WEBVTT - Was Tintin a Real Person? 0:00:14.480 --> 0:00:17.920 You're listening to Part Time Genius, a production of Kaleidoscope 0:00:18.040 --> 0:00:25.680 and iHeartRadio. Guess what gave? 0:00:25.960 --> 0:00:26.800 What's that Mango? 0:00:27.280 --> 0:00:30.480 So in nineteen seventy two, a sixty five year old 0:00:30.520 --> 0:00:34.640 Belgian walks into Andy Warhol's factory in New York City. 0:00:35.120 --> 0:00:38.240 Okay, this sounds like the setup for a really bad joke. 0:00:38.520 --> 0:00:41.800 I know, I promise it is not. It was actually 0:00:41.840 --> 0:00:44.760 a historic meeting of two art world greats. So we've 0:00:44.760 --> 0:00:48.080 got Andy Warhol and Air Jay, the creator of Tintin. 0:00:48.640 --> 0:00:51.280 And while he's best known for his comic books starring 0:00:51.320 --> 0:00:54.960 the boy Reporter of tinton and his faithful dog Snowy, 0:00:55.320 --> 0:00:58.120 air Jay was also a highly knowledgeable art enthusiast and 0:00:58.520 --> 0:01:01.000 modern art collector, and so when he traveled to the 0:01:01.120 --> 0:01:04.720 US meeting, Warhol was actually on his bucket list. And 0:01:04.760 --> 0:01:07.679 it turns out they had a ton in common. They 0:01:07.720 --> 0:01:10.840 both did commercial illustrations early in their careers, and they 0:01:10.840 --> 0:01:13.959 both kept plugging away until they achieved global success. 0:01:14.400 --> 0:01:17.480 That's interesting, but honestly, I'm just enjoying the picturing this, 0:01:17.640 --> 0:01:21.240 like old Belgian guy hanging out in the factory with Warhol. 0:01:22.160 --> 0:01:24.720 Yeah. Well, apparently the two artists hit it off because 0:01:24.760 --> 0:01:27.960 in nineteen seventy nine, air Jay asked Warhol to paint 0:01:27.959 --> 0:01:30.399 his portrait, which he did, making a set of four 0:01:30.440 --> 0:01:32.360 paintings similar as the ones you know you've seen of 0:01:32.440 --> 0:01:36.200 Marilyn Monroe, and Warhol later explained that the admiration actually 0:01:36.240 --> 0:01:39.720 went both ways. He said, quote, air Jay has influenced 0:01:39.720 --> 0:01:42.240 my work in the same way as Walt Disney. For me, 0:01:42.440 --> 0:01:44.959 Airjay was more than a comic strip artist. 0:01:45.520 --> 0:01:47.920 Honestly, I had no idea. I never would have guessed 0:01:47.960 --> 0:01:49.920 Andy Warhol was a Tintin fan. 0:01:50.240 --> 0:01:54.360 Yeah, and he is not alone. The books are incredibly popular, 0:01:54.480 --> 0:01:58.960 especially outside the US, so worldwide. Tintin books or albums 0:01:58.960 --> 0:02:00.840 as those fans like to call them, have sold more 0:02:00.880 --> 0:02:03.280 than two hundred and seventy million copies and have been 0:02:03.280 --> 0:02:07.040 translated into more than one hundred languages, and even today, 0:02:07.120 --> 0:02:10.320 between one point five to two million Tintin books are 0:02:10.320 --> 0:02:11.079 sold per year. 0:02:11.440 --> 0:02:13.400 We throw around a lot of numbers on the show, 0:02:13.400 --> 0:02:16.720 but two million books. That's insane, it really is. 0:02:17.240 --> 0:02:20.079 But like so many books from the nineteen thirties and forties, 0:02:20.200 --> 0:02:23.640 not everything has aged well. And Airje himself has this 0:02:23.720 --> 0:02:28.000 really fascinating and complicated biography. It spans everything from war 0:02:28.240 --> 0:02:33.760 to boy Scouts, to cultural stereotypes to overcoming cultural stereotypes, 0:02:33.840 --> 0:02:37.440 and also Will diffit to strange nightmares Steven Spielberg, and 0:02:37.520 --> 0:02:41.360 of course that eternal question do comic books turn kids 0:02:41.360 --> 0:02:44.640 into juvenile? The linquits, which I'm sure you have some 0:02:44.800 --> 0:02:48.160 thoughts on. So there is so much to cover that 0:02:48.160 --> 0:02:50.800 we've actually turned the story of Tintin into a two parter, 0:02:51.280 --> 0:03:14.160 So let's dive in. Hey there, podcast listener as well, 0:03:14.160 --> 0:03:16.440 and a part time genius, I'm monga shittig and because 0:03:16.480 --> 0:03:19.200 Will is traveling this week, I'm here with my fellow 0:03:19.280 --> 0:03:23.120 Tintin fan, Gabe Lucier. And over there in the booth 0:03:23.360 --> 0:03:26.720 is uh gay? Where's Dylan? Uh? 0:03:27.400 --> 0:03:30.560 Hang on, there's a There's a note taped under the microphone. 0:03:30.800 --> 0:03:35.800 It says, gone adventuring with my faithful dog, love Dylan. 0:03:37.840 --> 0:03:41.240 I'm not sure who's recording this episode, but I always 0:03:41.360 --> 0:03:42.720 love Dylan's enthusiasm. 0:03:43.560 --> 0:03:45.440 I guess he heard we were doing an episode on 0:03:45.520 --> 0:03:48.200 Tintin and decided to, you know, really lean into it. 0:03:48.520 --> 0:03:52.120 Dylan is always leaning in, as you know, speaking of which, 0:03:52.360 --> 0:03:54.120 this is one of those episodes that we've had on 0:03:54.160 --> 0:03:57.760 our Brainstorm list for a long time, and it's finally here, 0:03:58.240 --> 0:04:00.520 and it's all because of you, honestly, because you were 0:04:00.560 --> 0:04:02.800 obsessed with Tintin as a kid, Is that right. 0:04:03.240 --> 0:04:06.440 Yeah. So, as a kid, we didn't have many relatives 0:04:06.440 --> 0:04:09.560 in the States, and so to see my grandparents, my mom, 0:04:09.600 --> 0:04:11.520 my sister, and I would go to India anytime we 0:04:11.560 --> 0:04:14.560 could afford it. And it was always during the summer, 0:04:14.800 --> 0:04:17.200 and that was super fun. But if you go to 0:04:17.279 --> 0:04:20.039 India in the summer, you quickly realized that that is 0:04:20.080 --> 0:04:23.360 the monsoon season there, and it's also when your cousins 0:04:23.440 --> 0:04:26.760 returned to school, and so you're kind of stuck inside 0:04:26.760 --> 0:04:29.039 all day it's raining, and so, like, I ended up 0:04:29.080 --> 0:04:32.600 getting good at things that are indoor games, like cards 0:04:32.680 --> 0:04:34.839 or karm, which is like a cool game you play 0:04:34.839 --> 0:04:37.680 with your fingers. I used to play karam and scrabble 0:04:38.080 --> 0:04:40.680 with my grandparents, and I would wait for my cousins 0:04:40.680 --> 0:04:44.440 to come home and I would read comic books and 0:04:44.560 --> 0:04:46.400 it was amazing because like, actually, you would love this. 0:04:46.520 --> 0:04:49.599 My cousin had like early Captain Americas and Spider Man's. 0:04:49.600 --> 0:04:51.400 I'm sure there were reprints or whatever, but it was 0:04:51.440 --> 0:04:55.120 so fun to read and we'd read mystery books and 0:04:55.160 --> 0:04:59.400 then I discovered Tintin and it kind of played to 0:04:59.520 --> 0:05:03.560 everything I loved, right, Like I love dogs, I love journalism, 0:05:03.720 --> 0:05:07.000 I love traveling, I like stories about spies and intrigue, 0:05:07.200 --> 0:05:11.080 like learning about the world, and it all shows up 0:05:11.160 --> 0:05:13.440 in those panels, right. It was just amazing that you 0:05:13.480 --> 0:05:18.920 could open these albums and be transported. And it's also 0:05:19.000 --> 0:05:20.560 one of the things like not that many kids in 0:05:20.600 --> 0:05:22.839 the States knew about tinton Like I think there were 0:05:22.880 --> 0:05:26.200 some cartoons that appeared on Nickelodeon or something at one point, 0:05:26.240 --> 0:05:28.920 but most of my friends growing up in Delaware had 0:05:29.000 --> 0:05:31.640 no idea what I was talking about. And so, actually, 0:05:31.720 --> 0:05:35.279 I know you're a huge comics enthusiast. I'm curious, did 0:05:35.320 --> 0:05:36.120 you ever read Tintin? 0:05:36.680 --> 0:05:40.200 Not As a kid, my first introduction was that cartoon 0:05:40.240 --> 0:05:43.520 you mentioned, The Adventures of Tintin. It aired on HBO 0:05:43.720 --> 0:05:47.120 and then Nickelodeon back in the early nineties. And the 0:05:47.120 --> 0:05:50.000 funny thing is my family didn't have cable, so it 0:05:50.040 --> 0:05:51.880 was something I only got to watch when we went 0:05:51.920 --> 0:05:54.920 on vacation, but that just made it more special. Like 0:05:55.240 --> 0:05:57.680 I remember this one trip to the beach where my 0:05:57.720 --> 0:06:00.880 mom got super annoyed with me because I didn't want 0:06:00.880 --> 0:06:03.440 to go outside. I just wanted to stay in the 0:06:03.440 --> 0:06:07.919 hotel room and watch Tintin. And I did eventually circle 0:06:08.040 --> 0:06:11.360 back to the books in college, you know, and I 0:06:11.720 --> 0:06:13.760 was really happy to see that the show was actually, 0:06:13.880 --> 0:06:18.080 you know, incredibly faithful to the books. But hearing you 0:06:18.160 --> 0:06:21.320 talk about Tintin, it's so clear that these books really 0:06:21.360 --> 0:06:23.520 pulled you into their world in a special way and 0:06:23.960 --> 0:06:26.600 became part of your world too, And it takes a 0:06:26.920 --> 0:06:29.880 pretty special artist to do that. And in fact, he's 0:06:29.920 --> 0:06:32.640 so special that he went by just one name. 0:06:34.040 --> 0:06:37.720 I know. It is so rockstar, right, like very Madonna, 0:06:38.040 --> 0:06:40.080 very Prince very Air, Jay. 0:06:40.760 --> 0:06:45.320 Very Erga. Yes, but I did some research into his 0:06:45.360 --> 0:06:48.240 early years so I can tell you that, unlike Madonna 0:06:48.400 --> 0:06:52.520 and Prince Air, Jay was not born Aja. He was 0:06:52.560 --> 0:06:56.360 born George Remi in nineteen oh seven in Brussels, and 0:06:56.400 --> 0:06:59.919 the pen name he chose Jay is actually his initials 0:07:00.120 --> 0:07:05.640 GR for George Remi in reverse RG and RG pronounced 0:07:05.640 --> 0:07:09.880 in French is J. I'm sure sounds so much cooler 0:07:09.920 --> 0:07:14.240 than Rgie. But I, you know, just think about it 0:07:14.280 --> 0:07:16.680 for my own name. I'm wondering about switching to the 0:07:16.880 --> 0:07:19.680 nome to plume. Hm, what do you think you'd probably 0:07:19.720 --> 0:07:23.320 get mistaken for a chain of Swedish fast fashion stores. 0:07:24.120 --> 0:07:27.200 Familiar if it makes you feel better, it wouldn't work 0:07:27.200 --> 0:07:31.000 for me either, so gl backwards LG. That's an appliance. 0:07:31.240 --> 0:07:34.920 So we'll just have to stick with our own name. 0:07:35.120 --> 0:07:37.720 So tell me about young Airj's life then. 0:07:38.120 --> 0:07:41.840 Well, surprisingly enough, he did not come from an artistic family. 0:07:42.520 --> 0:07:44.640 His mom stayed home to take care of him and 0:07:44.680 --> 0:07:48.080 his younger brother Paul. His dad worked in a candy factory, 0:07:48.320 --> 0:07:52.520 and the family was solidly lower middle class. That said, 0:07:52.600 --> 0:07:57.280 there's actually a bit of lore around Airj's grandfather. So's 0:07:57.360 --> 0:08:00.440 dad had an identical twin brother, and growing up, the 0:08:00.440 --> 0:08:04.280 twins never knew who their father was. And that's because apparently, 0:08:04.440 --> 0:08:07.520 as a young single woman, Airjay's grandmother worked as a 0:08:07.560 --> 0:08:11.920 maid at a countess's chateau. Then suddenly one day she 0:08:12.120 --> 0:08:15.560 was pregnant with twin boys. So a lot of people, 0:08:15.640 --> 0:08:18.960 including at one point Aga himself, believed she may have 0:08:19.040 --> 0:08:22.160 had an affair with someone higher up, you know, someone 0:08:22.200 --> 0:08:24.480 really wealthy or maybe even a noble. 0:08:25.080 --> 0:08:28.040 So is there any evidence to support that or is 0:08:28.040 --> 0:08:30.640 this just kind of like wishful thinking that he's royal. 0:08:31.080 --> 0:08:35.079 Well, there is one interesting clue. After the twins were born, 0:08:35.280 --> 0:08:37.640 the countess more or less treated them as her own 0:08:37.800 --> 0:08:40.160 and she let the family live at the chateau until 0:08:40.200 --> 0:08:44.200 the boys were fourteen, after which she kicked them out. 0:08:44.400 --> 0:08:48.160 So she might have felt some sort of responsibility to them, yeah, 0:08:48.320 --> 0:08:48.719 or you. 0:08:48.679 --> 0:08:51.079 Know, maybe she was just a decent person and felt 0:08:51.080 --> 0:08:54.240 bad for a single mom of twins. But the family 0:08:54.320 --> 0:08:56.800 legend was that the twins' father, who would be air 0:08:56.880 --> 0:09:01.560 Jay's grandfather, was actually Belgium's King Leopold the Second, who 0:09:01.679 --> 0:09:04.959 ruled the country from eighteen thirty five to nineteen oh nine. 0:09:05.559 --> 0:09:09.000 Now that's not substantiated, but it was something the family 0:09:09.080 --> 0:09:12.480 liked to toss around in private. And the other rumor 0:09:12.520 --> 0:09:15.640 is that the Countess's husband, the count, you know, he 0:09:15.720 --> 0:09:16.559 may have been the father. 0:09:17.240 --> 0:09:22.160 So I guess potentially a mysterious and royal background, which 0:09:22.160 --> 0:09:24.680 I guess a little DNA testing could actually figure out today. 0:09:24.880 --> 0:09:28.360 But between the royal rumors, a father who worked in 0:09:28.360 --> 0:09:32.440 a literal candy factory, it sounds like a really exciting life. 0:09:32.520 --> 0:09:35.160 So to tell me a little bit about Airjay's childhood 0:09:35.240 --> 0:09:35.840 was it fun. 0:09:36.160 --> 0:09:42.040 Actually the opposite. Airja described his childhood. Yeah, Airja described 0:09:42.040 --> 0:09:46.240 his childhood as quote gray and uneventful, and one of 0:09:46.280 --> 0:09:52.280 his biographers, Pierre Assoline wrote, quote everything was colorless, scentless, 0:09:52.640 --> 0:09:56.360 tasteless and of no interest. In the Remi home. There 0:09:56.480 --> 0:09:59.480 was no one to admire, no books to read, no 0:09:59.640 --> 0:10:03.920 play to attend, no discussions. And you know that is 0:10:03.960 --> 0:10:07.000 a little bit of an exaggeration because Airje did have 0:10:07.120 --> 0:10:09.880 books and movies that he loved as a kid, and 0:10:09.920 --> 0:10:13.560 his parents did encourage his drawing, but overall art and 0:10:13.600 --> 0:10:16.240 culture wasn't really a focus in his family. 0:10:17.120 --> 0:10:19.760 Yeah, and it sounds like not a childhood he sort 0:10:19.760 --> 0:10:22.720 of was nostalgic for. So did he always have an 0:10:22.720 --> 0:10:25.040 interest in illustration or was this something that came later 0:10:25.080 --> 0:10:25.480 in life. 0:10:25.720 --> 0:10:28.480 No, he showed an aptitude in it from an early age. 0:10:28.960 --> 0:10:31.880 His school notebooks were filled with sketches, and when he 0:10:31.920 --> 0:10:34.679 got a bit older, like high school age, his parents 0:10:34.720 --> 0:10:38.040 enrolled him in art classes, though apparently he only lasted 0:10:38.040 --> 0:10:40.800 a day before dropping out because the focus was on 0:10:40.880 --> 0:10:44.160 technical skills like drawing Greek columns, and you know, he 0:10:44.200 --> 0:10:47.640 had zero interest in that. 0:10:47.640 --> 0:10:49.320 That is funny that he loves to draw, but he 0:10:49.360 --> 0:10:51.360 won't like sit around to drug column Oh. 0:10:51.280 --> 0:10:53.680 Yeah, not columns. You got to draw the line somewhere. 0:10:55.040 --> 0:10:57.240 Well. I do know that in addition to drawing, there 0:10:57.280 --> 0:11:00.520 was another excitement in his life, and that is the 0:11:00.559 --> 0:11:03.320 Boy Scouts. Airjay joined them when he was about eleven 0:11:03.440 --> 0:11:07.480 years old, and he really connected the Scouts. He described 0:11:07.520 --> 0:11:10.200 it as the first color he remembers about his childhood, 0:11:10.200 --> 0:11:12.560 which I guess goes back to that gray comment you mentioned. 0:11:13.040 --> 0:11:16.400 And the Boy Scouts opened his eyes to this bigger world. 0:11:16.520 --> 0:11:19.400 And for example, during the summers, they'd go to camps 0:11:19.400 --> 0:11:22.000 around western Europe where they do things like hike two 0:11:22.080 --> 0:11:26.320 hundred miles across the Pyrenees, and Airjay loved it so 0:11:26.559 --> 0:11:29.600 much that he eventually became an Eagle Scout and a 0:11:29.640 --> 0:11:32.400 troop leader, and he remained a Scout until he was 0:11:32.440 --> 0:11:35.080 in his twenties. But the Scouts gave him something else, 0:11:35.240 --> 0:11:38.320 even more important to this story. They gave him his 0:11:38.559 --> 0:11:42.200 very first platform for his art. He published his first 0:11:42.200 --> 0:11:45.880 illustrations in a monthly Boy Scout magazine when he was 0:11:46.040 --> 0:11:48.760 around fifteen years old, and a few years later, in 0:11:48.800 --> 0:11:53.040 nineteen twenty six, the magazine published Airjay's first serialized comic strip. 0:11:53.360 --> 0:11:57.000 It was called The Adventures of Totor CP of the 0:11:57.080 --> 0:12:00.400 June Bugs. Totor is a Belgian boy scout and in 0:12:00.440 --> 0:12:02.920 the comic, he travels to Texas to visit his aunt 0:12:02.960 --> 0:12:05.920 and his uncle, and when he is there, he's captured 0:12:05.920 --> 0:12:10.120 by angry Native Americans who he outwits. He also outwits 0:12:10.160 --> 0:12:13.800 bandits and he finds buried treasure, and so there is 0:12:13.880 --> 0:12:15.000 a lot of excitement. 0:12:15.480 --> 0:12:19.240 Got it. So sounds like maybe Totor was kind of 0:12:19.240 --> 0:12:20.480 the prototype for Tintin. 0:12:20.960 --> 0:12:24.040 That is an excellent guest, Gabe, and I'm going to 0:12:24.080 --> 0:12:26.719 tell you all about how Airjay's passion for art and 0:12:26.760 --> 0:12:30.040 scouting turned into the Tintin we know today. But first 0:12:30.200 --> 0:12:47.960 let's take a quick break. Welcome back to Part time Genius. 0:12:48.080 --> 0:12:52.199 We're talking all things Tintin. So let me set the scene, Gabe. 0:12:52.240 --> 0:12:55.800 It is nineteen twenties Belgium. Airj is scouting and trying 0:12:55.800 --> 0:12:57.959 to figure out what to do with his life. By 0:12:57.960 --> 0:13:00.240 this time, he's graduated from high school and he's working 0:13:00.360 --> 0:13:05.480 in the subscriptions department at this newspaper called Levutm Siecla, 0:13:05.920 --> 0:13:09.040 which means the twentieth century. And this was a Catholic 0:13:09.120 --> 0:13:13.360 newspaper run by father Norbert Wala. It was a right 0:13:13.400 --> 0:13:16.800 wing paper, to put it mildly, and father Wala actually 0:13:16.880 --> 0:13:19.800 kept a photo of Mussolini on his desk if you 0:13:19.840 --> 0:13:20.880 want to know his politics. 0:13:21.440 --> 0:13:26.520 Yi, yeah, that's never a good sign. But okay, from 0:13:26.520 --> 0:13:28.960 what I've read though, you know, that was kind of 0:13:29.000 --> 0:13:31.280 the norm in Belgium after World War One. 0:13:31.480 --> 0:13:35.880 Right, yeah, Belgium was a very conservative and very Catholic country. 0:13:36.000 --> 0:13:39.360 One of Airj's biographers said that right wing politics were 0:13:39.640 --> 0:13:43.720 an almost inevitable byproduct of that time. So by working there, 0:13:43.880 --> 0:13:47.360 Airja wasn't exactly taking a political stance, at least explicitly. 0:13:47.840 --> 0:13:50.520 It was more this job that he was excited to 0:13:50.520 --> 0:13:53.199 have and it was better than working at his father's store. 0:13:53.559 --> 0:13:55.560 And by nineteen twenty eight, a couple of years after 0:13:55.679 --> 0:13:59.520 Totor appears in the Boy Scott magazine, Airja had managed 0:13:59.559 --> 0:14:02.000 to make his way out of the subscription department and 0:14:02.120 --> 0:14:05.920 into illustrations. Mostly that meant drawing women's clothes and things 0:14:06.000 --> 0:14:08.480 like that for the magazine, but he was making a living, 0:14:08.559 --> 0:14:11.920 and more importantly, Father Walla had taken a real liking 0:14:11.960 --> 0:14:14.560 to him, so he asked Erj to illustrate the new 0:14:14.600 --> 0:14:17.000 weekly children's supplement that he's planning to. 0:14:16.960 --> 0:14:19.560 Start, which I'm sure he just jumped at right. 0:14:20.080 --> 0:14:23.760 Definitely, because in November of that year the Extraordinary Adventures 0:14:23.760 --> 0:14:29.600 of Flup Nnesse who set a Hits newspaper stands. 0:14:30.240 --> 0:14:33.360 That is some truly masterful French. I have to say, 0:14:34.360 --> 0:14:34.720 I know. 0:14:34.600 --> 0:14:38.000 I feel so embarrass every time we do any French 0:14:38.120 --> 0:14:40.640 or any other language, unless it's kunkany, I'm not going 0:14:40.680 --> 0:14:44.120 to speak it properly. And I also love the word 0:14:44.200 --> 0:14:48.320 flop in that cartoon. That sounds really grad But the 0:14:48.480 --> 0:14:52.560 comic was actually universally considered a dud. Part of the 0:14:52.560 --> 0:14:54.480 problem is that it was written by the paper sports 0:14:54.520 --> 0:14:57.560 reporter and he wasn't much of a writer. The story 0:14:57.600 --> 0:15:01.080 is super simple, it is plotting. It's about three kids, 0:15:01.120 --> 0:15:04.280 an inflatable rubber pig and their accidental trip to Africa, 0:15:04.720 --> 0:15:08.960 which is you know, overwhelming with stereotypes and of course 0:15:09.080 --> 0:15:12.680 caricatures as well. Now Urja did the illustrations, but they 0:15:12.720 --> 0:15:15.400 aren't particularly inspired either. One of the issues was that 0:15:15.480 --> 0:15:18.560 in Belgium at the time and most of Europe, cartoons 0:15:18.560 --> 0:15:22.520 didn't use speech bubbles. This was actually an American innovation. 0:15:22.720 --> 0:15:24.880 So to tell the story, there's been a lot of 0:15:24.920 --> 0:15:28.480 text as captions and then drawings to accompany it. 0:15:28.720 --> 0:15:32.560 So none of this boat's well for Flupin Friends long term. 0:15:32.920 --> 0:15:35.440 Yeah, flup and Friends would have been a better name 0:15:35.480 --> 0:15:39.240 for that cartoon, but you are right. The strip ends 0:15:39.280 --> 0:15:43.480 after ten weeks. But this is where air Jay's fortunes turn. 0:15:43.880 --> 0:15:46.600 So Father Waile asked him to draw a new comic 0:15:46.840 --> 0:15:51.080 featuring a more totor like adolescent boy along with his dog. 0:15:51.480 --> 0:15:54.440 And he wants something wholesome, right, something that portrays good 0:15:54.520 --> 0:15:57.840 Catholic virtues, and he wants it with American speech bubbles. 0:15:57.840 --> 0:16:00.320 So air Jay is excited and he gets to work 0:16:00.440 --> 0:16:03.080 right away, and in early nineteen twenty nine the first 0:16:03.160 --> 0:16:06.000 actual Tintin strips come out, and it's the beginning of 0:16:06.080 --> 0:16:08.680 what would become Tintin in the Land of the Soviets. 0:16:09.240 --> 0:16:13.840 Aha, our hero is born. And I imagine the choice 0:16:13.840 --> 0:16:17.200 of Russia for that adventure like that had to be purposeful, 0:16:17.280 --> 0:16:18.480 right it was. 0:16:18.680 --> 0:16:21.720 It was also Father Wala's idea. Father Walla wanted to 0:16:21.760 --> 0:16:26.080 show young Belgian readers basically how bad communism was. So 0:16:26.240 --> 0:16:30.920 Tintin has all these like very explicitly anti communist lines 0:16:30.960 --> 0:16:34.120 where he says things like those factories are running a 0:16:34.160 --> 0:16:36.920 bit too well, let's see, and then he looks under 0:16:36.960 --> 0:16:40.360 it and it's like great snakes just stage effects. They're 0:16:40.360 --> 0:16:43.040 simply burning bundles of straw to make smoke come out 0:16:43.080 --> 0:16:45.680 of these false chimneys. Right, So it's things like that, 0:16:45.760 --> 0:16:50.000 and he's basically calling the Soviets poor idiots. He thinks 0:16:50.000 --> 0:16:53.120 that the Soviets are fooling the people, and he kind 0:16:53.120 --> 0:16:56.240 of paints this as this red paradise that is almost 0:16:56.280 --> 0:16:57.160 Wizard of Oz like. 0:16:57.840 --> 0:17:02.240 So not particularly new once propagandas as far as that. 0:17:02.160 --> 0:17:05.720 Goes, yeah, and it didn't really have to be right, Like, 0:17:05.800 --> 0:17:09.959 these sentiments didn't diverge much from what mainstream Belgian Catholics 0:17:10.000 --> 0:17:12.359 were thinking at the time. So, according to one of 0:17:12.400 --> 0:17:16.480 Airj's biographers, this is Harry Thompson, a lot of Belgians 0:17:16.520 --> 0:17:20.280 believe that Russians were quote grinning devils with knives between 0:17:20.320 --> 0:17:24.240 their teeth butchered small children for kicks, which is obviously 0:17:24.359 --> 0:17:27.520 so sad and so ridiculous. But since air Ja hadn't 0:17:27.560 --> 0:17:30.520 been to Russia, the strip really relies on some of 0:17:30.560 --> 0:17:33.240 the more sensational accounts of Russia that's coming to him, 0:17:33.359 --> 0:17:36.600 as well as Joilet's own anti communist views. 0:17:37.240 --> 0:17:41.080 Well, you know, despite its not so subtle anti communist messaging, 0:17:41.400 --> 0:17:44.320 the book does have a couple great things going for it. 0:17:44.440 --> 0:17:47.960 So for starters, it's actually the only time in all 0:17:48.040 --> 0:17:50.920 of the Tintin Adventures where the readers see him working 0:17:50.960 --> 0:17:53.000 as a journalist writing an article. 0:17:53.160 --> 0:17:55.480 I actually never noticed that. Like, as much as I 0:17:55.600 --> 0:17:58.240 loved you did, I never realized he wasn't actually writing 0:17:58.320 --> 0:17:58.879 that much. 0:17:59.480 --> 0:18:02.040 It does come up nearly as much as you'd think, 0:18:02.119 --> 0:18:05.240 but you know, the story is also where we first 0:18:05.240 --> 0:18:10.800 meet Snowy, Tintin's trusty dog and fellow adventurer, And most excitingly, 0:18:10.880 --> 0:18:14.399 it's where Tintin's trademark hair shape came to be, you know, 0:18:14.480 --> 0:18:18.040 the little swirl or squirrel on his forehead. Gotta have 0:18:18.119 --> 0:18:21.320 the swirl. But when the comic starts, Tintin actually has 0:18:21.480 --> 0:18:24.480 flat combed hair. But there's a scene early on where 0:18:24.480 --> 0:18:27.400 he's riding in a convertible and air draws his hair 0:18:27.440 --> 0:18:29.719 sticking up to show the speed of the car, and 0:18:30.160 --> 0:18:33.000 it just stayed like that forever. Like I guess the 0:18:33.000 --> 0:18:34.280 wind was just that strong. 0:18:36.240 --> 0:18:38.560 I like it, but I also like that in the 0:18:38.560 --> 0:18:41.120 first book it isn't just his physical appearance that kind 0:18:41.119 --> 0:18:44.880 of gets sorted right, Like his whole personality is there 0:18:44.920 --> 0:18:48.200 from the very start. Tintin is depicted as this honest, 0:18:48.440 --> 0:18:53.400 this intrepid kid reporter, and he is spreading Western values 0:18:53.440 --> 0:18:54.840 and ideas around the world. 0:18:55.280 --> 0:18:57.600 Yeah. I'm glad you bring that up, because, you know, 0:18:57.640 --> 0:18:59.480 before we get too far into things, I want to 0:18:59.520 --> 0:19:02.320 talk a little about Tintin himself. A lot of the 0:19:02.440 --> 0:19:05.840 characterization that you're talking about, it was likely inspired by 0:19:05.840 --> 0:19:08.600 Air's time in The Boy Scouts, which would make sense 0:19:08.640 --> 0:19:12.040 Tintin is basically a boy Scout, but he's also an 0:19:12.200 --> 0:19:15.440 iconic character visually because of that tuft of red hair 0:19:15.600 --> 0:19:19.480 and his outfit blue sweater, white collar shirt, brown pants, 0:19:19.760 --> 0:19:23.040 and the question of who inspired Tintin, both in his 0:19:23.200 --> 0:19:27.800 look and his lifestyle. Yeah, that's one that Tintinologists, which yes, 0:19:27.840 --> 0:19:30.840 are people who study Tintin. It's one they've been, you know, 0:19:30.920 --> 0:19:33.960 trying to figure out basically since Tintin first appeared. 0:19:34.480 --> 0:19:38.000 I love Tintinologists, Like it's not something that was offered 0:19:38.000 --> 0:19:40.720 as a major at my college. But is there an 0:19:40.760 --> 0:19:43.760 answer do they figure out who Tintin is based on? 0:19:44.520 --> 0:19:48.400 Well, no, but there are lots of guesses. For example, 0:19:48.440 --> 0:19:51.120 one idea is that he's based off of Airjay's younger 0:19:51.119 --> 0:19:55.240 brother Paul, who apparently looked enough like Tintin, especially with 0:19:55.280 --> 0:19:57.840 the hair style, that when he was an adult and 0:19:57.880 --> 0:20:01.760 in the army, fellow soldiers call called him Major Tintin. 0:20:02.640 --> 0:20:05.720 In fact, Paul Paul got pretty sick of the nickname. 0:20:05.920 --> 0:20:08.760 He eventually changed his hair style because he was so 0:20:08.880 --> 0:20:10.040 tired of the comparison. 0:20:10.160 --> 0:20:15.440 Oh no, yeah, so brother Paul is one of the possibilities. 0:20:15.800 --> 0:20:16.920 Who are the other contenders? 0:20:17.320 --> 0:20:22.159 Another is a Danish boy named pell Hooled. In nineteen 0:20:22.200 --> 0:20:25.840 twenty eight, when Pella was fifteen, he entered a newspaper 0:20:25.880 --> 0:20:30.600 competition celebrating the Jules Verne centennial, and the paper was 0:20:30.640 --> 0:20:33.119 looking for a teenage boy to reenact the journey of 0:20:33.200 --> 0:20:36.119 around the world in eighty days. The rules were that 0:20:36.200 --> 0:20:38.919 he'd have forty six days to get himself around the 0:20:38.960 --> 0:20:41.919 world without using airplanes, and he would need to do 0:20:42.000 --> 0:20:46.040 it alone anyway. Pele, who was also a boy scout, 0:20:46.240 --> 0:20:49.199 won the competition, and his travels were all over the 0:20:49.200 --> 0:20:50.520 news after. 0:20:50.320 --> 0:20:50.960 He made it home. 0:20:51.040 --> 0:20:53.000 He wrote a book about it, which was published in 0:20:53.080 --> 0:20:56.760 nineteen twenty nine, which you'll note is the same year 0:20:56.800 --> 0:21:00.640 the first Tintin strips came out. And it's been confirmed 0:21:00.680 --> 0:21:04.720 that erge Red Pele's book, so's you know, some people 0:21:04.760 --> 0:21:07.639 think he may have modeled Tintin after him got it. 0:21:07.720 --> 0:21:10.040 So we've got the brother with the hairstyle of this 0:21:10.160 --> 0:21:12.639 young kid who's traveling around the world. Anyone else in 0:21:12.680 --> 0:21:13.040 this mix? 0:21:13.440 --> 0:21:18.600 Yeah, My favorite contender is this French journalist named Robert six. 0:21:19.400 --> 0:21:23.640 He was a war correspondent and a motorcycle enthusiast. Apparently 0:21:23.720 --> 0:21:26.879 he both looked and dressed like Tintin and had a 0:21:26.880 --> 0:21:30.359 best friend named Milu, which is, you know, phonetically the 0:21:30.480 --> 0:21:34.240 name of Tintin's dog, Snowy in French. And if that 0:21:34.359 --> 0:21:39.120 weren't enough, Tintin's travels also seemed to mirror Robert's. His 0:21:39.160 --> 0:21:41.800 first reporting mission, it was to Moscow. 0:21:42.920 --> 0:21:46.200 So we've got the dog, we've got the motorcycle, we've 0:21:46.240 --> 0:21:49.720 got the mission to Moscow. All this is starting to 0:21:49.760 --> 0:21:50.240 come together. 0:21:50.600 --> 0:21:53.639 Yeah, and then Robert goes to the Congo and the 0:21:53.800 --> 0:21:56.840 US after that, which is where Tintin goes next. 0:21:56.920 --> 0:21:58.880 Yeah, where Tintin goes it's pretty alling. 0:21:59.040 --> 0:22:02.639 There's enough there. Even the air Jay Foundation acknowledges the 0:22:02.680 --> 0:22:06.280 similarities between Tintin and Robert. They even admit that some 0:22:06.320 --> 0:22:08.960 of Airja's drawings in the books seem to have been 0:22:09.040 --> 0:22:14.480 directly inspired by the photographs Robert took personally, though, I 0:22:14.520 --> 0:22:16.639 think the most likely answer is that it, you know, 0:22:16.760 --> 0:22:18.919 may have been a mix of all of these guys. 0:22:19.480 --> 0:22:22.479 But for what it's worth, whenever he was asked about it, 0:22:22.680 --> 0:22:28.080 air Jay would simply answer, Tintin Simoa or Tintin is me. 0:22:28.800 --> 0:22:31.200 Yeah, that makes sense. I'm sure it's all the parts 0:22:31.200 --> 0:22:34.600 of his personality he loved most right, inspired realities others. 0:22:34.720 --> 0:22:36.919 So why don't we get back to the story. So 0:22:37.119 --> 0:22:40.400 Tintin's starting to catch on in Belgium where we leave 0:22:40.440 --> 0:22:45.000