WEBVTT - The Mystery of the Missing Tintin Plays 0:00:14.480 --> 0:00:17.920 You're listening to Part Time Genius, the production of Kaleidoscope 0:00:18.040 --> 0:00:19.040 and iHeartRadio. 0:00:23.079 --> 0:00:25.000 Guess what I gave? What's that Mango? 0:00:25.480 --> 0:00:30.320 It is part two of our Tintin Extravaganza, So if 0:00:30.360 --> 0:00:32.120 you miss part one, go check it out and come 0:00:32.120 --> 0:00:33.720 back to this one when you're up to speed on 0:00:33.760 --> 0:00:34.200 the story. 0:00:34.560 --> 0:00:37.199 I stayed up way past my bedtime last night studying 0:00:37.280 --> 0:00:42.479 all things Captain Haddeck, Professor Calculus, and Bianca Castifiore in 0:00:42.600 --> 0:00:43.720 preparation for this one. 0:00:43.760 --> 0:00:44.440 I am ready. 0:00:45.280 --> 0:00:47.800 I love Professor Calculus. He is such a fun character. 0:00:47.920 --> 0:00:50.360 Did you know he was modeled after a real person, 0:00:50.840 --> 0:00:52.600 Professor Auguste Picard. 0:00:53.200 --> 0:00:55.400 I did not know that. Who's Professor Picard? 0:00:55.640 --> 0:00:58.160 He was an interesting guy. He was the first person 0:00:58.200 --> 0:01:01.480 to enter Earth's stratosphere and he was also the inventor 0:01:01.480 --> 0:01:04.920 of the deep sea observation vessel. It's called the Bathoscaff, 0:01:05.080 --> 0:01:07.800 but more importantly for Tinton purposes, he also had a 0:01:07.920 --> 0:01:11.280 unique hairstyle. He was balding on top and he had 0:01:11.319 --> 0:01:13.840 long and curly hair on the sides and air j 0:01:13.959 --> 0:01:15.880 would see him walking around the streets of Brussels and 0:01:16.080 --> 0:01:17.160 he kind of got inspired. 0:01:17.600 --> 0:01:20.120 I love all these real world connections, and Airjay's were 0:01:20.480 --> 0:01:24.920 like Thompson and Thompson, the hapless nearly identical detectives. They 0:01:24.920 --> 0:01:27.880 were said to be inspired by air Jay's father, Alexi 0:01:28.240 --> 0:01:29.639 and his twin brother Leon. 0:01:30.400 --> 0:01:33.679 Yeah, of the unknown parentage we discussed, right, Yeah, that's 0:01:33.680 --> 0:01:36.319 a Part one reference in case you're wondering, so seriously, though, 0:01:36.360 --> 0:01:38.640 go listen to part one if you haven't, But back 0:01:38.640 --> 0:01:39.720 to Thompson and Thompson. 0:01:39.880 --> 0:01:42.800 As you know, Mango, they wear matching black suits and 0:01:42.840 --> 0:01:47.360 bowler hats, carry matching canes, and have matching bushy mustaches. 0:01:47.760 --> 0:01:50.000 I read that when Airjay was growing up, his dad 0:01:50.000 --> 0:01:53.480 and uncle would often go on walks together, wearing identical hats, 0:01:53.560 --> 0:01:57.920 carrying identical canes, black umbrellas, and with the same facial hair. 0:01:58.280 --> 0:02:00.600 I know he said his childhood was gray and boring, 0:02:00.720 --> 0:02:03.200 but these people sound pretty interesting to me. 0:02:03.400 --> 0:02:05.400 Yeah, they sound like characters. And one of my favorite 0:02:05.400 --> 0:02:08.840 things about Thompson and Thompson that's spelled with and without 0:02:08.880 --> 0:02:12.840 a P, is that their names actually change in other languages. 0:02:13.000 --> 0:02:16.239 So their original names in French are DuPont and DuPont 0:02:16.720 --> 0:02:20.480 with a T and D, but pronounced identically in German, 0:02:20.520 --> 0:02:24.520 it's Schultz and Schultz. In Spanish, it's Ernandez and Fernandez. 0:02:24.680 --> 0:02:28.400 In Arabic it's tick and talk. But my personal favorite, however, 0:02:28.520 --> 0:02:34.720 is Icelandic, where they are known as Scoffti and Scoffty. 0:02:35.280 --> 0:02:38.320 And apologies to any Icelandic listeners out there and also 0:02:38.639 --> 0:02:41.080 speakers of other languages. I'm sure I did not do 0:02:41.160 --> 0:02:43.000 your languages justice. 0:02:43.280 --> 0:02:45.919 I wonder how you say I'm sorry in Icelandic French. 0:02:46.120 --> 0:02:48.360 That's a good question. Yeah, well, Mengo. 0:02:48.440 --> 0:02:51.720 As fascinating as these secondary characters are, let's return them 0:02:51.720 --> 0:02:54.799 to the background for now, because in today's final installment 0:02:54.840 --> 0:02:58.679 of our Tintin Adventure, we're talking comic book controversies, Tintin's 0:02:58.760 --> 0:03:02.440 arrival in the US, and some unbelievable true stories about 0:03:02.600 --> 0:03:05.520 modern Tintin adaptations. So let's dive in. 0:03:26.560 --> 0:03:29.320 Hey, their podcast listeners, welcome to part time Genius. I'm Mongish, 0:03:29.360 --> 0:03:33.040 hearticular as always, I'm here with my good friend Gabe 0:03:33.080 --> 0:03:37.480 Lucier today because Will Pearson is off and traveling and 0:03:37.680 --> 0:03:41.360 enjoying the world tinton style. Also our pal and producer 0:03:41.480 --> 0:03:43.600 Dylan Fagan. He left as a note saying he'd gone 0:03:43.600 --> 0:03:46.520 adventuring with his faithful dog I didn't even know Dylan 0:03:46.520 --> 0:03:47.040 had a dog. 0:03:48.080 --> 0:03:52.160 Yeah, apparently he does. It's news to me, but good news. Actually, 0:03:52.480 --> 0:03:56.600 a postcard just arrived. It says, dear Gabe and Mango, 0:03:57.040 --> 0:04:01.000 having a great time on my adventures. Next stop, Sildavia. 0:04:01.160 --> 0:04:02.240 Oh love Dylan. 0:04:02.600 --> 0:04:05.120 Sildavi? Where is a come on? 0:04:05.160 --> 0:04:07.840 You remember? It's a fictional country and the Balkans that 0:04:07.920 --> 0:04:11.480 appears in a couple of Tintin books. In one book, 0:04:11.520 --> 0:04:14.560 Tinton goes there to stop a plot to overthrow the king, 0:04:14.720 --> 0:04:17.800 and another he learns that the Sildavian government is planning 0:04:17.800 --> 0:04:18.839 a mission to the Moon. 0:04:19.480 --> 0:04:20.880 I vaguely remember that. 0:04:21.000 --> 0:04:24.680 And Sildavia really feels like a vibe. 0:04:24.960 --> 0:04:26.960 Yeah yeah, maybe more of a state of mind. But 0:04:27.680 --> 0:04:30.440 that's a great tourism slogan for a fictional country. It's 0:04:30.440 --> 0:04:30.920 a vibe. 0:04:30.960 --> 0:04:33.320 But are Mango? 0:04:33.600 --> 0:04:35.400 I meant to ask you this last week and I 0:04:35.440 --> 0:04:38.119 totally forgot. What would you say is your all time 0:04:38.320 --> 0:04:41.280 favorite Tintin book? I think it's got to be The 0:04:41.279 --> 0:04:44.480 Blue Lotus or the Tintin and Tibet. I actually really 0:04:44.520 --> 0:04:46.479 fell in love with tint and Tibet when I was 0:04:46.480 --> 0:04:48.520 studying a broad in Tibet, because I read it to 0:04:48.680 --> 0:04:52.080 Tibetan's to hear how they saw the misconceptions about the 0:04:52.080 --> 0:04:55.240 culture or and people were just so appreciative of it, 0:04:55.320 --> 0:04:58.479 you know, they really loved it. There were modern Belgian 0:04:58.520 --> 0:05:01.920 comics that were coming out that exoticized Tibet did such 0:05:02.000 --> 0:05:06.159 little research and Airjay was so accurate for someone who 0:05:06.200 --> 0:05:08.680 never visited, and so I have a fondness for that story. 0:05:08.760 --> 0:05:09.240 That makes sense. 0:05:09.400 --> 0:05:11.640 Yeah, So we talked about this in the last episode. 0:05:11.680 --> 0:05:15.280 The character obviously has a massive global appeal, but in 0:05:15.320 --> 0:05:17.880 the US it's a little different. The books were never 0:05:17.920 --> 0:05:19.920 quite successful here as they were in the rest of 0:05:19.960 --> 0:05:22.960 their world. The first tinton comics were published in Belgium 0:05:23.000 --> 0:05:25.400 in nineteen twenty nine, and the first book, Tintin in 0:05:25.440 --> 0:05:28.120 the Land of Soviets, came out in nineteen thirty, but 0:05:28.600 --> 0:05:31.720 there were actually no English language editions of Tintin until 0:05:31.880 --> 0:05:35.200 nineteen fifty two, and those were published in the UK, 0:05:35.640 --> 0:05:39.320 So the books weren't published in America until late nineteen 0:05:39.400 --> 0:05:42.520 fifty nine. And just as an interesting side note, at 0:05:42.560 --> 0:05:45.120 the time, the US had this really negative image of 0:05:45.160 --> 0:05:49.000 comic books. Conservatives thought that they kept kids from reading 0:05:49.120 --> 0:05:51.680 proper books, and in nineteen fifty five, New York State 0:05:51.680 --> 0:05:54.000 actually passed the law banning comics. 0:05:54.279 --> 0:05:57.000 Yeah, that does sound like something conservatives in the nineteen 0:05:57.080 --> 0:05:58.000 fifties would do. 0:05:58.080 --> 0:06:00.880 Right, Yeah, I mean, the New York legislator believed that 0:06:01.160 --> 0:06:04.640 so called crime comics were quote a contributing factor leading 0:06:04.680 --> 0:06:07.839 to juvenile delinquency, and they banned comics that had words 0:06:07.880 --> 0:06:11.040 like horror, terror, or crime in the title or anything 0:06:11.080 --> 0:06:13.520 that talked about that kind of thing, which in practice 0:06:13.560 --> 0:06:16.680 outlawed most comics, except you know, the really tame ones 0:06:16.760 --> 0:06:19.880 like Archie or Tinton, both of actually which made their 0:06:19.960 --> 0:06:23.120 ways to India. But back to Tinton's arrival state side, 0:06:23.240 --> 0:06:26.960 it was actually Golden Press, the publisher of Little Golden Books, 0:06:26.960 --> 0:06:28.880 who first brought Tintin to the US. 0:06:29.080 --> 0:06:30.320 I don't know if you remember those. 0:06:30.400 --> 0:06:33.080 Oh yeah, of course, those kids books about being good 0:06:33.120 --> 0:06:35.520 and working hard or whatever, all the you know, life 0:06:35.600 --> 0:06:38.240 lessons and moral stuff like a little red hen, a 0:06:38.240 --> 0:06:41.120 little engine that could a lot of little things, you know, 0:06:41.400 --> 0:06:44.640 Given Tintin's roots in boy scout morality, that makes a 0:06:44.680 --> 0:06:45.240 lot of sense. 0:06:45.480 --> 0:06:47.919 Yeah, But believe it or not, even Tinton had to 0:06:47.960 --> 0:06:50.919 make changes for the Puritans in America. For example, Golden 0:06:50.920 --> 0:06:53.599 Press asked AIRJ to replace a couple of drawings where 0:06:53.920 --> 0:06:57.239 Captain Haddock was drinking straight from the bottle, because they said, quote, 0:06:57.279 --> 0:07:02.000 the presentation of alcoholism, especially in humors form, is absolutely taboo. 0:07:02.360 --> 0:07:04.600 They also didn't want any scenes where black characters and 0:07:04.640 --> 0:07:07.599 white characters appeared together, which is, you know, hard to 0:07:07.880 --> 0:07:09.920 hear now. But this was just a couple of years 0:07:09.960 --> 0:07:13.080 after Brown versus Board of Education, and the country was 0:07:13.120 --> 0:07:17.760 still very, very publicly segregated. So HAIRJ ended up redrawing 0:07:17.800 --> 0:07:20.000 several panels in order to get the books published here. 0:07:20.320 --> 0:07:23.080 So when Tintin finally came to America, was it a 0:07:23.120 --> 0:07:24.880 big hit like it had been in Europe. 0:07:25.800 --> 0:07:29.200 No. Sales were pretty terrible initially, probably because parents still 0:07:29.240 --> 0:07:33.239 didn't trust comic books, but over time he slowly gained readers, 0:07:33.280 --> 0:07:36.840 and by the early seventies Tintin was relatively popular. And 0:07:36.880 --> 0:07:38.920 that brings us back to the incredible story we told 0:07:38.960 --> 0:07:41.640 last time about Jay's trip to New York in nineteen 0:07:41.680 --> 0:07:44.760 seventy two, and that's when he ended up meeting Andy Warhol. 0:07:44.840 --> 0:07:47.520 He'd been invited to attend a comic strip convention, but 0:07:48.080 --> 0:07:50.040 by that point he was so famous he got to 0:07:50.080 --> 0:07:52.800 do a bunch of other things too, like he hung 0:07:52.800 --> 0:07:56.680 out at the factory. He presented the then mayor John 0:07:56.760 --> 0:07:59.840 Lindsay with the poster sized drawing of Tintin visiting the city, 0:08:00.040 --> 0:08:02.280 and it was titled Stars and Comic Strips. 0:08:03.040 --> 0:08:03.320 Nice. 0:08:03.440 --> 0:08:06.600 Yeah, quite got some love here. And if there's one 0:08:06.640 --> 0:08:09.640 thing we've discovered about Airj though, it's that he's every 0:08:09.640 --> 0:08:13.440 bit as controversial as he is popular. We talked last 0:08:13.480 --> 0:08:16.160 episode about the use of racial stereotypes in his work, 0:08:16.320 --> 0:08:19.720 but there's also a troubling question looming over the artist himself. 0:08:20.200 --> 0:08:23.000 Did he side with the Nazis during World War Two? 0:08:23.360 --> 0:08:25.360 Yeah, it's obviously not a great look when people can't 0:08:25.440 --> 0:08:28.240 rule that out about you. But if you were to 0:08:28.280 --> 0:08:31.400 ask Airja supporters, they'd likely point you to this one 0:08:31.440 --> 0:08:35.600 adventure it's called King Otakar's Scepter, for proof that the 0:08:35.760 --> 0:08:37.960 artist was not sympathetic to the Nazis. 0:08:38.679 --> 0:08:40.640 Do you buy it? Like, is it convincing to you 0:08:40.800 --> 0:08:41.319 as proof? 0:08:41.600 --> 0:08:44.680 I mean, there's definitely an anti Nazi agenda in the books. 0:08:45.320 --> 0:08:48.559 In the comic, Tinton travels to this made up country 0:08:48.600 --> 0:08:52.160 that you mentioned, Psiladavia. The villain is a guy named 0:08:52.520 --> 0:08:57.720 Mustlaire from a country called Borduria. And obviously Tintonologists, who 0:08:58.160 --> 0:09:00.880 I have to note are not super critical of Airja, 0:09:01.120 --> 0:09:05.480 says Borduria represents Nazi Germany. The plot is that Mussler, 0:09:05.559 --> 0:09:08.160 who's a combination of Mussolini and Hitler, is trying to 0:09:08.200 --> 0:09:11.800 get Bordouria to take over Sildavia, and Tinton, of course, 0:09:11.920 --> 0:09:15.360 is the hero who thwarts that plan. Now, King Ottocarceptra 0:09:15.480 --> 0:09:17.679 came out in nineteen thirty eight and thirty nine, right 0:09:17.800 --> 0:09:22.120 after Germany annexed Austria, so the comparison does seem pretty clear. 0:09:22.440 --> 0:09:24.280 And it's fair to say that Je didn't seem like 0:09:24.320 --> 0:09:26.839 a fan of a country taking over other countries, and 0:09:27.480 --> 0:09:29.640 the epitome of who was doing this at the time 0:09:29.840 --> 0:09:30.880 was Nazi Germany. 0:09:31.360 --> 0:09:33.599 Well, that does make sense. But if we want to 0:09:33.640 --> 0:09:36.680 get the clearest sense of where Erje you really stood 0:09:36.720 --> 0:09:39.160 on all of this, we probably shouldn't look at just 0:09:39.280 --> 0:09:41.719 what he wrote and drew in his books. We've got 0:09:41.720 --> 0:09:43.320 to look at what he did in his own life. Right. 0:09:43.400 --> 0:09:48.000 So in May nineteen forty, after Germany invaded Belgium, Airje, 0:09:48.320 --> 0:09:51.720 his wife, and his Siamese cat all escaped to France 0:09:51.880 --> 0:09:54.840 along with about a million other people. But later that 0:09:54.880 --> 0:09:58.640 same month, the King of Belgium, Leopold the Third, surrendered 0:09:58.640 --> 0:10:02.319 to Germany and the king asked his compatriots to return home. 0:10:02.720 --> 0:10:05.200 So Airje was a big supporter of the king and 0:10:05.280 --> 0:10:08.080 loyal to his country. And six weeks after he left 0:10:08.280 --> 0:10:08.880 he came back. 0:10:09.160 --> 0:10:11.680 And I'm guessing he returned to a very different country. 0:10:12.280 --> 0:10:12.480 Yeah. 0:10:12.480 --> 0:10:16.360 Absolutely. For one thing, his old newspaper, the Catholic newspaper 0:10:16.400 --> 0:10:19.840 he'd been working at, Levonte Mciekla, it had been closed 0:10:19.880 --> 0:10:22.520 by the Nazis. A lot of other papers opted to 0:10:22.559 --> 0:10:25.080 shut down rather than run, and you know, have to 0:10:25.080 --> 0:10:29.400 support Nazi propaganda, as you know, collaborationists. There were also 0:10:29.480 --> 0:10:31.800 journalists who chose to quit so they didn't have to 0:10:31.800 --> 0:10:35.600 work under Nazis. But one that stayed open was Le Soois, 0:10:35.880 --> 0:10:38.679 one of the big daily papers. It was run by 0:10:38.679 --> 0:10:43.559 Belgian Nazi collaborationists and censored by the Germans, so definitely 0:10:43.559 --> 0:10:46.720 pro Nazi, right. And when Airje got back to Brussels, 0:10:46.800 --> 0:10:49.480 the editor of Larsois asked him to come aboard. 0:10:49.840 --> 0:10:51.640 So do we get the impression that this is a 0:10:51.640 --> 0:10:54.400 difficult decision for Je. 0:10:53.559 --> 0:10:56.360 Not at all, It seems like it was pretty straightforward. 0:10:56.600 --> 0:10:59.480 He claimed he wasn't really thinking about politics. He just 0:10:59.559 --> 0:11:02.600 needed them money, and he also needed a place for Tintin. 0:11:02.800 --> 0:11:05.480 In his view, he'd worked hard to get tintinto where 0:11:05.480 --> 0:11:08.320 it was and he didn't want to give that up. Plus, 0:11:08.400 --> 0:11:12.240 Larsoise still had a really large readership, much larger than 0:11:12.480 --> 0:11:14.559 the other paper he'd been working on, So he was 0:11:14.600 --> 0:11:16.920 basically like, why let a war get in the way 0:11:16.960 --> 0:11:18.160 of all the work I've done? 0:11:18.679 --> 0:11:21.679 Yeah, I mean, in my research I read that when 0:11:21.720 --> 0:11:23.440 he was asked about this later in his life, his 0:11:23.520 --> 0:11:25.439 rationalization was that it. 0:11:25.440 --> 0:11:26.120 Was just a job. 0:11:26.240 --> 0:11:28.680 He says, quote, I was just working like how a 0:11:28.720 --> 0:11:30.840 baker or a minor works. He also said that he 0:11:30.840 --> 0:11:33.040 didn't expect the occupation to last very long, that he 0:11:33.160 --> 0:11:36.360 viewed his time at Lesois as a temporary assignment basically, 0:11:36.480 --> 0:11:38.240 but he actually wound up working there for four years. 0:11:38.640 --> 0:11:40.920 Yeah, it sounds to me like he was being a little, 0:11:41.000 --> 0:11:43.840 you know, willfully naive and kind of burying his head 0:11:43.840 --> 0:11:46.520 in the sand, and he may be wondering what was 0:11:46.520 --> 0:11:49.120 his time at Lasois really like? And did he ever 0:11:49.160 --> 0:11:51.560 pay a price for all that fence sitting? And we 0:11:51.640 --> 0:11:53.280 got the answers, and we're going to tell you all 0:11:53.280 --> 0:11:57.480 about it after we take a quick break. 0:12:09.360 --> 0:12:10.640 Welcome back to Part Time Genius. 0:12:10.640 --> 0:12:13.680 It's part two of our conversation about Tintin and the brilliant, 0:12:13.840 --> 0:12:18.560 controversial author Airja. When we left off, Airja had just 0:12:18.600 --> 0:12:24.000 taken a job at the Nazi collaborationist paper Lessois. So Gabe, 0:12:24.000 --> 0:12:25.040 tell me what happens next. 0:12:25.559 --> 0:12:28.439 Well, as you might guess, j kept drawing comics, and 0:12:28.480 --> 0:12:31.480 the Tintin stories that came out during these years weren't 0:12:31.480 --> 0:12:34.920 suddenly repeating Nazi propaganda or anything like that, but they 0:12:34.960 --> 0:12:38.720 weren't really pushing back against it either. They were almost 0:12:38.800 --> 0:12:42.679 a political j claimed he was uninterested in politics, and 0:12:42.720 --> 0:12:44.679 you know, he wanted to keep Tintin out of what 0:12:44.760 --> 0:12:47.640 he thought was the mess of World War two. But 0:12:47.720 --> 0:12:50.840 looking back, you can't help but wonder how could someone 0:12:50.960 --> 0:12:54.760 stay apolitical when all of these atrocities were happening right 0:12:54.800 --> 0:12:55.760 in front of them. 0:12:55.960 --> 0:13:00.480 Yeah, and in fact, the Airja biographer Pierre Asline called 0:13:00.520 --> 0:13:05.280 Airja's fence sitting around this quote willfully obtuse, which I 0:13:05.320 --> 0:13:08.559 think is a fair assessment. Airj has definitely seemed happy 0:13:08.600 --> 0:13:10.320 to ignore what was going on. In the world and 0:13:10.360 --> 0:13:13.640 what it meant to work at a collaborationist newspaper. And 0:13:14.120 --> 0:13:16.320 even if he professed that he was political, for many 0:13:16.360 --> 0:13:19.480 people this choice was political, right, It's a political act. 0:13:19.840 --> 0:13:22.920 Other Belgians chose not to work at collaborationist papers, so 0:13:23.040 --> 0:13:24.960 for a lot of folks, the decision to work there 0:13:25.520 --> 0:13:27.920 kind of left this real stain on his legacy. 0:13:28.360 --> 0:13:31.080 Yeah, today and back then at the time too. That 0:13:31.200 --> 0:13:34.760 was the case. After Belgium was liberated in nineteen forty four, 0:13:34.880 --> 0:13:38.679 the entire staff at Larssois was fired and anyone who'd 0:13:38.720 --> 0:13:41.880 worked there under the Nazi occupation was banned from working 0:13:41.920 --> 0:13:44.880 all together, and a lot of people were arrested, including Airja. 0:13:45.040 --> 0:13:48.200 But even that doesn't seem to change his view on 0:13:48.240 --> 0:13:50.840 his decision to work at Lesois. His attitude seemed to 0:13:50.840 --> 0:13:54.240 be more stunned than anything. You mean, stunned that he'd 0:13:54.240 --> 0:13:56.840 be punished for his actions or yeah, I mean, he 0:13:56.920 --> 0:13:59.480 never seemed to understand why anyone would think what he 0:13:59.559 --> 0:14:02.000 did was wrong. He thought everyone was overreacting. 0:14:02.160 --> 0:14:04.520 He kind of has this approach earlier, right, like he 0:14:04.720 --> 0:14:07.079 doesn't really apologize and says, you know, it's sort of 0:14:07.120 --> 0:14:08.280 the feeling of the time. 0:14:08.200 --> 0:14:11.080 Right, So what happened did he ever face any consequences? 0:14:11.400 --> 0:14:13.720 He was really lucky. He had friends in high places, 0:14:13.800 --> 0:14:16.760 including some who'd fought in the resistance against the Nazis, 0:14:16.880 --> 0:14:19.160 and one of them was a huge Tinton fan. He'd 0:14:19.240 --> 0:14:20.880 actually been one of the kids. He showed up at 0:14:20.920 --> 0:14:23.480 that stunt we talked about in the last episode where 0:14:23.800 --> 0:14:26.280 you know that tinted actor had come in from the 0:14:26.280 --> 0:14:29.480 Congo at the Brussels train station, so that certainly helped. 0:14:29.760 --> 0:14:30.920 Talk about full circle too. 0:14:31.040 --> 0:14:36.320 I mean, yeah, anyway, this is super lucky, and this 0:14:36.400 --> 0:14:38.360 guy wanted to start a magazine and he wanted air 0:14:38.440 --> 0:14:39.720 Day to be a part of it. So he uses 0:14:39.800 --> 0:14:43.320 connections to recommend that the case be dropped, and it worked. 0:14:43.360 --> 0:14:45.400 The charges were dismissed, so. 0:14:45.400 --> 0:14:48.240 In the end, Airja walked away pretty much unscathed. 0:14:48.320 --> 0:14:48.480 Right. 0:14:48.600 --> 0:14:50.240 Sounds like it was kind of helped by the fact 0:14:50.240 --> 0:14:52.720 that he was a cartoonist and not a journalist. That's 0:14:52.840 --> 0:14:55.280 kind of the distinction that was made and why the 0:14:55.320 --> 0:14:58.400 case was dropped. But just to put in perspective, there 0:14:58.400 --> 0:15:02.560 were journalists who worked for collaborationist papers who were found guilty. 0:15:03.080 --> 0:15:06.120 Some were sent to Congo to perform hard labor, others 0:15:06.120 --> 0:15:09.800 were killed, and because the punishment was so severe, others 0:15:09.840 --> 0:15:12.720 in Airja's predicament left Belgium altogether to make a new 0:15:12.760 --> 0:15:16.160 life in France, which Airja, being the proud Belgium he was, 0:15:16.440 --> 0:15:19.560 he actually never really considered that, So, long story short, 0:15:19.640 --> 0:15:22.600 his career continued to thrive. He kept publishing comics, and 0:15:22.880 --> 0:15:25.880 as we've learned, he gradually developed a more open minded 0:15:25.960 --> 0:15:29.760 view of the world and also greater appreciation of other cultures. 0:15:30.280 --> 0:15:32.560 So where does all this stand now, Like, what's the 0:15:32.640 --> 0:15:36.480 contemporary read on the books in air Ja? Clearly, people 0:15:36.520 --> 0:15:39.160 all over the world have loved and continue to love Tintin. 0:15:39.760 --> 0:15:43.160 Yeah, he's still really popular, especially outside the US. That 0:15:43.280 --> 0:15:45.880 being said, if you are offended by Tintin or Erja, 0:15:46.000 --> 0:15:48.320 you know, I totally get it. The lens that I 0:15:48.360 --> 0:15:51.680 think encompasses this well is that Airj was someone who 0:15:51.720 --> 0:15:55.120 put his work before almost anything else, like both personally 0:15:55.240 --> 0:15:58.520 and politically, and often that wasn't the right thing to do. 0:15:58.880 --> 0:16:01.640 And he was really loyal to his country, even when 0:16:01.680 --> 0:16:04.640 his country's government made horrible decisions. And while I don't 0:16:04.640 --> 0:16:07.400 think there's an excuse, and of course I obviously wish 0:16:07.520 --> 0:16:09.920 er Jay apologized for all these mistakes. 0:16:09.920 --> 0:16:12.600 He was also limited by the time he lived in 0:16:12.640 --> 0:16:12.920 you know. 0:16:13.280 --> 0:16:16.880 Yeah, well, which is you know, it's extra compleated. Yeah, yeah, right, 0:16:16.960 --> 0:16:19.760 because there's a lot of clearly good things about Tintin 0:16:20.040 --> 0:16:23.280 and er Ja too. They were both flawed characters, but 0:16:23.440 --> 0:16:26.200 they did have an openness to other ideas and other 0:16:26.280 --> 0:16:29.560 people and other cultures, which is really laudable, especially for 0:16:29.600 --> 0:16:32.680 the time Tintin fought for the underdog. He stood up 0:16:32.680 --> 0:16:35.920 for friendship and loyalty. And I do think there's something 0:16:36.000 --> 0:16:38.360 really enduring and you know about that and kind of 0:16:38.360 --> 0:16:39.040 redeeming too. 0:16:39.560 --> 0:16:42.320 Yeah. I mean, I've obviously been thinking about this a 0:16:42.400 --> 0:16:44.960 lot lately, not just because of these episodes, because I 0:16:44.960 --> 0:16:47.120 think about my own kids. I wanted them to read 0:16:47.160 --> 0:16:49.520 Tintin because it was just like so full of adventure 0:16:49.720 --> 0:16:53.520 and joyous like exploration of the world and friendship. I 0:16:53.600 --> 0:16:56.200 actually read an op ed from the author of viet 0:16:56.200 --> 0:16:59.320 Tan When about this, and it was about the danger 0:16:59.320 --> 0:17:02.320 of banning books in general. But when actually grew up 0:17:02.320 --> 0:17:04.400 reading tinton like I did, and he wanted to share 0:17:04.440 --> 0:17:07.119 these books with his son, and the essence of what 0:17:07.160 --> 0:17:10.320 he says is the Tinton books can be problematic, but 0:17:10.320 --> 0:17:13.960 they're also really engaging and really memorable. He writes about 0:17:13.960 --> 0:17:16.679 how he and his son loved reading these adventures together 0:17:17.000 --> 0:17:20.000 and when they came across racism against non white characters, 0:17:20.000 --> 0:17:22.480 he points out that they talk about it just the 0:17:22.520 --> 0:17:24.320 same way you talk about like Huck Finn or other 0:17:24.320 --> 0:17:27.480 things like that, and the ability to have that conversation 0:17:27.800 --> 0:17:31.240 and a way into that conversation is really important. 0:17:31.520 --> 0:17:31.600 No. 0:17:31.760 --> 0:17:35.160 Yeah, absolutely. You know, I'm a big fan of classic animation, 0:17:35.440 --> 0:17:37.680 and you run into a lot of the same problems. Right, 0:17:37.680 --> 0:17:41.040 There were really problematic depictions, and you know, does that 0:17:41.160 --> 0:17:43.560 mean that just no one should ever watch these again, 0:17:43.680 --> 0:17:47.240 or that they're artistically bankrupt there's nothing of merit anymore. No, 0:17:47.320 --> 0:17:49.440 of course not. You just have to be a little 0:17:49.480 --> 0:17:50.920 more thoughtful about it, think, right. 0:17:51.040 --> 0:17:54.439 So, yeah, it's obviously messy. Humans are messy. But I 0:17:54.440 --> 0:17:59.000 also think like for me Tinton, but also other texts 0:17:59.000 --> 0:18:02.879 of that style, other books like they all contributed to 0:18:02.920 --> 0:18:05.480 the feeling of mental class, of part time genius, of 0:18:05.520 --> 0:18:09.800 welcoming people in of exploring It's so threaded through so 0:18:10.000 --> 0:18:12.240 much of the DNA of this show and other shows 0:18:12.280 --> 0:18:15.160 I've done, and worked on. Yeah, So like, it's very 0:18:15.160 --> 0:18:18.840 hard for me to divorce myself from that because it's inspired. 0:18:18.440 --> 0:18:20.240 So much, you know, of my own work. 0:18:20.600 --> 0:18:23.040 You know, there's the artist's intent, and then there's what 0:18:23.200 --> 0:18:25.560 we do with it, right, there's the art itself, and 0:18:25.560 --> 0:18:27.280 then there's what it inspires us to do. 0:18:27.440 --> 0:18:30.760 So well, what is best for this show right now 0:18:30.840 --> 0:18:32.720 is that we take another quick break. But when we 0:18:32.760 --> 0:18:34.879 come back, let's talk about a few of our favorite 0:18:34.960 --> 0:18:36.240 tint In adaptations. 0:18:36.280 --> 0:18:52.879 That sounds great, Welcome back to part time genius. 0:18:52.920 --> 0:18:55.720 Okay, Gabe, it is time to go beyond the books 0:18:55.760 --> 0:18:57.520 and talk about adaptations. 0:18:57.560 --> 0:18:59.359 So why don't you kick this off. 0:18:59.800 --> 0:19:02.879 I'd be happy to so. Between nineteen twenty nine and 0:19:03.000 --> 0:19:06.359 nineteen seventy six, Airja wrote a total of twenty three 0:19:06.520 --> 0:19:10.840 Tintin books or albums in twenty four if you include 0:19:10.880 --> 0:19:14.680 Tintin and alf Art, which was only partially finished when 0:19:14.680 --> 0:19:17.119 Airja died in nineteen eighty three. But you know, and 0:19:17.200 --> 0:19:19.600 in the years since then, lots of other artists have 0:19:19.680 --> 0:19:24.199 adapted those stories to different mediums. For instance, Steven Spielberg 0:19:24.320 --> 0:19:27.119 drew from three books written between nineteen forty one and 0:19:27.240 --> 0:19:30.679 nineteen forty four when Air Jay was at Lesoise to 0:19:30.720 --> 0:19:34.720 create his twenty eleven animated blockbuster The Adventures of Tintin, 0:19:35.040 --> 0:19:38.240 starring Jamie Bell as the voice of Tintin and Daniel 0:19:38.320 --> 0:19:41.000 Craig as the villain. But there's another actor I want 0:19:41.040 --> 0:19:44.800 to mention from the film, Carrie Elvis from Robin Hood 0:19:45.560 --> 0:19:49.280 the same and of course the Princess Bride. He's also 0:19:49.359 --> 0:19:52.080 in the movie. It's a small role, but he really 0:19:52.119 --> 0:19:55.200 wanted it and he got it in a pretty unconventional way. 0:19:55.520 --> 0:19:58.560 First of all, I love that Steven Spielberg loved Tintin 0:19:58.680 --> 0:20:01.119 enough to make this movie. To me, is really joyous 0:20:01.160 --> 0:20:02.920 and in the spair of the comment, but so tell 0:20:02.960 --> 0:20:05.040 me about carry Elle was like, how did he sneak 0:20:05.040 --> 0:20:05.399 his way in? 0:20:05.880 --> 0:20:09.480 So apparently Carrie is a huge Tintin fan. One day 0:20:09.480 --> 0:20:11.439 he was at the grocery store and I have to 0:20:11.440 --> 0:20:13.880 imagine this is La, right, because it seems very la 0:20:14.840 --> 0:20:16.920 And who does he see over there in the cereal aisle? 0:20:17.000 --> 0:20:21.399 But Steven Spielberg, Wait, Steven Spielberg eats cereal. Yeah, and 0:20:21.880 --> 0:20:26.400 you're telling me it himself too, apparently amazing And they'd 0:20:26.440 --> 0:20:29.119 met a couple of weeks earlier and Spielberg had mentioned 0:20:29.119 --> 0:20:31.760 he was doing a Tintin movie, and Carrie's like, I 0:20:31.800 --> 0:20:32.399