is a very good documentary called "Tintin and I" (2003) [1] about Hergé's life and art. It goes quite deep into Hergé's personal life, influences, and psychology, including a dark period of his life that apparently ended up inspiring the story Tintin in Tibet (one of his best). It features some hand-animated Tintin panels that are very well done.
Looks like the whole thing is on YouTube [2].
rramadass
> the story Tintin in Tibet (one of his best)
The Dalai Lama himself bestowed an award on the Herge Foundation for this - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Adventures_of_Tintin#Award...
LilBytes
Some guys I grew up with dubbed TinTin with Northern English. It's exceptionally crude, but never ceases to make me laugh.
pvo50555
You know those guys? My friend and I used to come to tears to these during the old DubToons days. It's the only reason I know what a Middlesborough accent is. We still quote them!
glimshe
Please correct me if I'm wrong... Tintin is in the public domain, so I can create a Tintin story where the character looks exactly like Tintin and I can call it Tintin.
But most of Herge's Tintin stories remain out of the public domain and still protected by copyright. Correct?
bryanrasmussen
In Europe Copyright is the death of the author + 70 years, so until 2053. There is an exception to allow for copyright to lapse earlier if the copyright would run out in the original creator's country of origin first, to handle situations where American copyright for American authors will expire before European.
But Tintin will run out in 2053 in Europe because Herge is European.
In U.S however Tintin is public domain. You can use Tintin for things in U.S just don't try to go to Europe with it.
on edit: this applies of course to Tintin in the land of the Soviets.
OskarS
I would imagine so. Hergé died in 1983, and the last finished story (Tintin and the Picaros) was published in 1973. I can't imagine its out of copyright.
The first story (Tintin in the Land of the Soviets, a real stinker, this is before Tintin became Tintin) was published in 1930, in Le Petit Vingtième which was the children's edition of the newspaper Le Vingtième Siècle. The newspaper presumably had copyright to the character, but it was shut down in 1940 by the Nazis. After that, Tintin was published in Le Soir (still exists), but I have no idea how the rights transferred. From 1950 onwards, it was published by Hergé's own company.
tetris11
Very few cartoon openings have left a mark on me, but Tintin's lush opening credits paired with Ray Parker's and Tom Szczesniak's musical score and theme, still sends shivers down my spine.
nuc1e0n
I've been thinking about Tintin as well recently after seeing Elon's rockets. The concept of a young investigative journalist travelling the globe while solving mysteries and seeing wonders both natural and cultural certainly does have an enduring appeal.
> Artists in Europe have already been fighting to protect the copyright of Tintin to keep the artwork away from large language models (LLMs) training various AI algorithms.
There is no copyright in the character anymore, so there’s nothing to protect.
I really do not understand this perspective. Do people also wish to use legal force to prevent others from working with, for example, Gainsborough, or Moliere, or Julius Caesar, or Homer? Come on: at some point something has to enter the public domain and become part of the shared treasure of all mankind.